Famous Grown Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Deaf Martha

by Ann Taylor
 Poor Martha is old, and her hair is turn'd grey, 
And her hearing has left her for many a year; 
Ten to one if she knows what it is that you say, 
Though she puts her poor wither'd hand close to her ear. 

I've seen naughty children run after her fast, 
And cry, "Martha, run, there's a bullock so...Read more of this...

The Rat Of Faith

by Philip Levine
 A blue jay poses on a stake 
meant to support an apple tree 
newly planted. A strong wind 
on this clear cold morning 
barely ruffles his tail feathers. 
When he turns his attention 
toward me, I face his eyes 
without blinking. A week ago 
my wife called me to come see 
this same bird chase a rat 
into the...Read more of this...

Burning Off

by Dorothea Mackeller
 They're burning off at the Rampadells,
The tawny flames uprise,
With greedy licking around the trees;
The fierce breath sears our eyes. 

From cores already grown furnace-hot -
The logs are well alight!
We fling more wood where the flameless heart
Is throbbing red and white. 

The fire bites deep in that beating heart,
The creamy smoke-wreaths ooze
From cracks and knot-holes along the trunk
To melt in...Read more of this...

Sabbaths 2001

by Wendell Berry
 I

He wakes in darkness. All around
are sounds of stones shifting, locks
unlocking. As if some one had lifted
away a great weight, light
falls on him. He has been asleep or simply
gone. He has known a long suffering
of himself, himself sharpen by the pain
of his wound of separation he now
no longer minds, for the pain is only himself
now, grown small, become a...Read more of this...

Our Hands Have Met

by William Morris
 Our hands have met, our lips have met
Our souls - who knows when the wind blows
How light souls drift mid longings set,
If thou forget'st, can I forget
The time that was not long ago?

Thou wert not silent then, but told
Sweet secrets dear - I drew so near
Thy shamefaced cheeks grown overbold,
That scarce thine eyes might I behold!
Ah was it then...Read more of this...

The Boston Athenaeum

by Amy Lowell
 Thou dear and well-loved haunt of happy hours,
How often in some distant gallery,
Gained by a little painful spiral stair,
Far from the halls and corridors where throng
The crowd of casual readers, have I passed
Long, peaceful hours seated on the floor
Of some retired nook, all lined with books,
Where reverie and quiet reign supreme!
Above, below, on every side, high shelved
From careless grasp...Read more of this...

Death

by Frank O'Hara
1

If half of me is skewered
by grey crested birds
in the middle of the vines of my promise
and the very fact that I'm a poet
suffers my eyes
to be filled with vermilion tears 


2

how much greater danger
from occasion and pain is my vitality
yielding like a tree on fire!--
for every day is another view
of the tentative past
grown secure in its foundry of shimmering
that's...Read more of this...

After great pain a formal feeling comes

by Emily Dickinson
 After great pain, a formal feeling comes --
The Nerves sit ceremonious, like Tombs --
The stiff Heart questions was it He, that bore,
And Yesterday, or Centuries before?

The Feet, mechanical, go round --
Of Ground, or Air, or Ought --
A Wooden way
Regardless grown,
A Quartz contentment, like a stone --

This is the Hour of Lead --
Remembered, if outlived,
As Freezing persons, recollect the Snow...Read more of this...

Grown-Up Talk

by Katherine Mansfield
 Half-Past-Six and I were talking
In a very grown-up way;
We had got so tired with running
That we did not want to play.

"How do babies come, I wonder,"
He said, looking at the sky,
"Does God mix the things together
An' just make it-like a pie?"

I was really not quite certain,
But it sounded very nice;
It was all that we could think of,
Besides a book...Read more of this...

however grown up

by Rg Gregory
 six...six...why only yesterday
it seems that fist shot out
that one eye winked...and yet
now that this day's arrived
it really is as if six years
have blinked - and you've sprung
through a thousand instant snaps
into this boy whose tongue
can't help but say thought not thinked
who's no longer to be fed
with ideas any more than food
will pick and choose as he wishes
will draw with...Read more of this...

Genesis

by Vachel Lindsay
 I was but a half-grown boy, 
You were a girl-child slight. 
Ah, how weary you were! 
You had led in the bullock-fight... 
We slew the bullock at length 
With knives and maces of stone. 
And so your feet were torn, 
Your lean arms bruised to the bone. 

Perhaps 'twas the slain beast's blood 
We drank, or a root we...Read more of this...

Lifes Progress

by Anne Kingsmill Finch
 How gayly is at first begun 
Our Life's uncertain Race! 
Whilst yet that sprightly Morning Sun, 
With which we just set out to run 
Enlightens all the Place. 

How smiling the World's Prospect lies 
How tempting to go through ! 
Not Canaan to the Prophet's Eyes, 
From Pisgah with a sweet Surprize, 
Did more inviting shew. 

How promising's the...Read more of this...

The Grown-Up

by Rainer Maria Rilke
 All this stood upon her and was the world
and stood upon her with all its fear and grace
as trees stand, growing straight up, imageless
yet wholly image, like the Ark of God,
and solemn, as if imposed upon a race.

As she endured it all: bore up under
the swift-as-flight, the fleeting, the far-gone,
the inconceivably vast, the still-to-learn,
serenely as a woman carrying water
moves...Read more of this...

however grown up

by Rg Gregory
 six...six...why only yesterday
it seems that fist shot out
that one eye winked...and yet
now that this day's arrived
it really is as if six years
have blinked - and you've sprung
through a thousand instant snaps
into this boy whose tongue
can't help but say thought not thinked
who's no longer to be fed
with ideas any more than food
will pick and choose as he wishes
will draw with...Read more of this...

Under Saturn

by William Butler Yeats
 Do not because this day I have grown saturnine
Imagine that lost love, inseparable from my thought
Because I have no other youth, can make me pine;
For how should I forget the wisdom that you brought,
The comfort that you made? Although my wits have gone
On a fantastic ride, my horse's flanks are spurred
By childish memories of an old cross Pollexfen,
And of...Read more of this...

Grown Up

by Edna St. Vincent Millay
 Was it for this I uttered prayers,
And sobbed and cursed and kicked the stairs,
That now, domestic as a plate,
I should retire at half-past eight?...Read more of this...

I Will Not Eat My Poem

by Jerome Rothenberg
 I kill for pleasure
not for gain.
A man much more
than you my hands
find knives
& flash them.
I am guilty
in my works
while in their eyes
I seek redemption.
I find myself
forgotten
angry at the thought
of bread. I will not
eat my poem(A. Artaud)
much less be raped
by it. I have a home
but sit with others
shirtless, waiting
for the moon to rise.
I am a warrior
grown old.
The number on my...Read more of this...

A Little Litany

by G K Chesterton
 When God turned back eternity and was young,
Ancient of Days, grown little for your mirth
(As under the low arch the land is bright)
Peered through you, gate of heaven--and saw the earth.

Or shutting out his shining skies awhile
Built you about him for a house of gold
To see in pictured walls his storied world
Return upon him as a tale is told.

Or...Read more of this...

Grown Up

by Edna St. Vincent Millay
 Was it for this I uttered prayers,
And sobbed and cursed and kicked the stairs,
That now, domestic as a plate,
I should retire at half-past eight?...Read more of this...

Alexander And Zenobia

by Anne Bronte
 Fair was the evening and brightly the sun
Was shining on desert and grove,
Sweet were the breezes and balmy the flowers
And cloudless the heavens above. 
It was Arabia's distant land
And peaceful was the hour;
Two youthful figures lay reclined
Deep in a shady bower.

One was a boy of just fourteen
Bold beautiful and bright;
Soft raven curls hung clustering round
A brow of marble white.

The...Read more of this...

Ruth

by Thomas Hood
 She stood breast-high amid the corn,
Clasp’d by the golden light of morn,
Like the sweetheart of the sun,
Who many a glowing kiss had won.


On her cheek an autumn flush,
Deeply ripen’d;—such a blush
In the midst of brown was born,
Like red poppies grown with corn.


Round her eyes her tresses fell,
Which were blackest none could tell,
But long lashes veil’d a light,
That had else...Read more of this...

And now that the lofty leaves have fallen

by Emile Verhaeren
And now that the lofty leaves have fallen, that kept our garden sheltered beneath their shade, through the bare branches can be seen beyond them the roofs of the old villages climbing towards the horizon.
So long as summer poured out its gladness, none of us saw them grouped so near our door; but now that the flowers and the leaves...Read more of this...

The Night Journey

by Rupert Brooke
 Hands and lit faces eddy to a line;
The dazed last minutes click; the clamour dies.
Beyond the great-swung arc o' the roof, divine,
Night, smoky-scarv'd, with thousand coloured eyes

Glares the imperious mystery of the way.
Thirsty for dark, you feel the long-limbed train
Throb, stretch, thrill motion, slide, pull out and sway,
Strain for the far, pause, draw to strength again. . . .

As...Read more of this...

Sonnet VII

by Francesco Petrarch
SONNET VII. La gola e 'l sonno e l' oziose piume. TO A FRIEND, ENCOURAGING HIM TO PURSUE POETRY.  Torn is each virtue from its earthly throneBy sloth, intemperance, and voluptuous ease;E'en nature deviates from her wonted ways,Too much the slave of vicious custom grown.Far hence is every light celestial gone,Read more of this...

Crazy Jane Grown Old Looks At The Dancers

by William Butler Yeats
 I found that ivory image there
Dancing with her chosen youth,
But when he wound her coal-black hair
As though to strangle her, no scream
Or bodily movement did I dare,
Eyes under eyelids did so gleam;
Love is like the lion's tooth.

When She, and though some said she played
I said that she had danced heart's truth,
Drew a knife to strike him dead,
I could but...Read more of this...

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