Famous Looking Back Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Looking Back poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous looking back poems. These examples illustrate what a famous looking back poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Time’s finger on the dial of my life
Points to high noon! And yet the half-spent day
Leaves less than half remaining, for the dark,
Bleak shadows of the grave engulf the end.
To those who burn the candle to the stick,
The sputtering socket yields but little light.
Long life is sadder than early death.
We cannot count on raveled threads of age
Whereof...Read more of this...
by
Robert Frost
He saw her from the bottom of the stairs
Before she saw him. She was starting down,
Looking back over her shoulder at some fear.
She took a doubtful step and then undid it
To raise herself and look again. He spoke
Advancing toward her: 'What is it you see
From up there always -- for I want to know.'
She turned and sank upon her...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
This was in the White of the Year --
That -- was in the Green --
Drifts were as difficult then to think
As Daisies now to be seen --
Looking back is best that is left
Or if it be -- before --
Retrospection is Prospect's half,
Sometimes, almost more....Read more of this...
by
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
X. Hiawatha's Wooing
"As unto the bow the cord is,
So unto the man is woman,
Though she bends him, she obeys him,
Though she draws him, yet she follows,
Useless each without the other!"
Thus the youthful Hiawatha
Said within himself and pondered,
Much perplexed by various feelings,
Listless, longing, hoping, fearing,
Dreaming still of Minnehaha,
Of the lovely Laughing Water,
In the land of the Dacotahs.
"Wed a maiden of...Read more of this...
by
Joyce Kilmer
Whenever I walk to Suffern along the Erie track
I go by a poor old farmhouse with its shingles broken and black.
I suppose I've passed it a hundred times, but I always stop for
a minute
And look at the house, the tragic house, the house with nobody in
it.
I never have seen a haunted house, but I hear there
are...Read more of this...
by
The Bible
Do not earnestly remember
The former things of the past,
Neither consider the things of old,
Following the same old paths
Behold, I am doing a new thing,
Do you not see it, nor understand?
It springs forth as rivers flowing
Through a desert and barren land
It makes a way in the wilderness
Refreshing those that honour me,
So do not be looking back on the past,
But look forward...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
Henry Vaughan
1 Happy those early days, when I
2 Shin'd in my angel-infancy!
3 Before I understood this place
4 Appointed for my second race,
5 Or taught my soul to fancy ought
6 But a white, celestial thought;
7 When yet I had not walk'd above
8 A mile or two from my first love,
9 And looking back (at that short space)
10 Could see a glimpse...Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
Three score and ten, the psalmist saith,
And half my course is well-nigh run;
I've had my flout at dusty death,
I've had my whack of feast and fun.
I've mocked at those who prate and preach;
I've laughed with any man alive;
But now with sobered heart I reach
The Great Divide of Thirty-five.
And looking back I must confess
I've little cause to feel elate.
I've played...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
'Tis good -- the looking back on Grief --
To re-endure a Day --
We thought the Mighty Funeral --
Of All Conceived Joy --
To recollect how Busy Grass
Did meddle -- one by one --
Till all the Grief with Summer -- waved
And none could see the stone.
And though the Woe you have Today
Be larger -- As the Sea
Exceeds its Unremembered Drop --
They're...Read more of this...
by
Robert Herrick
Orpheus he went, as poets tell,
To fetch Eurydice from hell;
And had her, but it was upon
This short, but strict condition;
Backward he should not look, while he
Led her through hell's obscurity.
But ah! it happen'd, as he made
His passage through that dreadful shade,
Revolve he did his loving eye,
For gentle fear or jealousy;
And looking back, that look did sever
Him and Eurydice for...Read more of this...
by
Billy Collins
The whole idea of it makes me feel
like I'm coming down with something,
something worse than any stomach ache
or the headaches I get from reading in bad light--
a kind of measles of the spirit,
a mumps of the psyche,
a disfiguring chicken pox of the soul.
You tell me it is too early to be looking back,
but that is because you have forgotten
the...Read more of this...
by
Li Po
The living is a passing traveler;
The dead, a man come home.
One brief journey betwixt heaven and earth,
Then, alas! we are the same old dust of ten thousand ages.
The rabbit in the moon pounds the medicine in vain;
Fu-sang, the tree of immortality, has crumbled to kindling wood.
Man dies, his white bones are dumb without a word
When the green pines feel...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
Eden is that old-fashioned House
We dwell in every day
Without suspecting our abode
Until we drive away.
How fair on looking back, the Day
We sauntered from the Door --
Unconscious our returning,
But discover it no more....Read more of this...
by
Wystan Hugh (W H) Auden
When there are so many we shall have to mourn,when grief has been made so public, and exposedto the critique of a whole epochthe frailty of our conscience and anguish, of whom shall we speak? For every day they dieamong us, those who were doing us some good,who knew it was never enough buthoped to improve a little by living....Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
When I am old and worse for wear
I want to buy a rocking-chair,
And set it on a porch where shine
The stars of morning-glory vine;
With just beyond, a gleam of grass,
A shady street where people pass;
And some who come with time to spare,
To yarn beside my rocking-chair.
Then I will light my corn-cob pipe
And dose and dream and rarely gripe.
My morning...Read more of this...
by
Ezra Pound
And then went down to the ship,
Set keel to breakers, forth on the godly sea, and
We set up mast and sail on that swart ship,
Bore sheep aboard her, and our bodies also
Heavy with weeping, and winds from sternward
Bore us onward with bellying canvas,
Crice's this craft, the trim-coifed goddess.
Then sat we amidships, wind jamming the tiller,
Thus with stretched sail, we...Read more of this...
by
Henry Van Dyke
'Tis fine to see the Old World, and travel up and down
Among the famous palaces and cities of renown,
To admire the crumbly castles and the statues of the kings, --
But now I think I've had enough of antiquated things.
So it's home again, and home again, America for me!
My heart is turning home again, and there I long...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
I reckon -- when I count it all --
First -- Poets -- Then the Sun --
Then Summer -- Then the Heaven of God --
And then -- the List is done --
But, looking back -- the First so seems
To Comprehend the Whole --
The Others look a needless Show --
So I write -- Poets -- All --
Their Summer -- lasts a...Read more of this...
by
James Henry Leigh Hunt
It was the pleasant season yet,
When the stones at cottage doors
Dry quickly, while the roads are wet,
After the silver showers.
The green leaves they looked greener still,
And the thrush, renewing his tune,
Shook a loud note from his gladsome bill
Into the bright blue noon.
Robin Hood's mother looked out, and said
"It were a shame and a sin
For fear of getting a wet...Read more of this...
by
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
We walk on starry fields of white
And do not see the daisies;
For blessings common in our sight
We rarely offer praises.
We sigh for some supreme delight
To crown our lives with splendor,
And quite ignore our daily store
Of pleasures sweet and tender.
Our cares are bold and push their way
Upon our thought and feeling.
They hang about us all the day,
Our time from pleasure...Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
Of bosom friends I've had but seven,
Despite my years are ripe;
I hope they're now enjoying Heaven,
Although they're not the type;
Nor, candidly, no more am I,
Though overdue to die.
For looking back I see that they
Were weak and wasteful men;
They loved a sultry jest alway,
And women now and then.
They smoked and gambled, soused and swore,
--Yet...Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
Although my blood I've shed
In war's red wrath,
Oh how I darkly dread
Its aftermath!
Oh how I fear the day
Of my release,
When I must face the fray
Of phoney peace!
When I must fend again
In labour strife;
And toil with sweat and strain
For kids and wife.
The world is so upset
I battled for,
That grimly I regret
The peace...Read more of this...
by
Vernon Scannell
They did not expect this. Being neither wise nor brave
And wearing only the beauty of youth's season
They took the first turning quite unquestioningly
And walked quickly without looking back even once.
It was of course the wrong turning. First they were nagged
By a small wind that tugged at their clothing like a dog;
Then the rain...Read more of this...
by
Jackie Kay
I always looked out at the world,
And wondered if the world looked back at me,
Standing on the edge of something,
On my face- the wind from the cold sea.
Across the waters were mirrors to see
Faces that looked like me,
People caught between two places,
People crossing over the seas.
And it seemed from my croft
-With the old stones and the sheep,
And the sound...Read more of this...
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