Famous Goodnight Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Goodnight poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous goodnight poems. These examples illustrate what a famous goodnight poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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...Go to sleep—though of course you will not—
to tideless waves thundering slantwise against
strong embankments, rattle and swish of spray
dashed thirty feet high, caught by the lake wind,
scattered and strewn broadcast in over the steady
car rails! Sleep, sleep! Gulls' cries in a wind-gust
broken by the wind; calculating wings set above
the field of w...Read more of this...
by
Williams, William Carlos (WCW)
...writers say;
Never to have drawn the breath of life, never to have looked into the eye of day;
The second best's a gay goodnight and quickly turn away....Read more of this...
by
Yeats, William Butler
...life has been thy doom,
Thy curse, and darkened all thy day; and now
The night has come. I scarce can see thee now.
Goodnight! for we shall never bid again
Goodmorrow--Dark my doom was here, and dark
It will be there. I see thee now no more.
I would not mine again should darken thine,
Goodnight, true brother.
Balan answered low
'Goodnight, true brother here! goodmorrow there!
We two were born together, and we die
Together by one doom:' and while he spoke
Closed h...Read more of this...
by
Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...Griffin calls to come and kiss him goodnight
I yell ok. Finish something I'm doing,
then something else, walk slowly round
the corner to my son's room.
He is standing arms outstretched
waiting for a bearhug. Grinning.
Why do I give my emotion an animal's name,
give it that dark squeeze of death?
This is the hug which collects
all his small bones and his warm neck against me.
The thin tough b...Read more of this...
by
Ondaatje, Michael
...--
How could I -- of Him?
Sunshine was a sweet place --
I liked to stay --
But Morn -- didn't want me -- now --
So -- Goodnight -- Day!
I can look -- can't I --
When the East is Red?
The Hills -- have a way -- then --
That puts the Heart -- abroad --
You -- are not so fair -- Midnight --
I chose -- Day --
But -- please take a little Girl --
He turned away!...Read more of this...
by
Dickinson, Emily
...ening,
then he leaves the house at night.
He comes home in the morning
saying, “Man, I’m really dead!”
He kisses us goodnight, and then
by sunrise he’s in bed.
My mom heard my suspicion
and she said, “You’re not too swift.
Your father’s not a vampire.
He just works the graveyard shift.”
--Kenn Nesbitt
Copyright © Kenn Nesbitt 2009. All Rights Reserved....Read more of this...
by
Nesbitt, Kenn
...and quiet nook,
And song of bird and spell of book . . .
God bless you all! I will not fight,
But love and dream until--Goodnight!...Read more of this...
by
Service, Robert William
...I.
Goodnight and goodbye to the life whose signs denote us
As mourners clothed with regret for the life gone by;
To the waters of gloom whence winds of the dayspring float us
Goodnight and goodbye.
A time is for mourning, a season for grief to sigh;
But were we not fools and blind, by day to devote us
As thralls to the darkness, unseen of the sundawn's eye?
W...Read more of this...
by
Swinburne, Algernon Charles
...piness; he holds
your hand. Though you barely speak,
your body pulses messages I can read
all too well. He kisses you goodnight,
his body moving toward yours, and yours
responding. I am frightened, guard my
tongue for fear my mother will pop out
of my mouth. "He is not shy," I say. You giggle,
a little girl again, but you tell me he
kissed you on the dance floor. "Once?"
I ask. "No, a lot."
We ride through rain-shining 1 a.m.
streets. I bite back words which long
to be ...Read more of this...
by
Gillan, Maria Mazziotti
...t chord.
Tonight, tonight you will remember it as you fall asleep,
Your dream will suddenly blossom with sharp delight,
Goodnight! You say.
The leaves of the lilac dip and sway;
The purple spikes of bloom
Nod their sweetness upon us, lift again,
Your white face turns, I am cought with pain
And silence descends, and dripping of dew from eaves,
And jeweled points of leaves.
IV.
I walk in a pleasure of sorrow along the street
And try to remember you; slow drops patter;
Water...Read more of this...
by
Aiken, Conrad
...trouble getting hold of the feet.
That one said, kind of hopelessly to Mr. Norris, "You
won't change your mind?"
"Goodnight and good-bye, " Mr. Norris said.
They went off down the path toward the creek, carrying
the body between them. Mr. Norris turned his flashlight off
and he could hear them, stumbling over the rocks along the
bank of the creek. He could hear them swearing at each other.
He heard one of them say, "Hold your end up.'' Then he
couldn't hear anyth...Read more of this...
by
Brautigan, Richard
...fought with my heart and conquered,
I hid my wound from sight;
You were going away in the morning,
And I said a calm goodnight.
But now when I sit in the twilight,
Or when I walk by the sea
That friendship, quite Platonic,
Comes surging over me.
And a passionate longing fills me
For the roses, the dusk, the dew;
For the beautiful summer vanished,
For the moonlight walks – and you....Read more of this...
by
Wilcox, Ella Wheeler
...Some say goodnight -- at night --
I say goodnight by day --
Good-bye -- the Going utter me --
Goodnight, I still reply --
For parting, that is night,
And presence, simply dawn --
Itself, the purple on the height
Denominated morn....Read more of this...
by
Dickinson, Emily
...place
With quite a Sunday churchy face
And Babbles silently is led
Into the dark and her own bed.
Never a kiss or one Goodnight,
Never a glimpse of candle light.
Oh, how the monkey simply flies!
Oh, how poor Babbles calls and cries,
Runs from the room with might and main,
"Father dear, I am good again."
When she is sitting on my knee
Snuggled quite close and kissing me,
Babbles and I, we think the same--
Why, that the monkey never came
Only a terrible dream maybe...
What d...Read more of this...
by
Mansfield, Katherine
...eled over the
rubber bodies, gave them baths
carefully, scrubbed their little
orange hands, wrapped them up tight,
said goodnight, never spoke of the
woman like a gaping wound
weeping on the stairs, the man like a stuck
buffalo, baffled, stunned, dragging
arrows in his side. As if we had made a
pact of silence and safety, we kneeled and
dressed those tiny torsos with their elegant
belly-buttons and minuscule holes
high on the buttock to pee through and all that
darkness in th...Read more of this...
by
Olds, Sharon
...he world,
And its silent tread
Leaves the grasses bright,
Leaves the flowers uncurled,
Let me to the dead
Breathe a gay goodnight....Read more of this...
by
Russell, George William
...et,
told the stars my questions
and thought God could really see
the heat and the painted light,
elbows, knees, dreams, goodnight....Read more of this...
by
Sexton, Anne
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