Famous Platonic Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Platonic poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous platonic poems. These examples illustrate what a famous platonic poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
See also:
by
Yeats, William Butler
...lock.
Horton's the first I call. He loved strange thought
And knew that sweet extremity of pride
That's called platonic love,
And that to such a pitch of passion wrought
Nothing could bring him, when his lady died,
Anodyne for his love.
Words were but wasted breath;
One dear hope had he:
The inclemency
Of that or the next winter would be death.
Two thoughts were so mixed up I could not tell
Whether of her or God he thought the most,
But think that his mind's...Read more of this...
by
Marvell, Andrew
...k of ages acts:
While heavy monarchs make a wide return,
Longer, and more malignant than Saturn:
And though they all Platonic years should reign,
In the same posture would be found again.
Their earthy projects under ground they lay,
More slow and brittle than the China clay:
Well may they strive to leave them to their son,
For one thing never was by one king done.
Yet some more active for a frontier town,
Taken by proxy, beg a false renown;
Another triumphs...Read more of this...
by
Herrick, Robert
...ike old testaments engrost,
Lock'd up, not lost;
And for a-while lie here conceal'd,
To be reveal'd
Next, at that great Platonic year,
And then meet here....Read more of this...
by
Ginsberg, Allen
...ntinuously seventy hours from park to
pad to bar to Bellevue to museum to the Brook-
lyn Bridge,
lost battalion of platonic conversationalists jumping
down the stoops off fire escapes off windowsills
off Empire State out of the moon,
yacketayakking screaming vomiting whispering facts
and memories and anecdotes and eyeball kicks
and shocks of hospitals and jails and wars,
whole intellects disgorged in total recall for seven days
and nights with brilliant eyes,...Read more of this...
by
Ransom, John Crowe
...By dark severance the apparition head
Smiles from the air a capital on no
Column or a Platonic perhaps head
On a canvas sky depending from nothing;
Stirs up an old illusion of grandeur
By tickling the instinct of heads to be
Absolute and to try decapitation
And to play truant from the body bush;
But too happy and beautiful for those sorts
Of head (homekeeping heads are happiest)
Discovers maybe thirty unwidowed years
Of not dishono...Read more of this...
by
Wilcox, Ella Wheeler
...he moon and the worlds above, -
And our talk was tinctured with science,
And everything else, save love.
A wholly Platonic friendship
You said I had proven to you
Could bind a man and a woman
The whole long season through,
With never a thought of flirting,
Though both were in their youth,
What would you have said, my lady,
If you had known the truth!
What would you have done, I wonder,
Had I gone on my knees to you
And told you my passionate story,
There in the ...Read more of this...
by
Tebb, Barry
...elangelo.
Words cut like stone.
I taught you Greek
But your painting of
‘The Essence of the Rose’
Was pure Platonic form.
You drew the masks
Of Comedy and Tragedy
In perfect harmony.
Having seen neither;
So Socrates was right.
Those who have the Spirit’s gift
Will one day find the light....Read more of this...
by
Wilmot, John
...I could love thee till I die,
Would'st thou love me modestly,
And ne'er press, whilst I live,
For more than willingly I would give:
Which should sufficient be to prove
I'd understand the art of love.
I hate the thing is called enjoyment:
Besides it is a dull employment,
It cuts off all that's life and fire
From that which may be termed desire;
Just li...Read more of this...
by
Tebb, Barry
...no answer; but it’s the way I was,
Hating the clutter of the city, man en masse. I thought I needed a mate
For a Platonic cave, a companion for the Martello tower in Dublin Bay,
Whatever it was I never wanted you to go but go you did to stay.
The one became the two again, you shed your ring, we had our son to share.
I read instead of writing, psycho-analysis became a faith of sorts,
A pastime then a passion I kept on with even when my muse returned
Deman...Read more of this...
by
Petrarch, Francesco
...o the burning boundLed unawares; and there Plotinus' shade,Who dark Platonic truths in fuller light display'd:He, flying far to 'scape the coming pest,Was, when he seem'd secure, by death oppressed;That, fix'd by fate, before he saw the sun,The careful sophist strove in vain to shun.Hortensius, Cr...Read more of this...
by
Hikmet, Nazim
...know I loved the earth
can someone who hasn't worked the earth love it
I've never worked the earth
it must be my only Platonic love
and here I've loved rivers all this time
whether motionless like this they curl skirting the hills
European hills crowned with chateaus
or whether stretched out flat as far as the eye can see
I know you can't wash in the same river even once
I know the river will bring new lights you'll never see
I know we live slightly longer than a horse but...Read more of this...
by
Levy, Amy
...er night came on,
He showed us where the glow-worm shone;--
We stooped to see.
There, too, by yonder moon we swore
Platonic friendship o'er and o'er;
No folk, we deemed, had been before
So wise and free.
* * * * * * *
And do I sigh or smile to-day?
Dead love or dead ambition, say,
Which mourn we most? Not much we weigh
Platonic friends.
On you the sun is shining free;
Our Poet sleeps in Italy,
Beneath an alien sod; on me
The cloud descends....Read more of this...
by
Yeats, William Butler
...lence;
The Babylonian starlight brought
A fabulous, formless darkness in;
Odour of blood when Christ was slain
Made all platonic tolerance vain
And vain all Doric discipline.
Everything that man esteems
Endures a moment or a day.
Love's pleasure drives his love away,
The painter's brush consumes his dreams;
The herald's cry, the soldier's tread
Exhaust his glory and his might:
Whatever flames upon the night
Man's own resinous heart has fed....Read more of this...
Dont forget to view our wonderful member Platonic poems.