Famous Other Half Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Other Half poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous other half poems. These examples illustrate what a famous other half poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Thomas Hardy
I
I have lived with Shades so long,
So long have talked to them,
I sped to street and throng,
That sometimes they
In their dim style
Will pause awhile
To hear my say;
II
And take me by the hand,
And lead me through their rooms
In the To-Be, where Dooms
Half-wove and shapeless stand:
And show from there
The dwindled dust
And rot and rust
Of things that were.
III
"Now turn," they said to...Read more of this...
by
George Meredith
I bade my Lady think what she might mean.
Know I my meaning, I? Can I love one,
And yet be jealous of another? None
Commits such folly. Terrible Love, I ween,
Has might, even dead, half sighing to upheave
The lightless seas of selfishness amain:
Seas that in a man's heart have no rain
To fall and still...Read more of this...
by
Andrew Barton Paterson
The run of Billabong-go-dry
Is just beyond Lime Burner's Gap;
Its waterhole and tank supply
Is excellent -- upon the map.
But lacking nature's liquid drench,
The station staff are wont to try
With "Bob-in Sweeps" their thirst to quench,
Or nearly quench, at Bong-go-dry.
The parson made five-yearly rounds
That soil of arid souls to delve,
He wrote,...Read more of this...
by
Badger Clark
Wonder why I feel so restless;
Moon is shinin' still and bright,
Cattle all is restin' easy,
But I just kaint sleep tonight.
Ain't no cactus in my blankets,
Don't know why they feel so hard--
'Less it's Warblin' Jim a-singin'
"Annie Laurie"...Read more of this...
by
Naomi Shihab Nye
You can't be, says a Palestinian Christian
on the first feast day after Ramadan.
So, half-and-half and half-and-half.
He sells glass. He knows about broken bits,
chips. If you love Jesus you can't love
anyone else. Says he.
At his stall of blue pitchers on the Via Dolorosa,
he's sweeping. The rubbed stones
feel holy. Dusting of powdered sugar
across faces of date-stuffed mamool.
This morning we lit the...Read more of this...
by
James Whitcomb Riley
Friends, my heart is half aweary
Of its happiness to-night:
Though your songs are gay and cheery,
And your spirits feather-light,
There's a ghostly music haunting
Still the heart of every guest
And a voiceless chorus chanting
That the Old Times were the best.
CHORUS
All about is bright and pleasant
With the sound of song and jest,
Yet a feeling's ever present
That the Old Times were the best....Read more of this...
by
Robert Graves
August 6, 1916.—Officer previously reported died of wounds, now reported wounded: Graves, Captain R., Royal Welch Fusiliers.)
…but I was dead, an hour or more.
I woke when I’d already passed the door
That Cerberus guards, and half-way down the road
To Lethe, as an old Greek signpost showed.
Above me, on my stretcher swinging by,
I saw new stars in...Read more of this...
by
Conrad Aiken
The half-shut doors through which we heard that music
Are softly closed. Horns mutter down to silence.
The stars whirl out, the night grows deep.
Darkness settles upon us. A vague refrain
Drowsily teases at the drowsy brain.
In numberless rooms we stretch ourselves and sleep.
Where have we been? What savage chaos of music
Whirls in our dreams?—We suddenly rise in darkness,
Open our eyes, cry...Read more of this...
by
Gerard Manley Hopkins
Love I was shewn upon the mountain-side
And bid to catch Him ere the dropp of day.
See, Love, I creep and Thou on wings dost ride:
Love it is evening now and Thou away;
Love, it grows darker here and Thou art above;
Love, come down to me if Thy name be Love.
My national old Egyptian reed gave way;
I...Read more of this...
by
Marge Piercy
Girls buck the wind in the grooves toward work
in fuzzy coats promised to be warm as fur.
The shop windows snicker
flashing them hurrying over dresses they cannot afford:
you are not pretty enough, not pretty enough.
Blown with yesterday’s papers through the boiled coffee morning
we dream of the stop on the subway without a name,
the door in the heart of the grove...Read more of this...
by
Gerard Manley Hopkins
Foundered March 24. 1878
1
The Eurydice—it concerned thee, O Lord:
Three hundred souls, O alas! on board,
Some asleep unawakened, all un-
warned, eleven fathoms fallen
2
Where she foundered! One stroke
Felled and furled them, the hearts of oak!
And flockbells off the aerial
Downs' forefalls beat to the burial.
3
For did she pride her, freighted fully, on
Bounden bales or a...Read more of this...
by
Kobayashi Issa
Napped half the day;
no one
punished me!...Read more of this...
by
Rudyard Kipling
(Non-commissioned Officers in Charge of Prisoners)
When by the labor of my 'ands
I've 'elped to pack a transport tight
With prisoners for foreign lands,
I ain't transported with delight.
I know it's only just an' right,
But yet it somehow sickens me,
For I 'ave learned at Waterval
The meanin' of captivity.
Be'ind the pegged barb-wire strands,
Beneath the tall...Read more of this...
by
Billy Jno Hope
folly cracked the mirror
a soul gasping wound
voodoo induced vertigo
psychedelic blackouts
in the cracks
between art and blasphemy
paralyzing paranoia of becoming
the vision that heals
cast shadows to douse the flames
starved enlightenment
i betrayed my muse
i wallowed in nostalgic fumes
blood clots from yesteryears insurrection mad dissident desire found wanting a rage dissipating in the twilight of friendship a facade evolved....Read more of this...
by
Carl Sandburg
MONEY is nothing now, even if I had it,
O mooney moon, yellow half moon,
Up over the green pines and gray elms,
Up in the new blue.
Streel, streel,
White lacey mist sheets of cloud,
Streel in the blowing of the wind,
Streel over the blue-and-moon sky,
Yellow gold half moon. It is light
On the snow; it is dark on the snow,
Streel, O lacey thin...Read more of this...
by
Constantine P Cavafy
I never had you, nor will I ever have you
I suppose. A few words, an approach
as in the bar yesterday, and nothing more.
It is, undeniably, a pity. But we who serve Art
sometimes with intensity of mind, and of course only
for a short while, we create pleasure
which almost seems real.
So in the bar the day before yesterday -- the merciful...Read more of this...
by
Yosa Buson
Straw sandal half sunk
in an old pond
in the sleety snow....Read more of this...
by
Stephen Crane
A newspaper is a collection of half-injustices
Which, bawled by boys from mile to mile,
Spreads its curious opinion
To a million merciful and sneering men,
While families cuddle the joys of the fireside
When spurred by tale of dire lone agony.
A newspaper is a court
Where every one is kindly and unfairly tried
By a squalor of honest men.
A newspaper is a market
Where wisdom sells...Read more of this...
by
Duncan Campbell Scott
She is free of the trap and the paddle,
The portage and the trail,
But something behind her savage life
Shines like a fragile veil.
Her dreams are undiscovered,
Shadows trouble her breast,
When the time for resting cometh
Then least is she at rest.
Oft in the morns of winter,
When she visits the rabbit snares,
An appearance floats in the crystal air
Beyond the balsam firs.
Oft in the...Read more of this...
by
Yehuda Amichai
Half the people in the world love the other half,
half the people hate the other half.
Must I because of this half and that half go wandering
and changing ceaselessly like rain in its cycle,
must I sleep among rocks, and grow rugged like
the trunks of olive trees,
and hear the moon barking at me,
and...Read more of this...
by
Brooks Haxton
Gripping the lectern, rocking it, searching
the faces for the souls, for signs of heartfelt
mindfulness at work, I thought, as I recited
words I wrote in tears: instead of tears,
if I had understood my father's business,
I could be selling men's clothes. I could be
kneeling, complimenting someone at the bay
of mirrors, mumblingly, with pinpoints pressed
between my lips. That was the life I...Read more of this...
by
Omar Khayyam
Sooner with half a loaf contented be,
And water from a broken crock, like me,
Than lord it over one poor fellow-man,
Or to another bow the vassal knee....Read more of this...
by
Alfred Lord Tennyson
I sometimes hold it half a sin
To put in words the grief I feel;
For words, like Nature, half reveal
And half conceal the Soul within.
But, for the unquiet heart and brain,
A use in measured language lies;
The sad mechanic exercise,
Like dull narcotics, numbing pain.
In words, like weeds, I'll wrap me o'er,
Like coarsest clothes against the cold;
But that large grief which these...Read more of this...
by
William Allingham
I thought it was the little bed
I slept in long ago;
A straight white curtain at the head,
And two smooth knobs below.
I thought I saw the nursery fire,
And in a chair well-known
My mother sat, and did not tire
With reading all alone.
If I should make the slightest sound
To show that I'm awake,...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
At Half past Three, a single Bird
Unto a silent Sky
Propounded but a single term
Of cautious melody.
At Half past Four, Experiment
Had subjugated test
And lo, Her silver Principle
Supplanted all the rest.
At Half past Seven, Element
Nor Implement, be seen --
And Place was where the Presence was
Circumference between....Read more of this...
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