Famous On One Poems by Famous Poets

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

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a total stranger one black day

by Edward Estlin (E E) Cummings
a total stranger one black day
knocked living the hell out of me-- 

who found forgiveness hard because
my(as it happened)self he was 

-but now that fiend and i are such
a total stranger one black day...Read more of this...

The Loving One Writes

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
 THE look that thy sweet eyes on mine impress

The pledge thy lips to mine convey,--the kiss,--

He who, like me, hath knowledge sure of this,
Can he in aught beside find happiness?

Removed from thee, friend-sever'd, in distress,

These thoughts I vainly struggle to dismiss:

They still return to that one hour of bliss,
The only one; then tears my grief confess.

But unawares the tear...Read more of this...

One-word garments

by Dimitris P Kraniotis
 Waves of circumflexes
storms of adverbs,
windmills of verbs,
shells of signs of ellipsis,
on the island of poems
of soul,
of mind,
of thought,
one-word garments
you wear
to endure!...Read more of this...

In Youth I have Known One

by Edgar Allan Poe
 How often we forget all time, when lone 
Admiring Nature's universal throne; 
Her woods - her winds - her mountains - the intense 
Reply of Hers to Our intelligence! 

I. 

In youth I have known one with whom the Earth 
In secret communing held - as he with it, 
In daylight, and in beauty, from his birth: 
Whose fervid,...Read more of this...

When One has given up Ones life

by Emily Dickinson
 When One has given up One's life
The parting with the rest
Feels easy, as when Day lets go
Entirely the West

The Peaks, that lingered last
Remain in Her regret
As scarcely as the Iodine
Upon the Cataract....Read more of this...

In re a Gentleman One

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 We see it each day in the paper, 
And know that there's mischief in store; 
That some unprofessional caper 
Has landed a shark on the shore. 
We know there'll be plenty of trouble 
Before they get through with the fun, 
Because he's been coming the double 
On clients, has "Gentleman, One". 
Alas for the gallant attorney, 
Intent upon cutting...Read more of this...

For The One Who Would Not Take His Life In His Hands

by Delmore Schwartz
 Athlete, virtuoso,
Training for happiness,
Bend arm and knee, and seek
The body's sharp distress,
For pain is pleasure's cost,
Denial is route
To speech before the millions
Or personal with the flute.

The ape and great Achilles,
Heavy with their fate,
Batter doors down, strike
Small children at the gate,
Driven by love to this,
As knock-kneed Hegel said,
To seek with a sword their peace,
That the child may be taken away
From...Read more of this...

To One Persuading A Lady To Marriage

by Katherine Philips
 Forbear, bold youth; all 's heaven here,
 And what you do aver
To others courtship may appear,
 'Tis sacrilege to her.
She is a public deity;
 And were 't not very odd
She should dispose herself to be
 A petty household god? 

First make the sun in private shine
 And bid the world adieu,
That so he may his beams confine
 In compliment...Read more of this...

One Morning

by Eamon Grennan
 Looking for distinctive stones, I found the dead otter
rotting by the tideline, and carried all day the scent of this savage
valediction. That headlong high sound the oystercatcher makes
came echoing through the rocky cove
where a cormorant was feeding and submarining in the bay
and a heron rose off a boulder where he'd been invisible,
drifted a little, stood again -- a hieroglyph
or...Read more of this...

One of the ones that Midas touched

by Emily Dickinson
 One of the ones that Midas touched
Who failed to touch us all
Was that confiding Prodigal
The reeling Oriole --

So drunk he disavows it
With badinage divine --
So dazzling we mistake him
For an alighting Mine --

A Pleader -- a Dissembler --
An Epicure -- a Thief --
Betimes an Oratorio --
An Ecstasy in chief --

The Jesuit of Orchards
He cheats as he enchants
Of an entire...Read more of this...

To One In Bedlam

by Ernest Dowson
 With delicate, mad hands, behind his sordid bars,
Surely he hath his posies, which they tear and twine;
Those scentless wisps of straw, that miserably line
His strait, caged universe, whereat the dull world stares,

Pedant and pitiful. O, how his rapt gaze wars
With their stupidity! Know they what dreams divine
Lift his long, laughing reveries like enchanted wine,
And make his melancholy germane to...Read more of this...

One Of Us Two

by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
 The day will dawn when one of us shall hearken
In vain to hear a voice that has grown dumb.
And morns will fade, noons pale, and shadows darken, 
While sad eyes watch for feet that never come.
One of us two must sometime face existence 
Alone with the memories that but sharpen pain.
And these sweet days shall shine back in the...Read more of this...

Summer is shorter than any one --

by Emily Dickinson
 Summer is shorter than any one --
Life is shorter than Summer --
Seventy Years is spent as quick
As an only Dollar --

Sorrow -- now -- is polite -- and stays --
See how well we spurn him --
Equally to abhor Delight --
Equally retain him --...Read more of this...

My Dove My Beautiful One

by James Joyce
 My dove, my beautiful one, 
Arise, arise! 
The night-dew lies 
Upon my lips and eyes. 

The odorous winds are weaving 
A music of sighs: 
Arise, arise, 
My dove, my beautiful one! 

I wait by the cedar tree, 
My sister, my love, 
White breast of the dove, 
My breast shall be your bed. 

The pale dew lies 
Like a veil...Read more of this...

One Of Twain

by Algernon Charles Swinburne
 One of twain, twin-born with flowers that waken,
Now hath passed from sense of sun and rain:
Wind from off the flower-crowned branch hath shaken
One of twain.

One twin flower must pass, and one remain:
One, the word said soothly, shall be taken,
And another left: can death refrain?

Two years since was love's light song mistaken,
Blessing then both blossoms, half in vain?
Night outspeeding light...Read more of this...

What lord is fit to rule but Truth? Not one

by Omar Khayyam
What lord is fit to rule but «Truth»? Not one.
What beings disobey His rule? Not one.
All things that are, are such as He decrees;
And naught is there beside beneath the sun....Read more of this...

One crown that no one seeks

by Emily Dickinson
 One crown that no one seeks
And yet the highest head
Its isolation coveted
Its stigma deified

While Pontius Pilate lives
In whatsoever hell
That coronation pierces him
He recollects it well....Read more of this...

To One Shortly to Die

by Walt Whitman
 1
FROM all the rest I single out you, having a message for you: 
You are to die—Let others tell you what they please, I cannot prevaricate, 
I am exact and merciless, but I love you—There is no escape for you. 

Softly I lay my right hand upon you—you just feel it, 
I do not argue—I bend my head close,...Read more of this...

Fame is the one that does not stay --

by Emily Dickinson
 Fame is the one that does not stay --
Its occupant must die
Or out of sight of estimate
Ascend incessantly --
Or be that most insolvent thing
A Lightning in the Germ --
Electrical the embryo
But we demand the Flame...Read more of this...

The Robin is the One

by Emily Dickinson
 The Robin is the One
That interrupt the Morn
With hurried -- few -- express Reports
When March is scarcely on --

The Robin is the One
That overflow the Noon
With her cherubic quantity --
An April but begun --

The Robin is the One
That speechless from her Nest
Submit that Home -- and Certainty
And Sanctity, are best...Read more of this...

One, Two, Buckle My Shoe

by Mother Goose
One, two,
Buckle my shoe;
Three, four,
Knock at the door;
Five, six,
Pick up sticks;
Seven, eight,
Lay them straight;
Nine, ten,
A good, fat hen;
Eleven, twelve,
Dig and delve;
Thirteen, fourteen,
Maids a-courting;
Fifteen, sixteen,
Maids in the kitchen;
Seventeen, eighteen,
Maids a-waiting;
Nineteen, twenty,
My plate's empty....Read more of this...

Every Dead One Has a Name

by Taja Kramberger
Every dead one has a name,
only the names of the living make us falter.
Some names are impossible to utter
without a stammer and a fidget,
some can only be spoken 
through allusion,
and some, mostly women’s,
are forbidden in these parts.

Every dead one has a name,
engraved in stone,
printed in obituary or directory,
but my name must be undermined,
every few years
soiled and substituted
with another one.

A decade...Read more of this...

To One Consecrated

by George William Russell
 YOUR paths were all unknown to us:
We were so far away from you:
We mixed in thought your spirit thus—
With whiteness, stars of gold, and dew.


The Mighty Mother nourished you;
Her breath blew from her mystic bowers;
Their elfin glimmer floated through
The pureness of your shadowy hours.


The Mighty Mother made you wise,
Gave love that clears the hidden ways;
Her glooms were glory to...Read more of this...

One Viceroy Resigns

by Rudyard Kipling
 So here's your Empire. No more wine, then?
Good.
We'll clear the Aides and khitmatgars away.
(You'll know that fat old fellow with the knife --
He keeps the Name Book, talks in English too,
And almost thinks himself the Government.)
O Youth, Youth, Youth! Forgive me, you're so young.
Forty from sixty -- twenty years of work
And power to back the working. Ay def mi!
You...Read more of this...

No one has penetrated the secrets of the Principle

by Omar Khayyam
No one has penetrated the secrets of the Principle
[First Cause]. No one has taken a step outside himself.
I look about and see only insufficiency from pupil to
master, insufficiency in all that the mother brings forth....Read more of this...

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