Famous Friends Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Friends poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous friends poems. These examples illustrate what a famous friends poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Henry Van Dyke
THE HOUSE
The cornerstone in Truth is laid,
The guardian walls of Honour made,
The roof of Faith is built above,
The fire upon the hearth is Love:
Though rains descend and loud winds call,
This happy house shall never fall.
THE DOORSTEAD
The lintel low enough to keep out pomp and pride:
The threshold high enough to turn deceit aside:
The doorband strong enough from robbers to defend:
This...Read more of this...
by
William Butler Yeats
Sickness brought me this
Thought, in that scale of his:
Why should I be dismayed
Though flame had burned the whole
World, as it were a coal,
Now I have seen it weighed
Against a soul?...Read more of this...
by
Robert Louis Stevenson
TO friends at home, the lone, the admired, the lost
The gracious old, the lovely young, to May
The fair, December the beloved,
These from my blue horizon and green isles,
These from this pinnacle of distances I,
The unforgetful, dedicate....Read more of this...
by
Thomas Hardy
WILLIAM Dewy, Tranter Reuben, Farmer Ledlow late at plough,
Robert's kin, and John's, and Ned's,
And the Squire, and Lady Susan, lie in Mellstock churchyard now!
"Gone," I call them, gone for good, that group of local hearts and
heads;
Yet at mothy curfew-tide,
And at midnight when the noon-heat breathes it back from walls and
leads,
They've a way of whispering to me--fellow-wight who yet abide--
In...Read more of this...
by
William Stafford
There is a country to cross you will
find in the corner of your eye, in
the quick slip of your foot--air far
down, a snap that might have caught.
And maybe for you, for me, a high, passing
voice that finds its way by being
afraid. That country is there, for us,
carried as it is crossed. What you fear
will not go away: it will...Read more of this...
by
Omar Khayyam
O Friends! meet together [after my death]. Once reunited,
rejoice in being together and, when the cupbearer
takes in his hand a cup of old wine, remember poor
Khayyam and drink to his memory.
327...Read more of this...
by
William Strode
Come, come, I faint: thy heavy stay
Doubles each houre of the day:
The winged hast of nimble love
Makes aged Time not seeme to move:
Did not the light,
And then the night
Instruct my sight
I should believe the Sunne forgot his flight.
Show not the drooping marygold
Whose leaves like grieving amber fold:
My longing nothing can explain
But soule and body rent in twain:
Did I not...Read more of this...
by
Edwin Arlington Robinson
As we the withered ferns
By the roadway lying,
Time, the jester, spurns
All our prayers and prying --
All our tears and sighing,
Sorrow, change, and woe --
All our where-and-whying
For friends that come and go.
Life awakes and burns,
Age and death defying,
Till at last it learns
All but Love is dying;
Love's the trade...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
Are Friends Delight or Pain?
Could Bounty but remain
Riches were good --
But if they only stay
Ampler to fly away
Riches are sad....Read more of this...
by
Edwin Arlington Robinson
If ever I am old, and all alone,
I shall have killed one grief, at any rate;
For then, thank God, I shall not have to wait
Much longer for the sheaves that I have sown.
The devil only knows what I have done,
But here I am, and here are six or eight
Good friends, who most ingenuously prate...Read more of this...
by
Omar Khayyam
Never in this false world on friends rely
(I give this counsel confidentially),
Put up with pain, and seek no antidote,
Endure your grief, and ask no sympathy!...Read more of this...
by
Edwin Arlington Robinson
Dear Friends, reproach me not for what I do,
Nor counsel me, nor pity me; nor say
That I am wearing half my life away
For bubble-work that only fools pursue.
And if my bubbles be too small for you,
Blow bigger then your own: the games we play
To fill the frittered minutes of a day,
Good glasses are to read the spirit through.
And whoso...Read more of this...
by
Dorothy Parker
They laid their hands upon my head,
They stroked my cheek and brow;
And time could heal a hurt, they said,
And time could dim a vow.
And they were pitiful and mild
Who whispered to me then,
"The heart that breaks in April, child,
Will mend in May again."
Oh, many a mended heart they knew.
So old they were, and wise.
And little did they have to...Read more of this...
by
Omar Khayyam
Cease, if ye are my friends, all vain discourse, and,
to relieve my mental pains pour out the wine. And
when to dust my frame returns, the self-same dust
collect and make it brick to stop some crevice in the
tavern wall....Read more of this...
by
William Butler Yeats
Now must I these three praise --
Three women that have wrought
What joy is in my days:
One because no thought,
Nor those unpassing cares,
No, not in these fifteen
Many-times-troubled years,
Could ever come between
Mind and delighted mind;
And one because her hand
Had strength that could unbind
What none can understand,
What none can have and thrive,
Youth's dreamy load, till she
So changed me that I live
Labouring in...Read more of this...
by
Omar Khayyam
Listen to me, O thou who hast not seen old friends
[of experience]! Vex not thyself with this Wheel of
Heaven which has neither surface nor foundation: content
thyself with what thou hast and, as a peaceable spectator,
observe here below the various games to which men are
destined....Read more of this...
by
Donald Justice
We shall not ever meet them bearded in heaven
Nor sunning themselves among the bald of hell;
If anywhere, in the deserted schoolyard at twilight,
forming a ring, perhaps, or joining hands
In games whose very names we have forgotten.
Come memory, let us seek them there in the shadows....Read more of this...
by
Rabindranath Tagore
No, my friends, I shall never be an
ascetic, whatever you may say.
I shall never be and ascetic if she
does not take the vow with me.
It is my firm resolve that if I
cannot find a shady shelter and a
companion for my penance, I shall
never turn ascetic.
No, my friends, I shall never leave
my hearth and home, and retire into
the...Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
The man above was a murderer, the man below was a thief;
And I lay there in the bunk between, ailing beyond belief;
A weary armful of skin and bone, wasted with pain and grief.
My feet were froze, and the lifeless toes were purple and green and gray;
The little flesh that clung to my bones, you could punch it in holes...Read more of this...
by
Andrei Voznesensky
I'm waiting for my friend. The gate's unlocked.
The banisters are lit so he can walk.
I'm waiting for my friend. The times are dull and tough.
Anticipation lightens our life.
He's driving down the Ring Road, at full speed,
the way I did it when he was in need.
He will arrive...Read more of this...
by
Alfred Lord Tennyson
One writes, that "Other friends remain,"
That "Loss is common to the race"--
And common is the commonplace,
And vacant chaff well meant for grain.
That loss is common would not make
My own less bitter, rather more.
Too common! Never morning wore
To evening, but some heart did break.
O father, wheresoe'er thou be,
Who pledgest now thy gallant son,
A shot, ere half thy draught be...Read more of this...
by
Alexander Pushkin
The chain of golden days and nights
Is still your heritage from Deity,
And, still, the languid maidens’ eyes
Are turned to you as well intently.
So, play and sing, friends of my years!
Lose very quickly passing evening,
And, at your heedless joy and singing,
I will be smiling through my tears....Read more of this...
by
Friedrich von Schiller
Yes, my friends!--that happier times have been
Than the present, none can contravene;
That a race once lived of nobler worth;
And if ancient chronicles were dumb,
Countless stones in witness forth would come
From the deepest entrails of the earth.
But this highly-favored race has gone,
Gone forever to the realms of night.
We, we live! The moments are our own,
And the living judge the right.
Brighter...Read more of this...
by
Omar Khayyam
Chief of old friends! hearken to what I say,
Let not heaven's treacherous wheel your heart dismay;
But rest contented in your humble nook,
And watch the games that wheel is wont to play....Read more of this...
by
Charles Bukowski
I can remember starving in a
small room in a strange city
shades pulled down, listening to
classical music
I was young I was so young it hurt like a knife
inside
because there was no alternative except to hide as long
as possible--
not in self-pity but with dismay at my limited chance:
trying to connect.
the old...Read more of this...
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