Famous Philosophy Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Philosophy poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous philosophy poems. These examples illustrate what a famous philosophy poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Robert William Service
Oh happy he who cannot see
With scientific eyes;
Who does not know how flowers grow,
And is not planet wise;
Content to find with simple mind
Joys as they are:
To whom a rose is just a rose,
A star--a star.
It is not good, I deem, to brood
On things beyond our ken;
A rustic I would live and die,
Aloof from...Read more of this...
by
William Butler Yeats
I
Many ingenious lovely things are gone
That seemed sheer miracle to the multitude,
protected from the circle of the moon
That pitches common things about. There stood
Amid the ornamental bronze and stone
An ancient image made of olive wood -
And gone are phidias' famous ivories
And all the golden grasshoppers and bees.
We too had many pretty toys when young:
A law indifferent to blame or...Read more of this...
by
Thomas Campbell
Soul of the Poet ! wheresoe'er,
Reclaimed from earth, thy genius plume
Her wings of immortality ;
Suspend thy harp in happier sphere,
And with thine influence illume
The gladness of our jubilee.
And fly like fiends from secret spell,
Discord and Strife, at Burn's name,
Exorcised by his memory ;
For he was chief of bards that swell
The heart with songs of social flame,
And high delicious revelry.
And...Read more of this...
by
Omer Tarin
You asked me what it was all about,
Why men and women dwelt so much
On the slanting tangents
Of come vague philosophy
And what I felt it was, and why
It was like this?
Sometimes, then, to answer your questions,
I dress my thoughts in brilliant costumes,
Beautiful, eloquent words,
But to tell the truth
There is no way I can really say
Anything at all;
People...Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
Father drank himself to death,--
Quite enjoyed it.
Urged to draw a sober breath
He'd avoid it.
'Save your sympathy,' said Dad;
'Never sought it.
Hob-nail liver, gay and glad,
Sure,--I bought it.'
Uncle made a heap of dough,
Ponies playing.
'Easy come and easy go,'
Was his saying.
Though he died in poverty
Fit he thought it,
Grinning with philosophy:
'Guess I bought it.'
Auntie took...Read more of this...
by
Omar Khayyam
Vain study of philosophy eschew!
Rather let tangled curls attract your view;
And shed the bottle's life-blood in your cup,
Or e'er death shed your blood, and feast on you....Read more of this...
by
Francesco Petrarch
SONNET VII. La gola e 'l sonno e l' oziose piume. TO A FRIEND, ENCOURAGING HIM TO PURSUE POETRY. Torn is each virtue from its earthly throneBy sloth, intemperance, and voluptuous ease;E'en nature deviates from her wonted ways,Too much the slave of vicious custom grown.Far hence is every light celestial gone,Read more of this...
by
George (Lord) Byron
My sister! my sweet sister! if a name
Dearer and purer were, it should be thine;
Mountains and seas divide us, but I claim
No tears, but tenderness to answer mine:
Go where I will, to me thou art the same—
A loved regret which I would not resign.
There yet are two things in my destiny,—
A world to roam through, and a...Read more of this...
by
Amy Levy
Ere all the world had grown so drear,
When I was young and you were here,
'Mid summer roses in summer weather,
What pleasant times we've had together!
We were not Phyllis, simple-sweet,
And Corydon; we did not meet
By brook or meadow, but among
A Philistine and flippant throng
Which much we scorned; (less rigorous
It had no scorn at all for us!)
How many an eve of...Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
If you're up against a bruiser and you're getting knocked about --
Grin.
If you're feeling pretty groggy, and you're licked beyond a doubt --
Grin.
Don't let him see you're funking, let him know with every clout,
Though your face is battered to a pulp, your blooming heart is stout;
Just stand upon your pins until the beggar knocks you out --
And grin.
This life's...Read more of this...
by
Paul Laurence Dunbar
I been t'inkin' 'bout de preachah; whut he said de othah night,
'Bout hit bein' people's dooty, fu' to keep dey faces bright;
How one ought to live so pleasant dat ouah tempah never riles,
Meetin' evahbody roun' us wid ouah very nicest smiles.
Dat 's all right, I ain't a-sputin' not a t'ing dat soun's lak fac',
But you don't ketch folks a-grinnin' wid...Read more of this...
by
Oscar Wilde
Nay, let us walk from fire unto fire,
From passionate pain to deadlier delight, -
I am too young to live without desire,
Too young art thou to waste this summer night
Asking those idle questions which of old
Man sought of seer and oracle, and no reply was told.
For, sweet, to feel is better than to know,
And wisdom is a childless heritage,
One pulse...Read more of this...
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...
by
Dorothy Parker
If I should labor through daylight and dark,
Consecrate, valorous, serious, true,
Then on the world I may blazon my mark;
And what if I don't, and what if I do?...Read more of this...
by
Michael Drayton
In Ionia whence sprang old poets' fame,
From whom that sea did first derive her name,
The blessed bed whereon the Muses lay,
Beauty of Greece, the pride of Asia,
Whence Archelaus, whom times historify,
First unto Athens brought philosophy:
In this fair region on a goodly plain,
Stretching her bounds unto the bord'ring main,
The mountain Latmus overlooks the sea,
Smiling to see the ocean billows play:
Latmus,...Read more of this...
by
Victor Hugo
("Lorsque l'enfant parait.")
{XIX., May 11, 1830.}
The child comes toddling in, and young and old
With smiling eyes its smiling eyes behold,
And artless, babyish joy;
A playful welcome greets it through the room,
The saddest brow unfolds its wrinkled gloom,
To greet the happy boy.
If June...Read more of this...
by
Percy Bysshe Shelley
The fountains mingle with the river
And the rivers with the ocean,
The winds of heaven mix for ever
With a sweet emotion;
Nothing in the world is single;
All things by a law divine
In one spirit meet and mingle.
Why not I with thine?—
See the mountains kiss high heaven
And the waves clasp one another;
No sister-flower would be forgiven
If it disdained its brother;
And the sunlight clasps...Read more of this...
by
Omar Khayyam
In philosophy, if you are an Aristotle or a Bouzourdj-mehr;
in power, if you are some Roman emperor or some
potentate of China, drink ever, drink wine from the cup
of Djem, for the end of all is the tomb. Oh! though you
are Bahram himself, the coffin is your last sojourn....Read more of this...
by
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
At morn the wise man walked abroad,
Proud with the learning of great fools.
He laughed and said, ‘There is no God –
‘Tis force creates, ‘tis reason rules.’
Meek with the wisdom of great faith,
At night he knelt while angels smiled,
And wept and cried with anguished breath,
‘Jehovah, God, save Thou my child.’...Read more of this...
by
Walt Whitman
1
SAUNTERING the pavement, or riding the country by-road—lo! such faces!
Faces of friendship, precision, caution, suavity, ideality;
The spiritual, prescient face—the always welcome, common, benevolent face,
The face of the singing of music—the grand faces of natural lawyers and judges, broad
at
the
back-top;
The faces of hunters and fishers, bulged at the brows—the shaved blanch’d faces
of
orthodox...Read more of this...
by
Robert Browning
O God, where does this tend—these struggling aims?
What would I have? What is this ‘sleep’, which seems
To bound all? can there be a ‘waking’ point
Of crowning life? The soul would never rule—
It would be first in all things—it would have
Its utmost pleasure filled,—but that complete
Commanding for commanding sickens it.
The last point I...Read more of this...
by
William Blake
To see a world in a grain of sand
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand
And eternity in an hour.
A robin redbreast in a cage
Puts all heaven in a rage.
A dove-house filled with doves and pigeons
Shudders hell through all its regions.
A dog starved at his master's gate
Predicts the ruin of the state.
A horse...Read more of this...
by
John Ashbery
Just when I thought there wasn't room enough
for another thought in my head, I had this great idea--
call it a philosophy of life, if you will.Briefly,
it involved living the way philosophers live,
according to a set of principles. OK, but which ones?
That was the hardest part, I admit, but I had a
kind of dark foreknowledge of what it would be...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
The rainbow never tells me
That gust and storm are by,
Yet is she more convincing
Than Philosophy.
My flowers turn from Forums --
Yet eloquent declare
What Cato couldn't prove me
Except the birds were here!...Read more of this...
by
Omar Khayyam
Slaves of vain wisdom and philosophy,
Who toil at Being and Nonentity,
Parching your brains till they are like dry grapes,
Be wise in time, and drink grape-juice, like me!...Read more of this...
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