Famous Minutes Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Minutes poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous minutes poems. These examples illustrate what a famous minutes poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
See also:
...Where God, in his extinction of the rest,
Had overlooked him and forgotten him.
Yet I was not alone. Interminably
The minutes crawled along and over me,
Slow, cold, intangible, and invisible,
As if they had come up out of that water.
How long I sat there I shall never know,
For time was hidden out there in the black lake,
Which now I could see only as a glimpse
Of black light by the shore. There were no stars
To mention, and the moon was hours away
Behind me. There w...Read more of this...
by
Robinson, Edwin Arlington
...ach.
"His ground was over mine and broke the first:
"So, let him sit with me this many a year!"
He did not sit five minutes. Just a week
Sufficed his sudden healthy vehemence.
Something had struck him in the "Outward-bound"
Another way than Blougram's purpose was:
And having bought, not cabin-furniture
But settler's-implements (enough for three)
And started for Australia--there, I hope,
By this time he has tested his first plough,
And studied his last chapter of S...Read more of this...
by
Browning, Robert
...underneath this oak;
He swore they would return with haste;
Whither they went I cannot tell-
I thought I heard, some minutes past,
Sounds as of a castle bell.
Stretch forth thy hand,' thus ended she,
'And help a wretched maid to flee.'
Then Christabel stretched forth her hand,
And comforted fair Geraldine:
'O well, bright dame, may you command
The service of Sir Leoline;
And gladly our stout chivalry
Will he send forth, and friends withal,
To guide and guard yo...Read more of this...
by
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor
...laid out like a funeral service. These are the things that you need to make a cup of
coffee.
When I left the house ten minutes later, the cup of coffee safely inside me like a
grave, I said, "Thank you for the cup of coffee."
"You're welcome," she said. Her voice came from behind a closed door. Her
voice sounded like another telegram. It was really time for me to leave.
I spent the rest of the day not making coffee. It was a comfort. And evening came, I
had dinner in a resta...Read more of this...
by
Brautigan, Richard
...many days,
Has he been wandering in uncertain ways:
Through wilderness, and woods of mossed oaks;
Counting his woe-worn minutes, by the strokes
Of the lone woodcutter; and listening still,
Hour after hour, to each lush-leav'd rill.
Now he is sitting by a shady spring,
And elbow-deep with feverous fingering
Stems the upbursting cold: a wild rose tree
Pavilions him in bloom, and he doth see
A bud which snares his fancy: lo! but now
He plucks it, dips its stalk in the water: how...Read more of this...
by
Keats, John
...der
To what my own full thoughts had made too tender,
That but for tears my life had fled away!--
Ye deaf and senseless minutes of the day,
And thou, old forest, hold ye this for true,
There is no lightning, no authentic dew
But in the eye of love: there's not a sound,
Melodious howsoever, can confound
The heavens and earth in one to such a death
As doth the voice of love: there's not a breath
Will mingle kindly with the meadow air,
Till it has panted round, and stolen a shar...Read more of this...
by
Keats, John
...o,
There was ‘something between us’ even then;
Watching her write like Eliot every day,
Turn prose into haiku in ten minutes flat,
Write a poem in Greek three weeks from learning the alphabet;
Then translate it as ‘Sun on a tomb, gold place, small sacred horse’.
I never got over having her in the room, though
Every day she was impossible in a new way,
Stamping her foot like a naughty Enid Blyton child,
Shouting "Poets don’t do arithmetic!"
Or drawing caricatures of ...Read more of this...
by
Tebb, Barry
...d all the coast, in prospect lay.
Down he descended straight; the speed of Gods
Time counts not, though with swiftest minutes winged.
Now was the sun in western cadence low
From noon, and gentle airs, due at their hour,
To fan the earth now waked, and usher in
The evening cool; when he, from wrath more cool,
Came the mild Judge, and Intercessour both,
To sentence Man: The voice of God they heard
Now walking in the garden, by soft winds
Brought to their ears, while d...Read more of this...
by
Milton, John
...em swearing at each other.
He heard one of them say, "Hold your end up.'' Then he
couldn't hear anything.
About ten minutes later he saw all sorts of lights go on at
another campsite down along the creek. He heard a distant
voice shouting, "The answer is no ! You already woke up the
kids. They have to have their rest. We're going on a four-
mile hike tomorrow up to Fish Konk Lake. Try someplace
else. "...Read more of this...
by
Brautigan, Richard
...and I don't know why I keep staring at it.
My childhood hasn't made good material either
mostly being a mulch of white minutes
with a few stand out moments,
popping tar bubbles on the driveway in the summer
a certain amount of pride at school
everytime they called it "our sun"
and playing football when the only play
was "go out long" are what stand out now.
If squeezed for more information
I can remember old clock radios
with flipping metal numbers
and an entree called Surf...Read more of this...
by
Berman, David
...the Sun.
The moaning wind went wandering round
The weeping prison-wall:
Till like a wheel of turning steel
We felt the minutes crawl:
O moaning wind! what had we done
To have such a seneschal?
At last I saw the shadowed bars,
Like a lattice wrought in lead,
Move right across the whitewashed wall
That faced my three-plank bed,
And I knew that somewhere in the world
God's dreadful dawn was red.
At six o'clock we cleaned our cells,
At seven all was still,
But the sough and sw...Read more of this...
by
Wilde, Oscar
...es, who lives an hour
In ocean, self-upheld;
And so long he, with unspent pow'r,
His destiny repell'd;
And ever, as the minutes flew,
Entreated help, or cried--Adieu!
At length, his transient respite past,
His comrades, who before
Had heard his voice in ev'ry blast,
Could catch the sound no more.
For then, by toil subdued, he drank
The stifling wave, and then he sank.
No poet wept him: but the page
Of narrative sincere;
That tells his name, his worth, his age,
Is wet with A...Read more of this...
by
Cowper, William
...y wed,
Or may I never leave my grave among the dead."
So saying, she hobbled off with busy fear.
The lover's endless minutes slowly pass'd;
The dame return'd, and whisper'd in his ear
To follow her; with aged eyes aghast
From fright of dim espial. Safe at last,
Through many a dusky gallery, they gain
The maiden's chamber, silken, hush'd, and chaste;
Where Porphyro took covert, pleas'd amain.
His poor guide hurried back with agues in her brain.
Her falt'ring hand up...Read more of this...
by
Keats, John
...bloods were foul
Enough to make their throttles howl,
While we whom Jesus died to teach
Fought round on round, three minutes each.
And think that, you'll understand
I thought, "I'll go and take Bill's hand.
I'll up and say the fault was mine,
He shan't make play for these here swine."
And then I thought that that was silly,
They'd think I was afraid of Billy;
They'd think (I thought it, God forgive me)
I funked the hiding Bill could give me.
And that thought made...Read more of this...
by
Masefield, John
...his friend.
While the Beaver confessed, with affectionate looks
More eloquent even than tears,
It had learned in ten minutes far more than all books
Would have taught it in seventy years.
They returned hand-in-hand, and the Bellman, unmanned
(For a moment) with noble emotion,
Said "This amply repays all the wearisome days
We have spent on the billowy ocean!"
Such friends, as the Beaver and Butcher became,
Have seldom if ever been known;
In winter or summer, 'twas alw...Read more of this...
by
Carroll, Lewis
...lt like moving anyhow, and when I got back i
figured she'd be gone, but I had been sitting in the West End Bar about 30 minutes when
she walked in and sat down next to me.
"Well, bastard, I see you've come back."
I ordered her a drink. Then I looked at her. She had on a high- necked dress. I had
never seen her in one of those. And under each eye, driven in, were 2 pins with glass
heads. All you could see were the heads of the pins, but the pins were driven down into
her face...Read more of this...
by
Bukowski, Charles
...Such age there is, and who could wish its end?
297 Yet ev'n on this her load Misfortune flings,
298 To press the weary minutes' flagging wings:
299 New sorrow rises as the day returns,
300 A sister sickens, or a daughter mourns.
301 Now kindred Merit fills the sable bier,
302 Now lacerated Friendship claims a tear.
303 Year chases year, decay pursues decay,
304 Still drops some joy from with'ring life away;
305 New forms arise, and diff'rent views engage,
306 Superfluous lag...Read more of this...
by
Johnson, Samuel
...d.
I snatch'd him up just as you see him there,
And brought him off for sentence out of hand:
I've scarcely been ten minutes in the air —
At least a quarter it can hardly be:
I dare say that his wife is still at tea.'
LXXXVIII
Here Satan said, 'I know this man of old,
And have expected him for some time here;
A sillier fellow you will scarce behold,
Or more conceited in his petty sphere:
But surely it was not worth while to fold
Such trash below your wing, Asmod...Read more of this...
by
Byron, George (Lord)
...and miles until I came to the rock
under the tree and sat down. Every time a car would come
by, about once every ten minutes, I would get up and stick
out my thumb as if it were a bunch of bananas and then sit
back down on the rock again.
The old shack had a tin roof colored reddish by years of
wear, like a hat worn under the guillotine. A corner of the
roof was loose and a hot wind blew down the river and the
loose corner clanged in the wind.
A car went by. An ol...Read more of this...
by
Brautigan, Richard
...ave a mile high
sweeps in
Los Angeles breathes its last gas
and sinks into the sea like the Titanic all lights lit
Nine minutes later Willa Cather's Nebraska
sinks with it
The sea comes over in Utah
Mormon tabernacles washed away like barnacles
Coyotes are confounded & swim nowhere
An orchestra onstage in Omaha
keeps on playing Handel's Water Music
Horns fill with water
ans bass players float away on their instruments
clutching them like lovers horizontal
Chicago's Loop becom...Read more of this...
by
Ferlinghetti, Lawrence
Dont forget to view our wonderful member Minutes poems.