Famous My Past Poems by Famous Poets

These are examples of famous My Past poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous my past poems. These examples illustrate what a famous my past poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).

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Dream Song 119: Fresh-shaven past months and a picture in New York

by John Berryman
 Fresh-shaven, past months & a picture in New York
of Beard Two, I did have Three took off. Well. .
Shadow & act, shadow & act,
Better get white or you' get whacked,
or keep so-called black
& raise new hell.

I've had enough of this dying.
You've done me a dozen goodnesses; get well.
Fight again for our own.
Henry felt baffled, in the middle of the...Read more of this...

Woman with a Past

by Carl Sandburg
 THERE was a woman tore off a red velvet gown
And slashed the white skin of her right shoulder
And a crimson zigzag wrote a finger nail hurry.

There was a woman spoke six short words
And quit a life that was old to her
For a life that was new.

There was a woman swore an oath
And gave hoarse whisper to a prayer
And it...Read more of this...

In Me Past Present Future meet

by Siegfried Sassoon
 In me, past, present, future meet
To hold long chiding conference.
My lusts usurp the present tense
And strangle Reason in his seat.
My loves leap through the future’s fence
To dance with dream-enfranchised feet.

In me the cave-man clasps the seer,
And garlanded Apollo goes
Chanting to Abraham’s deaf ear.
In me the tiger sniffs the rose.
Look in my heart, kind friends, and tremble,
Since there your elements...Read more of this...

The Past is the Present

by Marianne Moore
 If external action is effete
and rhyme is outmoded,
I shall revert to you,
Habakkuk, as when in a Bible class
the teacher was speaking of unrhymed verse.
He said - and I think I repeat his exact words - 
"Hebrew poetry is prose
with a sort of heightened consciousness." Ecstasy affords
the occasion and expediency determines the form....Read more of this...

Sonnet 42 - My future will not copy fair my past

by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
 'My future will not copy fair my past'—
I wrote that once; and thinking at my side
My ministering life-angel justified
The word by his appealing look upcast
To the white throne of God, I turned at last,
And there, instead, saw thee, not unallied
To angels in thy soul! Then I, long tried
By natural ills, received the comfort fast,
While budding, at thy sight, my...Read more of this...

The Ghost Of The Past

by Thomas Hardy
 We two kept house, the Past and I,
The Past and I;
I tended while it hovered nigh,
Leaving me never alone.
It was a spectral housekeeping
Where fell no jarring tone,
As strange, as still a housekeeping
As ever has been known.

As daily I went up the stair,
And down the stair,
I did not mind the Bygone there --
The Present once to me;
Its moving meek companionship
I...Read more of this...

Now Ramazan is past, Shawwal comes back,

by Omar Khayyam
Now Ramazan is past, Shawwal comes back,
And feast and song and joy no more we lack;
The wine-skin carriers throng the streets and cry,
«Here comes the porter with his precious pack.»...Read more of this...

Past and Present

by Thomas Hood
 I remember, I remember
The house where I was born,
The little window where the sun
Came peeping in at morn;
He never came a wink too soon
Nor bought too long a day;
But now, I often wish the night
Had borne my breath away.

I remember, I remember
The roses, red and white,
The violets, and the lily-cups--
Those flowers made of light!
The lilacs where the robin built,
And...Read more of this...

Time Long Past

by Percy Bysshe Shelley
 Like the ghost of a dear friend dead
Is Time long past.
A tone which is now forever fled,
A hope which is now forever past,
A love so sweet it could not last,
Was Time long past.

There were sweet dreams in the night
Of Time long past:
And, was it sadness or delight,
Each day a shadow onward cast
Which made us wish it yet might last--
That...Read more of this...

Past One O'Clock ..

by Vladimir Mayakovsky
 Past one o’clock. You must have gone to bed.
The Milky Way streams silver through the night. 
I’m in no hurry; with lightning telegrams
I have no cause to wake or trouble you. 
And, as they say, the incident is closed.
Love’s boat has smashed against the daily grind. 
Now you and I are quits. Why bother then
To balance mutual sorrows, pains,...Read more of this...

All My Past Life..

by John Wilmot
 All my past life is mine no more,
The flying hours are gone,
Like transitory dreams given o'er,
Whose images are kept in store
By memory alone.

What ever is to come is not,
How can it then be mine?
The present moment's all my lot,
And that as fast as it is got,
Phyllis, is wholly thine.

Then talk not of inconstancy,
False hearts, and broken vows,
Ii, by miracle,...Read more of this...

Then, when the good reap fruits of labours past,

by Omar Khayyam
Then, when the good reap fruits of labours past,
My hapless lot with drunkards will be cast;
If good, may I be numbered with the first,
If bad, find grace and mercy with the last....Read more of this...

All Thats Past

by Walter de la Mare
 Very old are the woods; 
And the buds that break 
Out of the brier's boughs, 
When March winds wake, 
So old with their beauty are-- 
Oh, no man knows 
Through what wild centuries 
Roves back the rose. 
Very old are the brooks; 
And the rills that rise 
Where snow sleeps cold beneath 
The azure skies 
Sing such a history...Read more of this...

Past Carin

by Henry Lawson
 Now up and down the siding brown 
The great black crows are flyin', 
And down below the spur, I know, 
Another `milker's' dyin'; 
The crops have withered from the ground, 
The tank's clay bed is glarin', 
But from my heart no tear nor sound, 
For I have gone past carin' -- 
Past worryin' or carin', 
Past feelin' aught or...Read more of this...

220. Song—The Winter it is Past

by Robert Burns
 THE WINTER it is past, and the summer comes at last
 And the small birds, they sing on ev’ry tree;
Now ev’ry thing is glad, while I am very sad,
 Since my true love is parted from me.


The rose upon the breer, by the waters running clear,
 May have charms for the linnet or the bee;
Their little loves are blest,...Read more of this...

How yesterday is long ago! The past

by Fernando Pessoa
How yesterday is long ago! The past

Is a fixed infinite distance from to-day,

And bygone things, the first-lived as the last,

In irreparable sameness far away.

How the to-be is infinitely ever

Out of the place wherein it will be Now,

Like the seen wave yet far up in the river,

Which reaches not us, but the new-waved flow!

This thing Time is, whose being is having...Read more of this...

My Days among the Dead are Past

by Robert Southey
 My days among the Dead are past;
Around me I behold,
Where'er these casual eyes are cast,
The mighty minds of old;
My never-failing friends are they,
With whom I converse day by day.

With them I take delight in weal,
And seek relief in woe;
And while I understand and feel
How much to them I owe,
My cheeks have often been bedew'd
With tears of thoughtful gratitude.

My thoughts...Read more of this...

Past Days

by Anne Bronte
 'Tis strange to think, there was a time
When mirth was not an empty name,
When laughter really cheered the heart,
And frequent smiles unbidden came,
And tears of grief would only flow
In sympathy for others' woe; 
When speech expressed the inward thought,
And heart to kindred heart was bare,
And Summer days were far too short
For all the pleasures crowded there,
And silence, solitude, and...Read more of this...

The Past

by William Cullen Bryant
THOU unrelenting Past! 
Strong are the barriers round thy dark domain  
And fetters sure and fast  
Hold all that enter thy unbreathing reign. 

Far in thy realm withdrawn 5 
Old empires sit in sullenness and gloom  
And glorious ages gone 
Lie deep within the shadow of thy womb. 

Childhood with all its mirth  
Youth Manhood Age...Read more of this...

Past And Future

by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
 MY future will not copy fair my past
On any leaf but Heaven's. Be fully done
Supernal Will ! I would not fain be one
Who, satisfying thirst and breaking fast,
Upon the fulness of the heart at last
Says no grace after meat. My wine has run
Indeed out of my cup, and there is none
To gather up the bread of my repast
Scattered and...Read more of this...

Wend I, wander I, past all worlds that be

by Hafez
Wend I, wander I, past all worlds that be;
Ever have I wander’d or e’er the earth was made;
Urg’d like the álien áir o’er land & sea,
Sleepless as sunlight, joyless as its shade.

Not on your earth travel I; sáy not to mé
‘Cease awhile thy wandering, Ó tir’d day!’
Say not, ‘O pilgrim, rest thee; comfort thee’:
Not hére is my journey’s end, Indus...Read more of this...

At Half past Three a single Bird

by Emily Dickinson
 At Half past Three, a single Bird
Unto a silent Sky
Propounded but a single term
Of cautious melody.

At Half past Four, Experiment
Had subjugated test
And lo, Her silver Principle
Supplanted all the rest.

At Half past Seven, Element
Nor Implement, be seen --
And Place was where the Presence was
Circumference between....Read more of this...

Past Days

by Algernon Charles Swinburne
 I.

Dead and gone, the days we had together,
Shadow-stricken all the lights that shone
Round them, flown as flies the blown foam's feather,
Dead and gone.

Where we went, we twain, in time foregone,
Forth by land and sea, and cared not whether,
If I go again, I go alone.

Bound am I with time as with a tether;
Thee perchance death leads enfranchised on,
Far from deathlike...Read more of this...

A Song: When June is Past the Fading Rose

by Thomas Carew
 Ask me no more where Jove bestows, 
When June is past, the fading rose; 
For in your beauty's orient deep 
These flowers as in their causes, sleep. 

Ask me no more whither doth stray 
The golden atoms of the day; 
For in pure love heaven did prepare 
Those powders to enrich your hair. 

Ask me no more whither doth...Read more of this...

The Past is such a curious Creature

by Emily Dickinson
 The Past is such a curious Creature
To look her in the Face
A Transport may receipt us
Or a Disgrace --

Unarmed if any meet her
I charge him fly
Her faded Ammunition
Might yet reply....Read more of this...

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