Famous My Son Poems by Famous Poets

These are examples of famous My Son 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 son poems. These examples illustrate what a famous my son poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).

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Who were the Father and the Son

by Emily Dickinson
 Who were "the Father and the Son"
We pondered when a child,
And what had they to do with us
And when portentous told

With inference appalling
By Childhood fortified
We thought, at least they are no worse
Than they have been described.

Who are "the Father and the Son"
Did we demand Today
"The Father and the Son" himself
Would doubtless specify --

But had they the felicity
When we desired...Read more of this...

The Only Son

by Rudyard Kipling
 She dropped the bar, she shot the bolt, she fed the fire anew
 For she heard a whimper under the sill and a great grey paw came through.
 The fresh flame comforted the hut and shone on the roof-beam,
 And the Only Son lay down again and dreamed that he dreamed a dream.
 The last ash fell from the...Read more of this...

Old Dr. Valentine To His Son

by Ogden Nash
 Your hopeless patients will live,
Your healthy patients will die.
I have only this word to give:
Wonder, and find out why...Read more of this...

The Parsons Son

by Robert William Service
 This is the song of the parson's son, as he squats in his shack alone,
On the wild, weird nights, when the Northern Lights shoot up from the frozen zone,
And it's sixty below, and couched in the snow the hungry huskies moan:

"I'm one of the Arctic brotherhood, I'm an old-time pioneer.
I came with the first -- O God! how I've...Read more of this...

Alexandre Dumas And His Son

by Dorothy Parker
 Although I work, and seldom cease,
At Dumas pere and Dumas fils,
Alas, I cannot make me care
For Dumas fils and Dumas pere....Read more of this...

My young son asks me..

by Bertolt Brecht
 My young son asks me: Must I learn mathematics?
What is the use, I feel like saying. That two pieces
Of bread are more than one's about all you'll end up with.
My young son asks me: Must I learn French?
What is the use, I feel like saying. This State's collapsing.
And if you just rub your belly with your hand and
Groan, you'll...Read more of this...

On My First Son

by Ben Jonson
Farewell, thou child of my right hand, and joy;
My sin was too much hope of thee, loved boy.
Seven years thou wert lent to me, and I thee pay,
Exacted by thy fate, on the just day.

Oh, could I lose all father now! For why
Will man lament the state he should envy?
To have so soon 'scaped world's and flesh's rage,
And if no...Read more of this...

Son

by Robert William Service
 He hurried away, young heart of joy, under our Devon sky!
And I watched him go, my beautiful boy, and a weary woman was I.
For my hair is grey, and his was gold; he'd the best of his life to live;
And I'd loved him so, and I'm old, I'm old; and he's all I had to give.

Ah yes, he was...Read more of this...

Song of the Son

by Jean Toomer
 Pour O pour that parting soul in song
O pour it in the sawdust glow of night
Into the velvet pine-smoke air tonight,
And let the valley carry it along.
And let the valley carry it along.
O land and soil, red soil and sweet-gum tree,
So scant of grass, so proligate of pines,
Now hust before an epoch's sun declines
Thy son, in time, I have...Read more of this...

Romance Son?mbulo

by Federico García Lorca
 Green, how I want you green.
Green wind. Green branches.
The ship out on the sea
and the horse on the mountain. 
With the shade around her waist 
she dreams on her balcony, 
green flesh, her hair green, 
with eyes of cold silver. 
Green, how I want you green. 
Under the gypsy moon, 
all things are watching her 
and she cannot see...Read more of this...

Son-Days

by Henry Vaughan
 1 

Bright shadows of true Rest! some shoots of bliss, 
Heaven once a week; 
The next world's gladness prepossest in this; 
A day to seek; 
Eternity in time; the steps by which 
We Climb above all ages; Lamps that light 
Man through his heap of dark days; and the rich, 
And full redemption of the whole week's flight. 

2...Read more of this...

The Red Son

by Carl Sandburg
 I LOVE your faces I saw the many years
I drank your milk and filled my mouth
With your home talk, slept in your house
And was one of you.
But a fire burns in my heart.
Under the ribs where pulses thud
And flitting between bones of skull
Is the push, the endless mysterious command,
Saying:
"I leave you behind--
You for the little hills and the years...Read more of this...

Sailor Son

by Robert William Service
 When you come home I'll not be round
 To welcome you.
They'll take you to a grassy mound
 So neat and new;
Where I'll be sleeping--O so sound!
 The ages through.

I'll not be round to broom the hearth,
 To feed the chicks;
And in the wee room of your birth
 Your bed to fix;
Rose room that knew your baby mirth
 Your tiny...Read more of this...

A Prayer For My Son

by William Butler Yeats
 Bid a strong ghost stand at the head
That my Michael may sleep sound,
Nor cry, nor turn in the bed
Till his morning meal come round;
And may departing twilight keep
All dread afar till morning's back.
That his mother may not lack
Her fill of sleep.

Bid the ghost have sword in fist:
Some there are, for I avow
Such devilish things exist,
Who have planned his murder,...Read more of this...

Dream Song 40: Im scared a lonely. Never see my son

by John Berryman
 I'm scared a lonely. Never see my son,
easy be not to see anyone,
combers out to sea
know they're goin somewhere but not me.
Got a little poison, got a little gun,
I'm scared a lonely.

I'm scared a only one thing, which is me,
from othering I don't take nothin, see,
for any hound dog's sake.
But this is where I livin, where I rake
my leaves...Read more of this...

Mother to Son

by Langston Hughes
 Well, son, I'll tell you:
Life for me ain't been no crystal stair.
It's had tacks in it,
And splinters,
And boards torn up,
And places with no carpet on the floor-”
Bare.
But all the time
I'se been a-climbin' on,
And reachin' landin's,
And turnin' corners,
And sometimes goin' in the dark
Where there ain't been no light.
So, boy, don't you turn back.
Don't you set down on the steps.
'Cause you...Read more of this...

Dockery And Son

by Philip Larkin
 'Dockery was junior to you,
Wasn't he?' said the Dean. 'His son's here now.'
Death-suited, visitant, I nod. 'And do
You keep in touch with-' Or remember how
Black-gowned, unbreakfasted, and still half-tight
We used to stand before that desk, to give
'Our version' of 'these incidents last night'?
I try the door of where I used to live:

Locked. The lawn spreads dazzlingly wide.
A known bell...Read more of this...

The Widow and Her Son XXI

by Kahlil Gibran
 Night fell over North Lebanon and snow was covering the villages surrounded by the Kadeesha Valley, giving the fields and prairies the appearance of a great sheet of parchment upon which the furious Nature was recording her many deeds. Men came home from the streets while silence engulfed the night. 

In a lone house near those villages lived a...Read more of this...

Old Pardon the Son of Reprieve

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 You never heard tell of the story? 
Well, now, I can hardly believe! 
Never heard of the honour and glory 
Of Pardon, the son of Reprieve? 
But maybe you're only a Johnnie 
And don't know a horse from a hoe? 
Well, well, don't get angry, my sonny, 
But, really, a young un should know. 
They bred him out back...Read more of this...

The Prodigal Son

by Rudyard Kipling
 Here come I to my own again, 
Fed, forgiven and known again, 
Claimed by bone of my bone again 
And cheered by flesh of my flesh. 
The fatted calf is dressed for me, 
But the husks have greater rest for me, 
I think my pigs will be best for me, 
So I'm off to the Yards afresh.

I never was...Read more of this...

The Muses Son

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
 [Goethe quotes the beginning of this song in 
his Autobiography, as expressing the manner in which his poetical 
effusions used to pour out from him.]

THROUGH field and wood to stray,
And pipe my tuneful lay,--

'Tis thus my days are pass'd;
And all keep tune with me,
And move in harmony,

And so on, to the last.

To wait I scarce have power
The garden's earliest...Read more of this...

To my son

by John Matthew
 You will realize this wisdom,
When you are my age, and experience,
Gained from being in vexing situations,
Yet, being out of it. You do the same,
There is a joy in detachment,
Forsaking instant pleasures, pains,
For things deeper and enduring.

Don’t be a slave to the work,
Of smart slave-drivers in cubicles,
Instead explore the works of men,
Who have experienced the truths,
And distilled in their words,...Read more of this...

The Nithsdale Widow and Her Son

by William Topaz McGonagall
 'Twas in the year of 1746, on a fine summer afternoon,
When trees and flowers were in full bloom,
That widow Riddel sat knitting stockings on a little rustic seat,
Which her only son had made for her, which was very neat. 

The cottage she lived in was in the wilds of Nithsdale,
Where many a poor soul had cause to bewail
The loss...Read more of this...

Jack Honest or the Widow and Her Son

by William Topaz McGonagall
 Jack Honest was only eight years of age when his father died,
And by the death of his father, Mrs Honest was sorely tried;
And Jack was his father's only joy and pride,
And for honesty Jack couldn't be equalled in the country-side. 

So a short time before Jack's father died,
'Twas loud and bitterly for Jack he cried,
And bade him sit down...Read more of this...

Tom, Tom, The Piper's Son

by Mother Goose
Tom, Tom, the piper's son,
Stole a pig, and away he run,
  The pig was eat,
  And Tom was beat,
And Tom ran crying down the street....Read more of this...

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