Famous Semi Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Semi poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous semi poems. These examples illustrate what a famous semi poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Kipling, Rudyard
...We are very slightly changed
From the semi-apes who ranged
India's Prehistoric clay;
He that drew the longest bow
Ran his brother down, you know,
As we run men down to-tday.
"Dowb," the first of all his race,
Met the Mammoth face to face
On the lake or in the cave:
Stole the steadiest canoe,
Ate the quarry others slew,
Died -- and took the finest grave.
When they scratched the rein...Read more of this...
by
Dunn, Stephen
...ical place to live.
He spelled it out, then, in clear prose
on paper scraps, which he floated down.
But in the semi-dark they read his words
with the indulgence of those who seldom read:
It's about my father's death, one of them said.
No, said the others, it's a joke.
By this time he no longer was sure
of what he'd seen. Wasn't sunlight a shadow too?
Wasn't there always a source
behind a source? He just stood there,
confused, a man who had moved
to lar...Read more of this...
by
Larkin, Philip
...quire ex-schoolgirls to the pub
By private car.
Such uncorrected visions end in church
Or registrar:
A mortgaged semi- with a silver birch;
Nippers; the widowed mum; having to scheme
With money; illness; age. So absolute
Maturity falls, when old men sit and dream
Of naked native girls who bring breadfruit
Whatever they are....Read more of this...
by
Raine, Craig
...
like Richard Crookback,
crying, A horse! A horse!
My kingdom for a horse!
but only to myself,
ironically: the tube
is semi-stiff with stallion whangs,
the chairman's Mercedes
has windscreen wipers
like a bird's broken tongue,
and I am perfectly happy
to see your head, quick
round the door like a dryad,
as I pretend to be Ovid
in exile, composing Tristia
and sad for the shining,
the missed, the muscular beach....Read more of this...
by
Bishop, Elizabeth
...-rigged, sails furled, motionless,
their spars like burnt match-sticks.
And high above them, over the tall cliffs'
semi-translucent ranks,
are scribbled hundreds of fine black birds
hanging in n's in banks.
One can hear their crying, crying,
the only sound there is
except for occasional sizhine
as a large aquatic animal breathes.
In the pink light
the small red sun goes rolling, rolling,
round and round and round at the same height
in perpetual sunset, comprehe...Read more of this...
by
Tsvetaeva, Marina
...my motives,
Hypotheses' of happy sciences world.
Eternal disorder in the ring's gold,
Tender word's whispers in semi-sleep,
On the wall in a cozy child's room, the dreaming
Peaceful pictures of birds and sheep.
Children - is evening, evening on the couch,
In the fog, through the window, glimmer street lamps,
A measured voice of the tale of King Saltan,
Mermaid-sisters of seas from tales.
Children - is rest, brief moment of respite,
A trembling vow be...Read more of this...
by
Lazarus, Emma
...s a crescent moon.
The shining waters with pale currents strewn,
The quiet fishing-smacks, the Eastern cove,
The semi-circle of its dark, green grove.
The luminous grasses, and the merry sun
In the grave sky; the sparkle far and wide,
Laughter of unseen children, cheerful chirp
Of crickets, and low lisp of rippling tide,
Light summer clouds fantastical as sleep
Changing unnoted while I gazed thereon.
All these fair sounds and sights I made my own....Read more of this...
by
Ferlinghetti, Lawrence
...The pennycandystore beyond the El
is where I first
fell in love
with unreality
Jellybeans glowed in the semi-gloom
of that september afternoon
A cat upon the counter moved among
the licorice sticks
and tootsie rolls
and Oh Boy Gum
Outside the leaves were falling as they died
A wind had blown away the sun
A girl ran in
Her hair was rainy
Her breasts were breathless in the little room
Outside the leaves were falling
and they cried
Too soon! t...Read more of this...
by
von Goethe, Johann Wolfgang
...part,
Leave Armida once again,--
Come then! here no more remain.
CHORUS.
Yes, 'tis well! no more remain.
SEMI-CHORUS.
Away then! let's fly
O'er the zephyr-kiss'd ocean!
The soul-lighted eye
Sees armies in motion,
See proud banners wave
O'er the dust-sprinkled course.
CHORUS.
From his forefathers brave
Draws the hero new force.
RINALDO.
With sorrow laden,
Within this valley's
All-silent alleys
The fairest maiden
Again I see.
...Read more of this...
by
Service, Robert William
...I gave an eye to save from night
A babe born blind;
And now with eager semi-sight
Vast joy I find
To think a child can share with me
Earth ecstasy!
Delight of dawn with dewy gleam
On damask rose;
Crimson and gold as pennons stream
Where sunset flows;
And sight most nigh to paradise,
Star-studded skies.
Ah! How in old of age I feel,
E'er end my days,
Could I star-splendoured sky reveal
To childish gaze,
Not one eye ...Read more of this...
by
Borges, Jorge Luis
...ere,
to whom the fates or perhaps the stars have given
a body which will leave behind no child,
and blindness, which is semi-darkness and jail,
and old age, which is the dawn of death,
and fame, which absolutely nobody deserves,
and the practice of weaving hendecasyllables,
and an old love of encyclopedias
and fine handmade maps and smooth ivory,
and an incurable nostalgia for the Latin,
and bits of memories of Edinburgh and Geneva
and the loss of memory of names and dates,
a...Read more of this...
by
Milligan, Spike
...et
Was heard a loud "Tut-Tut!"
Said A to B, "I don't like C;
His manners are a lack.
For all I ever see of C
Is a semi-circular back!"
"I disagree," said D to B,
"I've never found C so.
From where I stand he seems to be
An uncompleted O."
C was vexed, "I'm much perplexed,
You criticise my shape.
I'm made like that, to help spell Cat
And Cow and Cool and Cape."
"He's right" said E; said F, "Whoopee!"
Said G, "'Ip, 'Ip, 'ooray!"
"You're dropping me," ro...Read more of this...
by
Chaucer, Geoffrey
...e: "by God, I agree". It is
characteristic that the somewhat pompous Sergeant of Law
should couch his assent in the semi-barbarous French, then
familiar in law procedure.
4. Ceyx and Alcyon: Chaucer treats of these in the introduction
to the poem called "The Book of the Duchess." It relates to the
death of Blanche, wife of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, the
poet's patron, and afterwards his connexion by marriage.
5. The Saintes Legend of Cupid: No...Read more of this...
by
Ferlinghetti, Lawrence
...The pennycandystore beyond the El
is where i first
fell in love
with unreality
Jellybeans glowed in the semi-gloom
of that september afternoon
A cat upon the counter moved among
the licorice sticks
and tootsie rolls
and Oh Boy Gum
Outside the leaves were falling as they died
A wind had blown away the sun
A girl ran in
Her hair was rainy
Her breasts were breathless in the little room
Outside the leaves were falling
and they cried
Too soon! too soon!...Read more of this...
by
Field, Eugene
...gone and done it!
Wasting his time over books, you see, had unsettled his reason--
Soddened his callow young brain with semi-pubescent paresis,
And his neglect of his chores hastened this evil condition.
Out of the woods by the creek cometh a calling for Peter
And from the orchard a voice echoes and echoes it over;
Down in the pasture the sheep hear that shrill crying for Peter,
Up from the spring house the wail stealeth anon like a whisper,
Over the meadows that call is...Read more of this...
by
Levine, Philip
...a moment and sighing lets it thud
down on the loading dock. In no time
the day has crossed two sets of tracks,
a semi-trailer with no tractor, and crawled
down three stories of the bottling plant
at the end of the alley. It is now
less than five hours until mid-day
when nothing will be left in doubt,
each scrap of news, each banished carton,
each forgotten letter, its ink bled of lies,
will stare back at the one eye that sees
it all and never blinks. Bu...Read more of this...
by
Creeley, Robert
...Love, if you love me,
lie next to me.
Be for me, like rain,
the getting out
of the tiredness, the fatuousness, the semi-
lust of intentional indifference.
Be wet
with a decent happiness....Read more of this...
by
Kunitz, Stanley
...ladness shook me.
So I have shut the doors of my house,
so I have trudged downstairs to my cell,
so I am sitting in semi-dark
hunched over my desk
with nothing for a view
to tempt me
but a bloated compost heap,
steamy old stinkpile,
under my window;
and I pick my notebook up
and I start to read aloud
the still-wet words I scribbled
on the blotted page:
"Light splashed . . ."
I can scarcely wait till tomorrow
when a new life begins for me,
as it does each day...Read more of this...
by
Carroll, Lewis
...e
Of common earth and common air:
We come across them here and there:
"We grant them - there is no escape -
A sort of semi-human shape
Suggestive of the man-like Ape."
"In all such theories," said he,
"One fixed exception there must be.
That is, the Present Company."
Baffled, she gave a wolfish bark:
He, aiming blindly in the dark,
With random shaft had pierced the mark.
She felt that her defeat was plain,
Yet madly strove with might and main
To get th...Read more of this...
by
Noonuccal, Oodgeroo
...They came in to the little town
A semi-naked band subdued and silent
All that remained of their tribe.
They came here to the place of their old bora ground
Where now the many white men hurry about like ants.
Notice of the estate agent reads: 'Rubbish May Be Tipped Here'.
Now it half covers the traces of the old bora ring.
'We are as strangers here now, but the white tri...Read more of this...
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