Famous Long Family Poems

Famous Long Family Poems. Long Family Poetry by Famous Poets. A collection of the all-time best Family long poems

See also: Long Member Poems

 Earth no longer
hymns the Creator,
the seven days of wonder,
the Garden is over —
all the stories are told,
the seven seals broken
all that begins
must have its ending,
our striving, desiring,
our living and dying,
for Time, the bringer
of abundant days
is Time the destroyer —
In the Iron Age
the Kali Yuga
To whom can we pray
at the end of an era
but the Lord Shiva,
the Liberator, the purifier?

Our forests are felled,
our mountains eroded,
the wild places
where the beautiful animals
found food and sanctuary
we have desolated,
a third of our seas,
a third of our rivers
we have polluted
and the sea-creatures dying.
Our civilization’s
blind progress
in wrong courses
through wrong choices
has brought us to nightmare
where what seems,
is, to the dreamer,
the collective mind
of the twentieth century —
this world of wonders
not divine creation
but a big bang
of blind chance,
purposeless accident,
mother earth’s children,
their living and loving,
their delight in being
not joy but chemistry,
stimulus, reflex,
valueless, meaningless,
while to our machines
we impute intelligence,
in computers and robots
we store information
and call it knowledge,
we seek guidance
by dialling numbers,
pressing buttons, 
throwing switches,
in place of family
our companions are shadows,
cast on a screen,
bodiless voices, fleshless faces,
where was the Garden
a Disney-land
of virtual reality,
in place of angels
the human imagination
is peopled with foot-ballers
film-stars, media-men,
experts, know-all
television personalities,
animated puppets
with cartoon faces —
To whom can we pray
for release from illusion,
from the world-cave,
but Time the destroyer,
the liberator, the...
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 White handkerchiefs wave from the short black pier 
As we glide to the grand old sea -- 
But the song of my heart is for none to hear 
If one of them waves for me. 
A roving, roaming life is mine, 
Ever by field or flood -- 
For not far back in my father's line 
Was a dash of the Gipsy blood. 

Flax and tussock and fern, 
Gum and mulga and sand, 
Reef and palm -- but my fancies turn 
Ever away from land; 
Strange wild cities in ancient state, 
Range and river and tree, 
Snow and ice. But my star of fate 
Is ever across the sea. 

A god-like ride on a thundering sea, 
When all but the stars are blind -- 
A desperate race from Eternity 
With a gale-and-a-half behind. 
A jovial spree in the cabin at night, 
A song on the rolling deck, 
A lark ashore with the ships in sight, 
Till -- a wreck goes down with a wreck. 

A smoke and a yarn on the deck by day, 
When life is a waking dream, 
And care and trouble so far away 
That out of your life they seem. 
A roving spirit in sympathy, 
Who...
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 (sign at a railroad crossing in Kenya)

In a poem, one line may hide another line,
As at a crossing, one train may hide another train.
That is, if you are waiting to cross
The tracks, wait to do it for one moment at
Least after the first train is gone. And so when you read
Wait until you have read the next line—
Then it is safe to go on reading.
In a family one sister may conceal another,
So, when you are courting, it's best to have them all in view
Otherwise in coming to find one you may love another.
One father or one brother may hide the man,
If you are a woman, whom you have been waiting to love.
So always standing in front of something the other
As words stand in front of objects, feelings, and ideas.
One wish may hide another. And one person's reputation may hide
The reputation of another. One dog may conceal another
On a lawn, so if you escape the first one you're not necessarily safe;
One lilac may hide another and then a lot of lilacs and on the Appia
 Antica one tomb
May hide a number of other tombs. In love, one reproach may hide another,
One small complaint may hide a great one.
One injustice may...
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 Alas! noble Prince Leopold, he is dead!
Who often has his lustre shed:
Especially by singing for the benefit of Esher School,
Which proves he was a wise prince. and no conceited fool.

Methinks I see him on the platform singing the Sands o' Dee,
The generous-hearted Leopold, the good and the free,
Who was manly in his actions, and beloved by his mother;
And in all the family she hasn't got such another.

He was of a delicate constitution all his life,
And he was his mother's favourite, and very kind to his wife,
And he had also a particular liking for his child,
And in his behaviour he was very mild.

Oh! noble-hearted Leopold, most beautiful to see,
Who was wont to fill your audience's hearts with glee,
With your charming songs, and lectures against strong drink:
Britain had nothing else to fear, as far as you could think

A wise prince you were, and well worthy of the name,
And to write in praise of thee I cannot refrain;
Because you were ever ready to defend that which is right,
Both pleasing and righteous in God's eye-sight.

And for the loss of such a prince the people will mourn,
But, alas! unto them he can never more return,
Because sorrow never could revive the dead again,
Therefore to weep...
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 'Twas on a Monday morning, and in the year of 1884,
That a fire broke out in Bailie Bradford's store,
Which contained bales of jute and large quantities of waste,
Which the brave firemen ran to extinguish in great haste. 

They left their wives that morning without any dread,
Never thinking, at the burning pile, they would be killed dead
By the falling of the rickety and insecure walls;
When I think of it, kind Christians, my heart it appals! 

Because it has caused widows and their families to shed briny tears,
For there hasn't been such a destructive fire for many years;
Whereby four brave firemen have perished in the fire,
And for better fathers or husbands no family could desire. 

'Twas about five o'clock in the morning the fire did break out,
While one of the workmen was inspecting the premises round about--
Luckily before any one had begun their work for the day--
So he instantly gave the alarm without delay. 

At that time only a few persons were gathered on the spot,
But in a few minutes some hundreds were got,
Who came flying in all directions, and in great dismay;
So they help'd to put out the fire without delay. 

But the spreading flames, within the second flats, soon...
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 From narrow provinces
of fish and bread and tea,
home of the long tides
where the bay leaves the sea
twice a day and takes
the herrings long rides,

where if the river
enters or retreats 
in a wall of brown foam
depends on if it meets
the bay coming in,
the bay not at home;

where, silted red,
sometimes the sun sets
facing a red sea,
and others, veins the flats'
lavender, rich mud
in burning rivulets;

on red, gravelly roads,
down rows of sugar maples,
past clapboard farmhouses
and neat, clapboard churches,
bleached, ridged as clamshells,
past twin silver birches,

through late afternoon
a bus journeys west,
the windshield flashing pink,
pink glancing off of metal,
brushing the dented flank
of blue, beat-up enamel;

down hollows, up rises,
and waits, patient, while
a lone traveller gives
kisses and embraces
to seven relatives
and a collie supervises.

Goodbye to the elms,
to the farm, to the dog.
The bus starts. The light
grows richer; the fog,
shifting, salty, thin,
comes closing in.

Its cold, round crystals
form and slide and settle
in the white hens' feathers,
in gray glazed cabbages,
on the cabbage roses
and lupins like apostles;

the sweet peas cling
to their wet white string
on the whitewashed fences;
bumblebees creep
inside the foxgloves,
and evening commences.

One stop at Bass River.
Then the Economies 
Lower, Middle, Upper;
Five Islands, Five Houses,
where a woman shakes a tablecloth
out after supper.

A pale flickering. Gone.
The Tantramar marshes 
and the smell of salt hay.
An iron...
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 After Joseph Roth

Parce que c'était lui; parce que c'était moi.
Montaigne, De L'amitië

The dream's forfeit was a night in jail
and now the slant light is crepuscular.
Papers or not, you are a foreigner
whose name is always difficult to spell.
You pack your one valise. You ring the bell.
Might it not be prudent to disappear
beneath that mauve-blue sky above the square
fronting your cosmopolitan hotel?
You know two short-cuts to the train station
which could get you there, on foot, in time.
The person who's apprised of your intention
and seems to be your traveling companion
is merely the detritus of a dream.
You cross the lobby and go out alone.

You crossed the lobby and went out alone
through the square, where two red-headed girls played
hopscotch on a chalk grid, now in the shade,
of a broad-leafed plane tree, now in the sun.
The lively, lovely, widowed afternoon
disarmed, uncoupled, shuffled and disarrayed
itself; despite itself, dismayed
you with your certainties, your visa, gone
from your breast-pocket, or perhaps expired.
At the reception desk, no one inquired
if you'd be returning. Now you wonder why.
When the stout conductor comes down the aisle
mustached, red-faced, at first jovial,
and asks for your passport, what will you say?

When they ask for your passport, will you say
that town's name they'd find unpronounceable
which resonates, when...
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 Rain filled the streets 
once a year, rising almost 
to door and window sills, 
battering walls and roofs 
until it cleaned away the mess 
we'd made. My father told 
me this, he told me it ran 
downtown and spilled into 
the river, which in turn 
emptied finally into the sea. 
He said this only once 
while I sat on the arm 
of his chair and stared out 
at the banks of gray snow 
melting as the March rain 
streaked past. All the rest 
of that day passed on 
into childhood, into nothing, 
or perhaps some portion hung 
on in a tiny corner of thought. 
Perhaps a clot of cinders 
that peppered the front yard 
clung to a spar of old weed 
or the concrete lip of the curb 
and worked its way back under 
the new growth spring brought 
and is a part of that yard 
still. Perhaps light falling 
on distant houses becomes 
those houses, hunching them 
down at dusk like sheep 
browsing on a far hillside, 
or at daybreak gilds 
the roofs until they groan 
under the new weight, or 
after rain lifts haloes 
of steam from the rinsed, 
white aluminum siding, 
and those houses and all...
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 MASTER WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE,AND WHAT HE HATH LEFT US  by Ben Jonsonluminarium.org/sevenlit/jonson/finial.gif">  To draw no envy, SHAKSPEARE, on thy name, Am I thus ample to thy book and fame ; While I confess thy writings to be such, As neither Man nor Muse can praise too much. 'Tis true, and all men's suffrage. But these ways Were not the paths I meant unto thy praise ; For seeliest ignorance on these may light, Which, when it sounds at best, but echoes right ; Or blind affection, which doth ne'er advance The truth, but gropes, and urgeth all by chance ; Or crafty malice might pretend this praise, And think to ruin where it seemed to raise. These are, as some infamous bawd or whore Should praise a matron ; what could hurt her more ? But thou art proof against them, and, indeed, Above the ill fortune of them, or the need.  I therefore will begin: Soul of the age! The applause ! delight ! the wonder of our stage! My SHAKSPEARE rise ! I will not lodge thee by Chaucer, or Spenser, or bid Beaumont lie A little further, to make thee a room :...
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 Half squatter, half tenant (no rent)—
a sort of inheritance; white,
in your thirties now, and supposed
to supply me with vegetables,
but you don't; or you won't; or you can't
get the idea through your brain—
the world's worst gardener since Cain.
Titled above me, your gardens
ravish my eyes. You edge
the beds of silver cabbages
with red carnations, and lettuces
mix with alyssum. And then
umbrella ants arrive,
or it rains for a solid week
and the whole thing's ruined again
and I buy you more pounds of seeds,
imported, guaranteed,
and eventually you bring me
a mystic thee-legged carrot,
or a pumpkin "bigger than the baby."

I watch you through the rain,
trotting, light, on bare feet,
up the steep paths you have made—
or your father and grandfather made—
all over my property,
with your head and back inside
a sodden burlap bag,
and feel I can't endure it
another minute; then,
indoors, beside the stove,
keep on reading a book.

You steal my telephone wires,
or someone does. You starve
your horse and yourself
and your dogs and family.
among endless variety,
you eat boiled cabbage stalks.
And once I yelled at you
so loud to hurry up
and fetch me those potatoes
your holey hat flew off,
you jumped out of your clogs,
leaving three objects arranged 
in a triangle at my feet,
as if you'd been a gardener
in a fairy tale all this time
and...
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 1.
Mother, my Mary Gray,
once resident of Gloucester
and Essex County,
a photostat of your will
arrived in the mail today.
This is the division of money.
I am one third
of your daughters counting my bounty
or I am a queen alone
in the parlor still,
eating the bread and honey.
It is Good Friday.
Black birds pick at my window sill.
Your coat in my closet,
your bright stones on my hand,
the gaudy fur animals
I do not know how to use,
settle on me like a debt.
A week ago, while the hard March gales
beat on your house,
we sorted your things: obstacles
of letters, family silver,
eyeglasses and shoes.
Like some unseasoned Christmas, its scales
rigged and reset,
I bundled out gifts I did not choose.
Now the houts of The Cross
rewind. In Boston, the devout
work their cold knees
toward that sweet martyrdom
that Christ planned. My timely loss
is too customary to note; and yet
I planned to suffer
and I cannot. It does not please
my yankee bones to watch
where the dying is done
in its usly hours. Black birds peck
at my window glass
and Easter will take its ragged son.
The clutter of worship
that you taught me, Mary Gray,
is old. I imitate
a memory of belief
that I do not own. I trip
on your death and jesus, my stranger
floats up over
my Christian home, wearing his straight
thorn tree....
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 The world is narrow and ways are short, and our lives are dull and slow, 
For little is new where the crowds resort, and less where the wanderers go; 
Greater, or smaller, the same old things we see by the dull road-side -- 
And tired of all is the spirit that sings 
of the days when the world was wide. 

When the North was hale in the march of Time, 
and the South and the West were new, 
And the gorgeous East was a pantomime, as it seemed in our boyhood's view; 
When Spain was first on the waves of change, 
and proud in the ranks of pride, 
And all was wonderful, new and strange in the days when the world was wide. 

Then a man could fight if his heart were bold, 
and win if his faith were true -- 
Were it love, or honour, or power, or gold, or all that our hearts pursue; 
Could live to the world for the family name, or die for the family pride, 
Could fly from sorrow, and wrong, and shame 
in the days when the world was wide. 

They sailed away in the ships that sailed ere science controlled the...
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 Part of an entertainment presented to the Countess Dowager of
Darby at Harefield, by som Noble persons of her Family, who
appear on the Scene in pastoral habit, moving toward the seat
of State with this Song.

I. SONG.

Look Nymphs, and Shepherds look,
What sudden blaze of majesty
Is that which we from hence descry
Too divine to be mistook:
This this is she
To whom our vows and wishes bend,
Heer our solemn search hath end.

Fame that her high worth to raise,
Seem'd erst so lavish and profuse,
We may justly now accuse 
Of detraction from her praise,
Less then half we find exprest,
Envy bid conceal the rest.

Mark what radiant state she spreds,
In circle round her shining throne,
Shooting her beams like silver threds,
This this is she alone,
Sitting like a Goddes bright,
In the center of her light.
Might she the wise Latona be, 
Or the towred Cybele,
Mother of a hunderd gods;
Juno dare's not give her odds;
Who had thought this clime had held
A deity so unparalel'd?

As they com forward, the genius of the Wood appears, and
turning toward them, speaks.

GEN. Stay gentle Swains, for though in this disguise,
I see bright honour sparkle through your eyes,
Of famous Arcady ye are, and sprung
Of that renowned flood, so often sung,
Divine Alpheus, who by secret sluse, 
Stole under Seas...
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 Deare Friend. 

I heare this Towne does soe abound, 
With sawcy Censurers, that faults are found, 
With what of late wee (in Poetique Rage) 
Bestowing, threw away on the dull Age; 
But (howsoe're Envy, their Spleen may raise, 
To Robb my Brow, of the deserved Bays) 
Their thanks at least I merit since through me, 
They are Partakers of your Poetry; 
And this is all, I'll say in my defence, 
T'obtaine one Line, of your well worded Sense 

I'd be content t'have writ the Brittish Prince. 
I'm none of those who thinke themselves inspir'd, 
Nor write with the vaine hopes to be admir'd; 
But from a Rule (I have upon long tryall) 
T'avoyd with care, all sort of self denyall. 
Which way soe're desire and fancy leade 
(Contemning Fame) that Path I boldly tread; 
And if exposeing what I take for Witt, 
To my deare self, a Pleasure I beget, 
Noe matter tho' the Censring Crittique fret. 
Those whom my Muse displeases, are at strife 
With equall Spleene, against my Course of life, 
The least delight of which, I'd not forgoe, 
For all the flatt'ring Praise, Man can bestow. 
If I designd to please the way were then, 
To...
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 I CANNOT hold, for though to write were rude, 
Yet to be silent were Ingratitude, 
And Folly too; for if Posterity 
Should never hear of such a one as thee, 
And onely know this Age's brutish fame, 
They would think Vertue nothing but a Name. 
And though far abler Pens must her define, 
Yet her Adoption hath engaged mine: 
And I must own where Merit shines so clear, 
'Tis hard to write, but harder to forbear. 
Sprung from an ancient and an honour'd Stem, 
Who lent her lustre, and she paid it them; 
Who still in great and noble things appeared, 
Whom all their Country lov'd, and yet they feared. 
Match'd to another good and great as they, 
Who did their Country both oblige and sway. 
Behold herself, who had without dispute 
More then both Families could contribute. 
What early Beauty Grief and Age had broke, 
Her lovely Reliques and her Off-spring spoke. 
She was by nature and her Parents care 
A Woman long before most others are. 
But yet that antedated2 season she 
Improv'd to Vertue, not to Liberty. 
For she was still in either state of life 
Meek as a Virgin, Prudent as a Wife 
And she...
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