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Famous Grandchildren Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Plath, Sylvia
...ed

The world will go up in a shriek, and your head with it,
Bossed, brazen, an antique shield,

A marvel to your great-grandchildren.
Do not be afraid, it is not so.

I will only take it and go aside quietly.
You will not even hear me opening it, no paper crackle,

No falling ribbons, no scream at the end.
I do not think you credit me with this discretion.

If you only knew how the veils were killing my days.
To you they are only transparencies, clear...Read more of this...



by Service, Robert William
...ar a tartan shawl and lean upon a cane.
I hope that I'll have silver hair beneath a velvet cap.
I see my little grandchildren a-romping round my knee;
So gay the scene, I almost wish 'twould hasten to arrive.
Let others sing of Youth and Spring, still will it seem to me
The golden time's the olden time, some time round Sixty-five....Read more of this...

by von Goethe, Johann Wolfgang
...with ne'er-changing pace,

He covers with joy his sad heart.
So I think of my daughter, as years pass away,

And my grandchildren far from my sight;
I bless them by night, and I bless them by day"--

The children they hear with delight.

He blesses the children: a knocking they hear,
The father it is! They spring forward in fear,

The old man they cannot conceal--
"Thou beggar, wouldst lure, then, my children so dear?

Straight seize him, ye vassals of steel!
To the d...Read more of this...

by Sexton, Anne
...lbs of the tree. 

Your face as calm as the moon 
over a mannered sea, 
presided at the family reunion, 
the twelve grandchildren 
you used to wear on your wrist, 
a three-months-old baby, 
a fat check you never wrote, 
the red-haired toddler who danced the twist, 
your aging daughters, each one a wife, 
each one talking to the family cook, 
each one avoiding your portrait, 
each one aping your life. 

Later, after the party, 
after the house went to bed, 
I sat up dr...Read more of this...

by Ginsberg, Allen
...sin Mindy, brother Gene one eyed one ear'd, sister-
 in-law blonde Connie, five nephews, stepbrothers & sisters 
 their grandchildren,
companion Peter Orlovsky, caretakers Rosenthal & Hale, Bill Morgan--
Next, teacher Trungpa Vajracharya's ghost mind, Gelek Rinpoche, 
 there Sakyong Mipham, Dalai Lama alert, chance visiting 
 America, Satchitananda Swami 
Shivananda, Dehorahava Baba, Karmapa XVI, Dudjom Rinpoche, 
 Katagiri & Suzuki Roshi's phantoms
Baker, Whalen, Daido Loori...Read more of this...



by Tebb, Barry
...ven after our divorce.



In the end you took me on a visit with the children.

A neat flat with photographs of grandchildren,

Stacks of wood for the stove, washing hung precisely

In the kitchen, a Sunday suit in the wardrobe.

An unwrinkling of smiles, the hard handshake

Of work-roughened hands.



One night he smashed up the tidy flat.

The TV screen was powder

The clock ticked on the neat lawn

‘Murder in Seacroft Hospital’

Emblazoned on the kitche...Read more of this...

by Holmes, Oliver Wendell
...was a wonder, and nothing less!
Colts grew horses, beards turned gray,
Deacon and deaconess dropped away,
Children and grandchildren -- where were they?
But there stood the stout old one-hoss shay
As fresh as on Lisbon-earthquake-day!

EIGHTEEN HUNDRED; -- it came and found
The Deacon's masterpiece strong and sound.
Eighteen hundred increased by ten; --
"Hahnsum kerridge" they called it then.
Eighteen hundred and twenty came; --
Running as usual; much the same.
T...Read more of this...

by Holmes, Oliver Wendell
...was a wonder, and nothing less!
Colts grew horses, beards turned gray,
Deacon and deaconess dropped away,
Children and grandchildren -- where were they?
But there stood the stout old one-hoss shay
As fresh as on Lisbon-earthquake-day!

EIGHTEEN HUNDRED; -- it came and found
The Deacon's masterpiece strong and sound.
Eighteen hundred increased by ten; --
"Hahnsum kerridge" they called it then.
Eighteen hundred and twenty came; --
Running as usual; much the same.
T...Read more of this...

by McGonagall, William Topaz
...e died at 6.30 o'clock,
Which to the civilised world has been a great shock;
She was surrounded by her children and grandchildren dear,
And for the motherly, pious Queen they shed many a tear. 

She has been a model and faithful Queen,
Very few like her have been;
She has acted virtuously during her long reign,
And I'm afraid the world will never see her like again. 

And during her reign she was beloved by the high and the low,
And through her decease the people'...Read more of this...

by McGonagall, William Topaz
...platform,
And the lid was covered with wreaths which did the coffin adorn. 

There were beautiful wreaths from the grandchildren of the deceased,
Whom I hope is now from all troubles released
Also there were wreaths from Mrs and Miss Young, Windsor Street, Dundee,
Which certainly were most beautiful to see. 

Besides the tributes of Miss Morrison and Miss H. Morrison were a beautiful sight,
Also the tributes of Miss Strong and Mr I. Martin White,
Also Mrs and...Read more of this...

by Jeffers, Robinson
...of man
In the fall of the world . . . I am growing old, that is the trouble. My chil-
 dren and little grandchildren
Will find their way, and why should I wait ten years yet, having lived sixty-
 seven, ten years more or less,
Before I crawl out on a ledge of rock and die snapping, like a wolf
Who has lost his mate?--I am bound by my own thirty-year-old decision:
 who drinks the wine
Should take the dregs; even in the bitter lees and sediment
New discovery ma...Read more of this...

by Frost, Robert
...br> 
I didn't relish it along at first. 
But I got wonted to it. And besides-- 
John said I was too old to have grandchildren. 
But what's the use of talking when it's done? 
She won't come back--it's worse than that--she can't." 
"Why do you speak like that? What do you know? 
What do you mean?--she's done harm to herself?" 
"I mean she's married--married someone else." 
"Oho, oho!" 
"You don't believe me." 
"Yes, I do, 
Only too well. I knew ther...Read more of this...

by Clark, Badger
...t._
      _Huh! you soft and dainty floaters,_
      _With your a'roplanes and motors--_
    _Huh! are you the great grandchildren of the West!_"
...Read more of this...

by Yeats, William Butler
...g in a troubled sleep;
But Maeve, and not with a slow feeble foot,
Came to the threshold of the painted house
Where her grandchildren slept, and cried aloud,
Until the pillared dark began to stir
With shouting and the clang of unhooked arms.
She told them of the many-changing ones;
And all that night, and all through the next day
To middle night, they dug into the hill.
At middle night great cats with silver claws,
Bodies of shadow and blind eyes like pearls,
Came up ...Read more of this...

by Service, Robert William
...d! I'll blossom out as an ancient beau.
I'll assume a dashing air, laugh with loud Ha! ha! . . .
How my grandchildren will stare at their grandpapa!
Their perfection aureoled I will scandalize:
Won't I be a hoary old sinner in their eyes!

Watch me, how I'll learn to chaff barmaids in a bar;
Scotches daily, gayly quaff, puff a fierce cigar.
I will haunt the Tango teas, at the stage-door stand;
Wait for Dolly Dimpleknees, bouquet in my hand.

Then at se...Read more of this...

by Lindsay, Vachel
...he mad, or the dead: — 
The glories of endless years 
Drowned in their harlot-tears: 
The children they hoped to bear, 
Grandchildren strong and fair, 
The life for ages to be, 
Cut off like a blasted tree, 
Murdered in filth in a day, 
Somehow, by the merchant gay! 

In liberty's name we cry 
For these women about to die. 

What shall be said of a state 
Where traps for the white brides wait? 
Of sellers of drink who play 
The game for the extra pay? 
Of statesmen in lea...Read more of this...

by Hugo, Victor
...
 ("O Charles, je te sens près de moi.") 
 
 {July, 1871.} 


 I feel thy presence, Charles. Sweet martyr! down 
 In earth, where men decay, 
 I search, and see from cracks which rend thy tomb, 
 Burst out pale morning's ray. 
 
 Close linked are bier and cradle: here the dead, 
 To charm us, live again: 
 Kneeling, I mourn, when on my t...Read more of this...

by Tebb, Barry
...the houseman privately,

Pulling together the bits of a life

Wholly given over to others,

Fallen comrades, Edna,

The grandchildren

His pension went on.

The houseman agreed to speak

To the surgeon privately.

Edna went first and

At her funeral John,

In frustrated fury,

Hit him over the head

With an empty fish tank.

When secondaries started

I was not told

And in the hospice

He barely lasted

His first weekend....Read more of this...

by Harrison, Tony
...med to head
a blackened dynasty of unclaimed stone,

now graffitied with a crude four-letter word.
His children and grandchildren went away
and never came back home to be interred,
so left a lot of space for skins to spray.

The language of this graveyard ranges from
a bit of Latin for a former Mayor
or those who laid their lives down at the Somme,
the hymnal fragments and the gilded prayer,

how people 'fell asleep in the Good Lord',
brief chisellable bits from the g...Read more of this...

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