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Famous Goings Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Hopkins, Gerard Manley
...lls,
Crying, What I do is me: for that I came. 

I say more: the just man justices;
Keeps grace: that keeps all his goings graces;
Acts in God's eye what in God's eye he is — 
Christ. For Christ plays in ten thousand places,
Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his
To the Father through the features of men's faces....Read more of this...



by Stafford, William
...d I can turn and look
at the silent river and wait. We know
the current is there, hidden; and there
are comings and goings from miles away
that hold the stillness exactly before us.
What the river says, that is what I say....Read more of this...

by Tebb, Barry
...

They fashioned a toll-gate and a keeper came

And sat in a booth with his pipe and a ledger

To take down comings and goings in the curious

Copper-plate of the Hunslet Board School and

Beneath the bridge sailed dhows and catamarans

And coal barges with captains who smoked short

Stubby pipes in shirt-sleeves and Van Gogh was

There to capture them on canvas after canvas.

Vermeer had exactly the touch and his palette

Was right for the chiaroscuro of the back-to-back...Read more of this...

by Ashbery, John
...o go back inside any more. You meet
Enough vague people on this emerald traffic-island--no,
Not people, comings and goings, more: mutterings, splatterings,
The bizarrely but effectively equipped infantries of 
happy-go-nutty
Vegetal jacqueries, plumed, pointed at the little
White cardboard castle over the mill run. "Up
The lazy river, how happy we could be?"
How will it end? That geranium glow
Over Anaheim's had the riot act read to it by the
Etna-size firecracker tha...Read more of this...

by Betjeman, John
...h rodents who
Except at this time of the year
Not once inside the church appear.
Within the human world I know
Such goings-on could not be so,
For human beings only do
What their religion tells them to.
They read the Bible every day
And always, night and morning, pray,
And just like me, the good church mouse,
Worship each week in God's own house,
But all the same it's strange to me
How very full the church can be
With people I don't see at all
Except at Harvest Festiv...Read more of this...



by Coleridge, Samuel Taylor
...extreme silentness. Sea, hill, and wood,
This populous village! Sea, and hill, and wood,
With all the numberless goings-on of life,
Inaudible as dreams! the thin blue flame
Lies on my low-burnt fire, and quivers not;
Only that film, which fluttered on the grate,
Still flutters there, the sole unquiet thing.
Methinks, its motion in this hush of nature
Gives it dim sympathies with me who live,
Making it a companionable form,
Whose puny flaps and freaks the id...Read more of this...

by Carroll, Lewis
...soon
Be chuckling to another tune -
And so you'd best take care!' 

"That's the right way to cure a Sprite
Of such like goings-on -
But gracious me! It's getting light!
Good-night, old Turnip-top, good-night!"
A nod, and he was gone....Read more of this...

by Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
...f life, 
O gentle, loving, trusting wife, 
And safe from all adversity 
Upon the bosom of that sea 
Thy comings and thy goings be! 
For gentleness and love and trust 
Prevail o'er angry wave and gust; 
And in the wreck of noble lives 
Something immortal still survives! 
Thou, too, sail on, O Ship of State! 
Sail on, O Union, strong and great! 
Humanity with all its fears, 
With all the hopes of future years, 
Is hanging breathless on thy fate! 
We know what Master laid thy ke...Read more of this...

by Kipling, Rudyard
...naught unproven--here is naught to learn.
It is written what shall fall if the King return.

He shall mark our goings, question whence we came,
Set his guards about us, as in Freedom's name.

He shall take a tribute, toll of all our ware;
He shall change our gold for arms--arms we may not bear.

He shall break his Judges if they cross his word;
He shall rule above the Law calling on the Lord.

He shall peep and mutter; and the night shall bring
Watchers '...Read more of this...

by Kipling, Rudyard
...quadruple funnel flames
 A mark from Sweden to the Swin,
 The Cruiser's thund'rous screw proclaims
 Her comings out and goings in:
 But only whiffs of paraffin
 Or creamy rings that fizz and fade
 Show where the one-eyed Death has been
 That is the custom of "The Trade."

 Their feats, their fortunes and their fames
 Are hidden from their nearest kin;
 No eager public backs or blames,
 No journal prints the yarn they spin
 (The Censor would not let it in! )
 When they ret...Read more of this...

by Sexton, Anne
...
and so he was beheaded.
Poof! Like a basketball.

It so happened that a poor soldier
heard about these strange goings on
and decided to give it a try.
On his way to the castle
he met an old old woman.
Age, for a change, was of some use.
She wasn't stuffed in a nursing home.
She told him not to drink a drop of wine
and gave him a cloak that would make
him invisible when the right time came.
And thus he sat outside the dorm.
The oldest princess ...Read more of this...

by Taylor, Edward
...g those famous words.
Later, there were harsh words and a shoe
was thrown and the door was slammed.
Comings and goings by the thousands,
the early mornings and late nights, years, years.
O they've got big plans, they'll make a bundle.
The door was an island that swayed in its sleep.
The moon turned the doorknob just slightly,
burned its fingers and ran,
and still the door said nothing and slept.
At least that's what they like to say,
the little fishes ...Read more of this...

by Tate, James
...g those famous words.
Later, there were harsh words and a shoe
was thrown and the door was slammed.
Comings and goings by the thousands,
the early mornings and late nights, years, years.
O they've got big plans, they'll make a bundle.
The door was an island that swayed in its sleep.
The moon turned the doorknob just slightly,
burned its fingers and ran,
and still the door said nothing and slept.
At least that's what they like to say,
the little fishes ...Read more of this...

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