Famous Grown Up Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Grown 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 grown up poems. These examples illustrate what a famous grown up poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Stephen Vincent Benet
(A Virginia Legend.)
The Planting of the Hemp.
Captain Hawk scourged clean the seas
(Black is the gap below the plank)
From the Great North Bank to the Caribbees
(Down by the marsh the hemp grows rank).
His fear was on the seaport towns,
The weight of his hand held hard the downs.
And the merchants cursed him, bitter and...Read more of this...
by
Eugene Field
I
Once a fowler, young and artless,
To the quiet greenwood came;
Full of skill was he and heartless
In pursuit of feathered game.
And betimes he chanced to see
Eros perching in a tree.
"What strange bird is that, I wonder?"
Thought the youth, and spread his snare;
Eros, chuckling at the blunder,
Gayly scampered here and there.
Do his best, the simple clod
Could not snare the agile god!
Blubbering,...Read more of this...
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...
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...
by
John McCrae
-1908
Of old, like Helen, guerdon of the strong --
Like Helen fair, like Helen light of word, --
"The spoils unto the conquerors belong.
Who winneth me must win me by the sword."
Grown old, like Helen, once the jealous prize
That strong men battled for in savage hate,
Can she look forth with unregretful eyes,
Where sleep Montcalm and Wolfe beside her gate?...Read more of this...
by
Ezra Pound
The tree has entered my hands,
The sap has ascended my arms,
The tree has grown in my breast-
Downward,
The branches grow out of me, like arms.
Tree you are,
Moss you are,
You are violets with wind above them.
A child - so high - you are,
And all this is folly to the world....Read more of this...
by
Wislawa Szymborska
Nothing has changed.
The body is susceptible to pain,
it must eat and breathe air and sleep,
it has thin skin and blood right underneath,
an adequate stock of teeth and nails,
its bones are breakable, its joints are stretchable.
In tortures all this is taken into account.
Nothing has changed.
The body shudders as it shuddered
before the founding of Rome and after,
in the twentieth century...Read more of this...
by
Andrew Barton Paterson
The widow sought the lawyer's room with children three in tow,
She told the lawyer man her tale in tones of deepest woe.
She said, "My husband took to drink for pains in his inside,
And never drew a sober breath from then until he died.
"He never drew a sober breath, he died without a will,
And I...Read more of this...
by
Edward Taylor
Napoleon's hat is an obvious choice I guess to list as a famous
hat, but that's not the hat I have in mind. That was his hat for
show. I am thinking of his private bathing cap, which in all hon-
esty wasn't much different than the one any jerk might buy at a
corner drugstore now, except for two minor eccentricities. The
first...Read more of this...
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...
by
William Butler Yeats
A cursing rogue with a merry face,
A bundle of rags upon a crutch,
Stumbled upon that windy place
Called Cruachan, and it was as much
As the one sturdy leg could do
To keep him upright while he cursed.
He had counted, where long years ago
Queen Maeve's nine Maines had been nursed,
A pair of lapwings, one old sheep,
And not a house to the plain's...Read more of this...
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...
by
John Dryden
Creator Spirit, by whose aid
The world's foundations first were laid,
Come, visit ev'ry pious mind;
Come, pour thy joys on human kind;
From sin, and sorrow set us free;
And make thy temples worthy Thee.
O, Source of uncreated Light,
The Father's promis'd Paraclete!
Thrice Holy Fount, thrice Holy Fire,
Our hearts with heav'nly love inspire;
Come, and thy Sacred Unction bring
To sanctify us, while we sing!
Plenteous of...Read more of this...
by
Mary Darby Robinson
I.
Ah! wherefore by the Church-yard side,
Poor little LORN ONE, dost thou stray?
Thy wavy locks but thinly hide
The tears that dim thy blue-eye's ray;
And wherefore dost thou sigh, and moan,
And weep, that thou art left alone?
II.
Thou art not left alone, poor boy,
The Trav'ller stops to hear thy tale;
No heart, so hard, would thee annoy!
For tho' thy mother's cheek...Read more of this...
by
Thomas Hardy
Between us now and here--
Two thrown together
Who are not wont to wear
Life's flushest feather--
Who see the scenes slide past,
The daytimes dimming fast,
Let there be truth at last,
Even if despair.
So thoroughly and long
Have you now known me,
So real in faith and strong
Have I now shown me,
That nothing needs disguise
Further...Read more of this...
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...
by
Amy Lowell
Now what in the name of the sun and the stars
Is the meaning of this most unholy of wars?
Do men find life so full of humour and joy
That for want of excitement they smash up the toy?
Fifteen millions of soldiers with popguns and horses
All bent upon killing, because their "of courses"
Are not quite the same. All these men by...Read more of this...
by
William Shakespeare
Be wise as thou art cruel; do not press
My tongue-tied patience with too much disdain;
Lest sorrow lend me words and words express
The manner of my pity-wanting pain.
If I might teach thee wit, better it were,
Though not to love, yet, love, to tell me so;
As testy sick men, when their deaths be near,
No news but health from their physicians know;
For...Read more of this...
by
Rudyard Kipling
October, 1918
Across a world where all men grieve
And grieving strive the more,
The great days range like tides and leave
Our dead on every shore.
Heavy the load we undergo,
And our own hands prepare,
If we have parley with the foe,
The load our sons must bear.
Before we loose the word
That bids new worlds to birth,
Needs must we loosen...Read more of this...
by
Dorothy Parker
The things she knew, let her forget again-
The voices in the sky, the fear, the cold,
The gaping shepherds, and the ***** old men
Piling their clumsy gifts of foreign gold.
Let her have laughter with her little one;
Teach her the endless, tuneless songs to sing,
Grant her her right to whisper to her son
The foolish names one dare not call a king.
Keep...Read more of this...
by
James Tate
Napoleon's hat is an obvious choice I guess to list as a famous
hat, but that's not the hat I have in mind. That was his hat for
show. I am thinking of his private bathing cap, which in all hon-
esty wasn't much different than the one any jerk might buy at a
corner drugstore now, except for two minor eccentricities. The
first...Read more of this...
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...
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...
by
Robert Browning
(PETER RONSARD _loquitur_.)
``Heigho!'' yawned one day King Francis,
``Distance all value enhances!
``When a man's busy, why, leisure
``Strikes him as wonderful pleasure:
`` 'Faith, and at leisure once is he?
``Straightway he wants to be busy.
``Here we've got peace; and aghast I'm
``Caught thinking war the true pastime.
``Is there a reason in metre?
``Give us your speech, master Peter!''
I who, if mortal dare say so,
Ne'er...Read more of this...
by
Francesco Petrarch
SONNET LXXXV. Tennemi Amor anni ventuno ardendo. HE CONFESSES AND REGRETS HIS SINS, AND PRAYS GOD TO SAVE HIM FROM ETERNAL DEATH. Love held me one and twenty years enchain'd,His flame was joy—for hope was in my grief!For ten more years I wept without relief,When Laura with my heart, to heaven attain'd.Read more of this...
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