Famous Greying Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Babette

...My place in the social set,
To roam in a moonlit Montmartre,
Alone with my little Babette.

I'm no longer young and I'm greying;
I'm tailored, top-hatted, kid-gloved,
And though in dark ways i be straying,
It's heaven to love and beloved;
The passion of youth to re-capture. . . .
My Lady's perfection and yet
When I kiss her I think of the rapture
I find in the charms of Babette -
Entwined in the arms of Babettte....Read more of this...
by Service, Robert William


End of Another Home Holiday

...y.

The light has gone out from under my mother's door.
        That she should love me so,
        She, so lonely, greying now,
        And I leaving her,
        Bent on my pursuits!

    Love is the great Asker,
    The sun and the rain do not ask the secret

    Of the time when the grain struggles down in the dark.
    The moon walks her lonely way without anguish,
    Because no loved one grieves over her departure.


II

Forever, ever by my shoulder p...Read more of this...
by Lawrence, D. H.

Funeral Of Youth The: Threnody

...as there,
Pale in her black; dry-eyed; she stood alone.
Poor maz'd IMAGINATION; FANCY wild;
ARDOUR, the sunlight on his greying hair;
CONTENTMENT, who had known YOUTH as a child
And never seen him since. And SPRING came too,
Dancing over the tombs, and brought him flowers --
She did not stay for long.
And TRUTH, and GRACE, and all the merry crew,
The laughing WINDS and RIVERS, and lithe HOURS;
And HOPE, the dewy-eyed; and sorrowing SONG; --
Yes, with much woe and mourning gen...Read more of this...
by Brooke, Rupert

Henry

...e,
 Life's wear and tear!
Now I am in my lusty prime
 With pep to spare,
While she looks ten more years than I'm,
 With greying hair.

'Twas on our trip dear friends among,
 To New Orleans,
A stranger's silly trip of tongue
 Kiboshed my dreams:
I heard her say: 'How very young
 His mother seems.'

Child-bearing gets a woman down,
 And six had she;
Yet now somehow I feel a clown
 When she's with me;
When cuties smile one cannot frown,
 You must agree.

How often I have heard i...Read more of this...
by Service, Robert William

Retrospect

...n of your face.
In your stupidity I found
The sweet hush after a sweet sound.
All about you was the light
That dims the greying end of night;
Desire was the unrisen sun,
Joy the day not yet begun,
With tree whispering to tree,
Without wind, quietly.
Wisdom slept within your hair,
And Long-Suffering was there,
And, in the flowing of your dress,
Undiscerning Tenderness.
And when you thought, it seemed to me,
Infinitely, and like a sea,
About the slight world you had known
Your ...Read more of this...
by Brooke, Rupert


School Smell

...e skin still envenomed

After years by a suburban hearth.

It was fifteen years ago

But I still remember Smigger,

Our greying old headmaster

In his spats and striped trousers,

The last in our town to wear them,

And his northern accent,

Heavy as Sunday.

"Now then you lads,

I’m not having this

Or I’ll tan you all,"

He’d bawl at a mill-hand’s boy

For drawing cunts on the lavatory wall.



Old Holmes, too, his yellow teeth

And hair all over the place,

One hand trembl...Read more of this...
by Tebb, Barry

The Funeral of Youth: Threnody

...s there,
Pale in her black; dry-eyed; she stood alone. 
Poor maz’d Imagination; Fancy wild;
Ardour, the sunlight on his greying hair;
Contentment, who had known Youth as a child
And never seen him since. And Spring came too,
Dancing over the tombs, and brought him flowers—
She did not stay for long.
And Truth, and Grace, and all the merry crew,
The laughing Winds and Rivers, and lithe Hours;
And Hope, the dewy-eyed; and sorrowing Song;—
Yes, with much woe and mourning general...Read more of this...
by Brooke, Rupert

Written for Scholar Wei

...s evening now, Together in the light of this one lamp? Young and vigorous for so short a time, Already now we both have greying temples. We ask of old friends, half of them now dead, Your exclamation stirs up my own heart. We did not know it would be twenty years, Before we met again inside your hall. When we parted then, you were unmarried, Suddenly boys and girls come in a row. Happy and content, they respect their father's friend, Asking me from which direction I come. And...Read more of this...
by Fu, Du

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