Famous Open Up Poems by Famous Poets

These are examples of famous Open 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 up poems. These examples illustrate what a famous open up poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).

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At the time when I had long suffered

by Emile Verhaeren
At the time when I had long suffered and the hours were snares to me, you appeared to me as the welcoming light that shines from the windows on to the snow in the depths of winter evenings.
The brightness of your hospitable soul touched my heart lightly without wounding it, like a hand of tranquil warmth.
Then came a holy trust,...Read more of this...

The Child and the Mariner

by William Henry Davies
 A dear old couple my grandparents were, 
And kind to all dumb things; they saw in Heaven 
The lamb that Jesus petted when a child; 
Their faith was never draped by Doubt: to them 
Death was a rainbow in Eternity, 
That promised everlasting brightness soon. 
An old seafaring man was he; a rough 
Old man, but kind; and hairy,...Read more of this...

Open the door, for it is only Thou who canst open it;

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...

The Battle of the Nile

by William Topaz McGonagall
 'Twas on the 18th of August in the year of 1798,
That Nelson saw with inexpressible delight
The City of Alexandria crowded with the ships of France,
So he ordered all sail to be set, and immediately advance. 

And upon the deck, in deep anxiety he stood,
And from anxiety of mind he took but little food;
But now he ordered dinner and prepared...Read more of this...

On A Great Hollow Tree

by William Strode
 Preethee stand still awhile, and view this tree
Renown'd and honour'd for antiquitie
By all the neighbour twiggs; for such are all
The trees adjoyning, bee they nere so tall,
Comparde to this: if here Jacke Maypole stood
All men would sweare 'twere but a fishing rodde.
Mark but the gyant trunk, which when you see
You see how many woods and groves there bee
Compris'd within...Read more of this...

Sonnet 61: Is it thy will thy image should keep open

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...

Dream Song 1: Huffy Henry hid the day

by John Berryman
 Huffy Henry hid the day,
unappeasable Henry sulked.
I see his point,-”a trying to put things over.
It was the thought that they thought
they could do it made Henry wicked & away.
But he should have come out and talked.

All the world like a woolen lover
once did seem on Henry's side.
Then came a departure.
Thereafter nothing fell out as it might or ought.
I don't...Read more of this...

O God! open to me the door of Thy benefits. Make

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...

A Day in the Open

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...

The Little Land

by Robert Louis Stevenson
 When at home alone I sit 
And am very tired of it, 
I have just to shut my eyes 
To go sailing through the skies-- 
To go sailing far away 
To the pleasant Land of Play; 
To the fairy land afar 
Where the Little People are; 
Where the clover-tops are trees, 
And the rain-pools are the seas, 
And the...Read more of this...

My Fathers Love Letters

by Yusef Komunyakaa
 On Fridays he'd open a can of Jax
After coming home from the mill,
& ask me to write a letter to my mother
Who sent postcards of desert flowers
Taller than men. He would beg,
Promising to never beat her
Again. Somehow I was happy
She had gone, & sometimes wanted
To slip in a reminder, how Mary Lou
Williams' "Polka Dots & Moonbeams"
Never made the swelling...Read more of this...

Song of the Open Road

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...

God of the Open Air

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...

Open the door! O entrance who procurest,

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...

The Death Of Autumn

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...

A Door

by W S Merwin
This is a place where a door might be
here where I am standing
In the light outside all the walls

there would be a shadow here
all day long
and a door into it
where now there is me

and somebody would come and knock
on this air
long after I have gone
and there in front of me a life
would open...Read more of this...

A Song Of Despair

by Pablo Neruda
 The memory of you emerges from the night around me.
The river mingles its stubborn lament with the sea.

Deserted like the dwarves at dawn.
It is the hour of departure, oh deserted one!

Cold flower heads are raining over my heart.
Oh pit of debris, fierce cave of the shipwrecked.

In you the wars and the flights accumulated.
From you the wings of the song...Read more of this...

399. Song—Open the door to me oh

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...

Repulsed

by D. H. Lawrence
The last, silk-floating thought has gone from the dandelion stem,
And the flesh of the stalk holds up for nothing a blank diadem.

The night's flood-winds have lifted my last desire from me,
And my hollow flesh stands up in the night abandonedly.

As I stand on this hill, with the whitening cave of the city beyond,
Helen, I am despoiled of my pride, and...Read more of this...

Happiness

by Jane Kenyon
 There's just no accounting for happiness,
or the way it turns up like a prodigal
who comes back to the dust at your feet
having squandered a fortune far away.

And how can you not forgive?
You make a feast in honor of what
was lost, and take from its place the finest
garment, which you saved for an occasion
you could not imagine, and you weep...Read more of this...

Security

by William Stafford
 Tomorrow will have an island. Before night
I always find it. Then on to the next island.
These places hidden in the day separate
and come forward if you beckon.
But you have to know they are there before they exist.

Some time there will be a tomorrow without any island.
So far, I haven't let that happen, but after
I'm gone others may become faithless...Read more of this...

The Open Sea

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...

Open Table

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...

Roofs

by Joyce Kilmer
 (For Amelia Josephine Burr)

The road is wide and the stars are out
and the breath of the night is sweet,
And this is the time when wanderlust should seize upon my feet.
But I'm glad to turn from the open road and the starlight on my 
face,
And to leave the splendour of out-of-doors for a human dwelling 
place.
I never have seen a...Read more of this...

Open Letter To Andy C

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...

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