Famous Life Is Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Life Is poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous life is poems. These examples illustrate what a famous life is poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Delmore Schwartz
Tiger Christ unsheathed his sword,
Threw it down, became a lamb.
Swift spat upon the species, but
Took two women to his heart.
Samson who was strong as death
Paid his strength to kiss a ****.
Othello that stiff warrior
Was broken by a woman's heart.
Troy burned for a sea-tax, also for
Possession of a charming whore.
What do all examples show?
What must the finished murderer know?
You cannot...Read more of this...
by
Robert Herrick
TO THE HONOURED MR ENDYMION PORTER, GROOM OF
THE BED-CHAMBER TO HIS MAJESTY
Sweet country life, to such unknown,
Whose lives are others', not their own!
But serving courts and cities, be
Less happy, less enjoying thee.
Thou never plough'st the ocean's foam
To seek and bring rough pepper home:
Nor to the Eastern Ind dost rove
To bring from thence the scorched clove:
Nor, with the loss of...Read more of this...
by
Maya Angelou
Shadows on the wall
Noises down the hall
Life doesn't frighten me at all
Bad dogs barking loud
Big ghosts in a cloud
Life doesn't frighten me at all
Mean old Mother Goose
Lions on the loose
They don't frighten me at all
Dragons breathing flame
On my counterpane
That doesn't frighten me at all.
I go boo
Make them shoo
I make fun
Way they run
I won't cry
So they fly
I...Read more of this...
by
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
All in the dark we grope along,
And if we go amiss
We learn at least which path is wrong,
And there is gain in this.
We do not always win the race,
By only running right,
We have to tread the mountain's base
Before we reach its height.
The Christs alone no errors made;
So often had they trod
The...Read more of this...
by
Delmore Schwartz
Athlete, virtuoso,
Training for happiness,
Bend arm and knee, and seek
The body's sharp distress,
For pain is pleasure's cost,
Denial is route
To speech before the millions
Or personal with the flute.
The ape and great Achilles,
Heavy with their fate,
Batter doors down, strike
Small children at the gate,
Driven by love to this,
As knock-kneed Hegel said,
To seek with a sword their peace,
That the child may be taken away
From...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
It's easy to invent a Life --
God does it -- every Day --
Creation -- but the Gambol
Of His Authority --
It's easy to efface it --
The thrifty Deity
Could scarce afford Eternity
To Spontaneity --
The Perished Patterns murmur --
But His Perturbless Plan
Proceed -- inserting Here -- a Sun --
There -- leaving out a Man --...Read more of this...
by
Langston Hughes
I went down to the river,
I set down on the bank.
I tried to think but couldn't,
So I jumped in and sank.
I came up once and hollered!
I came up twice and cried!
If that water hadn't a-been so cold
I might've sunk and died.
But it was Cold in that water! It was cold!
I took the elevator
Sixteen floors above the ground.
I thought...Read more of this...
by
Robert Herrick
Life is the body's light; which, once declining,
Those crimson clouds i' th' cheeks and lips leave shining:-
Those counter-changed tabbies in the air,
The sun once set, all of one colour are:
So, when death comes, fresh tinctures lose their place,
And dismal darkness then doth smutch the face....Read more of this...
by
William Shakespeare
So are you to my thoughts as food to life,
Or as sweet-seasoned showers are to the ground;
And for the peace of you I hold such strife
As 'twixt a miser and his wealth is found.
Now proud as an enjoyer, and anon
Doubting the filching age will steal his treasure;
Now counting best to be with you alone,
Then bettered that the world may...Read more of this...
by
Yehuda Amichai
A man doesn't have time in his life
to have time for everything.
He doesn't have seasons enough to have
a season for every purpose. Ecclesiastes
Was wrong about that.
A man needs to love and to hate at the same moment,
to laugh and cry with the same eyes,
with the same hands to throw stones and to gather them,
to make love in war and...Read more of this...
by
Victor Hugo
("Le voile du matin.")
{Bk. V. viii., April, 1822.}
The mist of the morning is torn by the peaks,
Old towers gleam white in the ray,
And already the glory so joyously seeks
The lark that's saluting the day.
Then smile away, man, at the heavens so fair,
Though, were...Read more of this...
by
Emile Verhaeren
To see beauty in all, is to lift our own Soul
Up to loftier heights than do chose who aspire
Through culpable suffering, vanquished desire.
Harsh Reality, dread and ineffable Whole,
Distils her red draught, enough tonic and stern
To intoxicate heads and to make the heart burn.
O clean and pure grain, whence are purged all the tares!
Clear torch, chosen out amid many whose flame;
Though...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
More Life -- went out -- when He went
Than Ordinary Breath --
Lit with a finer Phosphor --
Requiring in the Quench --
A Power of Renowned Cold,
The Climate of the Grave
A Temperature just adequate
So Anthracite, to live --
For some -- an Ampler Zero --
A Frost more needle keen
Is necessary, to reduce
The Ethiop within.
Others -- extinguish easier --
A Gnat's minutest Fan
Sufficient to...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
Life -- is what we make of it --
Death -- we do not know --
Christ's acquaintance with Him
Justify Him -- though --
He -- would trust no stranger --
Other -- could betray --
Just His own endorsement --
That -- sufficeth Me --
All the other Distance
He hath traversed first --
No New Mile remaineth --
Far as Paradise --
His sure foot preceding --
Tender Pioneer...Read more of this...
by
Omar Khayyam
There remains to me still a breath of life, thanks to
the care of the cupbearer. But discord reigns still among
men. I know that there only remains to me about a men
of wine from last evening, but I am ignorant of the
space of time that is still left me to live....Read more of this...
by
Philip Levine
First light. This misted field
is the world, that man
slipping the greased bolt
back and forth, that man
tunneled with blood
the dark smudges of whose eyes
call for sleep, calls
for quiet, and the woman
down your line,
the woman who screamed the loudest,
will be quiet.
The rushes,...Read more of this...
by
Omar Khayyam
To wise and worthy men your life devote,
But from the worthless keep your walk remote;
Dare to take poison from a sage's hand,
But from a fool refuse an antidote....Read more of this...
by
Stephen Crane
If there is a witness to my little life,
To my tiny throes and struggles,
He sees a fool;
And it is not fine for gods to menace fools....Read more of this...
by
Thomas Moore
They may rail at this life -- from the hour I began it
I found it a life full of kindness and bliss;
And, until they can show me some happier planet,
More social and bright, I'll content me with this.
As long as the world has such lips and such eyes
As before me this moment enraptured I...Read more of this...
by
Charlotte Bronte
I made a posie, while the day ran by:
Here will I smell my remnant out, and tie
My life within this band.
But time did becken to the flowers, and they
By noon most cunningly did steal away
And wither'd in my hand.
My hand was next to them, and then my heart:
I took, without more thinking, in...Read more of this...
by
Paul Laurence Dunbar
A crust of bread and a corner to sleep in,
A minute to smile and an hour to weep in,
A pint of joy to a peck of trouble,
And never a laugh but the moans come double;
And that is life!
A crust and a corner that love makes precious,
With a smile to warm and the tears to refresh us;
And joy seems sweeter when...Read more of this...
by
Nazim Hikmet
The hair falling on your forehead
suddenly lifted.
Suddenly something stirred on the ground.
The trees are whispering
in the dark.
Your bare arms will be cold.
Far off
where we can't see,
the moon must be rising.
It hasn't reached us yet,
slipping through the leaves
to light up your shoulder.
But I know
a wind comes up with the moon.
The trees are whispering.
Your...Read more of this...
by
Sylvia Plath
Touch it: it won't shrink like an eyeball,
This egg-shaped bailiwick, clear as a tear.
Here's yesterday, last year ---
Palm-spear and lily distinct as flora in the vast
Windless threadwork of a tapestry.
Flick the glass with your fingernail:
It will ping like a Chinese chime in the slightest air stir
Though nobody in there looks up or bothers to answer.
The inhabitants are light as...Read more of this...
by
Emma Lazarus
Not while the fever of the blood is strong,
The heart throbs loud, the eyes are veiled, no less
With passion than with tears, the Muse shall bless
The poet-sould to help and soothe with song.
Not then she bids his trembling lips express
The aching gladness, the voluptuous pain.
Life is his poem then; flesh, sense, and brain...Read more of this...
by
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Filled is Life's goblet to the brim;
And though my eyes with tears are dim,
I see its sparkling bubbles swim,
And chant a melancholy hymn
With solemn voice and slow.
No purple flowers,--no garlands green,
Conceal the goblet's shade or sheen,
Nor maddening draughts of Hippocrene,
Like gleams of sunshine, flash between
Thick leaves of mistletoe.
This goblet, wrought with curious art,
Is filled with waters, that upstart,
When the...Read more of this...
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