Famous Loses Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Hide-And-Seek

by Vasko Popa
 Someone hides from someone else 
Hides under his tongue 
The other looks for him under the earth 

He hides on his forehead 
The other looks for him in the sky 

He hides inside his forgetfulness 
The other looks for him in the grass 

Looks for him looks 
There's no place he doesn't look 
And looking he loses himself...Read more of this...

Meditation on the A30

by John Betjeman
 A man on his own in a car
Is revenging himself on his wife;
He open the throttle and bubbles with dottle
and puffs at his pitiful life

She's losing her looks very fast,
she loses her temper all day;
that lorry won't let me get past,
this Mini is blocking my way.

"Why can't you step on it and shift her!
I can't go on crawling like...Read more of this...

Merlin

by Edwin Arlington Robinson
 “Gawaine, Gawaine, what look ye for to see, 
So far beyond the faint edge of the world? 
D’ye look to see the lady Vivian, 
Pursued by divers ominous vile demons 
That have another king more fierce than ours?
Or think ye that if ye look far enough 
And hard enough into the feathery west 
Ye’ll have a glimmer of the...Read more of this...

Lion In An Iron Cage

by Nazim Hikmet
 Look at the lion in the iron cage,
look deep into his eyes:
 like two naked steel daggers
 they sparkle with anger.
But he never loses his dignity
 although his anger
 comes and goes
 goes and comes.

You couldn't find a place for a collar
round his thick, furry mane.
Although the scars of a whip 
 still burn on his yellow back
his long...Read more of this...

Freedom XIV

by Kahlil Gibran
 And an orator said, "Speak to us of Freedom." 

And he answered: 

At the city gate and by your fireside I have seen you prostrate yourself and worship your own freedom, 

Even as slaves humble themselves before a tyrant and praise him though he slays them. 

Ay, in the grove of the temple and in the shadow of the...Read more of this...

snail and spiral

by Rg Gregory
 i take my property with me says the snail
slow-moving (yes) but packed with sublime thought
the house upon its back some kind of grail
vulnerable to brute boot - and wisdom bought

by barely making it through life’s dull crawl
the pace of it denies technology’s demand
that speed be safety (that getting there is all)
the snail enjoys being aeon’s ampersand

the snail goes round...Read more of this...

Cristina

by Robert Browning
 I.

She should never have looked at me
If she meant I should not love her!
There are plenty ... men, you call such,
I suppose ... she may discover
All her soul to, if she pleases,
And yet leave much as she found them:
But I'm not so, and she knew it
When she fixed me, glancing round them,

II.

What? To fix me thus meant nothing?
But I...Read more of this...

The German Parnassus

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
 in the wares before you spread,
Types of all things may be read.

'NEATH the shadow

Of these bushes,
On the meadow

Where the cooling water gushes.
Phoebus gave me, when a boy,
All life's fullness to enjoy.
So, in silence, as the God
Bade them with his sov'reign nod,
Sacred Muses train'd my days
To his praise.--
With the bright and silv'ry flood
Of Parnassus stirr'd my blood,
And the seal so...Read more of this...

The ones that disappeared are back

by Emily Dickinson
 The ones that disappeared are back
The Phoebe and the Crow
Precisely as in March is heard
The curtness of the Jay --
Be this an Autumn or a Spring
My wisdom loses way
One side of me the nuts are ripe
The other side is May....Read more of this...

Marketplace Report January 23, 1991

by Julie Hill Alger
The new war is a week old.
Bombs fall on Baghdad,
missiles on Tel Aviv.
The voice on the radio says
the armament dealers of Europe
are hopeful that a longer war
will be good for business.
They say, as fighting continues
there will be wear and tear
on matériel. Spare parts
must be manufactured,
as well as replacements
for equipment blown apart,
shattered, set afire.

Prudently, the merchants
consult their spreadsheets.
They guard against euphoria
and...Read more of this...

The Bachelors Soliloquy

by Edgar Albert Guest
 To wed, or not to wed; that is the question;
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The bills and house rent of a wedded fortune,
Or to say "nit" when she proposes,
And by declining cut her. To wed; to smoke
No more; And have a wife at home to mend
The holes in socks and shirts
And underwear and so forth. 'Tis a...Read more of this...

Lament For Ignacio Sanchez Mejias

by Federico García Lorca
 1. Cogida and death 

At five in the afternoon. 
It was exactly five in the afternoon. 
A boy brought the white sheet 
at five in the afternoon. 
A frail of lime ready prepared 
at five in the afternoon. 
The rest was death, and death alone. 

The wind carried away the cottonwool 
at five in the afternoon. 
And the oxide...Read more of this...

Little Brown Baby

by Paul Laurence Dunbar
 Little brown baby wif spa'klin' eyes, 
Come to yo' pappy an' set on his knee.
What you been doin', suh -- makin' san' pies?
Look at dat bib -- you's es du'ty ez me.
Look at dat mouf -- dat's merlasses, I bet;
Come hyeah, Maria, an' wipe off his han's.
Bees gwine to ketch you an' eat you up yit,
Bein' so sticky an...Read more of this...

The Death Of The Fly

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
 WITH eagerness he drinks the treach'rous potion,

Nor stops to rest, by the first taste misled;
Sweet is the draught, but soon all power of motion

He finds has from his tender members fled;
No longer has he strength to plume his wing,
No longer strength to raise his head, poor thing!
E'en in enjoyment's hour his life he loses,
His little foot to bear his...Read more of this...

Modern Love XXX: What Are We First

by George Meredith
 What are we first? First, animals; and next 
Intelligences at a leap; on whom 
Pale lies the distant shadow of the tomb, 
And all that draweth on the tomb for text. 
Into which state comes Love, the crowning sun: 
Beneath whose light the shadow loses form. 
We are the lords of life, and life is warm. 
Intelligence and instinct...Read more of this...

The Quest

by Aleister Crowley
 A part, immutable, unseen,
Being, before itself had been,
Became. Like dew a triple queen
Shone as the void uncovered:
The silence of deep height was drawn
A veil across the silver dawn
On holy wings that hovered. 

The music of three thoughts became 
The beauty, that is one white flame,
The justice that surpasses shame,
The victory, the splendour,
The sacred fountain that is whirled
From depths beyond...Read more of this...

In re a Gentleman One

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 We see it each day in the paper, 
And know that there's mischief in store; 
That some unprofessional caper 
Has landed a shark on the shore. 
We know there'll be plenty of trouble 
Before they get through with the fun, 
Because he's been coming the double 
On clients, has "Gentleman, One". 
Alas for the gallant attorney, 
Intent upon cutting...Read more of this...

Memorial Day For The War Dead

by Yehuda Amichai
 Memorial day for the war dead. Add now
the grief of all your losses to their grief,
even of a woman that has left you. Mix
sorrow with sorrow, like time-saving history,
which stacks holiday and sacrifice and mourning
on one day for easy, convenient memory.

Oh, sweet world soaked, like bread,
in sweet milk for the terrible toothless God.
"Behind all this some great happiness is...Read more of this...

Little Flute

by Rabindranath Tagore
 Thou hast made me endless, such is thy pleasure. This frail 
vessel thou emptiest again and again, and fillest it ever with fresh life. 

This little flute of a reed thou hast carried over hills and dales, 
and hast breathed through it melodies eternally new. 

At the immortal touch of thy hands my little heart loses its limits in...Read more of this...

the ordinary again

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...

Sonnet XL

by Francesco Petrarch
[Pg 49] SONNET XL. Se mai foco per foco non si spense. HIS HEART IS ALL IN FLAMES, BUT HIS TONGUE IS MUTE, IN HER PRESENCE.  If fire was never yet by fire subdued,If never flood fell dry by frequent rain,But, like to like, if each by other gain,And...Read more of this...

Ernest Hyde

by Edgar Lee Masters
 My mind was a mirror: 
It saw what it saw, it knew what it knew. 
In youth my mind was just a mirror 
In a rapidly flying car, 
Which catches and loses bits of the landscape. 
Then in time 
Great scratches were made on the mirror, 
Letting the outside world come in, 
And letting my inner self look out....Read more of this...

For My Son Noah Ten Years Old

by Robert Bly
Nigh and day arrive and day after day goes by 
And what is old remains old and what is young remains young and grows old.
The lumber pile does not grow younger nor the two-by-fours lose their darkness 
but the old tree goes on the barn stands without help so many years;
the advocate of darkness and night is not lost.

The horse...Read more of this...

Little Birds

by Lewis Carroll
 Little Birds are dining
Warily and well,
Hid in mossy cell:
Hid, I say, by waiters
Gorgeous in their gaiters -
I've a Tale to tell.

Little Birds are feeding
Justices with jam,
Rich in frizzled ham:
Rich, I say, in oysters
Haunting shady cloisters -
That is what I am.

Little Birds are teaching
Tigresses to smile,
Innocent of guile:
Smile, I say, not smirkle -
Mouth a semicircle,
That's the proper style!

Little Birds are...Read more of this...

Landscape of a Pissing Multitude

by Federico García Lorca
 The men kept to themselves:
they were waiting for the swiftness of the last cyclists.
The women kept to themselves:
they were expecting the death of a boy on a Japanese schooner.
They all kept to themselves-
dreaming of the open beaks of dying birds,
the sharp parasol that punctures
a recently flattened toad,
beneath silence with a thousand ears
and tiny mouths of water
in the canyons that...Read more of this...

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