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Famous Now And Then Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Burns, Robert
...unperceived, and sow a handful of hemp-seed, harrowing it with anything you can conveniently draw after you. Repeat now and then: “Hemp-seed, I saw thee, hemp-seed, I saw thee; and him (or her) that is to be my true love, come after me and pou thee.” Look over your left shoulder, and you will see the appearance of the person invoked, in the attitude of pulling hemp. Some traditions say, “Come after me and shaw thee,” that is, show thyself; in which case, it simply...Read more of this...



by Silverstein, Shel
...down my gun,
called him pa and he called me a son,
and I came away with a different point of view
and I think about him now and then.
Every time I tried, every time I win and if I
ever have a son I think I am gonna name him
Bill or George - anything but Sue....Read more of this...

by Robinson, Edwin Arlington
...m that it was heaven,— 
Till it was hell for me for then and after. 

“There was a village miles away from us
Where now and then we paddled for the mail 
And incidental small commodities 
That perfect exile might require, and stayed 
The night after the voyage with an antique 
Survival of a broader world than ours
Whom Asher called The Admiral. This time, 
A little out of sorts and out of tune 
With paddling, I let Asher go alone, 
Sure that his heart was happy. T...Read more of this...

by Robinson, Edwin Arlington
...world a thousand times;—
But we have had no ears to listen yet 
For more than fragments of it: we have heard 
A murmur now and then, and echo here 
And there, and we have made great music of it; 
And we have made innumerable books
To please the Unknown God. Time throws away 
Dead thousands of them, but the God that knows 
No death denies not one: the books all count, 
The songs all count; and yet God’s music has 
No modes, his language has no adjectives.”

“You may b...Read more of this...

by Wilde, Oscar
...irginity
Watched him awhile, and then stole back sadly and wearily.

Far off he heard the city's hum and noise,
And now and then the shriller laughter where
The passionate purity of brown-limbed boys
Wrestled or raced in the clear healthful air,
And now and then a little tinkling bell
As the shorn wether led the sheep down to the mossy well.

Through the grey willows danced the fretful gnat,
The grasshopper chirped idly from the tree,
In sleek and oily coat the water-...Read more of this...



by Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...ent
Gifts by the children, garden-herbs and fruit,
The late and early roses from his wall,
Or conies from the down, and now and then,
With some pretext of fineness in the meal
To save the offence of charitable, flour
From his tall mill that whistled on the waste. 

But Philip did not fathom Annie's mind:
Scarce could the woman when he came upon her,
Out of full heart and boundless gratitude
Light on a broken word to thank him with.
But Philip was her children's all-in...Read more of this...

by Frost, Robert
...ng, come to look,
For every room a house has—parlor, bed-room,
And dining-room—thrown pell-mell in the kitchen.
And now and then a smudged, infernal face
Looked in a door behind her and addressed
Her back. She always answered without turning.

“Where will I put this walnut bureau, lady?”
“Put it on top of something that’s on top
Of something else,” she laughed. “Oh, put it where
You can to-night, and go. It’s almost dark;
You must be getting started back t...Read more of this...

by Browning, Robert
...never shed)
'Twixt the aloes, I used to lean in chief,
And mark through the winter afternoons,
By a gift God grants me now and then,
In the mild decline of those suns like moons,
Who walked in Florence, besides her men.

V.

They might chirp and chaffer, come and go
For pleasure or profit, her men alive---
My business was hardly with them, I trow,
But with empty cells of the human hive;
---With the chapter-room, the cloister-porch,
The church's apsis, aisle or nave,
...Read more of this...

by Whittier, John Greenleaf
...ead and clothing, warmth and light. 

Within our beds awhile we heard 
The wind that round the gables roared, 
With now and then a ruder shock, 
Which made our very bedsteads rock. 
We heard the loosened clapboards tost, 
The board-nails snapping in the frost; 
And on us, through the unplastered wall, 
Felt the light sifted snow-flakes fall. 
But sleep stole on, as sleep will do 
When hearts are light and life is new; 
Faint and more faint the murmurs grew, 
Till ...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...re-going passengers; 
The young sister holds out the skein, while the elder sister winds it off in a
 ball, and stops now and then for the knots; 
The one-year wife is recovering and happy, having a week ago borne her first
 child;
The clean-hair’d Yankee girl works with her sewing-machine, or in the
 factory or mill; 
The nine months’ gone is in the parturition chamber, her faintness and
 pains are advancing; 
The paving-man leans on his two-handed rammer—the report...Read more of this...

by Swift, Jonathan
...sume, is
A creature bipes et implumis;
Wherein the moralist design'd
A compliment on human kind:
For here he owns, that now and then
Beasts may degenerate into men....Read more of this...

by Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
...
With the black tar, heated for the sheathing. 
And amid the clamors 
Of clattering hammers, 
He who listened heard now and then 
The song of the Master and his men: 
-- 
"Build me straight, O worthy Master, 
Staunch and strong, a goodly vessel, 
That shall laugh at all disaster, 
And with wave and whirlwind wrestle!" 
With oaken brace and copper band, 
Lay the rudder on the sand, 
That, like a thought, should have control 
Over the movement of the whole; 
And near it the...Read more of this...

by Lowell, Amy
...ing,
She asked assurances there's no denying.
Over and over again her questions, till
He quite convinced her, every now and then
She kissed him, shivering as though doubting still.
But later when they were composed and when
She dared relax her probings, "Lottachen,"
He asked, "how is it your love has withstood
My inadvertence? I was made of wood."
She told him, and no doubt she meant it truly,
That he was sun, and grass, and wind, and sky
To her. And even if c...Read more of this...

by Masefield, John
...n stay 
There on his hill, day after day 
Driving his team against the sky, 
While men and women live and die. 
And now and then he seems to stoop 
To clear the coulter with the scoop, 
Or touch an ox to haw or gee 
While Severn stream goes out to sea. 
The sea with all her ships and sails, 
And that great smoky port in Wales, 
And Gloucester tower bright i' the sun, 
All know that patient wandering one. 
And sometimes when they burn the leaves 
The bonfires' smok...Read more of this...

by Service, Robert William
..., great writer of stories, drank; found it immortalized his pen;
Fused in his brain-pan, else a blank, heavens of glory now and then;
Gave him the magical genius touch; God-given power to gouge out, fling
Flat in your face a soul-thought -- Bing!
Twiddle your heart-strings in his clutch. "Bah!" said Smith, "let my body lie
 stripped to the buff in swinish shame,
If I can blaze in the radiant sky out of adoring stars my name.
Sober am I nonentitized; drunk am I more th...Read more of this...

by Wordsworth, William
...;Five years of happiness or more,  To any that might need it.   But yet I guess that now and then  With Betty all was not so well,  And to the road she turns her ears,  And thence full many a sound she hears,  Which she to Susan will not tell.   Poor Susan moans, poor Susan groans,  "As sure as there's a moon in heaven,"  Cries Betty, "he...Read more of this...

by Kipling, Rudyard
...ng chalk.
And old Hobden spread it broadcast, never heeding what was
 in't.--
Which is why in cleaning ditches, now and then we find a flint.

Ogier died. His sons grew English-Anglo-Saxon was their name--
Till out of blossomed Normandy another pirate came;
For Duke William conquered England and divided with his men,
And our Lower River-field he gave to William of Warenne.

But the Brook (you know her habit) rose one rainy autumn night 
And tore down sodde...Read more of this...

by Carroll, Lewis
...g on his face. 


The Second Voice 


THEY walked beside the wave-worn beach;
Her tongue was very apt to teach,
And now and then he did beseech 

She would abate her dulcet tone,
Because the talk was all her own,
And he was dull as any drone. 

She urged "No cheese is made of chalk":
And ceaseless flowed her dreary talk,
Tuned to the footfall of a walk. 

Her voice was very full and rich,
And, when at length she asked him "Which?"
It mounted to its highest pitch.<...Read more of this...

by Byron, George (Lord)
...nd still'd the noise 
With one still greater, as is yet the mode 
On earth besides; except some grumbling voice, 
Which now and then will make a slight inroad 
Upon decorous silence, few will twice 
Lift up their lungs when fairly overcrow'd; 
And now the bard could plead his own bad cause, 
With all the attitudes of self-applause. 

XCVI 

He said — (I only give the heads) — he said, 
He meant no harm in scribbling; 'twas his way 
Upon all topics; 'twas, besides, his bre...Read more of this...

by Miller, Alice Duer
...; 
They make other nations seem pale and flighty, 
But they do think England is god almighty, 
And you must remind them now and then 
That other countries breed other men. 
From all of which you will think me rather 
Unjust. I am. Your devoted Father. 

XXVI 
I read, and saw my home with sudden yearning— 
The small white wooden house, the grass-green door, 
My father's study with the fire burning, 
And books piled on the floor. 
I saw the moon-faced clock ...Read more of this...

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