Famous Existing Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Existing poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous existing poems. These examples illustrate what a famous existing poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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...istory proves it true-
Women and elephants never forget.
L'ENVOI
Prince, a precept I'd leave for you,
Coined in Eden, existing yet:
Skirt the parlor, and shun the zoo-
Women and elephants never forget....Read more of this...
by
Parker, Dorothy
...d.
So that was proved.
Crow reclined, marvelling, on his heart-beat.
And he realized that God spoke Crow-
Just existing was His revelation.
But what Loved the stones and spoke stone?
They seemed to exist too.
And what spoke that strange silence
After his clamour of caws faded?
And what loved the shot-pellets
That dribbled from those strung-up mummifying crows?
What spoke the silence of lead?
Crow realized there were two Gods-
One of them much b...Read more of this...
by
Hughes, Ted
...Existing things were already predestined upon the
tablet of creation. The brush [of the universe] did not
paint good and bad. With destiny God imprinted whatever
should be so imprinted, and the efforts that we
make in these directions are wholly lost....Read more of this...
by
Khayyam, Omar
...Pleiads, stand,
Until a sudden sky
Reveals the fact that One is rapt
Forever from the Eye --
Members of the Invisible,
Existing, while we stare,
In Leagueless Opportunity,
O'ertakenless, as the Air --
Why didn't we detain Them?
The Heavens with a smile,
Sweep by our disappointed Heads
Without a syllable --...Read more of this...
by
Dickinson, Emily
...manity in deadly sleep
And its fallen Emanation, the Spectre and its cruel Shadow.
I see the Past, Present and Future existing all at once
Before me. O Divine Spirit, sustain me on thy wings,
That I may awake Albion from his long and cold repose;
For Bacon and Newton, sheath'd in dismal steel, their terrors hang
Like iron scourges over Albion: reasonings like vast serpents
Infold around my limbs, bruising my minute articulations.
I turn my eyes to the schools and uni...Read more of this...
by
Blake, William
...umanity in deadly sleep
And its fallen Emanation, the Spectre and its cruel Shadow.
I see the Past, Present and Future existing all at once
Before me. O Divine Spirit, sustain me on thy wings,
That I may awake Albion from his long and cold repose;
For Bacon and Newton, sheath'd in dismal steel, their terrors hang
Like iron scourges over Albion: reasonings like vast serpents
Infold around my limbs, bruising my minute articulations.
I turn my eyes to the schools and universit...Read more of this...
by
Blake, William
...f the sea!
I have wandered in a face for hours
Passing through dark fires.
I have risen to a body
Not yet born
Existing like a light around the body
Through which the body moves like a sliding moon....Read more of this...
by
Bly, Robert
...che? Wait till I lift
This palsied eye-lid and make sure... Ah, true.
Come in, dear fly, and pardon my delay
In thus existing; I can promise you
Next time you come you'll find no dying poet—
Without sufficient spleen to see me through,
The joke becomes too tedious a jest.
I am afraid my mind is dull to-day;
I have that—something—heavier on my chest
And then, you see, I've been exchanging thoughts
With Doctor Franz. He talked of Kant and Hegel
As though he'd nursed ...Read more of this...
by
Untermeyer, Louis
...fused into thy blood:
So wert thou born into the tuneful strain,
(An early, rich, and inexhausted vein.)
But if thy pre-existing soul
Was formed, at first, with myriads more,
It did through all the mighty poets roll
Who Greek or Latin laurels wore,
And was that Sappho last, which once it was before;
If so, then cease thy flight, O Heav'n-born mind!
Thou hast no dross to purge from thy rich ore:
Nor can thy soul a fairer mansion find
Than was the beauteous frame she left behin...Read more of this...
by
Dryden, John
...d, don't carry this precept
On too far,--be content, all that is right to effect.
It is enough to true zeal, if what is existing be perfect;
False zeal always would find finished perfection at once....Read more of this...
by
Schiller, Friedrich von
...e teachings of Confucius;
I listened to Brahma's wisdom;
I sat by Buddha under the Tree of Knowledge.
Yet here I am, existing with ignorance
And heresy.
I was on Sinai when Jehovah approached Moses;
I saw the Nazarene's miracles at the Jordan;
I was in Medina when Mohammed visited.
Yet I here I am, prisoner of bewilderment.
Then I witnessed the might of Babylon;
I learned of the glory of Egypt;
I viewed the warring greatness of Rome.
Yet my earlier teachings s...Read more of this...
by
Gibran, Kahlil
...sunk (as sometimes parsons can)
His coat's excuses in the man.
"You'd think the Squire and I are kings
Who made the existing state of things,
And made it ill. I answer, No,
States are not made, nor patched; they grow,
Grow slow through centuries of pain
And grow correctly in the main,
But only grow by certain laws
Of certain bits in certain jaws.
You want to doctor that. Let be.
You cannot patch a growing tree.
Put these two words beneath your hat,
These two: se...Read more of this...
by
Masefield, John
...bling back to the Fire --
And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!...Read more of this...
by
Kipling, Rudyard
...e voice of the Devil
All Bibles or sacred codes. have been the causes of the
following Errors.
That Man has two real existing principles Viz: a Body & a
Soul.
That Energy. calld Evil. is alone from the Body. & that
Reason. calld Good. is alone from the Soul.
That God will torment Man in Eternity for following his
Energies.
But the following Contraries to these are True
Man has no Body distinct from his Soul for that calld Body is
a portion of Soul discernd by the five Se...Read more of this...
by
Blake, William
...utiful to me—all wondrous;
My limbs, and the quivering fire that ever plays through them, for reasons, most wondrous;
Existing, I peer and penetrate still,
Content with the present—content with the past,
By my side, or back of me, Eve following,
Or in front, and I following her just the same....Read more of this...
by
Whitman, Walt
...ze my mental open eye?
The kindly search for growth, the gracious de-
sire to exist of the flowers, my near ecstasy at existing
among them
The privilege to witness my existence-you too
must seek the sun...
My books piled up before me for my use
waiting in space where I placed them, they
haven't disappeared, time's left its remnants and qual-
ities for me to use--my words piled up, my texts, my
manuscripts, my loves.
I had a moment of clarity, saw the feeling in
the hea...Read more of this...
by
Ginsberg, Allen
...ws with laughter, with hands uplifted,
Through the whirled sinister sun he saw them pass,—
Lovely immortals gone, yet existing somewhere,
Still somewhere laughing in woods of immortal green,
Young he had lived among fires, or dreamed of living,
Lovers in youth once seen, or dreamed he had seen. . .
And watched her knees flash up, and her young hands beckon,
And the hair that streamed behind, and the taunting eyes.
He felt this place dissolving in living darkness,
And...Read more of this...
by
Aiken, Conrad
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