Famous In My Lifetime Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous In My Lifetime poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous in my lifetime poems. These examples illustrate what a famous in my lifetime poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Robert Frost
It snowed in spring on earth so dry and warm
The flakes could find no landing place to form.
Hordes spent themselves to make it wet and cold,
And still they failed of any lasting hold.
They made no white impression on the black.
They disappeared as if earth sent them back.
Not till from separate flakes they changed at night
To almost strips and tapes...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
He put the Belt around my life
I heard the Buckle snap --
And turned away, imperial,
My Lifetime folding up --
Deliberate, as a Duke would do
A Kingdom's Title Deed --
Henceforth, a Dedicated sort --
A Member of the Cloud.
Yet not too far to come at call --
And do the little Toils
That make the Circuit of the Rest --
And deal occasional smiles
To lives...Read more of this...
by
Kathleen Raine
Where are those dazzling hills touched by the sun,
Those crags in childhood that I used to climb?
Hidden, hidden under mist is yonder mountain,
Hidden is the heart.
A day of cloud, a lifetime falls between,
Gone are the heather moors and the pure stream,
Gone are the rocky places and the green,
Hidden, hidden under sorrow is yonder mountain,
Hidden, hidden.
O storm and gale...Read more of this...
by
Thomas Hardy
I
I traversed a dominion
Whose spokesmen spake out strong
Their purpose and opinion
Through pulpit, press, and song.
I scarce had means to note there
A large-eyed few, and dumb,
Who thought not as those thought there
That stirred the heat and hum.
II
When, grown a Shade, beholding
That land in lifetime trode,
To learn if its...Read more of this...
by
Mark Doty
They lie in parallel rows,
on ice, head to tail,
each a foot of luminosity
barred with black bands,
which divide the scales'
radiant sections
like seams of lead
in a Tiffany window.
Iridescent, watery
prismatics: think abalone,
the wildly rainbowed
mirror of a soap-bubble sphere,
think sun on gasoline.
Splendor, and splendor,
and not a one in any way
distinguished from the other
--nothing about them
of individuality....Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
'Twas a long Parting -- but the time
For Interview -- had Come --
Before the Judgment Seat of God --
The last -- and second time
These Fleshless Lovers met --
A Heaven in a Gaze --
A Heaven of Heavens -- the Privilege
Of one another's Eyes --
No Lifetime -- on Them --
Appareled as the new
Unborn -- except They had beheld --
Born infiniter --...Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
O Teddy Bear! with your head awry
And your comical twisted smile,
You rub your eyes -- do you wonder why
You've slept such a long, long while?
As you lay so still in the cupboard dim,
And you heard on the roof the rain,
Were you thinking . . . what has become of him?
And when will he play again?
Do you sometimes long for...Read more of this...
by
Tony Hoagland
At this height, Kansas
is just a concept,
a checkerboard design of wheat and corn
no larger than the foldout section
of my neighbor's travel magazine.
At this stage of the journey
I would estimate the distance
between myself and my own feelings
is roughly the same as the mileage
from Seattle to New York,
so I can lean back into the upholstered interval
between Muzak and lunch,
a little bored,...Read more of this...
by
Wilfred Owen
He sat in a wheeled chair, waiting for dark,
And shivered in his ghastly suit of grey,
Legless, sewn short at elbow. Through the park
Voices of boys rang saddening like a hymn,
Voices of play and pleasure after day,
Till gathering sleep had mothered them from him.
About this time Town used to swing so gay
When glow-lamps budded in the light-blue trees
And girls glanced...Read more of this...
by
Bliss Carman
There is fog upon the river, there is mirk upon the town;
You can hear the groping ferries as they hoot each other down;
From the Battery to Harlem there's seven miles of slush,
Through looming granite canyons of glitter, noise, and rush.
Are you sick of phones and tickers and crazing cable gongs,
Of the theatres, the hansoms, and the breathless Broadway throngs,
Of...Read more of this...
by
William Butler Yeats
'What have I earned for all that work,' I said,
'For all that I have done at my own charge?
The daily spite of this unmannerly town,
Where who has served the most is most defaned,
The reputation of his lifetime lost
Between the night and morning. I might have lived,
And you know well how great the longing has been,
Where every day my footfall...Read more of this...
by
Robert Herrick
That hour-glass which there you see
With water fill'd, sirs, credit me,
The humour was, as I have read,
But lovers' tears incrystalled.
Which, as they drop by drop do pass
From th' upper to the under-glass,
Do in a trickling manner tell,
By many a watery syllable,
That lovers' tears in lifetime shed
Do restless run when they are dead....Read more of this...
by
Lisa Zaran
Pale scrapings of people
with lipstick ringed glasses
and cigarettes burning,
and laughter trickling up and down
their knotty throats.
What is this,
a gathering of henhouse critics?
My father's voice in the back of my head,
saying, forget that I'm dead and if you
can not do that than pretend.
I am standing
just outside the gallery
beneath...Read more of this...
by
Les Murray
Once played to attentive faces
music has broken its frame
its bodice of always-weak laces
the entirely promiscuous art
pours out in public spaces
accompanying everything, the selections
of sex and war, the rejections.
To jeans-wearers in zipped sporrans
it transmits an ideal body
continuously as theirs age. Warrens
of plastic tiles and mesh throats
dispense this aural money...Read more of this...
by
Mihai Eminescu
What is love ? A lifetime spent
Of days that pain does fill,
That thousand tears can't content,
But asks for tears still.
With but a little glance coquet
Your soul it knows to tie,
That of its spell you can't forget
Until the day you die.
Upon your threshold does it stand,
In every nook conspire,
That you...Read more of this...
by
Anne Sexton
In my dream,
drilling into the marrow
of my entire bone,
my real dream,
I'm walking up and down Beacon Hill
searching for a street sign --
namely MERCY STREET.
Not there.
I try the Back Bay.
Not there.
Not there.
And yet I know the number.
45 Mercy Street.
I know the stained-glass window
of the foyer,
the...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
Those fair -- fictitious People --
The Women -- plucked away
From our familiar Lifetime --
The Men of Ivory --
Those Boys and Girls, in Canvas --
Who stay upon the Wall
In Everlasting Keepsake --
Can Anybody tell?
We trust -- in places perfecter --
Inheriting Delight
Beyond our faint Conjecture --
Our dizzy Estimate --
Remembering ourselves, we trust --
Yet Blesseder -- than We --
Through Knowing -- where...Read more of this...
by
Vachel Lindsay
[In memory of E. S. Frazee, Rush County, Indiana]
Into the acres of the newborn state
He poured his strength, and plowed his ancient name,
And, when the traders followed him, he stood
Towering above their furtive souls and tame.
That brow without a stain, that fearless eye
Oft left the passing stranger wondering
To find such knighthood in the...Read more of this...
by
Edgar Lee Masters
I had no objection at all
To selling my household effects at auction
On the village square.
It gave my beloved flock the chance
To get something which had belonged to me
For a memorial.
But that trunk which was struck off
To Burchard, the grog-keeper!
Did you know it contained the manuscripts
Of a lifetime of sermons?
And he burned them as waste paper....Read more of this...
by
Muhammad Ali
He took a few cups of love.
He took one tablespoon of patience,
One teaspoon of generosity,
One pint of kindness.
He took one quart of laughter,
One pinch of concern.
And then, he mixed willingness with happiness.
He added lots of faith,
And he stirred it up well.
Then he spread it over a span of a lifetime,
And he served it to each and every deserving person he...Read more of this...
by
Robert Lowell
1
Only today and just for this minute,
when the sunslant finds its true angle,
you can see yellow and pinkish leaves spangle
our gentle, fluffy tree—
suddenly the green summer is momentary...
Autumn is my favorite season—
why does it change clothes and withdraw?
This week the house went on the market—
suddenly I woke up among strangers;
when I go into a room, it moves
with embarrassment, and...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
'Twould ease -- a Butterfly --
Elate -- a Bee --
Thou'rt neither --
Neither -- thy capacity --
But, Blossom, were I,
I would rather be
Thy moment
Than a Bee's Eternity --
Content of fading
Is enough for me --
Fade I unto Divinity --
And Dying -- Lifetime --
Ample as the Eye --
Her least attention raise on me --...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
You see I cannot see -- your lifetime --
I must guess --
How many times it ache for me -- today -- Confess --
How many times for my far sake
The brave eyes film --
But I guess guessing hurts --
Mine -- got so dim!
Too vague -- the face --
My own -- so patient -- covers --
Too far -- the strength --
My...Read more of this...
by
Fleda Brown
She reads, of course, what he's doing, shaking Nixon's hand,
dating this starlet or that, while he is faithful to her
like a stone in her belly, like the actual love child,
its bills and diapers. Once he had kissed her
and time had stood still, at least some point seems to
remain back there as a place to return...Read more of this...
by
Coventry Patmore
An idle poet, here and there,
Looks around him; but, for all the rest,
The world, unfathomably fair,
Is duller than a witling's jest.
Love wakes men, once a lifetime each;
They lift their heavy lids, and look;
And, lo, what one sweet page can teach,
They read with joy, then shut the book.
And some give thanks, and some blaspheme
And most forget; but, either way,
That and...Read more of this...
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