Famous Prose Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Prose poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous prose poems. These examples illustrate what a famous prose poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Carl Sandburg
THERE is a wolf in me … fangs pointed for tearing gashes … a red tongue for raw meat … and the hot lapping of blood—I keep this wolf because the wilderness gave it to me and the wilderness will not let it go.
There is a fox in me … a silver-gray fox … I sniff and guess …...Read more of this...
by
Ehsan Sehgal
"Spirituality is a magnet, and the magnet attracts iron, not wood or stone. Similarly, faith and devotion is an iron, who has that, spirituality will attract him, not an unbeliever."
Ehsan Sehgal...Read more of this...
by
Henry Van Dyke
I
Lover of beauty, walking on the height
Of pure philosophy and tranquil song;
Born to behold the visions that belong
To those who dwell in melody and light;
Milton, thou spirit delicate and bright!
What drew thee down to join the Roundhead throng
Of iron-sided warriors, rude and strong,
Fighting for freedom in a world half night?
Lover of Liberty...Read more of this...
by
Emile Verhaeren
Because you came one day so simply along the paths of devotion and took my life into your beneficent hands, I love and praise and thank you with my senses, with my heart and brain, with my whole being stretched like a torch towards your unquenchable goodness and charity.
Since that day, I know what love, pure and bright as the...Read more of this...
by
Kahlil Gibran
A young man of strong body, weakened by hunger, sat on the walker's portion of the street stretching his hand toward all who passed, begging and repeating his hand toward all who passed, begging and repeating the sad song of his defeat in life, while suffering from hunger and from humiliation.
When night came, his lips and tongue were...Read more of this...
by
Russell Edson
A man had just delivered a toad from his wife's armpit. He
held it by its legs and spanked it.
Do you love it? said his wife.
It's our child, isn't it?
Does that mean you can't love it? she said.
It's hard enough to love a toad, but when it turns out to be...Read more of this...
by
Omar Khayyam
In truth, wine is a limpid spirit in the cup; in the body
of the flask, it is a transparent soul. No annoying person
is worthy of my society. It is only the cup of wine
which can figure there, for that is at once a solid and a
diaphanous body....Read more of this...
by
Omar Khayyam
We are the idolaters of love, but the Musulman differs
from us; we are like the pitiful ant, but Salomon is our
foe. Our visages should aye be paled with love, and our
apparel in rags, and yet the mart for silken stuffs is here
below....Read more of this...
by
Charles Baudelaire
Always be drunk.
That's it!
The great imperative!
In order not to feel
Time's horrid fardel
bruise your shoulders,
grinding you into the earth,
get drunk and stay that way.
On what?
On wine, poetry, virtue, whatever.
But get drunk.
And if you sometimes happen to wake up
on the porches of a palace,
in the green grass of a ditch,
in the dismal loneliness
of your own room,
your drunkenness gone or disappearing,
ask the wind,
the...Read more of this...
by
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
I feel no small reluctance in venturing to give to the public a
work of the character of that indicated by the title-page to the
present volume; for, difficult as it must always be to render satisfactorily
into one's own tongue the writings of the bards of other lands,
the responsibility assumed by the translator is immeasurably increased
when...Read more of this...
by
Omar Khayyam
Listen to me, O thou who hast not seen old friends
[of experience]! Vex not thyself with this Wheel of
Heaven which has neither surface nor foundation: content
thyself with what thou hast and, as a peaceable spectator,
observe here below the various games to which men are
destined....Read more of this...
by
Ehsan Sehgal
"The most dangerous two enemies of yourself and for others reside inside you, one is "hate " and other is "anger", that are always in front line, keeping you in fight. The majority of the globe is ruled by that inside powers, but Almighty God has also gifted you two defense weapons, that are "love" and "tolerant with forgiveness".
Ehsan Sehgal...Read more of this...
by
Louisa May Alcott
We sighing said, "Our Pan is dead;
His pipe hangs mute beside the river
Around it wistful sunbeams quiver,
But Music's airy voice is fled.
Spring mourns as for untimely frost;
The bluebird chants a requiem;
The willow-blossom waits for him;
The Genius of the wood is lost."
Then from the flute, untouched by hands,
There came a low,...Read more of this...
by
Ehsan Sehgal
"In your life your character is very important, if you have low and bad character, nowhere you receive respect, you are just without purpose and having meaningless life, while strong and high character makes you dignified, you will everywhere be received with proper honour. If you change yourself, you will see the world changed."
Ehsan Sehgal...Read more of this...
by
Anne Bradstreet
A ship that bears much sail, and little ballast, is easily
overset; and that man, whose head hath great abilities, and his
heart little or no grace, is in danger of foundering.
The finest bread has the least bran; the purest honey, the
least wax; and the sincerest Christian, the least self-love.
Sweet words are like honey; a little...Read more of this...
by
Emile Verhaeren
The gift of the body when the soul is given is but the accomplishment of two affections drawn headlong one towards the other.
You are only happy in your body that is so lovely in its native freshness because in all fervour you may offer it to me wholly as a total alms.
And I give myself to you knowing nothing except...Read more of this...
by
Omar Khayyam
Are you discreet enough for me to tell you in a few
words what man has been from the beginning? A miserable
creature, moulded in the clay of chagrin. He has,
for a few years, eaten his morsel here below, and then
has raised his foot and gone away....Read more of this...
by
Kahlil Gibran
And a poet said, "Speak to us of Beauty."
Where shall you seek beauty, and how shall you find her unless she herself be your way and your guide?
And how shall you speak of her except she be the weaver of your speech?
The aggrieved and the injured say, "Beauty is kind and gentle.
Like a young mother...Read more of this...
by
Emile Verhaeren
As in the simple ages, I have given you my heart, like a wide-spreading flower that opens pure and lovely in the dewy hours; within its moist petals my lips have rested.
The flower, I gathered it with fingers of flame; say nothing to it: for all words are perilous; it is through the eyes that soul listens to soul.
The flower...Read more of this...
by
Ehsan Sehgal
"How to honour and purify your "Self", speak the truth, respect others and spread the love and harmony."
Ehsan Sehgal...Read more of this...
by
Robert Herrick
Ah, Posthumus! our years hence fly
And leave no sound: nor piety,
Or prayers, or vow
Can keep the wrinkle from the brow;
But we must on,
As fate does lead or draw us; none,
None, Posthumus, could e'er decline
The doom of cruel Proserpine.
The pleasing wife, the house, the ground
Must all be left, no one plant found
To follow thee,
Save only the curst cypress-tree!
--A merry mind
Looks...Read more of this...
by
Omar Khayyam
This world has not derived any advantage from my
coming here below. Its glory and its dignity are equally
unaffected by my departure. My two ears have never
heard any one say why I have come, or why I am forced
to go again....Read more of this...
by
Omar Khayyam
We are assured that there is a Paradise for us peopled
with houris, and that we shall find there limpid wine and
honey. It must then be permitted us to love women and
wine here below, for is not this our end and aim?
321...Read more of this...
by
Omar Khayyam
It is not necessary to knock at every door unless there
be a reason for it. It is better to accommodate oneself
to the good and the bad here below, for hereafter we
can only enjoy the number of moves which destiny presents
upon the chessboard of this terrestrial ball....Read more of this...
by
Ehsan Sehgal
"Confession takes away the burden of any act or thing that is committed, and gives peace to your mind, heart and soul and inspires confidence to bear the positive or negative result."
(Ehsan Sehgal)....Read more of this...
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