Famous Retrospection Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Retrospection poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous retrospection poems. These examples illustrate what a famous retrospection poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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...ts. When I bethink
How brief the past, the future still more brief,
Calls on to action, action! Not for me
Is time for retrospection or for dreams,
Not time for self-laudation or remorse.
Have I done nobly? Then I must not let
Dead yesterday unborn to-morrow shame.
Have I done wrong? Well, let the bitter taste
Of fruit that turned to ashes on my lip
Be my reminder in temptations hour,
And keep me silent when I could condemn.
Sometimes it takes the acid of a sin
To cleanse...Read more of this...
by
Wilcox, Ella Wheeler
...Left in immortal Youth
On that low Plain
That hath nor Retrospection
Nor Again --
Ransomed from years --
Sequestered from Decay
Canceled like Dawn
In comprehensive Day --...Read more of this...
by
Dickinson, Emily
...sand.
One understands immediately how Proust
Might cherish all such postage-stamp details.
Who can resist the charms of retrospection?...Read more of this...
by
Hecht, Anthony
...s, and of her harmonies
She is full sure! Upon her dying rose,
She drops a look of fondness, and goes by,
Scarce any retrospection in her eye;
For she the laws of growth most deeply knows,
Whose hands bear, here, a seed-bag--there, an urn.
Pledges she herself to aught, 'twould mark her end!
This lesson of our only visible friend,
Can we not teach our foolish hearts to learn ?
Yes! yes !--but, oh, our human rose is fair
Surpassingly! Lose calmly Love's great bliss,
...Read more of this...
by
Meredith, George
...When you and I were young, the days
Were filled with scent of pink and rose,
And full of joy from dawn till close,
From morning's mist till evening's haze.
And when the robin sung his song
The verdant woodland ways along,
We whistled louder than he sung.
And school was joy, and work was sport
For which the hours were all too short,
When you and I w...Read more of this...
by
Laurence Dunbar, Paul
...heir addition was the balance of a doubt:
There were gentlemen of leisure in the Valley of the Shadow,
Not allured by retrospection, disenchanted, and played out.
And among the dark endurances of unavowed reprisals
There were silent eyes of envy that saw little but saw well;
And over beauty’s aftermath of hazardous ambitions
There were tears for what had vanished as they vanished where they fell.
Not assured of what was theirs, and always hungry for the nameless,
There...Read more of this...
by
Robinson, Edwin Arlington
...These tested Our Horizon --
Then disappeared
As Birds before achieving
A Latitude.
Our Retrospection of Them
A fixed Delight,
But our Anticipation
A Dice -- a Doubt --...Read more of this...
by
Dickinson, Emily
...ere as difficult then to think
As Daisies now to be seen --
Looking back is best that is left
Or if it be -- before --
Retrospection is Prospect's half,
Sometimes, almost more....Read more of this...
by
Dickinson, Emily
...e are they all beyond recall,
And I--a shade, a mere reflection--
Am forced to feed my spirit's greed
Upon the husks of retrospection!
And lo! to-night, the phantom light,
That, as a sprite, flits on the fender,
Reveals a face whose girlish grace
Brings back the feeling, warm and tender;
And, all the while, the old-time smile
Plays on my visage, grim and wrinkled,--
As though, soubrette, your footfalls yet
Upon my rusty heart-strings tinkled!...Read more of this...
by
Field, Eugene
...1
TO think of time—of all that retrospection!
To think of to-day, and the ages continued henceforward!
Have you guess’d you yourself would not continue?
Have you dreaded these earth-beetles?
Have you fear’d the future would be nothing to you?
Is to-day nothing? Is the beginningless past nothing?
If the future is nothing, they are just as surely nothing.
To think that the sun rose...Read more of this...
by
Whitman, Walt
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