Famous Forgets Poems by Famous Poets

These are examples of famous Forgets poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous forgets poems. These examples illustrate what a famous forgets poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).

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Bill and Joe

by Oliver Wendell Holmes
 COME, dear old comrade, you and I
Will steal an hour from days gone by,
The shining days when life was new,
And all was bright with morning dew,
The lusty days of long ago,
When you were Bill and I was Joe.

Your name may flaunt a titled trail
Proud as a cockerel's rainbow tail,
And mine as brief appendix wear
As Tam O'Shanter's luckless mare;
To-day, old...Read more of this...

144. A Winter Night

by Robert Burns
 WHEN biting Boreas, fell and dour,
Sharp shivers thro’ the leafless bow’r;
When Phoebus gies a short-liv’d glow’r,
 Far south the lift,
Dim-dark’ning thro’ the flaky show’r,
 Or whirling drift:


Ae night the storm the steeples rocked,
Poor Labour sweet in sleep was locked,
While burns, wi’ snawy wreaths up-choked,
 Wild-eddying swirl;
Or, thro’ the mining outlet bocked,
 Down headlong hurl:


List’ning the doors an’ winnocks rattle,
I...Read more of this...

Memoriam A. H. H.: 44. How fares it with the happy dead?

by Alfred Lord Tennyson
 How fares it with the happy dead?
For here the man is more and more;
But he forgets the days before
God shut the doorways of his head.
The days have vanish'd, tone and tint,
And yet perhaps the hoarding sense
Gives out at times (he knows not whence)
A little flash, a mystic hint;
And in the long harmonious years
(If Death so taste Lethean springs),
May some...Read more of this...

Looking Upwards in a Storm

by William Cowper
 God of my life, to Thee I call,
Afflicted at Thy feet I fall;
When the great water-floods prevail,
Leave not my trembling heart to fail!

Friend of the friendless and the faint,
Where should I lodge my deep complaint,
Where but with Thee, whose open door
Invites the helpless and the poor!

Did ever mourner plead with Thee,
And Thou refuse the mourner's plea?
Does not the word...Read more of this...

Protest: By Zahir-u-Din

by Adela Florence Cory Nicolson
   Second Song

   How much I loved that way you had
   Of smiling most, when very sad,
   A smile which carried tender hints
       Of delicate tints
       And warbling birds,
       Of sun and spring,
 ...Read more of this...

Poem 97

by Edmund Spenser
 THe wanton boy was shortly wel recured,
of that his malady:
But he soone after fresh againe enured,
his former cruelty.
And since that time he wounded hath my selfe
with his sharpe dart of loue:
And now forgets the cruell carelesse elfe,
his mothers heast to proue.
So now I languish till he please,
my pining anguish to appease....Read more of this...

Little Aggie

by Marriott Edgar
 When Joe Dove took his elephants out on the road
He made each one hold fast with his trunk
To the tail of the elephant walking in front
To stop them from doing a bunk. 

There were fifteen in all, so 'twere rather a job
To get them linked up in a row,
But once he had fixed 'em Joe knew they'd hold on,
For...Read more of this...

Love And Madness

by Thomas Campbell
 Hark ! from the battlements of yonder tower
The solemn bell has tolled the midnight hour !
Roused from drear visions of distempered sleep,
Poor Broderick wakes—in solitude to weep !

"Cease, Memory; cease (the friendless mourner cried)
To probe the bosom too severely tried !
Oh ! ever cease, my pensive thoughts, to stray
Through tie bright fields of Fortune's better day,
When youthful Hope, the...Read more of this...

The Touchstone

by William Allingham
 A man there came, whence none could tell, 
Bearing a Touchstone in his hand; 
And tested all things in the land 
By its unerring spell. 

Quick birth of transmutation smote 
The fair to foul, the foul to fair; 
Purple nor ermine did he spare, 
Nor scorn the dusty coat. 

Of heirloom jewels, prized so much, 
Were many changed to...Read more of this...

Child In Red

by Rainer Maria Rilke
 Sometimes she walks through the village in her
 little red dress
all absorbed in restraining herself,
and yet, despite herself, she seems to move
according to the rhythm of her life to come.

She runs a bit, hesitates, stops,
half-turns around...
and, all while dreaming, shakes her head
for or against.

Then she dances a few steps
that she invents and forgets,
no doubt finding out that life
moves on...Read more of this...

A Song of Peach-Blossom River

by Wang Wei
 A fisherman is drifting, enjoying the spring mountains, 
And the peach-trees on both banks lead him to an ancient source. 
Watching the fresh-coloured trees, he never thinks of distance 
Till he comes to the end of the blue stream and suddenly- strange men! 
It's a cave-with a mouth so narrow that he has to crawl through; 
But then it...Read more of this...

Sad-Eyed and Soft and Grey

by William Morris
 Sad-Eyed and soft and grey thou art, o morn!
Across the long grass of the marshy plain
Thy west wind whispers of the coming rain,
Thy lark forgets that May is grown forlorn
Above the lush blades of the springing corn,
Thy thrush within the high elms strives in vain
To store up tales of spring for summer's pain -
Vain day, why wert thou from...Read more of this...

The Drop that wrestles in the Sea

by Emily Dickinson
 The Drop, that wrestles in the Sea --
Forgets her own locality --
As I -- toward Thee --

She knows herself an incense small --
Yet small -- she sighs -- if All -- is All --
How larger -- be?

The Ocean -- smiles -- at her Conceit --
But she, forgetting Amphitrite --
Pleads -- "Me"?...Read more of this...

The Apple-Tree

by Jane Taylor
 Old John had an apple-tree, healthy and green,
Which bore the best codlins that ever were seen,
So juicy, so mellow, and red;
And when they were ripe, he disposed of his store,
To children or any who pass'd by his door, 
To buy him a morsel of bread. 

Little Dick, his next neighbour, one often might see, 
With longing eye viewing this...Read more of this...

Thoreaus Flute

by Louisa May Alcott
 We sighing said, "Our Pan is dead; 
His pipe hangs mute beside the river 
Around it wistful sunbeams quiver, 
But Music's airy voice is fled. 
Spring mourns as for untimely frost; 
The bluebird chants a requiem; 
The willow-blossom waits for him; 
The Genius of the wood is lost." 

Then from the flute, untouched by hands, 
There came a low,...Read more of this...

Believe Me If All Those Endearing Young Charms

by Thomas Moore
Believe me, if all those endearing young charms,
   Which I gaze on so fondly today,
Were to change by tomorrow, and fleet in my arms,
   Like fairy-gifts fading away,
Thou wouldst still be adored, as this moment thou art,
   Let thy loveliness fade as it will,
And around the dear ruin each wish of my heart
 ...Read more of this...

Hillcrest

by Edwin Arlington Robinson
 (To Mrs. Edward MacDowell)


No sound of any storm that shakes 
Old island walls with older seas 
Comes here where now September makes 
An island in a sea of trees. 

Between the sunlight and the shade
A man may learn till he forgets 
The roaring of a world remade, 
And all his ruins and regrets; 

And if he still remembers here...Read more of this...

Mama never forgets her birds

by Emily Dickinson
 Mama never forgets her birds,
Though in another tree --
She looks down just as often
And just as tenderly
As when her little mortal nest
With cunning care she wove --
If either of her "sparrows fall,"
She "notices," above....Read more of this...

A Thought or Two on Reading Pomfrets

by James Henry Leigh Hunt
 I have been reading Pomfret's "Choice" this spring, 
A pretty kind of--sort of--kind of thing, 
Not much a verse, and poem none at all, 
Yet, as they say, extremely natural. 
And yet I know not. There's an art in pies, 
In raising crusts as well as galleries; 
And he's the poet, more or less, who knows 
The charm that...Read more of this...

The Vagabond

by Henry Lawson
 White handkerchiefs wave from the short black pier 
As we glide to the grand old sea -- 
But the song of my heart is for none to hear 
If one of them waves for me. 
A roving, roaming life is mine, 
Ever by field or flood -- 
For not far back in my father's line 
Was a dash of...Read more of this...

In the Smoking Car

by Richard Wilbur
 The eyelids meet. He'll catch a little nap. 
The grizzled, crew-cut head drops to his chest. 
It shakes above the briefcase on his lap. 
Close voices breathe, "Poor sweet, he did his best." 

"Poor sweet, poor sweet," the bird-hushed glades repeat, 
Through which in quiet pomp his litter goes, 
Carried by native girls with naked feet. 
A sighing stream...Read more of this...

The Garden of Proserpine

by Algernon Charles Swinburne
 Here, where the world is quiet;
Here, where all trouble seems
Dead winds' and spent waves' riot
In doubtful dreams of dreams;
I watch the green field growing
For reaping folk and sowing,
For harvest-time and mowing,
A sleepy world of streams.
I am tired of tears and laughter,
And men that laugh and weep;
Of what may come hereafter
For men that sow to reap:
I am weary of days...Read more of this...

The House Of Dust: Part 02: 11: Snow falls. The sky is grey and sullenly glares

by Conrad Aiken
 Snow falls. The sky is grey, and sullenly glares
With purple lights in the canyoned street.
The fiery sign on the dark tower wreathes and flares . . .
The trodden grass in the park is covered with white,
The streets grow silent beneath our feet . . .
The city dreams, it forgets its past to-night.

And one, from his high bright window looking...Read more of this...

To a Lady on Her Coming to North-America

by Phillis Wheatley
 Indulgent muse! my grov'ling mind inspire,
And fill my bosom with celestial fire.
See from Jamaica's fervid shore she moves,
Like the fair mother of the blooming loves,
When from above the Goddess with her hand
Fans the soft breeze, and lights upon the land;
Thus she on Neptune's wat'ry realm reclin'd
Appear'd, and thus invites the ling'ring wind.
"Arise, ye winds, America explore,

"Waft me, ye gales,...Read more of this...

Massachusetts To Virginia

by John Greenleaf Whittier
 The blast from Freedom's Northern hills, upon its Southern way,
Bears greeting to Virginia from Massachusetts Bay:
No word of haughty challenging, nor battle bugle's peal,
Nor steady tread of marching files, nor clang of horsemen's steel,

No trains of deep-mouthed cannon along our highways go;
Around our silent arsenals untrodden lies the snow;
And to the land-breeze of our ports, upon their errands far,
A...Read more of this...

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