Famous Home Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Bein' Back Home

by Paul Laurence Dunbar
Home agin, an' home to stay—
Yes, it's nice to be away.
Plenty things to do an' see,
But the old place seems to me
Jest about the proper thing.
Mebbe 'ts 'cause the mem'ries cling
Closer 'round yore place o' birth
'N ary other spot on earth.
W'y it's nice jest settin' here,
Lookin' out an' seein' clear,
'Thout no smoke, ner dust, ner haze
In these sweet October days.
What's...Read more of this...

I Years had been from Home

by Emily Dickinson
 I Years had been from Home
And now before the Door
I dared not enter, lest a Face
I never saw before

Stare solid into mine
And ask my Business there --
"My Business but a Life I left
Was such remaining there?"

I leaned upon the Awe --
I lingered with Before --
The Second like an Ocean rolled
And broke against my ear --

I laughed a crumbling Laugh
That...Read more of this...

Home They Brought Her Warrior Dead

by Alfred Lord Tennyson
 Home they brought her warrior dead: 
She nor swooned, nor uttered cry: 
All her maidens, watching, said, 
‘She must weep or she will die.’ 

Then they praised him, soft and low, 
Called him worthy to be loved, 
Truest friend and noblest foe; 
Yet she neither spoke nor moved. 

Stole a maiden from her place, 
Lightly to the warrior stepped,...Read more of this...

Welcome Home

by Barry Tebb
 ‘Leeds welcomes you’ in flowers

Garlanding the white stuccoed tower 

Of City Station: red on green

As poetry’s demon seizes me,

Upending all ordures of order.

‘Haworth Moor, Haworth Moor’

Echoes and re-echoes under the Dark Arches

Where the Aire gurgles and swirls

In eddies of Jack the Ripper, cloud-hopping

Jumping Jack Flash but Jack’s the lad I’m not

My adolescent timidity gelding

My desire for the welcoming heavy...Read more of this...

The fairest Home I ever knew

by Emily Dickinson
 The fairest Home I ever knew
Was founded in an Hour
By Parties also that I knew
A spider and a Flower --
A manse of mechlin and of Floes --...Read more of this...

Home Thoughts From Abroad

by Robert Browning
 Oh, to be in England
Now that April's there,
And whoever wakes in England
Sees, some morning, unaware,
That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf
Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf,
While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough
In England—now!

And after April, when May follows,
And the whitethroat builds, and all the swallows!
Hark, where my blossomed pear-tree in the hedge
Leans to the field...Read more of this...

A Letter Home

by Siegfried Sassoon
 (To Robert Graves) 

I 

Here I'm sitting in the gloom 
Of my quiet attic room. 
France goes rolling all around, 
Fledged with forest May has crowned. 
And I puff my pipe, calm-hearted, 
Thinking how the fighting started, 
Wondering when we'll ever end it, 
Back to hell with Kaiser sent it, 
Gag the noise, pack up and go, 
Clockwork soldiers...Read more of this...

Pictures of Home

by Julie Hill Alger
  In the red-roofed stucco house
of my childhood, the dining room 
was screened off by folding doors 
with small glass panes. Our neighbors
the Bertins, who barely escaped Hitler, 
often joined us at table. One night 
their daughter said, In Vienna 
our dining room had doors like these.
For a moment, we all sat quite still. 

And when Nath Nong, who...Read more of this...

The Old Home Calls

by Lucy Maud Montgomery
 Come back to me, little dancing feet that roam the wide world o'er,
I long for the lilt of your flying steps in my silent rooms once more;
Come back to me, little voices gay with laughter and with song,
Come back, little hearts beating high with hopes, I have missed and mourned you long. 

My roses bloom in my garden walks...Read more of this...

The feet of people walking home

by Emily Dickinson
 The feet of people walking home
With gayer sandals go --
The Crocus -- til she rises
The Vassal of the snow --
The lips at Hallelujah
Long years of practise bore
Til bye and bye these Bargemen
Walked singing on the shore.

Pearls are the Diver's farthings
Extorted from the Sea --
Pinions -- the Seraph's wagon
Pedestrian once -- as we --
Night is the morning's Canvas
Larceny -- legacy...Read more of this...

Take One Home For The Kiddies

by Philip Larkin
 On shallow straw, in shadeless glass,
Huddled by empty bowls, they sleep:
No dark, no dam, no earth, no grass -
Mam, get us one of them to keep.

Living toys are something novel,
But it soon wears off somehow.
Fetch the shoebox, fetch the shovel -
Mam, we're playing funerals now....Read more of this...

Going Home

by Robert William Service
 I'm goin' 'ome to Blighty -- ain't I glad to 'ave the chance!
I'm loaded up wiv fightin', and I've 'ad my fill o' France;
I'm feelin' so excited-like, I want to sing and dance,
 For I'm goin' 'ome to Blighty in the mawnin'.

I'm goin' 'ome to Blighty: can you wonder as I'm gay?
I've got a wound I wouldn't sell for...Read more of this...

W'en I Gits Home

by Paul Laurence Dunbar
It's moughty tiahsome layin' 'roun'
Dis sorrer-laden earfly groun',
An' oftentimes I thinks, thinks I,
'T would be a sweet t'ing des to die,
An' go 'long home.
Home whaih de frien's I loved 'll say,
"We've waited fu' you many a day,
Come hyeah an' res' yo'se'f, an' know
You's done wid sorrer an' wid woe,
Now you's at home."
W'en I gits home some blessid day,
I 'lows to...Read more of this...

End of Another Home Holiday

by D. H. Lawrence
I

When shall I see the half moon sink again
Behind the black sycamore at the end of the garden?
When will the scent of the dim, white phlox
Creep up the wall to me, and in at my open window?

Why is it, the long slow stroke of the midnight bell,
    (Will it never finish the twelve?)
Falls again and again on...Read more of this...

To A Daughter Leaving Home

by Linda Pastan
 When I taught you
at eight to ride
a bicycle, loping along
beside you
as you wobbled away
on two round wheels,
my own mouth rounding
in surprise when you pulled
ahead down the curved
path of the park,
I kept waiting
for the thud
of your crash as I
sprinted to catch up,
while you grew
smaller, more breakable
with distance,
pumping, pumping
for your life, screaming
with laughter,
the hair flapping
behind you like a
handkerchief waving
goodbye....Read more of this...

Home

by Rupert Brooke
 I came back late and tired last night
Into my little room,
To the long chair and the firelight
And comfortable gloom.

But as I entered softly in
I saw a woman there,
The line of neck and cheek and chin,
The darkness of her hair,
The form of one I did not know
Sitting in my chair.

I stood a moment fierce and still,
Watching her neck and hair.
I...Read more of this...

Home Thoughts

by Claude McKay
 Oh something just now must be happening there! 
That suddenly and quiveringly here, 
Amid the city's noises, I must think 
Of mangoes leaning o'er the river's brink, 
And dexterous Davie climbing high above, 
The gold fruits ebon-speckled to remove, 
And toss them quickly in the tangled mass 
Of wis-wis twisted round the guinea grass; 
And Cyril coming through the...Read more of this...

The hills of home

by Omer Tarin
Of my own salt, these hills are made
I am made of them
grey stone
red dust
black wash--
from the jagged edge I look down
the land stares up at me
it is as me, stark and thorny,
it prickles as I do, 
it is of my own salt.






(c) Omer Tarin, 'A Sad Piper' 1994...Read more of this...

Home For Thanksgiving

by Linda Pastan
 The gathering family
throws shadows around us,
it is the late afternoon
Of the family.

There is still enough light
to see all the way back,
but at the windows
that light is wasting away.

Soon we will be nothing
but silhouettes: the sons'
as harsh
as the fathers'.

Soon the daughters
will take off their aprons
as trees take off their leaves
for winter.

Let us eat quickly--
let us fill ourselves up.
the covers of...Read more of this...

My Home

by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
 This is the place that I love the best, 
A little brown house, like a ground-bird's nest, 
Hid among grasses, and vines, and trees, 
Summer retreat of the birds and bees.

The tenderest light that ever was seen 
Sifts through the vine-made window screen-- 
Sifts and quivers, and flits and falls 
On home-made carpets and gray-hung walls.

All through June the...Read more of this...

When the Children Come Home

by Henry Lawson
 On a lonely selection far out in the West 
An old woman works all the day without rest, 
And she croons, as she toils 'neath the sky's glassy dome, 
`Sure I'll keep the ould place till the childer come home.' 

She mends all the fences, she grubs, and she ploughs, 
She drives the old horse and she milks all...Read more of this...

Going Home

by Wislawa Szymborska
 He came home. Said nothing. 
It was clear, though, that something had gone wrong. 
He lay down fully dressed. 
Pulled the blanket over his head. 
Tucked up his knees. 
He's nearly forty, but not at the moment. 
He exists just as he did inside his mother's womb, 
clad in seven walls of skin, in sheltered darkness. 
Tomorrow he'll give...Read more of this...

Home And Love

by Robert William Service
 Just Home and Love! the words are small
Four little letters unto each;
And yet you will not find in all
The wide and gracious range of speech
Two more so tenderly complete:
When angels talk in Heaven above,
I'm sure they have no words more sweet
 Than Home and Love.

Just Home and Love! it's hard to guess
Which of the two were best to gain;
Home...Read more of this...

Driving my Parents Home at Christmas

by Robert Bly
As I drive my parents home through the snow 
their frailty hesitates on the edge of a mountainside.
I call over the cliff 
only snow answers.
They talk quietly
of hauling water of eating an orange 
of a grandchild's photograph left behind last night.
When they open the door of their house they disappear.
And the oak when it falls in the forest who hears...Read more of this...

I Have A Home

by Anonymous
I have a home in which to live,A bed to rest upon,Good food to eat, and fire to warm,And raiment to put on.[Pg 028]Kind parents, full of gentle love,Brothers and sisters, too,With many faithful, loving friends,Who teach me what to do.How many little children haveNo food, nor clothes to wear,No house, nor home, nor parents kind,To guide them by their...Read more of this...

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