Famous Lost Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Lost poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous lost poems. These examples illustrate what a famous lost poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Robert William Service
Two men I saw reel from a bar
And stumble down the street;
Coarse and uncouth as workmen are,
They walked with wobbly feet.
I watched them, thinking sadly as
I heard their hobnails clink,
The only joy a toiler has
Is to get drowned in drink.
A kitten on a wall,
A skinny, starving stray;
It looked so pitifully small,
A fluff of silver grey.
One of the men came...Read more of this...
by
Elinor Wylie
The garden's full of scented wallflowers,
And, save that these stir faintly, nothing stirs;
Only a distant bell in hollow chime
Cried out just now for far-forgoten time,
And three reverberate words the great bell spoke.
The knocker's made of brass, the door of oak,
And such a clamor must be loosed on air
By the knocker's blow that...Read more of this...
by
Edwin Arlington Robinson
Like a dry fish flung inland far from shore,
There lived a sailor, warped and ocean-browned,
Who told of an old vessel, harbor-drowned,
And out of mind a century before,
Where divers, on descending to explore
A legend that had lived its way around
The world of ships, in the dark hulk had found
Anchors, which had been seized...Read more of this...
by
Edna St. Vincent Millay
Well, I have lost you; and I lost you fairly;
In my own way, and with my full consent.
Say what you will, kings in a tumbrel rarely
Went to their deaths more proud than this one went.
Some nights of apprehension and hot weeping
I will confess; but that's permitted me;
Day dried my eyes; I was not one for keeping
Rubbed in a cage...Read more of this...
by
George Eliot
If you sit down at set of sun
And count the acts that you have done,
And, counting, find
One self-denying deed, one word
That eased the heart of him who heard,
One glance most kind
That fell like sunshine where it went --
Then you may count that day well spent.
But if, through all the livelong day,
You've cheered no heart, by yea or nay...Read more of this...
by
Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi
Lord, said David, since you do not need us,
why did you create these two worlds? Reality replied: O prisoner of time,
I was a secret treasure of kindness and generosity,
and I wished this treasure to be known,
so I created a mirror: its shining face, the heart;
its darkened back, the world;
The back would please you if you’ve never seen the face. Has...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
Sweet, to have had them lost
For news that they be saved --
The nearer they departed Us
The nearer they, restored,
Shall stand to Our Right Hand --
Most precious and the Dead --
Next precious
Those that rose to go --
Then thought of Us, and stayed....Read more of this...
by
Robert Browning
Just for a handful of silver he left us,
Just for a riband to stick in his coat—
Found the one gift of which fortune bereft us,
Lost all the others she lets us devote;
They, with the gold to give, doled him out silver,
So much was theirs who so little allowed:
How all our copper had gone for his service!
Rags—were they purple,...Read more of this...
by
Rudyard Kipling
1895
There's a Legion that never was listed,
That carries no colours or crest,
But, split in a thousand detachments,
Is breaking the road for the rest.
Our fathers they left us their blessing --
They taught us, and groomed us, and crammed;
But we've shaken the Clubs and the Messes
To go and find out and be damned
(Dear boys!),
To go...Read more of this...
by
William Topaz McGonagall
In one of fhe States of America, some years ago,
There suddenly came on a violent storm of snow,
Which was nearly the death of a party of workmen,
Who had finished their day's work - nine or ten of them.
The distance was nearly twenty miles to their camp,
And with the thick falling snow their clothes felt damp,
As they set out...Read more of this...
by
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
OFTEN I think of the beautiful town
That is seated by the sea;
Often in thought go up and down
The pleasant streets of that dear old town,
And my youth comes back to me. 5
And a verse of a Lapland song
Is haunting my memory still:
"A boy's will is the wind's will,
And the thoughts of youth...Read more of this...
by
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
You left me with the autumn time;
When the winter stripped the forest bare,
Then dressed it in his spotless rime;
When frosts were lurking in the air
You left me here and went away.
The winds were cold; you could not stay.
You sought a warmer clime, until
The south wind, artful maid, should break
The winter's trumpets, and should fill
The air with...Read more of this...
by
Carl Sandburg
DESOLATE and lone
All night long on the lake
Where fog trails and mist creeps,
The whistle of a boat
Calls and cries unendingly,
Like some lost child
In tears and trouble
Hunting the harbor's breast
And the harbor's eyes....Read more of this...
by
Edward Taylor
for my father, 1922-1944
Your face did not rot
like the others--the co-pilot,
for example, I saw him
yesterday. His face is corn-
mush: his wife and daughter,
the poor ignorant people, stare
as if he will compose soon.
He was more wronged than Job.
But your face did not rot
like the others--it grew dark,
and hard like ebony;
the features progressed in their
distinction. If I could cajole
you to come...Read more of this...
by
J R R Tolkien
We knew that land once, You and I,
and once we wandered there
in the long days now long gone by,
a dark child and a fair.
Was it on the paths of firelight thought
in winter cold and white,
or in the blue-spun twilit hours
of little early tucked-up beds
in drowsy summer night,
that you and I in Sleep went down
to meet each other there,
your dark...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
Expanse cannot be lost --
Not Joy, but a Decree
Is Deity --
His Scene, Infinity --
Whose rumor's Gate was shut so tight
Before my Beam was sown,
Not even a Prognostic's push
Could make a Dent thereon --
The World that thou hast opened
Shuts for thee,
But not alone,
We all have followed thee --
Escape more slowly
To thy Tracts of Sheen --
The Tent is listening,
But the Troops...Read more of this...
by
Mother Goose
Doodle doodle doo,
The Princess lost her shoe:
Her Highness hopped,--
The fiddler stopped,
Not knowing what to do....Read more of this...
by
Thomas Moore
The time I've lost in wooing,
In watching and pursuing
The light that lies
In woman's eyes,
Has been my heart's undoing.
Tho' Wisdom oft has sought me,
I scorn'd the lore she brought me,
My only books
Were women's looks,
And folly's all they taught me.
Her smile when Beauty granted,
I hung with gaze enchanted,
Like him...Read more of this...
by
Badger Clark
I ride alone and hate the boys I meet.
Today, some way, their laughin' hurts me so.
I hate the mockin'-birds in the mesquite--
And yet I liked 'em just a week ago.
I hate the steady sun that glares, and glares!
The bird songs make me...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
Where I have lost, I softer tread --
I sow sweet flower from garden bed --
I pause above that vanished head
And mourn.
Whom I have lost, I pious guard
From accent harsh, or ruthless word --
Feeling as if their pillow heard,
Though stone!
When I have lost, you'll know by this --
A Bonnet black -- A dusk surplice --
A little tremor in my voice...Read more of this...
by
Robert Browning
All's over, then: does truth sound bitter
As one at first believes?
Hark, 'tis the sparrows' good-night twitter
About your cottage eaves!
And the leaf-buds on the vine are woolly,
I noticed that today;
One day more bursts them open fully
—You know the red turns grey.
Tomorrow we meet the same then, dearest?
May I take your hand in mine?
Mere friends are we,—well, friends the merest
Keep much...Read more of this...
by
James Tate
for my father, 1922-1944
Your face did not rot
like the others--the co-pilot,
for example, I saw him
yesterday. His face is corn-
mush: his wife and daughter,
the poor ignorant people, stare
as if he will compose soon.
He was more wronged than Job.
But your face did not rot
like the others--it grew dark,
and hard like ebony;
the features progressed in their
distinction. If I could cajole
you to come...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
Now I knew I lost her --
Not that she was gone --
But Remoteness travelled
On her Face and Tongue.
Alien, though adjoining
As a Foreign Race --
Traversed she though pausing
Latitudeless Place.
Elements Unaltered --
Universe the same
But Love's transmigration --
Somehow this had come --
Henceforth to remember
Nature took the Day
I had paid so much for --
His is Penury
Not who toils for Freedom
Or for Family
But the...Read more of this...
by
William Topaz McGonagall
Near by the silent waters of the Mediterranean,
And at the door of an old hut stood a coloured man,
Whose dress was oriental in style and poor with wear,
While adown his furrowed cheeks ran many a tear.
And the poor coloured man seemed very discontent,
And his grief overcame him at this moment;
And he wrung his hands in agony wild,
And he...Read more of this...
by
William Topaz McGonagall
In one of fhe States of America, some years ago,
There suddenly came on a violent storm of snow,
Which was nearly the death of a party of workmen,
Who had finished their day's work - nine or ten of them.
The distance was nearly twenty miles to their camp,
And with the thick falling snow their clothes felt damp,
As they set out...Read more of this...
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