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Famous Lights Out Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Ginsberg, Allen
...
supermarket and feel absurd.) 
Will we walk all night through solitary streets? 
The trees add shade to shade, lights out in the houses, 
we'll both be lonely. 
Will we stroll dreaming ofthe lost America of love 
past blue automobiles in driveways, home to our silent 
cottage? 
Ah, dear father, graybeard, lonely old courage- 
teacher, what America did you have when Charon quit 
poling his ferry and you got out on a smoking bank 
and stood watching the boa...Read more of this...



by Bly, Robert
...d see you and you me once a year.
We would be two kernels and not be planted.
We stay in the room door closed lights out.
I weep with you without shame and without honor....Read more of this...

by Sandburg, Carl
...and the umbrellas are up and the collars of the raincoats—and all the steamboats up and down the Baltic sea have their lights out and the wheelsmen sober.

Here the telegrams come—one king goes and another—butter is costly: there is no butter to buy for our bread in Stockholm—and a little patty of butter costs more than all the crowns of Germany.

Let us go out in the fog, John, let us roll up our raincoat collars and go on the streets where men are sneering at the k...Read more of this...

by Thomas, Edward
...I have come to the borders of sleep, 
The unfathomable deep 
Forest where all must lose 
Their way, however straight, 
Or winding, soon or late; 
They cannot choose.

Many a road and track 
That, since the dawn's first crack, 
Up to the forest brink, 
Deceived the travellers, 
Suddenly now blurs, 
And in they sink.

Here love ends, 
Despair, ambiti...Read more of this...

by Dyke, Henry Van
..."Lights out" along the land,
"Lights out" upon the sea.
The night must put her hiding hand
O'er peaceful towns where children sleep,
And peaceful ships that darkly creep
Across the waves, as if they were not free. 

The dragons of the air,
The hell-hounds of the deep,
Lurking and prowling everywhere,
Go forth to seek their helpless prey,
Not knowing w...Read more of this...



by Mansfield, Katherine
...hear my cry?

(O little white feet of mine)
Never a child in the whole great town;
(Red, red shoes the colour of wine)
Lights out and the blinds pulled down.

(O little white feet of mine)
Never a light on a window pane,
(Red, red shoes the colour of wine)
And the wild wet cry of the rain.

(O little white feet of mine)
Shall I never again be still?
(Red, red shoes the colour of wine)
And away over valley and hill.

(O little white feet of mine)
Children, childre...Read more of this...

by Poe, Edgar Allan
...Lo! 't is a gala night

Within the lonesome latter years!
An angel throng bewinged bedight

In veils and drowned in tears 
Sit in a theatre to see

A play of hopes and fears 
While the orchestra breathes fitfully

The music of the spheres.
Mimes in the form of God on high 

Mutter and mumble low 
And hither and thither fly -

Mere puppe...Read more of this...

by Graves, Robert
...The bugler sent a call of high romance— 
“Lights out! Lights out!” to the deserted square. 
On the thin brazen notes he threw a prayer, 
“God, if it’s this for me next time in France… 
O spare the phantom bugle as I lie
Dead in the gas and smoke and roar of guns, 
Dead in a row with the other broken ones 
Lying so stiff and still under the sky, 
Jolly young Fusiliers too good to die.”...Read more of this...

by Plath, Sylvia
...in a great darkness,
Leaving no sparky track, setting up no ripple.
Nightly we left them in their desert place.
Lights out, they dogged us, sleepless and envious:

We dreamed their arguments, their stricken voices.
We might embrace, but those two never did,
Come, so unlike us, to a stiff impasse,
Burdened in such a way we seemed the lighter-
Ourselves the haunters, and they, flesh and blood;
As if, above love's ruinage, we were
The heaven those two dreamed of, in ...Read more of this...

by Newbolt, Sir Henry
...A Song of the Great Retreat

Dreary lay the long road, dreary lay the town, 
Lights out and never a glint o' moon: 
Weary lay the stragglers, half a thousand down, 
Sad sighed the weary big Dragoon. 
"Oh! if I'd a drum here to make them take the road again, 
Oh! if I'd a fife to wheedle, Come, boys, come! 
You that mean to fight it out, wake and take your load again, 
Fall in! Fall in! Follow the fife and drum! 

"Hey, but here's...Read more of this...

by Bukowski, Charles
...el guilty
that I had no feeling for the
things so many others
needed.
it let me alone.
sitting up in my bed
the lights out,
hearing the outside
sounds,
lifting my cheap
bottle of wine,
letting the warmth of
the grape
enter
]me
as I heard the rats
moving about the
room,
I preferred them
to
humans.
being lost,
being crazy mabye
is not so bad
if you can be
that way:
undisturbed.
New Orleans gave me
that.
nobody ever called
my name.
no telephone,
no car,
n...Read more of this...

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Book: Shattered Sighs