Famous Forsaken Poems by Famous Poets

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

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The Complaint Of A Forsaken Indian Woman

by William Wordsworth
[When a Northern Indian, from sickness, is unable to continue his journey with his companions; he is left behind, covered over with Deer-skins, and is supplied with water, food, and fuel if the situation of the place will afford it. He is informed of the track which his companions intend to pursue, and if he is unable to follow, or...Read more of this...

Milton

by Henry Van Dyke
 I 

Lover of beauty, walking on the height 
Of pure philosophy and tranquil song; 
Born to behold the visions that belong 
To those who dwell in melody and light; 
Milton, thou spirit delicate and bright!
What drew thee down to join the Roundhead throng
Of iron-sided warriors, rude and strong, 
Fighting for freedom in a world half night? 

Lover of Liberty...Read more of this...

Sonnet III

by Alan Seeger
 There was a youth around whose early way 
White angels hung in converse and sweet choir, 
Teaching in summer clouds his thought to stray, -- 
In cloud and far horizon to desire. 
His life was nursed in beauty, like the stream 
Born of clear showers and the mountain dew, 
Close under snow-clad summits where they gleam 
Forever pure against...Read more of this...

Every Death Is Magic from the Enemy to Be Avenged

by Brooks Haxton
 My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?
 Psalm 22

When fever burned the last light out of my daughter’s eyes,
I swore to find and kill the ones to blame. Men
must mount the long boat in the dark with spears.
At dawn, where the flowering spicebush hid my scent,
I crouched. A young wife, newborn slung across her chest,
came first for...Read more of this...

Different Emotions On The Same Spot

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
 THE MAIDEN.

I'VE seen him before me!
What rapture steals o'er me!

Oh heavenly sight!
He's coming to meet me;
Perplex'd, I retreat me,

With shame take to flight.
My mind seems to wander!
Ye rocks and trees yonder,

Conceal ye my rapture.

Conceal my delight!

THE YOUTH.

'Tis here I must find her,
'Twas here she enshrined her,

Here vanish'd from sight.
She came, as to meet me,
Then fearing to greet me,

With shame...Read more of this...

The Forsaken

by Duncan Campbell Scott
 I 
Once in the winter
Out on a lake
In the heart of the north-land,
Far from the Fort
And far from the hunters,
A Chippewa woman
With her sick baby,
Crouched in the last hours
Of a great storm.
Frozen and hungry,
She fished through the ice
With a line of the twisted
Bark of the cedar,
And a rabbit-bone hook
Polished and barbed;
Fished with the bare hook
All through the wild day,
Fished...Read more of this...

435. Song—Where are the Joys I have met

by Robert Burns
 WHERE are the joys I have met in the morning,
 That danc’d to the lark’s early song?
Where is the peace that awaited my wand’ring,
 At evening the wild-woods among?


No more a winding the course of yon river,
 And marking sweet flowerets so fair,
No more I trace the light footsteps of Pleasure,
 But Sorrow and sad-sighing Care.


Is it that Summer’s...Read more of this...

Tom Mays Death

by Andrew Marvell
 As one put drunk into the Packet-boat,
Tom May was hurry'd hence and did not know't.
But was amaz'd on the Elysian side,
And with an Eye uncertain, gazing wide,
Could not determine in what place he was,
For whence in Stevens ally Trees or Grass.
Nor where the Popes head, nor the Mitre lay,
Signs by which still he found and lost his way.
At last...Read more of this...

Mementos

by Charlotte Bronte
 ARRANGING long-locked drawers and shelves 
Of cabinets, shut up for years, 
What a strange task we've set ourselves ! 
How still the lonely room appears ! 
How strange this mass of ancient treasures, 
Mementos of past pains and pleasures; 
These volumes, clasped with costly stone, 
With print all faded, gilding gone; 

These fans of leaves, from Indian trees­ 
These...Read more of this...

25. My Father was a Farmer: A Ballad

by Robert Burns
 MY father was a farmer upon the Carrick border, O,
And carefully he bred me in decency and order, O;
He bade me act a manly part, though I had ne’er a farthing, O;
For without an honest manly heart, no man was worth regarding, O.


Then out into the world my course I did determine, O;
Tho’ to be rich was not my...Read more of this...

The Deserted Cottage

by Mary Darby Robinson
 Who dwelt in yonder lonely Cot,
Why is it thus forsaken?
It seems, by all the world forgot,
Above its path the high grass grows,
And through its thatch the northwind blows
--Its thatch, by tempests shaken.

And yet, it tops a verdant hill
By Summer gales surrounded:
Beneath its door a shallow rill
Runs brawling to the vale below,
And near it sweetest flowrets grow
By banks of willow...Read more of this...

The Black Cottage

by Robert Frost
 We chanced in passing by that afternoon 
To catch it in a sort of special picture 
Among tar-banded ancient cherry trees, 
Set well back from the road in rank lodged grass, 
The little cottage we were speaking of, 
A front with just a door between two windows, 
Fresh painted by the shower a velvet black. 
We paused, the minister...Read more of this...

The Shepherds Dog

by Mary Darby Robinson
 I.

A Shepherd's Dog there was; and he
Was faithful to his master's will,
For well he lov'd his company,
Along the plain or up the hill;
All Seasons were, to him, the same
Beneath the Sun's meridian flame;
Or, when the wintry wind blew shrill and keen,
Still the Old Shepherd's Dog, was with his Master seen.


II. 

His form was shaggy clothed; yet he
Was of a...Read more of this...

January 1795

by Mary Darby Robinson
 Pavement slipp'ry, people sneezing,
Lords in ermine, beggars freezing ;
Titled gluttons dainties carving,
Genius in a garret starving.

Lofty mansions, warm and spacious ;
Courtiers clinging and voracious ;
Misers scarce the wretched heeding ;
Gallant soldiers fighting, bleeding.

Wives who laugh at passive spouses ;
Theatres, and meeting-houses ;
Balls, where simp'ring misses languish ;
Hospitals, and groans of anguish.

Arts and sciences bewailing ;
Commerce drooping, credit failing ;
Placemen...Read more of this...

The Forsaken Merman

by Matthew Arnold
 Come, dear children, let us away;
Down and away below!
Now my brothers call from the bay,
Now the great winds shoreward blow,
Now the salt tides seaward flow;
Now the wild white horses play,
Champ and chafe and toss in the spray.
Children dear, let us away!
This way, this way!

Call her once before you go— 
Call once yet!
In a voice that she will know:
'Margaret! Margaret!'
Children's...Read more of this...

The Heritage

by Siegfried Sassoon
CRY out on Time that he may take away
Your cold philosophies that give no hint
Of spirit-quickened flesh; fall down and pray
That Death come never with a face of flint:
Death is our heritage; with Life we share 5
The sunlight that must own his darkening hour:
Within his very presence yet we dare
To gather gladness like a fading flower.

For even as this our...Read more of this...

A Forsaken Garden

by Algernon Charles Swinburne
 IN a coign of the cliff between lowland and highland,
At the sea-down's edge between windward and lee,
Walled round with rocks as an inland island,
The ghost of a garden fronts the sea.
A girdle of brushwood and thorn encloses
The steep square slope of the blossomless bed
Where the weeds that grew green from the graves of its roses
Now lie dead.

The fields fall...Read more of this...

4. Song—In the Character of a Ruined Farmer

by Robert Burns
 THE SUN he is sunk in the west,
All creatures retir?d to rest,
While here I sit, all sore beset,
 With sorrow, grief, and woe:
And it’s O, fickle Fortune, O!


The prosperous man is asleep,
Nor hears how the whirlwinds sweep;
But Misery and I must watch
 The surly tempest blow:
And it’s O, fickle Fortune, O!


There lies the dear partner of my breast;
Her cares...Read more of this...

The Forsaken

by Amy Lowell
 Holy Mother of God, Merciful Mary. Hear 
me! I am very weary. I have come
from a village miles away, all day I have been coming, and I ache 
for such
far roaming. I cannot walk as light as I used, and my 
thoughts grow confused.
I am heavier than I was. Mary Mother, you know the cause!

Beautiful Holy Lady, take my...Read more of this...

Kaspar Is Dead

by Jean Arp
 alas our good kaspar is dead.
who will bury a burning flag in the wings of the clouds who will pull
black wool over our eyes day by day.
who will turn the coffee mills in the primal barrel.
who will lure the idyllic roe from his petrified paperbag.
who will sneeze oceanliners unbrellas windudders beekeepers spindles
of ozone who will pick clean the pyramids'...Read more of this...

The Legacy

by Thomas Moore
 When in death I shall calmly recline, 
O bear my heart to my mistress dear, 
Tell her it lived upon smiles and wine 
Of the brightest hue, while it linger'd here. 
Bid her not shed one tear of sorrow 
To sully a heart so brilliant and light; 
But balmy drops of the red grape borrow, 
To bathe the relic...Read more of this...

To Outer Nature

by Thomas Hardy
 SHOW thee as I thought thee
When I early sought thee,
Omen-scouting,
All undoubting
Love alone had wrought thee--

Wrought thee for my pleasure,
Planned thee as a measure
For expounding
And resounding
Glad things that men treasure.

O for but a moment
Of that old endowment--
Light to gaily
See thy daily
Iris?d embowment!

But such readorning
Time forbids with scorning--
Makes me see things
Cease to be things
They were in my morning.

Fad'st thou, glow-forsaken,
Darkness-overtaken!
Thy first...Read more of this...

Autobiography (polish It Like A Piece Of Silver)

by Richard Brautigan
 I am standing in the cemetery at Byrds, Texas.
What did Judy say? "God-forsaken is beautiful, too."
A very old man who has cancer on his face and takes
care of the cemetery, is raking a grave in such a
manner as to almost (polish it like a piece of silver.

An old dog stands beside him. It's a hot day: 105.
What am I...Read more of this...

The Marble Faun

by Victor Hugo
 ("Il semblait grelotter.") 
 
 {XXXVI., December, 1837.} 


 He seemed to shiver, for the wind was keen. 
 'Twas a poor statue underneath a mass 
 Of leafless branches, with a blackened back 
 And a green foot—an isolated Faun 
 In old deserted park, who, bending forward, 
 Half-merged himself in the entangled boughs, 
 Half in...Read more of this...

There Are Not Many Kingdoms Left

by Kenneth Patchen
 I write the lips of the moon upon her shoulders. In a
temple of silvery farawayness I guard her to rest.

For her bed I write a stillness over all the swans of the
world. With the morning breath of the snow leopard I
cover her against any hurt.

Using the pen of rivers and mountaintops I store her
pillow with singing.

Upon her hair I...Read more of this...

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