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Famous Impatience Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry
...t, so quick there is a film
to watch for anything missed.

But time is tied to the wrist
or kept in a box, ticking with impatience.

In homes, a haunted apparatus sleeps,
that snores when you pick it up.

If the ghost cries, they carry it
to their lips and soothe it to sleep

with sounds. And yet they wake it up
deliberately, by tickling with a finger.

Only the young are allowed to suffer
openly. Adults go to a punishment room

with water but nothing to eat.
They lock the do...Read more of this...
by Raine, Craig



...naked sparrow-bubs.

I wish that spring
would start the thundering traffic of feet
new feet on the earth, beating with impatience.

I wish it were spring, thundering
delicate, tender spring.
I wish these brittle, frost-lovely flowers of passionate, mysterious corruption
were not yet to come still more from the still-flickering discontent.

Oh, in the spring, the bluebell bows him down for very exuberance,
exulting with secret warm excess,
bowed down with his inner magnificen...Read more of this...
by Lawrence, D. H.
...ENT, too full of woe to speak;
PASSION, grown portly, something middle-aged;
And FRIENDSHIP -- not a minute older, she;
IMPATIENCE, ever taking out his watch;
FAITH, who was deaf, and had to lean, to catch
Old WISDOM's endless drone.
BEAUTY was there,
Pale in her black; dry-eyed; she stood alone.
Poor maz'd IMAGINATION; FANCY wild;
ARDOUR, the sunlight on his greying hair;
CONTENTMENT, who had known YOUTH as a child
And never seen him since. And SPRING came too,
Dancing over ...Read more of this...
by Brooke, Rupert
...husband to sigh,"
the spiked hand
that has an affection for one
and proves it to the bone,
impatient to assure you
that impatience is the mark of independence
not of bondage.
"Married people often look that way" --
"seldom and cold, up and down,
mixed and malarial
with a good day and bad."
"When do we feed?"
We occidentals are so unemotional,
we quarrel as we feed;
one's self is quite lost,
the irony preserved
in "the Ahasuerus t?te ? t?te banquet"
with its "good monster, lea...Read more of this...
by Moore, Marianne
...her, a deep-felt gratitude. 

But of all lovely things, she loved 
A cloudless moon, on summer night; 
Full oft have I impatience proved 
To see how long, her still delight 
Would find a theme in reverie. 
Out on the lawn, or where the trees 
Let in the lustre fitfully, 
As their boughs parted momently, 
To the soft, languid, summer breeze. 
Alas ! that she should e'er have flung 
Those pure, though lonely joys away­ 
Deceived by false and guileful tongue, 
She gave her hand...Read more of this...
by Bronte, Charlotte



...O THOU, whose sober precepts can controul 
The wild impatience of the troubled soul, 
Sweet Nymph serene ! whose all-consoling pow'r 
Awakes to calm delight the ling'ring hour; 
O hear thy suppliant's ardent pray'r ! 
Chase from my pensive mind corroding care, 
Steal thro' the heated pulses of the brain, 
Charm sorrow to repose­and lull the throb of pain. 

O, tell me, what are life's best joys? 
Are they not...Read more of this...
by Robinson, Mary Darby
...f violence 
Against ourselves; and wilful barrenness, 
That cuts us off from hope; and savours only 
Rancour and pride, impatience and despite, 
Reluctance against God and his just yoke 
Laid on our necks. Remember with what mild 
And gracious temper he both heard, and judged, 
Without wrath or reviling; we expected 
Immediate dissolution, which we thought 
Was meant by death that day; when lo!to thee 
Pains only in child-bearing were foretold, 
And bringing forth; soon recom...Read more of this...
by Milton, John
...h, and hope, and fortitude,
But for love, had long since failed me;
Heart and soul had sunk subdued.

Often, in my wild impatience,
I have lost my trust in Heaven,
And my soul has tossed and struggled,
Like a vessel tempest-driven;

But the voice of my beloved
In my ear has seemed to say --
'O, be patient if thou lov'st me!'
And the storm has passed away.

When outworn with weary thinking,
Sight and thought were waxing dim,
And my mind began to wander,
And my brain began to s...Read more of this...
by Bronte, Anne
...sun, or thunder storm. 

But, first, a hush of peace - a soundless calm descends;
The struggle of distress, and fierce impatience ends.
Mute music soothes my breast, unuttered harmony,
That I could never dream, till Earth was lost to me. 

Then dawns the Invisible; the Unseen its truth reveals;
My outward sense is gone, my inward essence feels:
Its wings are almost free - its home, its harbour found,
Measuring the gulph, it stoops, and dares the final bound.


Oh, dreadful i...Read more of this...
by Brontë, Emily
...at’s your name for them—with only ghosts 
For company? You know that when a woman 
Is blessed, or cursed, with a divine impatience 
(Another name of yours for a bad temper)
She must have one at hand on whom to wreak it 
(That’s what you mean, whatever the turn you give it), 
Sure of a kindred sympathy, and thereby 
Effect a mutual calm? You know that wisdom, 
Given in vain to make a food for those
Who are without it, will be seen at last, 
And even at last only by those who g...Read more of this...
by Robinson, Edwin Arlington
...expertise;
Raymond who cuts the meadow does not less.
Inhuman nature says:
Inhuman patience is the true success.

Human impatience trips you as you run;
Stand still and you must lie.
It is the grass that cuts the mower down;
It is the cloud that swallows up the sky....Read more of this...
by Rich, Adrienne
...ying to turn itself backward or forward,
I’ve had my eye on it to make out which;
If forward, then it’s with a friend’s impatience—
You see I know—to get you on to things
It wants to see how you will take, if backward
It’s from regret for something you have passed
And failed to see the good of. Never mind,
Things must expect to come in front of us
A many times—I don’t say just how many—
That varies with the things—before we see them.
One of the lies would make it out that not...Read more of this...
by Frost, Robert
...pendence, departure, actions that rely on themselves, 
The American contempt for statutes and ceremonies, the boundless impatience of restraint,

The loose drift of character, the inkling through random types, the solidification;
The butcher in the slaughter-house, the hands aboard schooners and sloops, the raftsman,
 the
 pioneer, 
Lumbermen in their winter camp, day-break in the woods, stripes of snow on the limbs of
 trees,
 the
 occasional snapping, 
The glad clear sound ...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt
...gument, too full of woe to speak;
Passion, grown portly, something middle-aged;
And Friendship—not a minute older, she;
Impatience, ever taking out his watch;
Faith, who was deaf, and had to lean, to catch
Old Wisdom’s endless drone.
Beauty was there,
Pale in her black; dry-eyed; she stood alone. 
Poor maz’d Imagination; Fancy wild;
Ardour, the sunlight on his greying hair;
Contentment, who had known Youth as a child
And never seen him since. And Spring came too,
Dancing over...Read more of this...
by Brooke, Rupert
...mong the shadows.
Never once had Hiawatha
By a word or look reproved them;
Never once had old Nokomis
Made a gesture of impatience;
Never once had Laughing Water
Shown resentment at the outrage.
All had they endured in silence,
That the rights of guest and stranger,
That the virtue of free-giving,
By a look might not be lessened,
By a word might not be broken.
Once at midnight Hiawatha,
Ever wakeful, ever watchful,
In the wigwam, dimly lighted
By the brands that still were bu...Read more of this...
by Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
...hope deferred,
     And memory with a torturing train
     Of all his morning visions vain.
     Mingled with love's impatience, came
     The manly thirst for martial fame;
     The stormy joy of mountaineers
     Ere yet they rush upon the spears;
     And zeal for Clan and Chieftain burning,
     And hope, from well-fought field returning,
     With war's red honors on his crest,
     To clasp his Mary to his breast.
     Stung by such thoughts, o'er bank and br...Read more of this...
by Scott, Sir Walter
...us
His poverty is his wealth, a wealth which may destroy him
 like Midas Because it is that laziness which is a form of impatience 
And this he may be destroyed by the gold of the light
 which never was
On land or sea.
He may be drunken to death, draining the casks of excess
That extreme form of success.
He may suffer Narcissus' destiny
Unable to live except with the image which is infatuation
Love, blind, adoring, overflowing
Unable to respond to anything which does not brin...Read more of this...
by Schwartz, Delmore
...e, from sun or thunderstorm.

But first, a hush of peace—a soundless calm descends;
The struggle of distress and fierce impatience ends;
Mute music soothes my breast—unuttered harmony
That I could never dream, till Earth was lost to me.

Then dawns the Invisible; the Unseen its truth reveals;
My outward sense is gone, my inward essence feels;
Its wings are almost free—its home, its harbour found;
Measuring the gulf, it stoops, and dares the final bound.

O dreadful is the che...Read more of this...
by Brontë, Emily
...ssacres.
The shadow of murder lay upon my sleep.
And when I loved, I loved with indifference.
I looked upon nature with impatience.
So the time passed away
Which on earth was given me.

In my time streets led to the quicksand.
Speech betrayed me to the slaughterer.
There was little I could do. But without me
The rulers would have been more secure. This was my hope.
So the time passed away
Which on earth was given me.

3.

You, who shall emerge from the flood
In which we are s...Read more of this...
by Brecht, Bertolt
...trust.
And would you make him truly sour,
Provoke him with a slave in power.
The Irish senate, if you named,
With what impatience he declaimed!
Fair LIBERTY was all his cry;
For her he stood prepared to die;
For her he boldly stood alone;
For her he oft exposed his own.
Two kingdoms, just as faction led,
Had set a price upon his head;
But not a traitor could be found
To sell him for six hundred pound.
Had he but spared his tongue and pen,
He might have rose like other men;
B...Read more of this...
by Swift, Jonathan

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Book: Reflection on the Important Things