Famous Messages Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Messages poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous messages poems. These examples illustrate what a famous messages poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Paul Laurence Dunbar
Oh, the poets may sing of their Lady Irenes,
And may rave in their rhymes about wonderful queens;
But I throw my poetical wings to the breeze,[Pg 27]
And soar in a song to my Lady Louise.
A sweet little maid, who is dearer, I ween,
Than any fair duchess, or even a queen.
When speaking of her I can't plod in my prose,
For...Read more of this...
by
Maria Mazziotti Gillan
Panic in your face, you write questions
to ask him. When he arrives,
you are serene, your fear
unbetrayed. How unlike me you are.
After the dance,
I see your happiness; he holds
your hand. Though you barely speak,
your body pulses messages I can read
all too well. He kisses you goodnight,
his body moving toward yours, and yours
responding. I am frightened, guard my
tongue for fear my...Read more of this...
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...
by
Amy Levy
I will be glad because it is the Spring;
I will forget the winter in my heart--
Dead hopes and withered promise; and will wring
A little joy from life ere life depart.
For spendthrift youth with passion-blinded eyes,
Stays not to see how woods and fields are bright;
He hears the phantom voices call, he flies
Upon the track of some unknown delight.
To him the...Read more of this...
by
Jorie Graham
It has a hole in it. Not only where I
concentrate.
The river still ribboning, twisting up,
into its re-
arrangements, chill enlightenments, tight-knotted
quickenings
and loosenings--whispered messages dissolving
the messengers--
the river still glinting-up into its handfuls, heapings.
glassy
forgettings under the river of
my attention--
and the river of my attention laying itself down--
bending,
reassembling--over the quick leaving-offs and windy
obstacles--
and the surface...Read more of this...
by
David Berman
I know it's a bad title
but I'm giving it to myself as a gift
on a day nearly canceled by sunlight
when the entire hill is approaching
the ideal of Virginia
brochured with goldenrod and loblolly
and I think "at least I have not woken up
with a bloody knife in my hand"
by then having absently wandered
one hundred yards from the house
while still seated in...Read more of this...
by
John Ashbery
Just when I thought there wasn't room enough
for another thought in my head, I had this great idea--
call it a philosophy of life, if you will.Briefly,
it involved living the way philosophers live,
according to a set of principles. OK, but which ones?
That was the hardest part, I admit, but I had a
kind of dark foreknowledge of what it would be...Read more of this...
by
Wang Wei
When he was a youth of fifteen or twenty,
He chased a wild horse, he caught him and rode him,
He shot the white-browed mountain tiger,
He defied the yellow-bristled Horseman of Ye.
Fighting single- handed for a thousand miles,
With his naked dagger he could hold a multitude.
...Granted that the troops of China were as swift as heaven's...Read more of this...
by
Edgar Lee Masters
At four o'clock in late October
I sat alone in the country school-house
Back from the road 'mid stricken fields,
And an eddy of wind blew leaves on the pane,
And crooned in the flue of the cannon-stove,
With its open door blurring the shadows
With the spectral glow of a dying fire.
In an idle mood I was running the planchette --
All at once my...Read more of this...
by
Victor Hugo
("Comme le matin rit sur les roses.")
{Bk. I. xii.}
The dawn is smiling on the dew that covers
The tearful roses—lo, the little lovers—
That kiss the buds and all the flutterings
In jasmine bloom, and privet, of white wings
That go and come, and fly, and peep, and hide
...Read more of this...
by
Isaac Watts
Prophecy and inspiration.
'Twas by an order from the Lord
The ancient prophets spoke his word;
His Spirit did their tongues inspire,
And warmed their hearts with heav'nly fire.
The works and wonders which they wrought
Confirmed the messages they brought;
The prophet's pen succeeds his breath,
To save the holy words from death.
Great God, mine eyes with pleasure look
On the dear volume of thy book;
There my...Read more of this...
by
Les Murray
The word goes round Repins,
the murmur goes round Lorenzinis,
at Tattersalls, men look up from sheets of numbers,
the Stock Exchange scribblers forget the chalk in their hands
and men with bread in their pockets leave the Greek Club:
There's a fellow crying in Martin Place. They can't stop him.
The traffic in George Street is banked up for half a mile
and drained of...Read more of this...
by
Friedrich von Schiller
Does pleasant spring return once more?
Does earth her happy youth regain?
Sweet suns green hills are shining o'er;
Soft brooklets burst their icy chain:
Upon the blue translucent river
Laughs down an all-unclouded day,
The winged west winds gently quiver,
The buds are bursting from the spray;
While birds are blithe on every tree;
The Oread from the mountain-shore
Sighs, "Lo! thy flowers come back to thee--
Thy child,...Read more of this...
by
Rg Gregory
(i)
how new the world is
trying to find
nerve in an old rind
(ii)
the bread is crumbled
for birds to swallow
rolled into droppings
flowers from the hair
of noseless statues
tyrants of parks
where men have cowered
too long and mistaken
unmanned by he dark
(iii)
when we awaken
(how have we fallen)
machines are broken
wires lie strangled
by the messages they nursed
lathes are swinging
from trees in derision
pipes burst and scalded
houses contorted
(what went on...Read more of this...
by
Isaac Watts
v.24-26
C. M.
Hosanna; the Lord's day; or, Christ's resurrection and our salvation.
This is the day the Lord hath made,
He calls the hours his own;
Let heav'n rejoice, let earth be glad,
And praise surround the throne.
Today he rose and left the dead,
And Satan's empire fell;
Today the saints his triumphs spread,
And all his wonders tell.
Hosanna to th' anointed King,
To David's holy Son;
Help...Read more of this...
by
Walt Whitman
1
TO conclude—I announce what comes after me;
I announce mightier offspring, orators, days, and then, for the present, depart.
I remember I said, before my leaves sprang at all,
I would raise my voice jocund and strong, with reference to consummations.
When America does what was promis’d,
When there are plentiful athletic bards, inland and seaboard,
When through These States...Read more of this...
by
Howard Nemerov
This morning, between two branches of a tree
Beside the door, epeira once again
Has spun and signed his tapestry and trap.
I test his early-warning system and
It works, he scrambles forth in sable with
The yellow hieroglyph that no one knows
The meaning of. And I remember now
How yesterday at dusk the nighthawks came
Back as they do about this time each year,
Grey squadrons...Read more of this...
by
Rg Gregory
(in china it is symbolic
of darkness and the new moon)
in your night's hollow
the tiger stalks
black grasses have licked
it into nothingness
hooked by moon
i hover on your hollow's lip
i feel the smell of fire
the leap of a bright cat-fur
my eye is dumb
asking to be devoured
i am trembled over
(a bag of fear-bones)
there is a whoosh of flame
streaking but static at
your night's...Read more of this...
by
John Ashbery
The first of the undecoded messages read: "Popeye sits
in thunder,
Unthought of. From that shoebox of an apartment,
From livid curtain's hue, a tangram emerges: a country."
Meanwhile the Sea Hag was relaxing on a green couch: "How
pleasant
To spend one's vacation en la casa de Popeye," she
scratched
Her cleft chin's solitary hair. She remembered spinach
And was going to ask Wimpy...Read more of this...
by
Wystan Hugh (W H) Auden
I sit in one of the divesOn Fifty-second StreetUncertain and afraidAs the clever hopes expireOf a low dishonest decade:Waves of anger and fearCirculate over the brightAnd darkened lands of the earth,Obsessing our private lives;The unmentionable odour of deathOffends the September night. Accurate scholarship canUnearth the whole offenceFrom Luther until nowThat has driven a culture mad,Find what occurred at Linz,What huge...Read more of this...
by
Isaac Watts
v.1-6
C. M.
The church is our delight and safety.
The Lord of glory is my light,
And my salvation too;
God is my strength, nor will I fear
What all my foes can do.
One privilege my heart desires;
O grant me an abode
Among the churches of thy saints,
The temples of my God!
There shall I offer my requests,
And see thy beauty still;
Shall hear thy messages...Read more of this...
by
David Lehman
for J.A., December 3, 1975
Ashes that survive the aftermath of fire
Bury the past bravely, retaining
Only those messages that are least decipherable
And therefore most desirable
To be sung by the bright-eyed few remaining
Voices of our frankly foolish choir....Read more of this...
by
Constantine P Cavafy
Amid fear and suspicions,
with agitated mind and frightened eyes,
we melt and plan how to act
to avoid the certain
danger that so horribly threatens us.
And yet we err, this was not in our paths;
the messages were false
(or we did not hear, or fully understand them).
Another catastrophe, one we never imagined,
sudden, precipitous, falls upon us,
and unprepared -- there is no more time...Read more of this...
by
Walt Whitman
1
OVER the western sea, hither from Niphon come,
Courteous, the swart-cheek’d two-sworded envoys,
Leaning back in their open barouches, bare-headed, impassive,
Ride to-day through Manhattan.
Libertad!
I do not know whether others behold what I behold,
In the procession, along with the nobles of Asia, the errand-bearers,
Bringing up the rear, hovering above, around, or in the ranks marching;
But...Read more of this...
by
Rg Gregory
(1) a great man
there was a great man
so great he couldn't be criticised in the light
who died
and for a whole week people turned up their collars over their ears
and wept with great gossiping
houses wore their roofs at a mournful angle
and television announcers carried their eyes around in long drooping bags
there was a hush upon the voice of the land
as...Read more of this...
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