Famous Last Word Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Last Word poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous last word poems. These examples illustrate what a famous last word poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
See also:
by
Graves, Robert
..."Cat! ... Cat!..."
When I'm shot through heart and head,
And there's no choice but to die,
The last word I'll hear, no doubt,
Won't be "Charge!" or "Bomb them out!"
Nor the stretcher-bearer's cry,
"Let that body be, he's dead!"
But a voice cruel and flat
Saying for ever, "Cat! ... Cat! ... Cat!"...Read more of this...
by
Dowson, Ernest
...Let us go hence: the night is now at hand;
The day is overworn, the birds all flown;
And we have reaped the crops the gods have sown;
Despair and death; deep darkness o'er the land,
Broods like an owl; we cannot understand
Laughter or tears, for we have only known
Surpassing vanity: vain things alone
Have driven our perverse and aimless band.
L...Read more of this...
by
Browning, Elizabeth Barrett
...IF God compel thee to this destiny,
To die alone, with none beside thy bed
To ruffle round with sobs thy last word said
And mark with tears the pulses ebb from thee,--
Pray then alone, ' O Christ, come tenderly !
By thy forsaken Sonship in the red
Drear wine-press,--by the wilderness out-spread,--
And the lone garden where thine agony
Fell bloody from thy brow,--by all of those
Permitted desolations, comfort mine !
No earthly friend being near me, interpose
No ...Read more of this...
by
Browning, Robert
...I.
Let's contend no more, Love,
Strive nor weep:
All be as before, Love,
—Only sleep!
II.
What so wild as words are?
I and thou
In debate, as birds are,
Hawk on bough!
III.
See the creature stalking
While we speak!
Hush and hide the talking,
Cheek on cheek!
IV.
What so false as truth is,
False to thee?
Where the serpent's t...Read more of this...
by
Morris, William
...
Surely, O trembler, thou shalt scarcely then
Forget the Helper of unhappy men."
Milanion raised his head at this last word
For now so soft and kind she seemed to be
No longer of her Godhead was he feared;
Too late he looked; for nothing could he see
But the white image glimmering doubtfully
In the departing twilight cold and gray,
And those three apples on the step that lay.
These then he caught up quivering with delight,
Yet fearful lest it all might be a drea...Read more of this...
by
Browning, Elizabeth Barrett
...e, strong, struggling heart beside
A stone-dead father. Life, struck sharp on death,
Makes awful lightning. His last word was, `Love --'
`Love, my child, love, love !' -- (then he had done with grief)
`Love, my child.' Ere I answered he was gone,
And none was left to love in all the world.
There, ended childhood. What succeeded next
I recollect as, after fevers, men
Thread back the passage of delirium,
Missing the turn still, baffled by the door ;
Smooth e...Read more of this...
by
Kipling, Rudyard
...hear.
XVI.
My Son, if a maiden deny thee and scufflingly bid thee give o'er,
Yet lip meets with lip at the last word -- get out!
She has been there before.
They are pecked on the ear and the chin and the nose who are lacking in lore.
XVII.
If we fall in the race, though we win, the hoff-slide is scarred on the course.
Though Allah and Earth pardon Sin, remaineth forever Remorse.
XVIII.
"By all I am misunderstood!" if the Matron shall ...Read more of this...
by
Service, Robert William
...er;
For if I choose another wife, she's sure to be his daughter."
The Marquise rose. "Cheer up," said she, "the last word is not spoken.
A Mother cannot sit and see her boy's heart rudely broken.
So dry your tears and calm your fears; no longer need you tarry;
To-day your bride you may decide, to-morrow you may marry.
Yes, you may wed with Mirabelle, or Raymonde if you'd rather...
For I as well the truth may tell...Papa is not your ...Read more of this...
by
Browning, Elizabeth Barrett
...r, I pray,
How we common mothers stand desolate, mark,
Whose sons, not being Christs, die with eyes turned away,
And no last word to say !
XV.
Both boys dead ? but that's out of nature. We all
Have been patriots, yet each house must always keep one.
'Twere imbecile, hewing out roads to a wall ;
And, when Italy 's made, for what end is it done
If we have not a son ?
XVI.
Ah, ah, ah ! when Gaeta's taken, what then ?
When the fair wicked queen sits no more at h...Read more of this...
by
Sexton, Anne
...ir
is gone, embalmed even now,
even tonight her arms are smooth
muskets at her side and nothing
issues from her but her last word - "Oh." Surprised by death.
It is snowing. Paper spots
are falling from the punch.
Hello? Mrs. Death is here!
She suffers according to the digits
of my hate. I hear the filaments
of alabaster. I would lie down
with them and lift my madness
off like a wig. I would lie
outside in a room of wool
and let the snow cover ...Read more of this...
by
Sandburg, Carl
...s a great enigmatic bird of paradise and they must all declare you to be proud and beautiful,
After you have become the last word in good looks, insofar as good looks may be fixed and formulated, then, why then, there is nothing more to it then, it is then you listen and see how voices and eyes declare you to be proud and beautiful...Read more of this...
by
Service, Robert William
...Oh, I was born a lyric babe
(That last word is a bore -
It's only rhyme is astrolabe,"
Whose meaning I ignore.)
From cradlehood I lisped in numbers,
Made jingles even in my slumbers.
Said Ma: "He'll be a bard, I know it."
Said Pa: "let's hoe he will outgrow it."
Alas! I never did and so
A dreamer and a drone was I,
Who persevered in want and woe
His misery to versify.
Ye...Read more of this...
by
Chesterton, G K
...hip of beer and board,
And song, that is a sturdy cord,
And hope, that is a hardy shrub,
And goodness, that is God's last word--
Will someone take me to a pub?
Envoi
Prince, Bayard would have smashed his sword
To see the sort of knights you dub--
Is that the last of them--O Lord
Will someone take me to a pub?...Read more of this...
by
Arnold, Matthew
...Creep into thy narrow bed,
Creep, and let no more be said!
Vain thy onset! all stands fast.
Thou thyself must break at last!
Let the long contention cease!
Geese are swans, and swans are geese.
Let them have it how they will!
Thou art tired; best be still!
They out-talked thee, hissed thee, tore thee?
Better men fared thus before thee;
Fired thei...Read more of this...
by
Frost, Robert
...As told to a child
As I went out a Crow
In a low voice said, "Oh,
I was looking for you.
How do you do?
I just came to tell you
To tell Lesley (will you?)
That her little Bluebird
Wanted me to bring word
That the north wind last night
That made the stars bright
And made ice on the trough
Almost made him cough
His tail feathers off.
He just had to...Read more of this...
by
Stephens, James
..., without a trace
Of occupant or owner; standing dim
Among the gloomy trees it seemed to Him
A final desolation, the last word
Wherewith the lips of silence had been stirred.
Chaste and remote, so tiny and so shy,
So new withal, so lost to any eye,
So pac't of memories all innocent
Of days and nights that in it had been spent
In blithe communion, Adam, Eve, and He,
Afar from Heaven and its gaudery;
And now no more! He still must be the God
But not the friend; ...Read more of this...
by
Pound, Ezra
...doom-gripped body.
And for this, every earl whatever, for those speaking after --
Laud of the living, boasteth some last word,
That he will work ere he pass onward,
Frame on the fair earth 'gainst foes his malice,
Daring ado, ...
So that all men shall honour him after
And his laud beyond them remain 'mid the English,
Aye, for ever, a lasting life's-blast,
Delight mid the doughty.
Days little durable,
And all arrogance of earthen riches,
There come now no k...Read more of this...
by
Warren, Robert Penn
...bed that night
And wondered if she would cry when something was done to her.
The mortgage was foreclosed. That last word was whispered.
She never came back.The family
Sort of drifted off.Nobody wears shiny boots like that now.
But I know she is beautiful forever, and lives
In a beautiful house, far away.
She called my name once.I didn't even know she knew it....Read more of this...
by
Sandburg, Carl
...aming wind of the treetops—
So it is scrawled here,
“I direct and devise
So and so and such and such,”
And this is the last word.
There is nothing more to it.
In a shanty out in the Wilderness, ghosts of to-morrow sit, waiting to come and go, to do their job.
They will go into the house of the Dead and take the shivering sheets of paper and make a bonfire and dance a deadman’s dance over the hissing crisp.
In a slang their own the dancers out of the Wilderne...Read more of this...
by
Sandburg, Carl
...die
Under the salt of it
Let only the young come,
Says the sea.
Let them kiss my face
And hear me.
I am the last word
And I tell
Where storms and stars come from....Read more of this...
Dont forget to view our wonderful member Last Word poems.