Famous Passed Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Three Weeks passed since I had seen Her --

by Emily Dickinson
 Three Weeks passed since I had seen Her --
Some Disease had vext
'Twas with Text and Village Singing
I beheld Her next

And a Company -- our pleasure
To discourse alone --
Gracious now to me as any --
Gracious unto none --

Borne without dissent of Either
To the Parish night --
Of the Separated Parties
Which be out of sight?...Read more of this...

Song of the Future

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 'Tis strange that in a land so strong 
So strong and bold in mighty youth, 
We have no poet's voice of truth 
To sing for us a wondrous song. 
Our chiefest singer yet has sung 
In wild, sweet notes a passing strain, 
All carelessly and sadly flung 
To that dull world he thought so vain. 

"I care for nothing,...Read more of this...

The Gardener XXII: When She Passed by Me

by Rabindranath Tagore
 When she passed by me with quick
steps, the end of her skirt touched
me.
From the unknown island of a 
heart came a sudden warm breath of
spring.
A flutter of a flitting touch brushed
me and vanished in a moment, like a 
torn flower petal blown in the breeze.
It fell upon my heart like a sigh of
her body and whisper of her heart....Read more of this...

An Ode To My Jailed Friend

by Godfrey Mutiso Gorry
 Unmasked –
The spirits' face is a black hole
Swallowing the celestial beauty
Of the stars.

Caged –
The sentinel is crouched
Subsumed in seething pain
Not pain but anger of being guiltless
Yet ‘guilty’ for being in jail.

The cell –
No crime equals its greasy grey walls
Thickly dark with no grills for light
Till the eyes, sore, feel pain no more.

The sentinel –
Was once a brother
Used to sit...Read more of this...

Vulture

by Robinson Jeffers
 I had walked since dawn and lay down to rest on a bare hillside
Above the ocean. I saw through half-shut eyelids a vulture wheeling
 high up in heaven,
And presently it passed again, but lower and nearer, its orbit
 narrowing,
 I understood then
That I was under inspection. I lay death-still and heard the flight-
 feathers
Whistle above me and make their...Read more of this...

The Ideals

by Friedrich von Schiller
 And wilt thou, faithless one, then, leave me,
With all thy magic phantasy,--
With all the thoughts that joy or grieve me,
Wilt thou with all forever fly?
Can naught delay thine onward motion,
Thou golden time of life's young dream?
In vain! eternity's wide ocean
Ceaselessly drowns thy rolling stream.

The glorious suns my youth enchanting
Have set in never-ending night;
Those blest ideals now are wanting
That swelled...Read more of this...

Letter Home

by Natasha Trethewey
 --New Orleans, November 1910

Four weeks have passed since I left, and still
I must write to you of no work. I've worn down
the soles and walked through the tightness
of my new shoes calling upon the merchants,
their offices bustling. All the while I kept thinking
my plain English and good writing would secure
for me some modest position Though I dress each day
in...Read more of this...

Within my reach!

by Emily Dickinson
 Within my reach!
I could have touched!
I might have chanced that way!
Soft sauntered thro' the village --
Sauntered as soft away!
So unsuspected Violets
Within the meadows go --
Too late for striving fingers
That passed, an hour ago!...Read more of this...

A Tale of the Sea

by William Topaz McGonagall
 A pathetic tale of the sea I will unfold,
Enough to make one's blood run cold;
Concerning four fishermen cast adrift in a dory.
As I've been told I'll relate the story.
T'was on the 8th April on the afternoon of that day
That the village of Louisburg was thrown into a wild state or dismay, 

And the villagers flew to the beach in...Read more of this...

Jonathan Houghton

by Edgar Lee Masters
 There is the caw of a crow,
And the hesitant song of a thrush.
There is the tinkle of a cowbell far away,
And the voice of a plowman on Shipley's hill.
The forest beyond the orchard is still
With midsummer stillness;
And along the road a wagon chuckles,
Loaded with corn, going to Atterbury.
And an old man sits under a tree asleep,
And an old woman...Read more of this...

Now Ramazan has come, the vintage passed, and

by Omar Khayyam
Now Ramazan has come, the vintage passed, and
pledging of the cup and simple customs are afar. Yet
full the wine pots are, and still untouched, and houris wait
for us in fond suspense....Read more of this...

To Lizbie Browne

by Thomas Hardy
 I 

Dear Lizbie Browne, 
Where are you now? 
In sun, in rain? - 
Or is your brow 
Past joy, past pain, 
Dear Lizbie Browne? 

II 

Sweet Lizbie Browne 
How you could smile, 
How you could sing! - 
How archly wile 
In glance-giving, 
Sweet Lizbie Browne! 

III 

And, Lizbie Browne, 
Who else had hair 
Bay-red as yours, 
Or flesh so...Read more of this...

The Watchman

by Lucy Maud Montgomery
 My Claudia, it is long since we have met, 
So kissed, so held each other heart to heart! 
I thought to greet thee as a conqueror comes, 
Bearing the trophies of his prowess home, 
But Jove hath willed it should be otherwise­
Jove, say I? Nay, some mightier stranger-god 
Who thus hath laid his heavy hand on me, 
No victor,...Read more of this...

A Spirit Passed Before Me

by George (Lord) Byron
 From Job

A spirit passed before me: I beheld
The face of immortality unveiled— 
Deep sleep came down on every eye save mine— 
And there it stood,—all formless—but divine:
Along my bones the creeping flesh did quake;
And as my damp hair stiffened, thus it spake:

"Is man more just than God? Is man more pure
Than He who deems even Seraphs insecure?
Creatures of clay—vain...Read more of this...

Twas Crisis -- All the length had passed --

by Emily Dickinson
 'Twas Crisis -- All the length had passed --
That dull -- benumbing time
There is in Fever or Event --
And now the Chance had come --

The instant holding in its claw
The privilege to live
Or warrant to report the Soul
The other side the Grave.

The Muscles grappled as with leads
That would not let the Will --
The Spirit shook the Adamant --
But could...Read more of this...

On Fields Oer Which the Reapers Hand has Passed

by Henry David Thoreau
 On fields o'er which the reaper's hand has pass'd
Lit by the harvest moon and autumn sun,
My thoughts like stubble floating in the wind
And of such fineness as October airs,
There after harvest could I glean my life
A richer harvest reaping without toil,
And weaving gorgeous fancies at my will
In subtler webs than finest summer haze....Read more of this...

The Book of Urizen: Chapter IV

by William Blake
 a

1. Los smitten with astonishment
Frightend at the hurtling bones

2. And at the surging sulphureous
Perturbed Immortal mad raging

3. In whirlwinds & pitch & nitre 
Round the furious limbs of Los

4. And Los formed nets & gins 
And threw the nets round about

5. He watch'd in shuddring fear
The dark changes & bound every change 
With rivets of iron & brass;

6. And...Read more of this...

Opifex

by Thomas Edward Brown
 As I was carving images from clouds,
And tinting them with soft ethereal dyes
Pressed from the pulp of dreams, one comes, and cries:--
"Forbear!" and all my heaven with gloom enshrouds.

"Forbear!" Thou hast no tools wherewith to essay
The delicate waves of that elusive grain:
Wouldst have due recompense of vulgar pain?
The potter's wheel for thee, and some coarse clay!

"So work, if work...Read more of this...

The Scapegoat

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 We have all of us read how the Israelites fled 
From Egypt with Pharaoh in eager pursuit of 'em, 
And Pharaoh's fierce troop were all put "in the soup" 
When the waters rolled softly o'er every galoot of 'em. 
The Jews were so glad when old Pharaoh was "had" 
That they sounded their timbrels and capered like mad. 
You...Read more of this...

O regret! that life should be passed in pure loss! How

by Omar Khayyam
O regret! that life should be passed in pure loss! How
lawless all our eating and how defiled our bodies! I
have the blame, O God! of not having done what Thou
hast commanded. What will come to me for having done
what Thou hast not commanded?...Read more of this...

They that have passed away, and gone before,

by Omar Khayyam
They that have passed away, and gone before,
Sleep in delusion's dust for evermore;
Go, boy, and fetch some wine, this is the truth,
Their dogmas were but air, and wind their lore!...Read more of this...

There are some ignorant beings who have never passed

by Omar Khayyam
There are some ignorant beings who have never passed
a night in quest of truth, who have never taken a step
outside themselves, who show themselves clothed in the
garments of great lords and who are pleased to slander
those whose conduct is irreproachable.
325...Read more of this...

Happy the heart of him who has passed unknown,

by Omar Khayyam
Happy the heart of him who has passed unknown,
who has not been clothed in a robe of ceremony, nor in
luxurious garments, nor in stuffs of great price, who,
like the simourg, is lifted into the skies to the place of
his delight as the owl sits among the ruins of this world.
314...Read more of this...

I often passed the village

by Emily Dickinson
 I often passed the village
When going home from school --
And wondered what they did there --
And why it was so still --

I did not know the year then --
In which my call would come --
Earlier, by the Dial,
Than the rest have gone.

It's stiller than the sundown.
It's cooler than the dawn --
The Daisies dare to come here --
And birds can...Read more of this...

Our Lady of the Mine

by Eugene Field
 The Blue Horizon wuz a mine us fellers all thought well uv,
And there befell the episode I now perpose to tell uv;
'T wuz in the year uv sixty-nine,--somewhere along in summer,--
There hove in sight one afternoon a new and curious comer;
His name wuz Silas Pettibone,--a' artist by perfession,--
With a kit of tools and a big mustache and a pipe...Read more of this...

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