Famous Lifetime Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous 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 lifetime poems. These examples illustrate what a famous lifetime poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Francois Villon
Who's that I hear?—It's me—Who?—Your heart
Hanging on by the thinnest thread
I lose all my strength, substance, and fluid
When I see you withdrawn this way all alone
Like a whipped cur sulking in the corner
Is it due to your mad hedonism?—
What's it to you?—I have to suffer for it—
Leave me alone—Why?—I'll think about it—
When will you do that?—When I've grown up—
I've...Read more of this...
by
Anne Sexton
Something
cold is in the air,
an aura of ice
and phlegm.
All day I've built
a lifetime and now
the sun sinks to
undo it.
The horizon bleeds
and sucks its thumb.
The little red thumb
goes out of sight.
And I wonder about
this lifetime with myself,
this dream I'm living.
I could eat the sky
like...Read more of this...
by
Seamus Heaney
It is December in Wicklow:
Alders dripping, birches
Inheriting the last light,
The ash tree cold to look at.
A comet that was lost
Should be visible at sunset,
Those million tons of light
Like a glimmer of haws and rose-hips,
And I sometimes see a falling star.
If I could come on meteorite!
Instead I walk through damp leaves,
Husks, the spent flukes of autumn,
Imagining a hero
On some muddy...Read more of this...
by
Barry Tebb
Richard Chessick, John Gedo, James Grotstein and Vamik Voltan
What darknesses have you lit up for me
What depths of infinite space plumbed
With your finely honed probes
What days of unending distress lightened
With your wisdom, skills and jouissance?
Conquistadores of the unconscious
For three decades how often have I come to you
And from your teachings gathered the manna
Of meaning eluding me alone in...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
Rg Gregory
(1) the ordinary
you are not interested in me
a receiver of food and a giver of ****
my brain knuckled under
i have rendered the skills of my
limbs to generations of caesars
and caesar's gods have siphoned off my spirit
by day i have been trained to dismember my own brothers
my own pieces travel through the night yearning for union
in every land i...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
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
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
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
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
Randall Jarrell
Looking back in my mind I can see
The white sun like a tin plate
Over the wooden turning of the weeds;
The street jerking --a wet swing--
To end by the wall the children sang.
The thin grass by the girls' door,
Trodden on, straggling, yellow and rotten,
And the gaunt field with its one tied cow--
The...Read more of this...
by
T S (Thomas Stearns) Eliot
I
In my beginning is my end. In succession
Houses rise and fall, crumble, are extended,
Are removed, destroyed, restored, or in their place
Is an open field, or a factory, or a by-pass.
Old stone to new building, old timber to new fires,
Old fires to ashes, and ashes to the earth
Which is already flesh, fur and faeces,
Bone of man and beast, cornstalk and...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
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
Sidney Lanier
I knowed a man, which he lived in Jones,
Which Jones is a county of red hills and stones,
And he lived pretty much by gittin' of loans,
And his mules was nuthin' but skin and bones,
And his hogs was flat as his corn-bread pones,
And he had 'bout a thousand acres o' land.
This man -- which...Read more of this...
by
Friedrich von Schiller
The goblet is sparkling with purpled-tinged wine,
Bright glistens the eye of each guest,
When into the hall comes the Minstrel divine,
To the good he now brings what is best;
For when from Elysium is absent the lyre,
No joy can the banquet of nectar inspire.
He is blessed by the gods, with an intellect clear,
That mirrors the world as it glides;
He has seen...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
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
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
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
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
Vachel Lindsay
Oh, once I walked in Heaven, all alone
Upon the sacred cliffs above the sky.
God and the angels, and the gleaming saints
Had journeyed out into the stars to die.
They had gone forth to win far citizens,
Bought at great price, bring happiness for all:
By such a harvest make a holier town
And put new life within old Zion's wall.
Each chose a far-off...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
Emily Dickinson
Ourselves were wed one summer -- dear --
Your Vision -- was in June --
And when Your little Lifetime failed,
I wearied -- too -- of mine --
And overtaken in the Dark --
Where You had put me down --
By Some one carrying a Light --
I -- too -- received the Sign.
'Tis true -- Our Futures different lay --
Your Cottage -- faced...Read more of this...
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