Famous Long Time Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Shot? So Quick So Clean an Ending?

by A E Housman
 Shot? so quick, so clean an ending? 
Oh that was right, lad, that was brave: 
Yours was not an ill for mending, 
'Twas best to take it to the grave. 

Oh you had forethought, you could reason, 
And saw your road and where it led, 
And early wise and brave in season 
Put the pistol to your head. 

Oh...Read more of this...

To God the Father

by Katherine Mansfield
 To the little, pitiful God I make my prayer,
The God with the long grey beard
And flowing robe fastened with a hempen girdle
Who sits nodding and muttering on the all-too-big throne
of Heaven.
What a long, long time, dear God, since you set the
stars in their places,
Girded the earth with the sea, and invented the day and
night.
And longer the time since you...Read more of this...

We Aint Got No Money Honey But We Got Rain

by Charles Bukowski
 call it the greenhouse effect or whatever
but it just doesn't rain like it used to.
I particularly remember the rains of the 
depression era.
there wasn't any money but there was
plenty of rain.
it wouldn't rain for just a night or
a day,
it would RAIN for 7 days and 7
nights
and in Los Angeles the storm drains
weren't built to carry off taht much
water
and the...Read more of this...

Ailsie My Bairn

by Eugene Field
 Lie in my arms, Ailsie, my bairn,--
Lie in my arms and dinna greit;
Long time been past syn I kenned you last,
But my harte been allwais the same, my swete.

Ailsie, I colde not say you ill,
For out of the mist of your bitter tears,
And the prayers that rise from your bonnie eyes
Cometh a promise of oder yeres.

I mind the time...Read more of this...

The light of the moon has cut the black robe of night:

by Omar Khayyam
The light of the moon has cut the black robe of night:
drink then of wine, for one finds not often moments so
precious. Yes, abandon thyself to joy, for this same
moon will shine over the surface of the earth a long time
[after our day]....Read more of this...

Yes it's settled

by Sergei Yesenin
Yes! It"s settled! Now and for ever
I have left my dear old plain.
And the winged leaves of poplars will never
Ring and rustle above me again.
 
Our house will sag in my absence,
And my dog died a long time ago.
Me, I"m fated to die with  compassions
In the crooked streets of Moscow, I know.
 
I admire this city of elm-trees
With decrepit...Read more of this...

On Looking Up By Chance At The Constellations

by Robert Frost
 You'll wait a long, long time for anything much
To happen in heaven beyond the floats of cloud
And the Northern Lights that run like tingling nerves.
The sun and moon get crossed, but they never touch,
Nor strike out fire from each other nor crash out loud.
The planets seem to interfere in their curves
But nothing ever happens, no harm is done.
We may...Read more of this...

The Tollund Man

by Seamus Heaney
 I

Some day I will go to Aarhus
To see his peat-brown head,
The mild pods of his eye-lids,
His pointed skin cap.

In the flat country near by
Where they dug him out,
His last gruel of winter seeds
Caked in his stomach,

Naked except for
The cap, noose and girdle,
I will stand a long time.
Bridegroom to the goddess,

She tightened her torc on him
And opened her fen,
Those dark...Read more of this...

Aix In Provence

by Robert Browning
 Christ God who savest man, save most
Of men Count Gismond who saved me!
Count Gauthier, when he chose his post,
Chose time and place and company
To suit it; when he struck at length
My honour, 'twas with all his strength.

II.

And doubtlessly ere he could draw
All points to one, he must have schemed!
That miserable morning saw
Few half so happy as I seemed,
While being...Read more of this...

May 8

by David Lehman
 700 francs will get you $109.91
on this muggy May afternoon
which is good to know since
I just found 700 francs in my wallet
while Dinah Washington was singing
"My Old Flame" I was thinking of where
I was with Glen when Allen Ginsberg died
and if I could relax for one hour
if I knew what that felt like
it would seem like a very long...Read more of this...

Theyve Come

by Alfonsina Storni
 Today my mother and sisters
came to see me.

I had been alone a long time
with my poems, my pride . . . almost nothing.

My sister---the oldest---is grown up,
is blondish. An elemental dream
goes through her eyes: I told the youngest
"Life is sweet. Everything bad comes to an end."

My mother smiled as those who understand souls
tend to do;
She placed two hands on...Read more of this...

The Faerie Queene Book VI Canto X

by Edmund Spenser
Calidore sees the Graces daunce,
To Colins melody:
The whiles his Pastorell is led,
[I]nto captiuity.
 

W Ho now does follow the foule Blatant Beast,
Whilest Calidore does follow that faire Mayd,
Vnmyndfull of his vow and high beheast,
Which by the Faery Queene was on him layd,
That he should neuer leaue, nor be delayd
From chacing him, till he had it attchieued?
But now entrapt of loue,...Read more of this...

Long time in wine and rose I took delight,

by Omar Khayyam
Long time in wine and rose I took delight,
But then my business never went aright;
Since wine could not accomplish my desire,
I have abandoned and forsworn it quite....Read more of this...

Long Time I Lay In Little Ease

by Robert Louis Stevenson
 LONG TIME I LAY IN LITTLE EASE


LONG time I lay in little ease
Where, placed by the Turanian,
Marseilles, the many-masted, sees
The blue Mediterranean.

Now songful in the hour of sport,
Now riotous for wages,
She camps around her ancient port,
As ancient of the ages.

Algerian airs through all the place
Unconquerably sally;
Incomparable women pace
The shadows of the alley.

And high o'er dark and graving yard
And where...Read more of this...

Suzanne

by Leonard Cohen
 Suzanne takes you down to her place near the river 
You can hear the boats go by 
You can spend the night beside her 
And you know that she's half crazy 
But that's why you want to be there 
And she feeds you tea and oranges 
That come all the way from China 
And just when you mean to...Read more of this...

Long time have I delved in this inconstant world, this

by Omar Khayyam
Long time have I delved in this inconstant world, this
momentary shelter; and in my searches have employed
all faculties with which I am endowed. Ah, well! and I
have found the moon to pale before the light of Thy
visage, that the cypress is deformed beside Thy beauteous
form....Read more of this...

Long time, indeed, with cup in hand, I walked among

by Omar Khayyam
Long time, indeed, with cup in hand, I walked among
the flowers; nevertheless none of my projects has been
realized in this world. But, although wine has not led
me to the goal of my desires, I will not stray from its
path, for when one follows a road he cannot retrogress....Read more of this...

The Crucifixion of Christ

by William Topaz McGonagall
 Composed, by Special Request, 18th June 1890


Then Pilate, the Roman Governor, took Jesus and scourged Him,
And the soldiers platted a crown of thorns, and thought it no sin
To put it on His head, while meekly Jesus stands;
They put on Him a purple robe, and smote Him with their hands. 

Then Pilate went forth again, and said unto them,
Behold, I...Read more of this...

Cliff Klingenhagen

by Edwin Arlington Robinson
 Cliff Klingenhagen had me in to dine 
With him one day; and after soup and meat, 
And all the other things there were to eat, 
Cliff took two glasses and filled one with wine 
And one with wormwood. Then, without a sign
For me to choose at all, he took the draught 
Of bitterness himself, and lightly quaffed 
It off,...Read more of this...

The New Ergonomics

by James Tate
 The new ergonomics were delivered 
just before lunchtime 
so we ignored them.
Without revealing the particulars 
let me just say that 
lunch was most satisfying. 
Jack and Roberta went with 
the corned beef for a change. 
Jack believes in alien abduction 
and Roberta does not, 
although she has had 
several lost weekends lately 
and one or two unexplained scars 
on...Read more of this...

Going Blind

by Rainer Maria Rilke
She sat just like the others as the table.
But on second glance she seemed to hold her cup
a little differently as she picked it up.
She smiled once. It was almost painful.

And when they finished and it was time to stand
and slowly as chance selected them they left
and moved through many rooms (they talked and laughed)
I saw her. She was moving...Read more of this...

The Legend Of The Horseshoe

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
 WHAT time our Lord still walk'd the earth,
Unknown, despised, of humble birth,
And on Him many a youth attended
(His words they seldom comprehended),
It ever seem'd to Him most meet
To hold His court in open street,
As under heaven's broad canopy
One speaks with greater liberty.
The teachings of His blessed word
From out His holy mouth were heard;
Each market to a fane turn'd He
With...Read more of this...

Khayyam, who long time stitched the tents of learning,

by Omar Khayyam
Khayyam, who long time stitched the tents of learning,
Has fallen into a furnace, and lies burning,
Death's shears have cut his thread of life asunder,
Fate's brokers sell him off with scorn and spurning....Read more of this...

Love and Black Magic

by Robert Graves
 To the woods, to the woods is the wizard gone;
In his grotto the maiden sits alone. 
She gazes up with a weary smile 
At the rafter-hanging crocodile, 
The slowly swinging crocodile. 
Scorn has she of her master’s gear, 
Cauldron, alembic, crystal sphere, 
Phial, philtre—“Fiddlededee 
For all such trumpery trash!” quo’ she. 
“A soldier is the lad for me; 
Hey...Read more of this...

The Strayed Reveller

by Matthew Arnold
 1 Faster, faster, 
2 O Circe, Goddess,
3 Let the wild, thronging train 
4 The bright procession 
5 Of eddying forms, 
6 Sweep through my soul! 

7 Thou standest, smiling
8 Down on me! thy right arm,
9 Lean'd up against the column there,
10 Props thy soft cheek;
11 Thy left holds, hanging loosely,
12 The deep cup, ivy-cinctured,
13 I held but now. 

14...Read more of this...

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