Famous Purposeless Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Purposeless poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous purposeless poems. These examples illustrate what a famous purposeless poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Hafez
O youth’s young cloudlet, O freshness free,
With heart so light on the winds to fly
Or glisten in spray up-scatter’d,—I
Am sad as the full surgings of the sea;
I gave thee birth, thou shalt return to me.
Thy heart is light as the empty wind
Of barren purposeless change,—but I
Am the thought-burden’d slow-searching mind:
I am the agony to form & find;—
The fluxing travail of...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
From Cocoon forth a Butterfly
As Lady from her Door
Emerged -- a Summer Afternoon --
Repairing Everywhere --
Without Design -- that I could trace
Except to stray abroad
On Miscellaneous Enterprise
The Clovers -- understood --
Her pretty Parasol be seen
Contracting in a Field
Where Men made Hay --
Then struggling hard
With an opposing Cloud --
Where Parties -- Phantom as Herself --
To Nowhere -- seemed to go
In...Read more of this...
by
Kathleen Raine
Earth no longer
hymns the Creator,
the seven days of wonder,
the Garden is over —
all the stories are told,
the seven seals broken
all that begins
must have its ending,
our striving, desiring,
our living and dying,
for Time, the bringer
of abundant days
is Time the destroyer —
In the Iron Age
the Kali Yuga
To whom can we pray
at the end of an era
but the Lord Shiva,
the Liberator, the purifier?
Our...Read more of this...
by
Delmore Schwartz
1
The children of the Czar
Played with a bouncing ball
In the May morning, in the Czar's garden,
Tossing it back and forth.
It fell among the flowerbeds
Or fled to the north gate.
A daylight moon hung up
In the Western sky, bald white.
Like Papa's face, said Sister,
Hurling the white ball forth.
2
While I ate a baked potato
Six thousand miles apart,
In Brooklyn, in 1916,
Aged two,...Read more of this...
by
Henry Lawson
He had offices in Sydney, not so many years ago,
And his shingle bore the legend `Peter Anderson and Co.',
But his real name was Careless, as the fellows understood --
And his relatives decided that he wasn't any good.
'Twas their gentle tongues that blasted any `character' he had --
He was fond of beer and leisure --...Read more of this...
by
Coventry Patmore
Here, in this little Bay,
Full of tumultuous life and great repose,
Where, twice a day,
The purposeless, gay ocean comes and goes,
Under high cliffs, and far from the huge town,
I sit me down.
For want of me the world's course will not fail:
When all its work is done, the lie shall rot;
The truth is...Read more of this...
by
Hafez
O youth’s young cloudlet, O freshness free,
With heart so light on the winds to fly
Or glisten in spray up-scatter’d,—I
Am sad as the full surgings of the sea;
I gave thee birth, thou shalt return to me.
Thy heart is light as the empty wind
Of barren purposeless change,—but I
Am the thought-burden’d slow-searching mind:
I am the agony to form & find;—
The fluxing travail of...Read more of this...
by
Hafez
Play thou on men as on a hárp’s stríng:
Though of themselves they lifeless are
In them thy spirit’s music shall ring.
Breathe thou in them as through a reed
Thy soul’s strong message, through them declare
To the dead world thy living need.
They are to thee as the senseless words
That embody thought’s full-felt commands;
Thy passive tools, obedient hands
To serve thy purpose, thy trusty swords:
They...Read more of this...
by
Matthew Arnold
Coldly, sadly descends
The autumn-evening. The field
Strewn with its dank yellow drifts
Of wither'd leaves, and the elms,
Fade into dimness apace,
Silent;--hardly a shout
From a few boys late at their play!
The lights come out in the street,
In the school-room windows;--but cold,
Solemn, unlighted, austere,
Through the gathering darkness, arise
The chapel-walls, in whose bound
Thou, my father! art laid.
There thou dost lie, in the gloom
Of the...Read more of this...
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