Famous High Time Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Folk Tune

...It's not that the Muse feels like clamming up 
it's more like high time for the lad's last nap.
And the scarf-waving lass who wished him the best
drives a steamroller across his chest.

And the words won't rise either like that rod
or like logs to rejoin their old grove's sweet rot
and like eggs in the frying pan the face
spills its eyes all over the pillowcase.

Are you warm tonight under those six veils
in ...Read more of this...
by Brodsky, Joseph


Isaac and Archibald

...nfallibly, 
A journey that I made one afternoon 
With Isaac to find out what Archibald 
Was doing with his oats. It was high time 
Those oats were cut, said Isaac; and he feared
That Archibald—well, he could never feel 
Quite sure of Archibald. Accordingly 
The good old man invited me—that is, 
Permitted me—to go along with him; 
And I, with a small boy’s adhesiveness
To competent old age, got up and went. 

I do not know that I cared overmuch 
For Archibald’s or anybody’s oa...Read more of this...
by Robinson, Edwin Arlington

Leaving Early

...nna hags:cloth of your cloth.
They tow old water thick as fog.

The roses in the Toby jug
Gave up the ghost last night. High time.
Their yellow corsets were ready to split.
You snored, and I heard the petals unlatch,
Tapping and ticking like nervous fingers.
You should have junked them before they died.
Daybreak discovered the bureau lid 
Littered with Chinese hands. Now I'm stared at
By chrysanthemums the size
Of Holofernes' head, dipped in the same
Magenta as this fubsy sof...Read more of this...
by Plath, Sylvia

penelope

...gallivanting round the islands
deceiving the suitors by her shroud-unpicking 
or maybe not such a savoury dame having
a high time with those after her favours
allegedly allowing hermes up her skirts
and becoming the mother of pan
or even (when odysseus was killed) 
getting married to her own murdering son

penelope seemed to have been good material
for the greek tabloids (for which truth
as always was something of a side-dish)
and nowadays the long-suffering wife
who kept her...Read more of this...
by Gregory, Rg

Prosopopoia: or Mother Hubbards Tale

...ng persisted obstinate and bold,
Till at the length he published to hold
A visitation, and them cited thether:
Then was high time their wits about to geather.
What did they then, but made a composition
With their next neighbour priest, for light condition,
To whom their living they resigned quite
For a few pence, and ran away by night....Read more of this...
by Spenser, Edmund


Sonnet LVII

...SWeet warriour when shall I haue peace with you?
High time it is, this warre now ended were:
which I no lenger can endure to sue,
ne your incessant battry more to beare:
So weake my powres, so sore my wounds appeare,
that wonder is how I should liue a iot,
seeing my hart through launched euery where
with thousand arrowes, which your eies haue shot:
Yet shoot ye sharpely still, and spare me not,
but glory t...Read more of this...
by Spenser, Edmund

Sonnet XXIX

...r the dark shades my escape that bar,I still remain, nor hope relief to see.High time it surely is that he had spedThe fatal arrow from his pitiless bow,In others' blood so often bathed and red;And I of Love and Death have pray'd it so—He listens not, but leaves me here half dead.Nor cares to call me to himself below....Read more of this...
by Petrarch, Francesco

The Initiate

...sed me on the street.
St. Theresa of Avila, beautiful and grave,
Turned her back on me.

"Soulmate," they hissed. "It's high time."

I was a blind child, a wind-up toy . . .
I was one of death's juggling red balls
On a certain street corner
Where they peddle things out of suitcases.

The city like a huge cinema
With lights dimmed.
The performance already started.

So many blurred faces in a complicated plot.

The great secret which kept eluding me: knowing who I am . . .

The...Read more of this...
by Simic, Charles

The Lovers of the Poor

...e nature. Who are full,
Sleek, tender-clad, fit, fiftyish, a-glow, all
Sweetly abortive, hinting at fat fruit,
Judge it high time that fiftyish fingers felt
Beneath the lovelier planes of enterprise.
To resurrect. To moisten with milky chill.
To be a random hitching post or plush.
To be, for wet eyes, random and handy hem.
Their guild is giving money to the poor.
The worthy poor. The very very worthy
And beautiful poor. Perhaps just not too swarthy?
Perhaps just not too dirty...Read more of this...
by Brooks, Gwendolyn

The Professional Wanderer

...n, in short, you’ve spent your money in the fulness of your heart, 
And your clothes are getting shabby . . . Then it’s high time to depart....Read more of this...
by Lawson, Henry

The Reeves Tale

...time: **surgeon 
Lo here is Deptford, and 'tis half past prime:
Lo Greenwich, where many a shrew is in.
It were high time thy tale to begin."

"Now, sirs," quoth then this Osewold the Reeve,
I pray you all that none of you do grieve,
Though I answer, and somewhat set his hove*, *hood 
For lawful is *force off with force to shove.* *to repel force
This drunken miller hath y-told us here by force*
How that beguiled was a carpentere,
Paraventure* in scorn, for I am o...Read more of this...
by Chaucer, Geoffrey

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