Famous Human Face Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Human Face poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous human face poems. These examples illustrate what a famous human face poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Burns, Robert
...as harmless too.
——————A head, pure, sinless quite of brain and soul,
The very image of a barber’s Poll;
It shews a human face, and wears a wig,
And looks, when well preserv’d, amazing big....Read more of this...
by
Chesterton, G K
...r
In that strange starry overturn of space
When earth and sky changed places for an hour
And heaven looked upwards in a human face.
Or young on your strong knees and lifted up
Wisdom cried out, whose voice is in the street,
And more than twilight of twiformed cherubim
Made of his throne indeed a mercy-seat.
Or risen from play at your pale raiment's hem
God, grown adventurous from all time's repose,
Or your tall body climbed the ivory tower
And kissed upon your mouth...Read more of this...
by
Wilde, Oscar
...eace, I shall behold, before the night,
The feet of brass, the robe more white than flame,
The wounded hands, the weary human face....Read more of this...
by
Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...e opening,
Enter'd; but Annie, seated with her grief,
Fresh from the burial of her little one,
Cared not to look on any human face,
But turn'd her own toward the wall and wept.
Then Philip standing up said falteringly
`Annie, I came to ask a favor of you.'
He spoke; the passion in her moan'd reply
`Favor from one so sad and so forlorn
As I am!' half abash'd him; yet unask'd,
His bashfulness and tenderness at war,
He set himself beside her, saying to her:
`I came t...Read more of this...
by
Hugo, Victor
...
Deformed and hideous—so doth foul black heart
Disfigure man, till beauty all depart.
So to the hell within the human face
Transparent is. They nearer move apace;
And Mahaud soundly sleeps as in a bed.
"To work."
Joss seizes her and holds her head
Supporting her beneath her arms, in his;
And then he dared to plant a monstrous kiss
Upon her rosy lips,—while Zeno bent
Before the massive chair, and with intent
Her robe disordered as he raise...Read more of this...
by
Browning, Robert
...sure its heights for ever and for ever.
The centre-fire heaves underneath the earth,
And the earth changes like a human face;
The molten ore bursts up among the rocks,
Winds into the stone’s heart, outbranches bright
In hidden mines, spots barren river-beds,
Crumbles into fine sand where sunbeams bask—
God joys therein! The wroth sea’s waves are edged
With foam, white as the bitten lip of hate,
When, in the solitary waste, strange groups
Of young volcanos come u...Read more of this...
by
Dickinson, Emily
...nce,
Fire, and smoke, and gun,
Taking Villages for breakfast,
And appalling Men --
If the stillness is Volcanic
In the human face
When upon a pain Titanic
Features keep their place --
If at length the smouldering anguish
Will not overcome --
And the palpitating Vineyard
In the dust, be thrown?
If some loving Antiquary,
On Resumption Morn,
Will not cry with joy "Pompeii"!
To the Hills return!...Read more of this...
by
Auden, Wystan Hugh (W H)
...pe bark,And the living nations wait,Each sequestered in its hate;Intellectual disgraceStares from every human face,And the seas of pity lieLocked and frozen in each eye.Follow, poet, follow rightTo the bottom of the night,With your unconstraining voiceStill persuade us to rejoice;With the farming of a verseMake a vineyard of the curse,Sing of human unsuccessIn a rapture of distress;In the deserts of the heart...Read more of this...
by
Smart, Christopher
...l appears inasmuch as the blessing of God upon all things descends in colour.
For the blessing of health upon the human face is in colour.
For the blessing of God upon purity is in the Virgin's blushes.
For the blessing of God in colour is on him that keeps his virgin.
For I saw a blush in Staindrop Church, which was of God's own colouring.
For it was the benevolence of a virgin shewn to me before the whole congregation.
For the blessing of...Read more of this...
by
Smart, Christopher
...strong so as to serve for defence as well as ornament.
For it brightened to the Glory of God, which came upon the human face at morning prayer.
For it was largest and brightest in the best men.
For it was taken away all at once from all of them.
For this was done in the divine contempt of a general pusillanimity.
For this happened in a season after their return from the Babylonish captivity.
For their spirits were broke and their manhood im...Read more of this...
by
Milton, John
...turns
Day, or the sweet approach of Ev'n or Morn,
Or sight of vernal bloom, or Summers Rose,
Or flocks, or herds, or human face divine;
But cloud in stead, and ever-during dark
Surrounds me, from the chearful waies of men
Cut off, and for the Book of knowledg fair
Presented with a Universal blanc
Of Natures works to mee expung'd and ras'd,
And wisdome at one entrance quite shut out.
So much the rather thou Celestial light
Shine inward, and the mind through all ...Read more of this...
by
Byron, George (Lord)
...sed my brain
A gasp, a throb, a start of pain,
A sigh, and nothing more.
XIX
'I woke - where was I? - Do I see
A human face look down on me?
And doth a roof above me close?
Do these limbs on a couch repose?
Is this a chamber where I lie
And is it mortal yon bright eye,
That watches me with gentle glance?
I closed my own again once more,
As doubtful that the former trance
Could not as yet be o'er.
A slender girl, long-haired, and tall,
Sate watching by the cottage ...Read more of this...
by
Field, Eugene
...in a dream, remarked Three-Fingered Hoover:
"Onless I am mistaken, this is Pettibone's shef doover!"
It wuz a face--a human face--a woman's, fair 'nd tender--
Sot gracefully upon a neck white as a swan's, and slender;
The hair wuz kind uv sunny, 'nd the eyes wuz sort uv dreamy,
The mouth wuz half a-smilin', 'nd the cheeks wuz soft 'nd creamy;
It seemed like she wuz lookin' off into the west out yonder,
And seemed like, while she looked, we saw her eyes grow softer, fonder,-...Read more of this...
by
Milton, John
...urns
Day, or the sweet approach of even or morn,
Or sight of vernal bloom, or summer's rose,
Or flocks, or herds, or human face divine;
But cloud instead, and ever-during dark
Surrounds me, from the cheerful ways of men
Cut off, and for the book of knowledge fair
Presented with a universal blank
Of nature's works to me expung'd and ras'd,
And wisdom at one entrance quite shut out.
So much the rather thou, celestial Light,
Shine inward, and the mind through all ...Read more of this...
by
Whitman, Walt
...
And I say that clean-shaped children can be jetted and conceived only where natural forms
prevail in public, and the human face and form are never caricatured;
And I say that genius need never more be turned to romances,
(For facts properly told, how mean appear all romances.)
6
I say the word of lands fearing nothing—I will have no other land;
I say discuss all and expose all—I am for every topic openly;
I say there can be no salvation for These States without in...Read more of this...
by
Blake, William
...God our Father dear:
And Mercy Pity Peace and Love,
Is Man his child and care.
For Mercy has a human heart
Pity, a human face:
And Love, the human form divine,
And Peace, the human dress.
Then every man of every clime,
That prays in his distress,
Prays to the human form divine
Love Mercy Pity Peace,
And all must love the human form.
In heathen, Turk or jew,
Where Mercy, Love and Pity dwell,
There God is dwelling too....Read more of this...
by
Eluard, Paul
...I. Soon
Of all the springtimes of the world
This one is the ugliest
Of all of my ways of being
To be trusting is the best
Grass pushes up snow
Like the stone of a tomb
But I sleep within the storm
And awaken eyes bright
Slowness, brief time ends
Where all streets must pass
Through my innermost recesses
So that I would meet someone
I do...Read more of this...
by
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
...am I,
Born of Ixion's and the cloud's embrace;
With sounding hoofs across the earth I fly,
A steed Thessalian with a human face.
Sharp winds the arrows are with which I chase
The leaves, half dead already with affright;
I shroud myself in gloom; and to the race
Of mortals bring nor comfort nor delight.
December
Riding upon the Goat, with snow-white hair,
I come, the last of all. This crown of mine
Is of the holly; in my hand I bear
The thyrsus, tipped...Read more of this...
by
Rilke, Rainer Maria
....
Do we know this, my friends, or don't we know this?
Both are formed by the hesitant hour
in the deep calm of the human face....Read more of this...
by
Brautigan, Richard
...from the shack was an outhouse with its
door flung violently open. The inside of the outhouse was
exposed like a human face and the outhouse seemed to say,
"The old guy who built me crapped in here 9,745 times and
he's dead now and I don't want anyone else to touch me. He
was a good guy. He built me with loving care. Leave me
alone. I'm a monument now to a good ass gone under. There's
no mystery here. That's why the door's open. If you ...Read more of this...
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