Famous Memory Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Memory poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous memory poems. These examples illustrate what a famous memory poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Dickinson, Emily
...s—
That answer to Our feet—
So miserable a sound—at first—
Nor ever now—so sweet—
As plashing in the Pools—
When Memory was a Boy—
But a Demurer Circuit—
A Geometric Joy—
The Posture of the Key
That interrupt the Day
To Our Endeavor—Not so real
The Cheek of Liberty—
As this Phantasm Steel—
Whose features—Day and Night—
Are present to us—as Our Own—
And as escapeless—quite—
The narrow Round—the Stint—
The slow exchange of Hope—
For something passiver—...Read more of this...
by
Ginsberg, Allen
...in myriad
stolen night-cars, N.C., secret hero of these
poems, cocksman and Adonis of Denver--joy
to the memory of his innumerable lays of girls
in empty lots & diner backyards, moviehouses'
rickety rows, on mountaintops in caves or with
gaunt waitresses in familiar roadside lonely pet-
ticoat upliftings & especially secret gas-station
solipsisms of johns, & hometown alleys too,
who faded out in vast sordid movies, were shifted in
dreams, woke on a...Read more of this...
by
Wilde, Oscar
...might can slay
The soul with honeyed drugs, - alas! I must
From such sweet ruin play the runaway,
Although too constant memory never can
Forget the arched splendour of those brows Olympian
Which for a little season made my youth
So soft a swoon of exquisite indolence
That all the chiding of more prudent Truth
Seemed the thin voice of jealousy, - O hence
Thou huntress deadlier than Artemis!
Go seek some other quarry! for of thy too perilous bliss.
My lips have drunk enou...Read more of this...
by
Alighieri, Dante
...I only, must defy
The powers of pity, and the night to be.
So thought I, but the things I came to see,
Which memory holds, could never thought forecast.
O Muses high! O Genius, first and last!
Memories intense! Your utmost powers combine
To meet this need. For never theme as mine
Strained vainly, where your loftiest nobleness
Must fail to be sufficient.
First
I said,
Fearing, to him who through the darkness led,
"O poet, ere the arduous...Read more of this...
by
Byron, George (Lord)
...;
But from the hour he waved his parting hand
Each trace wax'd fainter of his course, till all
Had nearly ceased his memory to recall.
His sire was dust, his vassals could declare,
'Twas all they knew, that Lara was not there;
Nor sent, nor came he, till conjecture grew
Cold in the many, anxious in the few.
His hall scarce echoes with his wonted name,
His portrait darkens in its fading frame,
Another chief consoled his destined bride,
The young forgot him, ...Read more of this...
by
Frost, Robert
...ve never asked your father outright, have you?"
"I have, and been Put off sometime, I think."
(This was her faded memory of the way
Once long ago her father had put himself off.)
"Because no telling but it may have been
Something between your father and your mother
Not meant for us at all."
"Not meant for me?
Where would the fairness be in giving me
A name to carry for life and never know
The secret of?"
"And then it may have been
Something a father couldn't tel...Read more of this...
by
St Vincent Millay, Edna
...flee before all things.
Oblivion is the name of this abode: and she is there."
Oh, radiant Song! Oh, gracious Memory!
Be long upon this height
I shall not climb again!
I know the way you mean,—the little night,
And the long empty day,—never to see
Again the angry light,
Or hear the hungry noises cry my brain!
Ah, but she,
Your other sister and my other soul,
She shall again be mine;
And I shall drink her from a silver bowl,
A chilly thin green wine,
Not bitter to th...Read more of this...
by
Whitman, Walt
...ul, vibrated back to me, from them—from facts, sight, hearing, touch, my
phrenology, reason, articulation, comparison, memory, and the like;
The real life of my senses and flesh, transcending my senses and flesh;
My body, done with materials—my sight, done with my material eyes;
Proved to me this day, beyond cavil, that it is not my material eyes which finally see,
Nor my material body which finally loves, walks, laughs, shouts, embraces, procreates.
11
O the farmer...Read more of this...
by
Wilde, Oscar
...the gold galley of the Lord of Light.
Yet here the gentle stillness of the night
Brings back the swelling tide of memory,
And wakes again my passionate love for thee:
Now is the Spring of Love, yet soon will come
On meadow and tree the Summer's lordly bloom;
And soon the grass with brighter flowers will blow,
And send up lilies for some boy to mow.
Then before long the Summer's conqueror,
Rich Autumn-time, the season's usurer,
Will lend his hoarded gold to all the t...Read more of this...
by
Chesterton, G K
...space
As on a staircase go in grace,
Carrying the firelight on your face
Beyond the loneliest star.
Take these; in memory of the hour
We strayed a space from home
And saw the smoke-hued hamlets, quaint
With Westland king and Westland saint,
And watched the western glory faint
Along the road to Frome.
BOOK I THE VISION OF THE KING
Before the gods that made the gods
Had seen their sunrise pass,
The White Horse of the White Horse Vale
Was cut out of the grass.Read more of this...
by
Bridges, Robert Seymour
...ose spread:
And at the prow make figured maidenhead
O'erride the seas and answer to the wheel.
And let him deep in memory's hold have stor'd
Water of Helicon: and let him fit
The needle that doth true with heaven accord:
Then bid her crew, love, diligence and wit
With justice, courage, temperance come aboard,
And at her helm the master reason sit.
16
This world is unto God a work of art,
Of which the unaccomplish'd heavenly plan
Is hid in life within the creature's...Read more of this...
by
Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...n shall see.
Then fell the floods of heaven drowning the deep.
And how my feet recrost the deathful ridge
No memory in me lives; but that I touched
The chapel-doors at dawn I know; and thence
Taking my war-horse from the holy man,
Glad that no phantom vext me more, returned
To whence I came, the gate of Arthur's wars.'
`O brother,' asked Ambrosius,--`for in sooth
These ancient books--and they would win thee--teem,
Only I find not there this Holy Grail, ...Read more of this...
by
Carroll, Lewis
...Dedication
Inscribed to a dear Child:
in memory of golden summer hours
and whispers of a summer sea.
Girt with a boyish garb for boyish task,
Eager she wields her spade; yet loves as well
Rest on a friendly knee, intent to ask
The tale he loves to tell.
Rude spirits of the seething outer strife,
Unmeet to read her pure and simple spright,
Deem, if you list, such hours a waste of life,...Read more of this...
by
Chaucer, Geoffrey
...ip of Venus, goddess of love,
*Done make* an altar and an oratory; *caused to be made*
And westward, in the mind and in memory
Of Mars, he maked hath right such another,
That coste largely of gold a fother*. *a great amount
And northward, in a turret on the wall,
Of alabaster white and red coral
An oratory riche for to see,
In worship of Diane of chastity,
Hath Theseus done work in noble wise.
But yet had I forgotten to devise* *describe
The noble carving, and the por...Read more of this...
by
Scott, Sir Walter
...m, that warrior guest,
While thus he communed with his breast:—
'Why is it, at each turn I trace
Some memory of that exiled race?
Can I not mountain maiden spy,
But she must bear the Douglas eye?
Can I not view a Highland brand,
But it must match the Douglas hand?
Can I not frame a fevered dream,
But still the Douglas is the theme?
I'll dream no more,—by manly mind
Not even in sleep is will resigned.
My m...Read more of this...
by
Angelou, Maya
...I keep on dying again.
Veins collapse, opening like the
Small fists of sleeping
Children.
Memory of old tombs,
Rotting flesh and worms do
Not convince me against
The challenge. The years
And cold defeat live deep in
Lines along my face.
They dull my eyes, yet
I keep on dying,
Because I love to live....Read more of this...
by
Shelley, Percy Bysshe
...is staggered, wearily
He paused, and ere he could resume, I cried,
"First who art thou?" . . . "Before thy memory
"I feared, loved, hated, suffered, did, & died,
And if the spark with which Heaven lit my spirit
Earth had with purer nutriment supplied
"Corruption would not now thus much inherit
Of what was once Rousseau--nor this disguise
Stained that within which still disdains to wear it.--
"If I have been extinguished, yet there rise
A thousand beacons from...Read more of this...
by
Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)
...thelo."
I. THE BURIAL OF THE DEAD
April is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
Winter kept us warm, covering
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
A little life with dried tubers.
Summer surprised us, coming over the Starnbergersee
With a shower of rain; we stopped in the colonnade,
And went on in sunlight, into the Hofgarten,
And drank coffee, and talked for an hour.
Bin...Read more of this...
by
Miller, Alice Duer
...rly,
Live not in dreams of the past, for understand,
If you remember too much, too long, too clearly,
If you grasp memory with too heavy a hand,
You will destroy memory in all its glory
For the sake of the dreams of your head upon your bed.
You will be left with only the worn dead story
You told yourself of the dead.
XLII
Nanny brought up my son, as his father before him,
Austere on questions of habits, manners, and food.
Nobly yielding a mother's ...Read more of this...
by
Akhmatova, Anna
...ut choice,
And it seems to me that everywhere
And always I'll hear her sweet voice.
x x x
True love's memory, You are heavy!
In your smoke I sing and burn,
And the rest -- is only fire
To keep the chilled soul warm.
To keep warm the sated body,
They need my tears for this
Did I for this sing your song, God?
Did I take part of love for this?
Let me drink of such a poison,
That I would be deaf and dumb,
And my unglorious glory
Wash away to t...Read more of this...
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