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Famous Grow Up Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Wilmot, John
...ey desire.
Their private wish obeys the public vice;
'Twixt good and bad, whimsey decides, not choice.
Fashions grow up for taste; at forms they strike;
They know what they would have, not what they like.
Bovey's a beauty, of some few agree
To call him so; the rest to that degree
Affected are, that with their ears they see.
--Where I was visiting the other night
Comes a fine lady, with her humble knight,
Who had prevailed on her, through her own skill,
At his ...Read more of this...



by Jennings, Elizabeth
...dignity. "All was as cold" she said
"As any stone" and so, we who lacked scope
For big or little deaths, increase, grow up
To purposes and means to face events
Of cruelty, stupidity. I walked
Fast under stars. The Avon wandered on
"Tomorrow and tomorrow". Words aren't worn
Out in this place but can renew our tongue,
Flesh out our feeling, make us apt for life....Read more of this...

by Finch, Anne Kingsmill
...nce Mankind is so much wiser, 
That none is valued like the Miser, 
I draw it hence, and now these Sums 
In proper Soil grow up to {1} Plumbs;
Which gather'd once, from that rich Minute 
We rule the World, and all that's in it. 

But, quoth the Poet,can you raise, 
As well as Plumb-trees, Groves of Bays? 
Where you, which I wou'd chuse much rather, 
May Fruits of Reputation gather? 
Will Men of Quality, and Spirit, 
Regard you for intrinsick Merit? 
And seek you out, befo...Read more of this...

by Keats, John
...storing chance came down to quell
One half of the witch in me. On a day,
Sitting upon a rock above the spray,
I saw grow up from the horizon's brink
A gallant vessel: soon she seem'd to sink
Away from me again, as though her course
Had been resum'd in spite of hindering force--
So vanish'd: and not long, before arose
Dark clouds, and muttering of winds morose.
Old Eolus would stifle his mad spleen,
But could not: therefore all the billows green
Toss'd up the silver sp...Read more of this...

by Heaney, Seamus
...
Fell sometimes on the polished sod;
Sometimes he rode me on his back
Dipping and rising to his plod. 

I wanted to grow up and plough,
To close one eye, stiffen my arm.
All I ever did was follow
In his broad shadow round the farm. 

I was a nuisance, tripping, falling,
Yapping always. But today 
It is my father who keeps stumbling
Behind me, and will not go away....Read more of this...



by Thoreau, Henry David
..._____________

Two sturdy oaks I mean, which side by side, 
Withstand the winter's storm, 
And spite of wind and tide, 
Grow up the meadow's pride, 
For both are strong 

Above they barely touch, but undermined 
Down to their deepest source, 
Admiring you shall find 
Their roots are intertwined 
Insep'rably....Read more of this...

by Lorde, Audre
...better than his
why do I have to be
the one 
wearing braces
I have nothing to wear tomorrow
will I live long enough
to grow up
and momma's in the bedroom
with the door closed....Read more of this...

by Philips, Katherine
...en my conceit:
Sometimes pensive, sometimes gay,
Just as that fury does control,
And as the object I survey
The notions grow up in my soul,
And are as unconcern'd and free
As the flame which transported me.


20

O! how I Solitude adore,
That element of noblest wit,
Where I have learnt Apollo's lore,
Without the pains to study it:
For thy sake I in love am grown
With what thy fancy does pursue;
But when I think upon my own, 
I hate it for that reason too.
Because it n...Read more of this...

by Taylor, Edward
...They missed the bus. They should have
been here last night. The joint was jumping.
But people change, they grow up, they fly around.
It's the same old story, but I don't remember it.
It's a tale of gore and glory, but we had to leave.
It could have turned out differently, and it did.
I feel much the same way about the city of Pompeii.
A police officer with a poodle cut squirts his gun
at me for saying that, and it's still just barely
possible ...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...ark, and condemns to greatest share 
Of endless pain? Where there is, then, no good 
For which to strive, no strife can grow up there 
From faction: for none sure will claim in Hell 
Precedence; none whose portion is so small 
Of present pain that with ambitious mind 
Will covet more! With this advantage, then, 
To union, and firm faith, and firm accord, 
More than can be in Heaven, we now return 
To claim our just inheritance of old, 
Surer to prosper than prosperity 
Could ...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...such abundance lies our choice, 
As leaves a greater store of fruit untouched, 
Still hanging incorruptible, till men 
Grow up to their provision, and more hands 
Help to disburden Nature of her birth. 
To whom the wily Adder, blithe and glad. 
Empress, the way is ready, and not long; 
Beyond a row of myrtles, on a flat, 
Fast by a fountain, one small thicket past 
Of blowing myrrh and balm: if thou accept 
My conduct, I can bring thee thither soon 
Lead then, said E...Read more of this...

by Brautigan, Richard
...ich.

This went on for months.

 "Fortunately it stopped one day without my having to do

anything serious like grow up. We packed our stuff and left

town on a bus. That was Great Falls, Montana. You say the

Missouri River is still there?"

 "Yes, but it doesn't look like Deanna Durbin, " Trout Fish-

ing in America said. "I remember the day Lewis discovered

the falls. They left their camp at sunrise and a few hours

later they came upon a beaut...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...and inferiour creatures mute,
Irrational and brute.
Nor do I name of men the common rout,
That wandring loose about
Grow up and perish, as the summer flie,
Heads without name no more rememberd,
But such as thou hast solemnly elected,
With gifts and graces eminently adorn'd
To some great work, thy glory, 
And peoples safety, which in part they effect:
Yet toward these thus dignifi'd, thou oft
Amidst thir highth of noon,
Changest thy countenance, and thy hand with no regard...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...gh Soul of lovers welcomes death most; 
Indeed, O Death, I think now these leaves mean precisely the same as you mean; 
Grow up taller, sweet leaves, that I may see! grow up out of my breast! 
Spring away from the conceal’d heart there! 
Do not fold yourself so in your pink-tinged roots, timid leaves!
Do not remain down there so ashamed, herbage of my breast! 
Come, I am determin’d to unbare this broad breast of mine—I have long enough
 stifled
 and
 choked: 
—Emblematic and ...Read more of this...

by Wordsworth, William
...l—  It is a father's tale. But if that Heaven  Should give me life, his childhood shall grow up  Familiar with these songs, that with the night  He may associate Joy! Once more farewell,  Sweet Nightingale! once more, my friends! farewell. LINES  Written when sailing in a Boat At EVENING.   How rich the wave, in front, imprest  With ...Read more of this...

by Tagore, Rabindranath
...g the scowling clouds.
Mother, I have left all my books on the shelf-do not ask me
to do my lessons now.
When I grow up and am bid like my father, I shall learn all
that must be learnt.
But just for today, tell me, mother, where the desert of
Tepantar in the fairy tale is....Read more of this...

by Olds, Sharon
...he soup,
I throw out the rotten chicken part,
glad again that we burned my father
before one single bloom of mold could
grow up
out of him,
maybe it had begun in his bowels but we burned his
 bowels
the way you burn the long blue
scarf of the dead, and all their clothing,
cleansing with fire. How fast time goes
now that I'm happy, now that I know how to
think of his dead body every day
without shock, almost without grief,
to take it into each part of the day the
way a loo...Read more of this...

by Sandburg, Carl
...and say,“We want a license.”
And they go to an installment house and buy a bed on time and a clock
And the children grow up asking each other, “What can we do to kill time?”
They grow up and go to the railroad station and buy tickets for Texas, Pennsylvania, Alaska.
“Kalamazoo is all right,” they say. “But I want to see the world.”
And when they have looked the world over they come back saying it is all like Kalamazoo.

The trains come in from the east and...Read more of this...

by Vaughan, Henry
...ings, 
Which now are dead, lodg'd in thy living bowers. 

And still a new succession sings and flies; 
Fresh groves grow up, and their green branches shoot 
Towards the old and still enduring skies, 
While the low violet thrives at their root. 

But thou beneath the sad and heavy line 
Of death, doth waste all senseless, cold, and dark;
Where not so much as dreams of light may shine, 
Nor any thought of greenness, leaf, or bark. 

And yet—as if some deep hate and ...Read more of this...

by Brown, Fleda
...to, to wait for. 
What is she waiting for? He will not marry her, nor will he 
stop very often. Desireé will grow up to say her father is dead. 
Desireé will imagine him standing on a timeless street, 
hungry for his child. She will wait for him, not in the original, 
but in a gesture copied to whatever lover she takes. 
He will fracture and change to landscape, to the Pope, maybe, 
or President Kennedy, or to a pain that darkens her eyes. 

...Read more of this...

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