Famous Open It Up Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Open It Up poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous open it up poems. These examples illustrate what a famous open it up poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Paul Laurence Dunbar
Ain't it nice to have a mammy
W'en you kin' o' tiahed out
Wid a-playin' in de meddah,
An' a-runnin' roun' about
Till hit's made you mighty hongry,
An' yo' nose hit gits to know
What de smell means dat 's a-comin'
F'om de open cabin do'?
She wash yo' face,
An' mek yo' place,
You's hongry as a tramp;
Den hit's eat you suppah right away,
You sta'vin' little scamp.
W'en you's...Read more of this...
by
A E Housman
High the vanes of Shrewsbury gleam
Islanded in Severn stream;
The bridges from the steepled crest
Cross the water east and west.
The flag of morn in conqueror's state
Enters at the English gate:
The vanquished eve, as night prevails,
Bleeds upon the road to Wales.
Ages since the vanquished bled
Round my mother's marriage-bed;
There the ravens feasted...Read more of this...
by
Lucy Maud Montgomery
Ho, a day
Whereon we may up and away,
With a fetterless wind that is out on the downs,
And there piping a call to the fallow and shore,
Where the sea evermore
Surgeth over the gray reef, and drowns
The fierce rocks with white foam;
It is ours with untired feet to roam
Where the pines in green gloom of wide vales make their murmuring home,
Or...Read more of this...
by
Henry Van Dyke
THE HOUSE
The cornerstone in Truth is laid,
The guardian walls of Honour made,
The roof of Faith is built above,
The fire upon the hearth is Love:
Though rains descend and loud winds call,
This happy house shall never fall.
THE DOORSTEAD
The lintel low enough to keep out pomp and pride:
The threshold high enough to turn deceit aside:
The doorband strong enough from robbers to defend:
This...Read more of this...
by
Omar Khayyam
O God! open to me the door of Thy benefits. Make
me come to my fortune finally, that I may not be beholden
to Thy creatures. Oh! render me drunk with
wine, to the point where, freed from all knowledge,
the torments of my head may disappear....Read more of this...
by
William Shakespeare
Is it thy will thy image should keep open
My heavy eyelids to the weary night?
Dost thou desire my slumbers should be broken
While shadows like to thee do mock my sight?
Is it thy spirit that thou send'st from thee
So far from home into my deeds to pry,
To find out shames and idle hours in me,
The scope and tenure of thy...Read more of this...
by
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
On the white throat of useless passion
That scorched my soul with its burning breath
I clutched my fingers in murderous fashion
And gathered them close in a grip of death;
For why should I fan, or feed with fuel,
A love that showed me but blank despair?
So my hold was firm, and my grasp was cruel -
I meant to strangle it then and...Read more of this...
by
William Allingham
O English mother, in the ruddy glow
Hugging your baby closer when outside
You see the silent, soft, and cruel snow
Falling again, and think what ills betide
Unshelter'd creatures,--your sad thoughts may go
Where War and Winter now, two spectre-wolves,
Hunt in the freezing vapour that involves
Those Asian peaks of ice and gulfs below.
Does this young...Read more of this...
by
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
MANY a guest I'd see to-day,
Met to taste my dishes!
Food in plenty is prepar'd,
Birds, and game, and fishes.
Invitations all have had,
All proposed attending.
Johnny, go and look around!
Are they hither wending?
Pretty girls I hope to see,
Dear and guileless misses,
Ignorant how sweet it is
Giving tender kisses.
Invitations all have had,
All proposed attending.
Johnny, go and look around!
Are they hither wending?
Women also I expect,
Loving...Read more of this...
by
Omar Khayyam
Open the door! O entrance who procurest,
And guide the way, O Thou of guides the surest!
Directors born of men shall not direct me,
Their counsel comes to naught, but Thou endurest!...Read more of this...
by
Robert Burns
OH, open the door, some pity to shew,
Oh, open the door to me, oh,
Tho’ thou hast been false, I’ll ever prove true,
Oh, open the door to me, oh.
Cauld is the blast upon my pale cheek,
But caulder thy love for me, oh:
The frost that freezes the life at my heart,
Is nought to my pains frae thee,...Read more of this...
by
Henry Van Dyke
I
Thou who hast made thy dwelling fair
With flowers beneath, above with starry lights,
And set thine altars everywhere,--
On mountain heights,
In woodlands dim with many a dream,
In valleys bright with springs,
And on the curving capes of every stream:
Thou who hast taken to thyself the wings
Of morning, to abide
Upon the secret places of the sea,
And on far islands, where the tide
Visits the...Read more of this...
by
Ogden Nash
I think that I shall never see
A billboard lovely as a tree
Indeed, unless the billboards fall
I'll never see a tree at all....Read more of this...
by
Edna St. Vincent Millay
When reeds are dead and a straw to thatch the marshes,
And feathered pampas-grass rides into the wind
Like aged warriors westward, tragic, thinned
Of half their tribe, and over the flattened rushes,
Stripped of its secret, open, stark and bleak,
Blackens afar the half-forgotten creek,—
Then leans on me the weight of the year, and crushes
My heart. I know that Beauty must ail and...Read more of this...
by
D. H. Lawrence
At the open door of the room I stand and look at the night,
Hold my hand to catch the raindrops, that slant into sight,
Arriving grey from the darkness above suddenly into the light of the room.
I will escape from the hollow room, the box of light,
And be out in the bewildering darkness, which is always fecund, which might
Mate...Read more of this...
by
Omar Khayyam
Open the door, for it is only Thou who canst open it;
show me the way, for it is only Thou who canst show a
way of safety. I will give my hand to none of those who
wish to lead me, for all are perishable, and only Thou
eternal....Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
The Admirations -- and Contempts -- of time --
Show justest -- through an Open Tomb --
The Dying -- as it were a Height
Reorganizes Estimate
And what We saw not
We distinguish clear --
And mostly -- see not
What We saw before --
'Tis Compound Vision --
Light -- enabling Light --
The Finite -- furnished
With the Infinite --
Convex -- and Concave Witness --
Back -- toward...Read more of this...
by
Alfred Lord Tennyson
Now sleeps the crimson petal, now the white;
Nor waves the cypress in the palace walk;
Nor winks the gold fin in the porphyry font;
The firefly wakens, waken thou with me.
Now droops the milk-white peacock like a ghost,
And like a ghost she glimmers on to me.
Now lies the Earth all Danae to the stars,
And all thy heart lies...Read more of this...
by
Charles Bukowski
starving there, sitting around the bars,
and at night walking the streets for hours,
the moonlight always seemed fake
to me, mabye it was,
and in the French Quarter I watched
the horses and buggies going by,
everybody sitting high in the open
carriages, the black driver, and in
back the man and the woman,
usually young and always white.
and I was always white.
and hardly charmed by the
world.
New...Read more of this...
by
Phillis Wheatley
WHERE contemplation finds her sacred spring,
Where heav'nly music makes the arches ring,
Where virtue reigns unsully'd and divine,
Where wisdom thron'd, and all the graces shine,
There sits thy spouse amidst the radiant throng,
While praise eternal warbles from her tongue;
There choirs angelic shout her welcome round,
With perfect bliss, and peerless glory crown'd.
While thy dear mate, to flesh no more confin'd,
Exults a blest,...Read more of this...
by
R S Thomas
All right, I was Welsh. Does it matter?
I spoke a tongue that was passed on
To me in the place I happened to be,
A place huddled between grey walls
Of cloud for at least half the year.
My word for heaven was not yours.
The word for hell had a sharp edge
Put on it by the hand of the wind
Honing, honing with a...Read more of this...
by
Barry Tebb
Sorry, Writer in Residence on the Great North Run
The last thing I’d ever do is listen to your spin
“You risk losing potential allies in your war
against the philistines,
Astley, Armitage, Duffy, Sansom, unashamedly provincial,
Defiantly Un-Oxbridge, not the enemy!”
Sorry, Andy, ****-licking's not to my taste.
I always thought it wasn’t yours, my mistake!...Read more of this...
by
Thomas Carew
Mark how the bashful morn in vain
Courts the amorous marigold,
With sighing blasts and weeping rain,
Yet she refuses to unfold.
But when the planet of the day
Approacheth with his powerful ray,
The she spreads, then she receives
His warmer beams into her virgin leaves.
So shalt thou thrive in love, fond boy;
If thy tears and sighs discover
Thy grief, thou never shalt enjoy
The just reward...Read more of this...
by
Annie Finch
HLF, August 8, 1918—August 22, 1997
“Bequeath us to no earthly shore until
Is answered in the vortex of our grave
The seal’s wide spindrift gaze towards paradise.”
—Hart Crane, “Voyages”
“If a lion could talk, we couldn’t understand it”
—Ludwig Wittgenstein
Under the ocean that stretches out wordlessly
past the long edge of the last human shore,
there are deep windows the waves haven't opened,
where night is...Read more of this...
by
Dorothea Mackeller
From my window I can see,
Where the sandhills dip,
One far glimpse of open sea.
Just a slender slip
Curving like a crescent moon—
Yet a greater prize
Than the harbour garden-fair
Spread beneath my eyes.
Just below me swings the bay,
Sings a sunny tune,
But my heart is far away
Out beyond the dune;
Clearer far...Read more of this...
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