Famous Moments Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Moments poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous moments poems. These examples illustrate what a famous moments poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Thomas Hardy
That mirror
Which makes of men a transparency,
Who holds that mirror
And bids us such a breast-bare spectacle see
Of you and me?
That mirror
Whose magic penetrates like a dart,
Who lifts that mirror
And throws our mind back on us, and our heart,
until we start?
That mirror
Works well in these night hours of ache;
Why in...Read more of this...
by
Howard Nemerov
He didn't want to do it with skill,
He'd had enough of skill. If he never saw
Another villanelle, it would be too soon;
And the same went for sonnets. If it had been
Hard work learning to rime, it would be much
Harder learning not to. The time came
He had to ask himself, what did he want?
What did he want when he began
That...Read more of this...
by
Dimitris P Kraniotis
The night
that strangled
the endless moments
I had wished
to live,
passed by
without my lighting up
the candle
I had longed
to warm up
all the “don’ts” and “zeros”....Read more of this...
by
Robert Herrick
Silvia, do you remember
the moments, in your mortal life,
when beauty still shone
in your sidelong, laughing eyes,
and you, light and thoughtful,
went
beyond girlhood’s limits?
The quiet rooms and the streets
around you, sounded
to your endless singing,
when you sat, happily content,
intent, on that woman’s work,
the vague future, arriving alive in your mind.
It was the scented May, and that’s how
you spent your day.
I would...Read more of this...
by
Rabindranath Tagore
I ask for a moment's indulgence to sit by thy side. The works
that I have in hand I will finish afterwards.
Away from the sight of thy face my heart knows no rest nor respite,
and my work becomes an endless toil in a shoreless sea of toil.
Today the summer has come at my window with its...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
The Soul has Bandaged moments --
When too appalled to stir --
She feels some ghastly Fright come up
And stop to look at her --
Salute her -- with long fingers --
Caress her freezing hair --
Sip, Goblin, from the very lips
The Lover -- hovered -- o'er --
Unworthy, that a thought so mean
Accost a Theme -- so -- fair --
The soul has moments...Read more of this...
by
Dejan Stojanovic
There can be no forced inspiration,
But there can be mergers with the world
There can be a flowing of feelings
Quiet, yet overwhelming
Flying outside to unite
Flying inside to find
The melody of the moment
When the yellow corona appears on the horizon
And blue light appears over the mountain
And the world becomes mellow
Hospitable and generous,
And you fly into the heart of the mountain
To...Read more of this...
by
Anne Kingsmill Finch
By neer resemblance see that Bird betray'd
Who takes the well wrought Arras for a shade
There hopes to pearch and with a chearfull Tune
O're-passe the scortchings of the sultry Noon.
But soon repuls'd by the obdurate scean
How swift she turns but turns alas in vain
That piece a Grove, this shews an ambient sky
Where immitated Fowl their pinnions ply
Seeming to mount in...Read more of this...
by
Walt Whitman
NATIVE moments! when you come upon me—Ah you are here now!
Give me now libidinous joys only!
Give me the drench of my passions! Give me life coarse and rank!
To-day, I go consort with nature’s darlings—to-night too;
I am for those who believe in loose delights—I share the midnight orgies of young men;
I dance with the dancers, and...Read more of this...
by
Katha Pollitt
Coffee and cigarettes in a clean cafe,
forsythia lit like a damp match against
a thundery sky drunk on its own ozone,
the laundry cool and crisp and folded away
again in the lavender closet-too late to find
comfort enough in such small daily moments
of beauty, renewal, calm, too late to imagine
people would rather be happy than suffering
and inflicting suffering. We're near the end,
but...Read more of this...
by
Vasko Popa
Unquiet you walk
Along the rims of my eyes
On the invisible grating
Before your lips
My naked words shiver
We steal moments
From the unheeding iron saws
Your hands sadly
Flow into mine
The air is impassable...Read more of this...
by
William Butler Yeats
'Lay me in a cushioned chair;
Carry me, ye four,
With cushions here and cushions there,
To see the world once more.
'To stable and to kennel go;
Bring what is there to bring;
Lead my Lollard to and fro,
Or gently in a ring.
'Put the chair upon the grass:
Bring Rody and his hounds,
That I may contented pass
From these earthly bounds.'
His eyelids droop, his head falls...Read more of this...
by
John Clare
And what is Life? An hour-glass on the run,
A mist retreating from the morning sun,
A busy, bustling, still-repeated dream.
Its length? A minute's pause, a moment's thought.
And Happiness? A bubble on the stream,
That in the act of seizing shrinks to nought.
And what is Hope? The puffing gale of morn,
That of its charms divests the dewy lawn,
And robs each flow'ret of...Read more of this...
by
John Keats
Hither hither, love---
'Tis a shady mead---
Hither, hither, love!
Let us feed and feed!
Hither, hither, sweet---
'Tis a cowslip bed---
Hither, hither, sweet!
'Tis with dew bespread!
Hither, hither, dear
By the breath of life,
Hither, hither, dear!---
Be the summer's wife!
Though one moment's pleasure
In one moment flies---
Though the passion's treasure
In one moment dies;---
Yet it has not passed---
Think how...Read more of this...
by
Rabindranath Tagore
Reverend sir, forgive this pair of
sinners. Spring winds to-day are
blowing in wild eddies, driving dust
and dead leaves away, and with them
your lessons are all lost.
Do not say, father, that life is a
vanity.
For we have made truce with death
for once, and only for a few fragrant
hours we two have been made immortal.
Even if the king's army came...Read more of this...
by
Alan Seeger
Seeing you have not come with me, nor spent
This day's suggestive beauty as we ought,
I have gone forth alone and been content
To make you mistress only of my thought.
And I have blessed the fate that was so kind
In my life's agitations to include
This moment's refuge where my sense can find
Refreshment, and my...Read more of this...
by
Edward Estlin (E E) Cummings
it is at moments after i have dreamed
of the rare entertainment of your eyes,
when (being fool to fancy) i have deemed
with your peculiar mouth my heart made wise;
at moments when the glassy darkness holds
the genuine apparition of your smile
(it was through tears always)and silence moulds
such strangeness as was mine a little while;
moments when my once more illustrious arms
are filled with...Read more of this...
by
Omar Khayyam
The light of the moon has cut the black robe of night:
drink then of wine, for one finds not often moments so
precious. Yes, abandon thyself to joy, for this same
moon will shine over the surface of the earth a long time
[after our day]....Read more of this...
by
Omar Khayyam
Skies like a zone our weary lives enclose,
And from our tear-stained eyes a Jihun flows;
Hell is a fire enkindled of our griefs;
Heaven but a moment's peace, stolen from our woes....Read more of this...
by
Robinson Jeffers
I. Reference to a Passage in Plutarch's Life of Sulla
The people buying and selling, consuming pleasures, talking in the archways,
Were all suddenly struck quiet
And ran from under stone to look up at the sky: so shrill and mournful,
So fierce and final, a brazen
Pealing of trumpets high up in the air, in the summer blue over Tuscany.
They marvelled; the soothsayers...Read more of this...
by
Rabindranath Tagore
I ask for a moment's indulgence to sit by thy side. The works
that I have in hand I will finish afterwards.
Away from the sight of thy face my heart knows no rest nor respite,
and my work becomes an endless toil in a shoreless sea of toil.
Today the summer has come at my window with its...Read more of this...
by
James Whitcomb Riley
A goddess, with a siren's grace,--
A sun-haired girl on a craggy place
Above a bay where fish-boats lay
Drifting about like birds of prey.
Wrought was she of a painter's dream,--
Wise only as are artists wise,
My artist-friend, Rolf Herschkelhiem,
With deep sad eyes of oversize,
And face of melancholy guise.
I pressed him that he tell to me
This masterpiece's history.
He turned--REturned--and thus beguiled
Me with the...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
Through those old Grounds of memory,
The sauntering alone
Is a divine intemperance
A prudent man would shun.
Of liquors that are vended
'Tis easy to beware
But statutes do not meddle
With the internal bar.
Pernicious as the sunset
Permitting to pursue
But impotent to gather,
The tranquil perfidy
Alloys our firmer moments
With that severest gold
Convenient to the longing
But otherwise withheld....Read more of this...
by
Omar Khayyam
You know all secrets of this earthly sphere,
Why then remain a prey to empty fear?
You cannot bend things to your will, but yet
Cheer up for the few moments you are here!...Read more of this...
by
Thomas Moore
Come, send round the wine, and leave points of belief
To simpleton sages and reasoning fools;
This moment's a flower too fair and brief
To be wither'd and stain'd by the dust of the schools.
Your glass may be purple, and mine may be blue,
But, while they are fill'd from the same bright bowl,
The fool who would...Read more of this...
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