Famous Parted Poems by Famous Poets

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

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A Fairy Tale

by Amy Lowell
 On winter nights beside the nursery fire
We read the fairy tale, while glowing coals
Builded its pictures. There before our eyes
We saw the vaulted hall of traceried stone
Uprear itself, the distant ceiling hung
With pendent stalactites like frozen vines;
And all along the walls at intervals,
Curled upwards into pillars, roses climbed,
And ramped and were confined, and clustered leaves
Divided where there peered a...Read more of this...

The Other Side of a Mirror

by Mary Elizabeth Coleridge
 I sat before my glass one day, 
And conjured up a vision bare, 
Unlike the aspects glad and gay, 
That erst were found reflected there - 
The vision of a woman, wild 
With more than womanly despair. 
Her hair stood back on either side 
A face bereft of loveliness. 
It had no envy now to hide 
What once no...Read more of this...

Parted

by Siegfried Sassoon
 Sleepless I listen to the surge and drone 
And drifting roar of the town’s undertone; 
Till through quiet falling rain I hear the bells 
Tolling and chiming their brief tune that tells 
Day’s midnight end. And from the day that’s over
No flashes of delight I can recover; 
But only dreary winter streets, and faces 
Of people moving in loud...Read more of this...

Parted

by Paul Laurence Dunbar
De breeze is blowin' 'cross de bay.
My lady, my lady;
De ship hit teks me far away,
My lady, my lady;
Ole Mas' done sol' me down de stream;
Dey tell me 't ain't so bad 's hit seem,
My lady, my lady.
O' co'se I knows dat you 'll be true,
My lady, my lady;
But den I do' know whut to do,
My lady, my lady;
I knowed...Read more of this...

Divided

by Jean Ingelow
.

An empty sky, a world of heather,
  Purple of foxglove, yellow of broom;
We two among them wading together,
  Shaking out honey, treading perfume.
Crowds of bees are giddy with clover,
  Crowds of grasshoppers skip at our feet,
Crowds of larks at their matins hang over,
  Thanking the Lord for a life so sweet.
Flusheth the rise with her purple...Read more of this...

Parted

by Paul Laurence Dunbar
She wrapped her soul in a lace of lies,
With a prime deceit to pin it;
And I thought I was gaining a fearsome prize,
So I staked my soul to win it.
We wed and parted on her complaint,
And both were a bit of barter,
Tho' I'll confess that I'm no saint,
I'll swear that she's no martyr.
...Read more of this...

We talked as Girls do --

by Emily Dickinson
 We talked as Girls do --
Fond, and late --
We speculated fair, on every subject, but the Grave --
Of ours, none affair --

We handled Destinies, as cool --
As we -- Disposers -- be --
And God, a Quiet Party
To our Authority --

But fondest, dwelt upon Ourself
As we eventual -- be --
When Girls to Women, softly raised
We -- occupy -- Degree --

We...Read more of this...

Muse

by Meena Alexander
I was young when you came to me. 
Each thing rings its turn, 
you sang in my ear, a slip of a thing 
dressed like a convent girl—
white socks, shoes, 
dark blue pinafore, white blouse.

A pencil box in hand: girl, book, tree—
those were the words you gave me. 
Girl was penne, hair drawn back, 
gleaming on the scalp, 
the self...Read more of this...

Hiawathas Departure

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
 By the shore of Gitche Gumee,
By the shining Big-Sea-Water,
At the doorway of his wigwam,
In the pleasant Summer morning,
Hiawatha stood and waited.
All the air was full of freshness,
All the earth was bright and joyous,
And before him, through the sunshine,
Westward toward the neighboring forest
Passed in golden swarms the Ahmo,
Passed the bees, the honey-makers,
Burning, singing In the sunshine.
Bright above him shone the...Read more of this...

The Vagabond

by Henry Lawson
 White handkerchiefs wave from the short black pier 
As we glide to the grand old sea -- 
But the song of my heart is for none to hear 
If one of them waves for me. 
A roving, roaming life is mine, 
Ever by field or flood -- 
For not far back in my father's line 
Was a dash of...Read more of this...

Three times -- we parted -- Breath -- and I --

by Emily Dickinson
 Three times -- we parted -- Breath -- and I --
Three times -- He would not go --
But strove to stir the lifeless Fan
The Waters -- strove to stay.

Three Times -- the Billows tossed me up --
Then caught me -- like a Ball --
Then made Blue faces in my face --
And pushed away a sail

That crawled Leagues off --...Read more of this...

How the Land was Won

by Henry Lawson
 The future was dark and the past was dead 
As they gazed on the sea once more – 
But a nation was born when the immigrants said 
"Good-bye!" as they stepped ashore! 
In their loneliness they were parted thus 
Because of the work to do, 
A wild wide land to be won for us 
By hearts and hands so...Read more of this...

The Alarm

by Thomas Hardy
 In Memory of one of the Writer's Family who was a Volunteer during the War
with Napoleon

In a ferny byway
Near the great South-Wessex Highway,
A homestead raised its breakfast-smoke aloft;
The dew-damps still lay steamless, for the sun had made no sky-way,
And twilight cloaked the croft.

'Twas hard to realize on
This snug side the mute horizon
That beyond it hostile armaments might steer,
Save from...Read more of this...

About Du Fu

by Li Bai
I met Du Fu on a mountaintop

in August when the sun was hot.

Under the shade of his big straw hat

his face was sad--

in the years since we last parted,

he'd grown wane, exhausted.

Poor old Du Fu, I thought then,

he must be agonizing over poetry again....Read more of this...

Henry Purcell

by Gerard Manley Hopkins
 The poet wishes well to the divine genius of Purcell 
 and praises him that, whereas other musicians have 
 given utterance to the moods of man's mind, he has, 
 beyond that, uttered in notes the very make and 
 species of man as created both in him and in all men 
 generally.


Have, fair fallen, O fair,...Read more of this...

Moonrise

by Gerard Manley Hopkins
 I awoke in the Midsummer not to call night, in the white and the walk of the morning:
The moon, dwindled and thinned to the fringe of a finger-nail held to the candle,
Or paring of paradisaical fruit, lovely in waning but lustreless,
Stepped from the stool, drew back from the barrow, of dark Maenefa the mountain;

A cusp still clasped him, a...Read more of this...

Her Immortality

by Thomas Hardy
 UPON a noon I pilgrimed through
A pasture, mile by mile,
Unto the place where I last saw
My dead Love's living smile.

And sorrowing I lay me down
Upon the heated sod:
It seemed as if my body pressed
The very ground she trod.

I lay, and thought; and in a trance
She came and stood me by--
The same, even to the marvellous ray
That used to light...Read more of this...

Sonnet LIX: As Love and I

by Michael Drayton
 As Love and I, late harbor'd in one inn, 
With proverbs thus each other entertain: 
"In Love there is no lack," thus I begin; 
"Fair words make fools," replieth he again; 
"Who spares to speak doth spare to speed," quoth I; 
"As well," saith he, "too forward as too slow"; 
"Fortune assists the boldest," I reply; 
"A hasty man,"...Read more of this...

A Leaf

by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Somebody said, in the crowd, last eve,
That you were married, or soon to be.
I have not thought of you, I believe,
Since last we parted. Let me see:
Five long Summers have passed since then –
Each has been pleasant in its own way –
And you are but one of a dozen men
Who have played the suitor a Summer day.

But, nevertheless, when...Read more of this...

Ae Fond Kiss And Then We Sever

by Robert Burns
 Ae fond kiss, and then we sever;
Ae fareweel, and then for ever!
Deep in heart-wrung tears I'll pledge thee,
Warring sighs and groans I'll wage thee.

Who shall say that Fortune grieves him
While the star of hope she leaves him?
Me, nae cheerful twinkle lights me,
Dark despair around benights me.

I'll ne'er blame my partial fancy;
Naething could resist my Nancy;
But to see her was...Read more of this...

Parting

by Bertolt Brecht
 THERE'S no use in weeping, 
Though we are condemned to part: 
There's such a thing as keeping 
A remembrance in one's heart: 

There's such a thing as dwelling 
On the thought ourselves have nurs'd, 
And with scorn and courage telling 
The world to do its worst. 

We'll not let its follies grieve us, 
We'll just take them as they...Read more of this...

When We Two Parted

by George (Lord) Byron
When we two parted
  In silence and tears,
Half broken-hearted
  To sever for years,
Pale grew thy cheek and cold,
  Colder thy kiss;
Truly that hour foretold
  Sorrow to this.

The dew of the morning
  Sunk chill on my brow—
It felt like the warning
  Of what I feel now.
Thy vows are all broken,
  And light is thy...Read more of this...

Morns like these -- we parted

by Emily Dickinson
 Morns like these -- we parted --
Noons like these -- she rose --
Fluttering first -- then firmer
To her fair repose.

Never did she lisp it --
It was not for me --
She -- was mute from transport --
I -- from agony --

Till -- the evening nearing
One the curtains drew --
Quick! A Sharper rustling!
And this linnet flew!...Read more of this...

Born Brothers

by Mark Van Doren
 Equality is absolute or no. 
Nothing between can stand. We are the sons 
Of the same sire, or madness breaks and runs 
Through the rude world. Ridiculous our woe 
If single pity does not love it. So 
Our separate fathers love us. No man shuns 
His poorest child's embrace. We are the sons 
Of such, or ground and sky...Read more of this...

Telling the Bees

by John Greenleaf Whittier
 Here is the place; right over the hill 
Runs the path I took; 
You can see the gap in the old wall still, 
And the stepping-stones in the shallow brook. 

There is the house, with the gate red-barred, 
And the poplars tall; 
And the barn's brown length, and the cattle-yard, 
And the white horns tossing above the wall. 

There...Read more of this...

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