Famous Selfsame Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Selfsame poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous selfsame poems. These examples illustrate what a famous selfsame poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
William Shakespeare
When I consider everything that grows
Holds in perfection but a little moment,
That this huge stage presenteth nought but shows
Whereon the stars in secret influence comment;
When I perceive that men as plants increase,
Cheered and check'd even by the selfsame sky,
Vaunt in their youthful sap, at height decrease,
And wear their brave state out of memory;
Then the conceit of this inconstant stay
Sets...Read more of this...
by
Rudyard Kipling
I know not in Whose hands are laid
To empty upon earth
From unsuspected ambuscade
The very Urns of Mirth;
Who bids the Heavenly Lark arise
And cheer our solemn round--
The Jest beheld with streaming eyes
And grovellings on the ground;
Who joins the flats of Time and Chance
Behind the prey preferred,
And thrones on Shrieking Circumstance
The Sacredly Absurd,
Till Laughter, voiceless...Read more of this...
by
Christina Rossetti
There's blood between us, love, my love,
There's father's blood, there's brother's blood,
And blood's a bar I cannot pass.
I choose the stairs that mount above,
Stair after golden sky-ward stair,
To city and to sea of glass.
My lily feet are soiled with mud,
With scarlet mud which tells a tale
Of hope that was, of guilt that was,
Of love that shall not yet avail;
Alas,...Read more of this...
by
William Strode
What mystery was this; that I should finde
My blood in kissing you to stay behinde?
'Twas not for want of color that requirde
My blood for paynt: No dye could be desirde
On that fayre silke, where scarlett were a spott
And where the juice of lillies but a blotte.
'Twas not the signe of murther that did taynt
The harmlesse beauty of so pure...Read more of this...
by
Rudyard Kipling
Boanerges Blitzen, servant of the Queen,
Is a dismal failure -- is a Might-have-been.
In a luckless moment he discovered men
Rise to high position through a ready pen.
Boanerges Blitzen argued therefore -- "I,
With the selfsame weapon, can attain as high."
Only he did not possess when he made the trial,
Wicked wit of C-lv-n, irony of L--l.
[Men who spar with Government need, to...Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
Never knew Jim, did you? Our boy Jim?
Bless you, there was the likely lad;
Supple and straight and long of limb,
Clean as a whistle, and just as glad.
Always laughing, wasn't he, dad?
Joy, pure joy to the heart of him,
And, oh, but the soothering ways he had,
Jim, our Jim!
But I see him best as a tiny tot,
A bonny babe, though...Read more of this...
by
Kahlil Gibran
Then a woman said, "Speak to us of Joy and Sorrow."
And he answered:
Your joy is your sorrow unmasked.
And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears.
And how else can it be?
The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.
Is not the cup...Read more of this...
by
Victor Hugo
("Ma fille, va prier!")
{XXXVII., June, 1830.}
I.
Come, child, to prayer; the busy day is done,
A golden star gleams through the dusk of night;
The hills are trembling in the rising mist,
The rumbling wain looms dim upon the sight;
All things wend home to rest; the roadside...Read more of this...
by
Victor Hugo
("O douleur! j'ai voulu savoir.")
{XXXIV. i., October, 183-.}
I have wished in the grief of my heart to know
If the vase yet treasured that nectar so clear,
And to see what this beautiful valley could show
Of all that was once to my soul most dear.
In how short a...Read more of this...
by
George (Lord) Byron
I
Our life is twofold; Sleep hath its own world,
A boundary between the things misnamed
Death and existence: Sleep hath its own world,
And a wide realm of wild reality,
And dreams in their development have breath,
And tears, and tortures, and the touch of joy;
They leave a weight upon our waking thoughts,
They take a weight from off waking toils,
They do divide our being;...Read more of this...
by
Sidney Lanier
To-day the woods are trembling through and through
With shimmering forms, that flash before my view,
Then melt in green as dawn-stars melt in blue.
The leaves that wave against my cheek caress
Like women's hands; the embracing boughs express
A subtlety of mighty tenderness;
The copse-depths into little noises start,
That sound anon like beatings of a heart,
Anon like talk 'twixt lips not far apart.
The...Read more of this...
by
Victor Hugo
("Gastibelza, l'homme à la carabine.")
{XXII., March, 1837.}
Gastibelza, with gun the measure beating,
Would often sing:
"Has one o' ye with sweet Sabine been meeting,
As, gay, ye bring
Your songs and steps which, by the music,
Are reconciled—
Oh! this chill wind across the mountain rushing
Will...Read more of this...
by
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
ON a rocky peak once sat I early,
Gazing on the mist with eyes unmoving;
Stretch'd out like a pall of greyish texture,
All things round, and all above it cover'd.
Suddenly a boy appear'd beside me,
Saying "Friend, what meanest thou by gazing
On the vacant pall with such composure?
Hast thou lost for evermore all pleasure
Both in painting cunningly, and forming?"
On the child I...Read more of this...
by
Arthur Hugh Clough
As ships, becalmed at eve, that lay
With canvas drooping, side by side,
Two towers of sail at dawn of day
Are scarce long leagues apart descried;
When fell the night, upsprung the breeze,
And all the darkling hours they plied,
Nor dreamt but each the selfsame seas
By each was cleaving, side by side:
E'en so—but why the tale reveal
Of those, whom year by year unchanged,
Brief...Read more of this...
by
George William Russell
IN summer time, with high imaginings
Of proud Crusaders and of Paynim kings,
The children crowned themselves with famous names,
And fought there, building up their merry games,
Their mimic war, from old majestic things.
There was no bitter hate then in the fight,
For ancient law ruled victory and flight,
And, victory and defeat alike forgot,
They slept together in the selfsame cot,
With arms about each...Read more of this...
by
Bertolt Brecht
AMONGST THE HIGHLY PLACED
It is considered low to talk about food.
The fact is: they have
Already eaten.
The lowly must leave this earth
Without having tasted
Any good meat.
For wondering where they come from and
Where they are going
The fine evenings find them
Too exhausted.
They have not yet seen
The mountains and the great sea
When their time is already up.
If the lowly do not
Think about what's...Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
I opened wide the bath-room door,
And all at once switched on the light,
When moving swift across the floor
I saw a streak of ebon bright:
Then quick, with slipper in my hand,
Before it could escape,--I slammed.
I missed it once, I missed it twice,
But got it ere it gained its lair.
I fear my words were far from nice,
Though d----s with me are...Read more of this...
by
William Butler Yeats
I
Around me the images of thirty years:
An ambush; pilgrims at the water-side;
Casement upon trial, half hidden by the bars,
Guarded; Griffith staring in hysterical pride;
Kevin O'Higgins' countenance that wears
A gentle questioning look that cannot hide
A soul incapable of remorse or rest;
A revolutionary soldier kneeling to be blessed;
II
An Abbot or Archbishop with an upraised hand
Blessing the Tricolour. 'This is not,'...Read more of this...
by
Christina Rossetti
One face looks out from all his canvases,
One selfsame figure sits or walks or leans:
We found her hidden just behind those screens,
That mirror gave back all her loveliness.
A queen in opal or in ruby dress,
A nameless girl in freshest summer-greens,
A...Read more of this...
by
Allen Ginsberg
Please master can I touch your cheeck
please master can I kneel at your feet
please master can I loosen your blue pants
please master can I gaze at your golden haired belly
please master can I have your thighs bare to my eyes
please master can I take off my clothes below your chair
please master can I can I kiss your ankles and...Read more of this...
by
Robert Browning
ON WHICH THE JEWS WERE FORCED TO
ATTEND AN ANNUAL CHRISTIAN SERMON
IN ROME.
[``Now was come about Holy-Cross Day,
and now must my lord preach his first sermon
to the Jews: as it was of old cared for in tine
merciful bowels of the Church, that, so to
speak, a crumb at least from her conspicuous
table here in Rome should be, though but
once yearly, cast...Read more of this...
by
Victor Hugo
("Lorsque avec ses enfants Cain se fût enfui.")
{Bk. II}
Then, with his children, clothed in skins of brutes,
Dishevelled, livid, rushing through the storm,
Cain fled before Jehovah. As night fell
The dark man reached a mount in a great plain,
And his tired wife and his sons, out of breath,...Read more of this...
by
Victor Hugo
("Le parfum d'un lis.")
{Bk. V. xiii.}
The lily's perfume pure, fame's crown of light,
The latest murmur of departing day,
Fond friendship's plaint, that melts at piteous sight,
The mystic farewell of each hour at flight,
The kiss which beauty grants with coy delay,—
The sevenfold scarf that parting...Read more of this...
by
John Wilmot
At five this morn, when Phoebus raised his head
From Thetis' lap, I raised myself from bed,
And mounting steed, I trotted to the waters
The rendesvous of fools, buffoons, and praters,
Cuckolds, whores, citizens, their wives and daughters.
My squeamish stomach I with wine had bribed
To undertake the dose that was prescribed;
But turning head, a sudden curséd view
That innocent provision overthrew,
And without drinking,...Read more of this...
by
Thomas Hardy
A bird sings the selfsame song,
With never a fault in its flow,
That we listened to here those long
Long years ago.
A pleasing marvel is how
A strain of such rapturous rote
Should have gone on thus till now
unchanged in a note!
--But its not the selfsame bird.--
No: perished to dust is he....
As also are those...Read more of this...
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