Famous Homesick Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Homesick poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous homesick poems. These examples illustrate what a famous homesick poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
See also:
by
Laurence Dunbar, Paul
...ain't to blame),
An' I hopes w'en dese lines reach you, dat dey 'll fin' yo' se'f de same.
Cose I 'se feelin kin' o' homesick—dat 's ez nachul ez kin be,[Pg 152]
Wen a feller 's mo'n th'ee thousand miles across dat awful sea.
(Don't you let nobidy fool you 'bout de ocean bein' gran';
If you want to see de billers, you jes' view dem f'om de lan'.)
'Bout de people? We been t'inkin' dat all white folks was alak;
But des...Read more of this...
by
Dickinson, Emily
...Absent Place -- an April Day --
Daffodils a-blow
Homesick curiosity
To the Souls that snow --
Drift may block within it
Deeper than without --
Daffodil delight but
Him it duplicate --...Read more of this...
by
Robinson, Edwin Arlington
...ord, --
Though half the world, if not the whole of it,
May crown him with a crown that fits no king
Save Lord Apollo's homesick emissary:
Not there on Avon, or on any stream
Where Naiads and their white arms are no more,
Shall he find home again. It's all too bad.
But there's a comfort, for he'll have that House --
The best you ever saw; and he'll be there
Anon, as you're an Alderman. Good God!
He makes me lie awake o'nights and laugh.
And you have known hi...Read more of this...
by
Dickinson, Emily
...Death leaves Us homesick, who behind,
Except that it is gone
Are ignorant of its Concern
As if it were not born.
Through all their former Places, we
Like Individuals go
Who something lost, the seeking for
Is all that's left them, now --...Read more of this...
by
Dickinson, Emily
...r could I rise -- with You --
Because Your Face
Would put out Jesus' --
That New Grace
Glow plain -- and foreign
On my homesick Eye --
Except that You than He
Shone closer by --
They'd judge Us -- How --
For You -- served Heaven -- You know,
Or sought to --
I could not --
Because You saturated Sight --
And I had no more Eyes
For sordid excellence
As Paradise
And were You lost, I would be --
Though My Name
Rang loudest
On the Heavenly fame --
And were You -- saved --
And ...Read more of this...
by
Auden, Wystan Hugh (W H)
...nable to askIf I am overpaid. Spirit is willing to repeatWithout a qualm the same old talk,But Flesh is homesick for our snugApartment in New York. A sulky fifty-six, he findsA change of mealtime utter hell,Grown far too crotchety to likeA luxury hotel. The Bible is a goodly bookI always can peruse with zest,But really cannot say the sameFor Hilton's Be My Guest. Nor bear with equanimityThe radio in students' ...Read more of this...
by
Lindsay, Vachel
...la sleep?
By far-off day-dream river.
A secret place her burning Prince
Decks, while his heart-strings quiver.
Homesick for our cinder world,
Her low-born shoulders shiver;
She longs for sleep in cinders curled —
We, for the day-dream river.
VI. THE SPIDER AND THE GHOST OF THE FLY
Once I loved a spider
When I was born a fly,
A velvet-footed spider
With a gown of rainbow-dye.
She ate my wings and gloated.
She bound me with a hair.
She...Read more of this...
by
Pound, Ezra
...ir diverse strains into a single current
and flow to a sea of silence in one salutation to thee.
Like a flock of homesick cranes flying night and day
back to their mountain nests
let all my life take its voyage to its eternal home
in one salutation to thee....Read more of this...
by
Dyke, Henry Van
...t,
A little house of peace and joy and love
Was nested like a snow-white dove
From the rough mountain where I stood,
Homesick for happiness,
Only a narrow valley and a darkling wood
To cross, and then the long distress
Of solitude would be forever past, --
I should be home at last.
But not too soon! oh, let me linger here
And feed my eyes, hungry with sorrow,
On all this loveliness, so near,
And mine to-morrow!
Then, from the wood, across the silvery blue,
A dark ...Read more of this...
by
Service, Robert William
...ll,
And the soft chinook and the summer breeze,
And the dappled deer and the birds and the bees...
I was so homesick I wanted to cry,
But patient I waited for someone to buy.
And some said 'Too big,' and some 'Too small,'
And some passed on saying nothing at all.
Then a little boy cried: Ma, buy that one,'
But she shook her head: 'Too dear, my son."
So the evening came, when they closed the store,
And I was left on the littered floor,
A tree unwanted, ...Read more of this...
by
Kipling, Rudyard
...eart is wellnigh broke
For thinking on old memories
That gather in the smoke.
With every shift of every wind
The homesick memories come,
From every quarter of mankind
Where I have made me a home.
Four times a fire against the cold
And a roof against the rain --
Sorrow fourfold and joy fourfold
The Four Winds bring again!
How can I answer which is best
Of all the fires that burn?
I have been too often host or guest
At every fire in turn.
How can I turn f...Read more of this...
by
Heaney, Seamus
...hedges,
An auction notice on an outhouse wall--
You with a harvest bow in your lapel,
Me with the fishing rod, already homesick
For the big lift of these evenings, as your stick
Whacking the tips off weeds and bushes
Beats out of time, and beats, but flushes
Nothing: that original townland
Still tongue-tied in the straw tied by your hand.
The end of art is peace
Could be the motto of this frail device
That I have pinned up on our deal dresser--
Like a drawn snare
Slippe...Read more of this...
by
Chesterton, G K
...timber and shifting sand,
Grew a stronger thing to abide and stand
Than the square stones of Rome.
For men are homesick in their homes,
And strangers under the sun,
And they lay on their heads in a foreign land
Whenever the day is done.
Here we have battle and blazing eyes,
And chance and honour and high surprise,
But our homes are under miraculous skies
Where the yule tale was begun.
A Child in a foul stable,
Where the beasts feed and foam;
Only w...Read more of this...
by
Sassoon, Siegfried
...gh the garden gate,
Wearing a blood-soaked bandage on your head;
And God says something kind because you’re dead,
And homesick, discontented with your fate.
If I were there we’d snowball Death with skulls;
Or ride away to hunt in Devil’s Wood
With ghosts of puppies that we walked of old.
But you’re alone; and solitude annuls
Our earthly jokes; and strangely wise and good
You roam forlorn along the streets of gold....Read more of this...
by
Dickinson, Emily
...-- to the Royal Clouds
Lifts his light Pinnace --
Heedless of the Boy --
Staring -- bewildered -- at the mocking sky --
Homesick for steadfast Honey --
Ah, the Bee flies not
That brews that rare variety!...Read more of this...
by
Hugo, Victor
...ll pleased to make
Long scribbled lines the price of each mistake.
By four unpitying walls environed there
The homesick students pace the pavements bare.
E.E. FREWER
...Read more of this...
by
Field, Eugene
...g, and furnished so,
That, when I once get planted there, I don't know when to go;
A cosy cheerful refuge for the weary homesick guest,
Combining Yankee comforts with the freedom of the west.
The first thing you discover, as you maunder through the hall,
Is a curious little clock upon a bracket on the wall;
'T was made by Stoddard's father, and it's very, very old--
The connoisseurs assure me it is worth its weight in gold;
And I, who've bought all kinds of clocks, 'twix...Read more of this...
by
Po, Li
...back in time for the spring doings,
Yet I can help nothing, traveling on the river.
The south wind blowing wafts my homesick spirit
And carries it up to the front of our familiar tavern.
There I see a peach tree on the east side of the house
With thick leaves and branches waving in the blue mist.
It is the tree I planted before my parting three years ago.
The peach tree has grown now as tall as the tavern roof,
While I have wandered about without returning.Read more of this...
by
Dickinson, Emily
...ansport by the Pain
As Blind Men learn the sun!
To die of thirst -- suspecting
That Brooks in Meadows run!
To stay the homesick -- homesick feet
Upon a foreign shore --
Haunted by native lands, the while --
And blue -- beloved air!
This is the Sovereign Anguish!
This -- the signal woe!
These are the patient "Laureates"
Whose voices -- trained -- below --
Ascend in ceaseless Carol --
Inaudible, indeed,
To us -- the duller scholars
Of the Mysterious Bard!...Read more of this...
by
Dickinson, Emily
...-- too --
Do they wear "new shoes" -- in "Eden" --
Is it always pleasant -- there --
Won't they scold us -- when we're homesick --
Or tell God -- how cross we are --
You are sure there's such a person
As "a Father" -- in the sky --
So if I get lost -- there -- ever --
Or do what the Nurse calls "die" --
I shan't walk the "Jasper" -- barefoot --
Ransomed folks -- won't laugh at me --
Maybe -- "Eden" a'n't so lonesome
As New England used to be!...Read more of this...
Dont forget to view our wonderful member Homesick poems.