Famous Knew Poems by Famous Poets

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

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How well I knew Her not

by Emily Dickinson
 How well I knew Her not
Whom not to know has been
A Bounty in prospective, now
Next Door to mine the Pain....Read more of this...

Before you knew you owned it

by Alice Walker
 Expect nothing. Live frugally
On surprise.
become a stranger
To need of pity
Or, if compassion be freely
Given out
Take only enough
Stop short of urge to plead
Then purge away the need.

Wish for nothing larger
Than your own small heart
Or greater than a star;
Tame wild disappointment
With caress unmoved and cold
Make of it a parka
For your soul.

Discover the reason why
So tiny human midget
Exists at all
So scared unwise
But...Read more of this...

If You Only Knew

by Robert Desnos
 Far from me and like the stars, the sea and all the trappings of poetic myth,
Far from me but here all the same without your knowing,
Far from me and even more silent because I imagine you endlessly.
Far from me, my lovely mirage and eternal dream, you cannot know.
If you only knew.
Far from me and even farther yet from being...Read more of this...

Nature and God -- I neither knew

by Emily Dickinson
 Nature and God -- I neither knew
Yet Both so well knew me
They startled, like Executors
Of My identity.

Yet Neither told -- that I could learn --
My Secret as secure
As Herschel's private interest
Or Mercury's affair --...Read more of this...

Once I knew a fine song

by Stephen Crane
 Once, I knew a fine song,
-- It is true, believe me --
It was all of birds,
And I held them in a basket;
When I opened the wicket,
Heavens! They all flew away.
I cried, "Come back, little thoughts!"
But they only laughed.
They flew on
Until they were as sand
Thrown between me and the sky....Read more of this...

We knew not that we were to live --

by Emily Dickinson
 We knew not that we were to live --
Nor when -- we are to die --
Our ignorance -- our cuirass is --
We wear Mortality
As lightly as an Option Gown
Till asked to take it off --
By his intrusion, God is known --
It is the same with Life --...Read more of this...

Now I knew I lost her --

by Emily Dickinson
 Now I knew I lost her --
Not that she was gone --
But Remoteness travelled
On her Face and Tongue.

Alien, though adjoining
As a Foreign Race --
Traversed she though pausing
Latitudeless Place.

Elements Unaltered --
Universe the same
But Love's transmigration --
Somehow this had come --

Henceforth to remember
Nature took the Day
I had paid so much for --
His is Penury
Not who toils for Freedom
Or for Family
But the...Read more of this...

It knew no lapse nor Diminuation --

by Emily Dickinson
 It knew no lapse, nor Diminuation --
But large -- serene --
Burned on -- until through Dissolution --
It failed from Men --

I could not deem these Planetary forces
Annulled --
But suffered an Exchange of Territory --
Or World --...Read more of this...

Modern Love I: By This He Knew She Wept

by George Meredith
 By this he knew she wept with waking eyes:
That, at his hand's light quiver by her head,
The strange low sobs that shook their common bed
Were called into her with a sharp surprise,
And strangled mute, like little gaping snakes,
Dreadfully venomous to him. She lay
Stone-still, and the long darkness flowed away
With muffled pulses. Then, as midnight makes
Her giant heart of Memory...Read more of this...

I groped for him before I knew

by Emily Dickinson
 I groped for him before I knew
With solemn nameless need
All other bounty sudden chaff
For this foreshadowed Food
Which others taste and spurn and sneer --
Though I within suppose
That consecrated it could be
The only Food that grows...Read more of this...

When Allah mixed my clay, He knew full well

by Omar Khayyam
When Allah mixed my clay, He knew full well
My future acts, and could each one foretell;
Without His will no act of mine was wrought;
Is it then just to punish me in hell?...Read more of this...

The most triumphant Bird I ever knew or met

by Emily Dickinson
 The most triumphant Bird I ever knew or met
Embarked upon a twig today
And till Dominion set
I famish to behold so eminent a sight
And sang for nothing scrutable
But intimate Delight.
Retired, and resumed his transitive Estate --
To what delicious Accident
Does finest Glory fit!...Read more of this...

Elijahs Wagon knew no thill

by Emily Dickinson
 Elijah's Wagon knew no thill
Was innocent of Wheel
Elijah's horses as unique
As was his vehicle --

Elijah's journey to portray
Expire with him the skill
Who justified Elijah
In feats inscrutable --...Read more of this...

The first We knew of Him was Death --

by Emily Dickinson
 The first We knew of Him was Death --
The second -- was -- Renown --
Except the first had justified
The second had not been....Read more of this...

I could suffice for Him I knew --

by Emily Dickinson
 I could suffice for Him, I knew --
He -- could suffice for Me --
Yet Hesitating Fractions -- Both
Surveyed Infinity --

"Would I be Whole" He sudden broached --
My syllable rebelled --
'Twas face to face with Nature -- forced --
'Twas face to face with God --

Withdrew the Sun -- to Other Wests --
Withdrew the furthest Star
Before Decision -- stooped to speech...Read more of this...

The Moment I Knew My Life Had Changed

by Maria Mazziotti Gillan
 It was not until later
that I knew, recognized the moment
for what it was, my life before it,
a gray landscape, shapeless and misty;
my life after, flowering full and leafy
as the cherry trees that only today
have torn into bloom.
Imagine: my cousin at 19, tall,
slender. She worked in New York City.
For my thirteenth birthday she took me
to New York. We ate at...Read more of this...

I Knew A Woman

by Theodore Roethke
 I knew a woman, lovely in her bones,
When small birds sighed, she would sigh back at them;
Ah, when she moved, she moved more ways than one:
The shapes a bright container can contain!
Of her choice virtues only gods should speak,
Or English poets who grew up on Greek
(I'd have them sing in chorus, cheek to cheek.)

How well her wishes went! She...Read more of this...

It knew no Medicine --

by Emily Dickinson
 It knew no Medicine --
It was not Sickness -- then --
Nor any need of Surgery --
And therefore -- 'twas not Pain --

It moved away the Cheeks --
A Dimple at a time --
And left the Profile -- plainer --
And in the place of Bloom

It left the little Tint
That never had a Name --
You've seen it on a Cast's face --
Was...Read more of this...

For largest Womans Hearth I knew

by Emily Dickinson
 For largest Woman's Hearth I knew --
'Tis little I can do --
And yet the largest Woman's Heart
Could hold an Arrow -- too --
And so, instructed by my own,
I tenderer, turn Me to....Read more of this...

I Knew A Man By Sight

by Henry David Thoreau
 I knew a man by sight, 
A blameless wight, 
Who, for a year or more, 
Had daily passed my door, 
Yet converse none had had with him. 
I met him in a lane, 
Him and his cane, 
About three miles from home, 
Where I had chanced to roam, 
And volumes stared at him, and he at me. 

In a...Read more of this...

I knew that I had gained

by Emily Dickinson
 I knew that I had gained
And yet I knew not how
By Diminution it was not
But Discipline unto

A Rigor unrelieved
Except by the Content
Another bear its Duplicate
In other Continent....Read more of this...

If the heart knew life's secrets here below,

by Omar Khayyam
If the heart knew life's secrets here below,
At death 'twould know God's secrets too, I trow;
But, if you know naught here, while still yourself,
To-morrow, stripped of self, what can you know?...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...

Come With Me I Said And No One Knew (VII)

by Pablo Neruda
 Come with me, I said, and no one knew
where, or how my pain throbbed,
no carnations or barcaroles for me, 
only a wound that love had opened.

I said it again: Come with me, as if I were dying,
and no one saw the moon that bled in my mouth
or the blood that rose into the silence.
O Love, now we can forget...Read more of this...

When God fashioned the clay of my body, he knew

by Omar Khayyam
When God fashioned the clay of my body, he knew
what would be the result of my acts. It is not without
His orders that I have committed the sins of which I am
guilty; in that case, why should I burn in hell-fire at
the last day?...Read more of this...

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