Famous Lasts Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Lasts poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous lasts poems. These examples illustrate what a famous lasts poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Oliver Wendell Holmes
Have you heard of the wonderful one-hoss shay,
That was built in such a logical way
It ran a hundred years to a day,
And then, of a sudden, it -- ah, but stay,
I'll tell you what happened without delay,
Scaring the parson into fits,
Frightening people out of their wits, --
Have you ever heard of that, I say?
Seventeen hundred and fifty-five.
Georgius Secundus...Read more of this...
by
Derek Walcott
The last leaves fell like notes from a piano
and left their ovals echoing in the ear;
with gawky music stands, the winter forest
looks like an empty orchestra, its lines
ruled on these scattered manuscripts of snow.
The inlaid copper laurel of an oak
shines though the brown-bricked glass above your head
as bright as whisky, while the wintry breath
of lines from Mandelstam, which you...Read more of this...
by
Wilfred Owen
I
Our brains ache, in the merciless iced east winds that knife us . . .
Wearied we keep awake because the night is silent . . .
Low drooping flares confuse our memory of the salient . . .
Worried by silence, sentries whisper, curious, nervous,
But nothing happens.
Watching, we hear the mad gusts tugging on the wire.
Like twitching agonies of men...Read more of this...
by
Omar Khayyam
My life lasts but a day or two, and fast
Sweeps by, like torrent stream or desert blast,
Howbeit, of two days I take no heed,—
The day to come, and that already past....Read more of this...
by
Jack Gilbert
Love is apart from all things.
Desire and excitement are nothing beside it.
It is not the body that finds love.
What leads us there is the body.
What is not love provokes it.
What is not love quenches it.
Love lays hold of everything we know.
The passions which are called love
also change everything to a newness
at...Read more of this...
by
Carl Sandburg
I CRIED over beautiful things knowing no beautiful thing lasts.
The field of cornflower yellow is a scarf at the neck of the copper sunburned woman, the mother of the year, the taker of seeds.
The northwest wind comes and the yellow is torn full of holes, new beautiful things come in the first spit of snow on the northwest wind,...Read more of this...
by
Badger Clark
My love was swift and slender
As an antelope at play,
And her eyes were gray and tender
As the east at break o' day,
And I sure was shaky hearted
And her flower face was pale
On that silver night we parted,
...Read more of this...
by
Rabindranath Tagore
None lives for ever, brother, and
nothing lasts for long. Keep that in
mind and rejoice.
Our life is not the one old burden,
our path is not the one long
journey.
One sole poet has not to sing one
aged song.
The flower fades and dies; but he
who wears the flower has not to
mourn for it for ever.
Brother, keep that in mind and
rejoice.
There must come...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
A Flower will not trouble her, it has so small a Foot,
And yet if you compare the Lasts,
Hers is the smallest Boot --...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
I reckon -- when I count it all --
First -- Poets -- Then the Sun --
Then Summer -- Then the Heaven of God --
And then -- the List is done --
But, looking back -- the First so seems
To Comprehend the Whole --
The Others look a needless Show --
So I write -- Poets -- All --
Their Summer -- lasts a...Read more of this...
by
T S (Thomas Stearns) Eliot
I
Time present and time past
Are both perhaps present in time future,
And time future contained in time past.
If all time is eternally present
All time is unredeemable.
What might have been is an abstraction
Remaining a perpetual possibility
Only in a world of speculation.
What might have been and what has been
Point to one end, which is always present.
Footfalls echo in the memory
Down the passage...Read more of this...
by
Francesco Petrarch
SESTINA I. A qualunque animale alberga in terra. NIGHT BRINGS HIM NO REST. HE IS THE PREY OF DESPAIR. To every animal that dwells on earth,Except to those which have in hate the sun,Their time of labour is while lasts the day;But when high heaven relumes its thousand stars,This seeks his...Read more of this...
by
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
"OH, would we were further! Oh, would we were home,
The phantoms of night tow'rd us hastily come,
The band of the Sorceress sisters.
They hitherward speed, and on finding us here,
They'll drink, though with toil we have fetch'd it, the beer,
And leave us the pitchers all empty."
Thus speaking, the children with fear take to flight,
When sudden an old man appears in...Read more of this...
by
Francesco Petrarch
SONNET LV. Or hai fatto l' estremo di tua possa. DEATH MAY DEPRIVE HIM OF THE SIGHT OF HER BEAUTIES, BUT NOT OF THE MEMORY OF HER VIRTUES. Now hast thou shown, fell Death! thine utmost might.Through Love's bright realm hast want and darkness spread,Hast now cropp'd beauty's flower, its heavenly lightQuench'd,...Read more of this...
by
Robert Browning
Grow old along with me!
The best is yet to be,
The last of life, for which the first was made:
Our times are in His hand
Who saith 'A whole I planned,
Youth shows but half; trust God: see all, nor be afraid!'
Not that, amassing flowers,
Youth sighed 'Which rose make ours,
Which lily leave and then as best recall?'
Not that, admiring stars,
It yearned 'Nor...Read more of this...
by
Edward Thomas
Some day, I think, there will be people enough
In Froxfield to pick all the blackberries
Out of the hedges of Green Lane, the straight
Broad lane where now September hides herself
In bracken and blackberry, harebell and dwarf gorse.
To-day, where yesterday a hundred sheep
Were nibbling, halcyon bells shake to the sway
Of waters that no vessel ever sailed ...
It is a kind of...Read more of this...
by
Matthew Arnold
I ask not that my bed of death
From bands of greedy heirs be free;
For these besiege the latest breath
Of fortune's favoured sons, not me.
I ask not each kind soul to keep
Tearless, when of my death he hears;
Let those who will, if any, weep!
There are worse plagues on earth than tears.
I ask but that my death may find
The freedom to...Read more of this...
by
Nazim Hikmet
11-11-1933
Bursa Prison
My one and only!
Your last letter says:
"My head is throbbing,
my heart is stunned!"
You say:
"If they hang you,
if I lose you,
I'll die!"
You'll live, my dear--
my memory will vanish like black smoke in the wind.
Of course you'll live, red-haired lady of my heart:
in the twentieth century
grief lasts
at most a year.
Death--
a body swinging from a...Read more of this...
by
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Time’s finger on the dial of my life
Points to high noon! And yet the half-spent day
Leaves less than half remaining, for the dark,
Bleak shadows of the grave engulf the end.
To those who burn the candle to the stick,
The sputtering socket yields but little light.
Long life is sadder than early death.
We cannot count on raveled threads of age
Whereof...Read more of this...
by
Francesco Petrarch
SESTINA III. L' aere gravato, e l' importuna nebbia. HE COMPARES LAURA TO WINTER, AND FORESEES THAT SHE WILL ALWAYS BE THE SAME. The overcharged air, the impending cloud,Compress'd together by impetuous winds,Must presently discharge themselves in rain;Already as of crystal are the streams,And, for the fine grass late that clothed...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
The Spirit lasts -- but in what mode --
Below, the Body speaks,
But as the Spirit furnishes --
Apart, it never talks --
The Music in the Violin
Does not emerge alone
But Arm in Arm with Touch, yet Touch
Alone -- is not a Tune --
The Spirit lurks within the Flesh
Like Tides within the Sea
That make the Water live, estranged
What would the Either be?
Does...Read more of this...
by
Anne Bradstreet
I had eight birds hatched in one nest,
Four cocks there were, and hens the rest.
I nursed them up with pain and care,
Nor cost, nor labour did I spare,
Till at the last they felt their wing,
Mounted the trees, and learned to sing;
Chief of the brood then took his flight
To regions far and left me quite.
My mournful chirps I after send,
Till...Read more of this...
by
Delmira Agustini
I live, I die, I burn, I drown
I endure at once chill and cold
Life is at once too soft and too hard
I have sore troubles mingled with joys
Suddenly I laugh and at the same time cry
And in pleasure many a grief endure
My happiness wanes and yet it lasts unchanged
All at once I dry up and grow green
Thus I suffer...Read more of this...
by
Francis Thompson
To Monica
Summer set lip to earth's bosom bare,
And left the flushed print in a poppy there:
Like a yawn of fire from the grass it came,
And the fanning wind puffed it to flapping flame.
With burnt mouth, red like a lion's, it drank
The blood of the sun as he slaughtered sank,
And dipped its cup in the purpurate shine
When the Eastern conduits...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
Dominion lasts until obtained --
Possession just as long --
But these -- endowing as they flit
Eternally belong.
How everlasting are the Lips
Known only to the Dew --
These are the Brides of permanence
Supplanting me and you....Read more of this...
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