Famous Sessions Poems by Famous Poets

These are examples of famous Sessions poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous sessions poems. These examples illustrate what a famous sessions poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).

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Ben Jonson Entertains a Man from Stratford

...not be so ancient as all that.
For such as he, the thing that is to do
Will do itself, -- but there's a reckoning;
The sessions that are now too much his own,
The roiling inward of a stilled outside,
The churning out of all those blood-fed lines,
The nights of many schemes and little sleep,
The full brain hammered hot with too much thinking,
The vexed heart over-worn with too much aching, -- 
This weary jangling of conjoined affairs
Made out of elements that have no end,
And...Read more of this...
by Robinson, Edwin Arlington


Civilian and Soldier

...: nor is 
Your quarrel of this world. 

You stood still 
For both eternities, and oh I heard the lesson 
Of your traing sessions, cautioning - 
Scorch earth behind you, do not leave 
A dubious neutral to the rear. Reiteration 
Of my civilian quandary, burrowing earth 
From the lead festival of your more eager friends 
Worked the worse on your confusion, and when 
You brought the gun to bear on me, and death 
Twitched me gently in the eye, your plight 
And all of you came clea...Read more of this...
by ,

Civilian and Soldier

...nor is
Your quarrel of this world.

You stood still
For both eternities, and oh I heard the lesson
Of your traing sessions, cautioning -
Scorch earth behind you, do not leave
A dubious neutral to the rear. Reiteration
Of my civilian quandary, burrowing earth
From the lead festival of your more eager friends
Worked the worse on your confusion, and when
You brought the gun to bear on me, and death
Twitched me gently in the eye, your plight
And all of you came clea...Read more of this...
by Soyinka, Wole

Endymion: Book III

...sand Powers keep religious state,
In water, fiery realm, and airy bourne;
And, silent as a consecrated urn,
Hold sphery sessions for a season due.
Yet few of these far majesties, ah, few!
Have bared their operations to this globe--
Few, who with gorgeous pageantry enrobe
Our piece of heaven--whose benevolence
Shakes hand with our own Ceres; every sense
Filling with spiritual sweets to plenitude,
As bees gorge full their cells. And, by the feud
'Twixt Nothing and Creation, I h...Read more of this...
by Keats, John

How much of Source escapes with thee --

...How much of Source escapes with thee --
How chief thy sessions be --
For thou hast borne a universe
Entirely away....Read more of this...
by Dickinson, Emily


Sonnet 30: When to the sessions of sweet silent thought

...When to the sessions of sweet silent thought
I summon up remembrance of things past,
I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,
And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste.
Then can I drown an eye, unused to flow,
For precious friends hid in death's dateless night,
And weep afresh love's long since cancelled woe,
And moan th' expense of many a vanished sight.
Then ca...Read more of this...
by Shakespeare, William

Sonnet XXX

...When to the sessions of sweet silent thought
I summon up remembrance of things past,
I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,
And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste:
Then can I drown an eye, unused to flow,
For precious friends hid in death's dateless night,
And weep afresh love's long since cancell'd woe,
And moan the expense of many a vanish'd sight:
Then ca...Read more of this...
by Shakespeare, William

Sonnet XXX: When to the sessions of sweet silent thought

...When to the sessions of sweet silent thought
I summon up remembrance of things past,
I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,
And with old woes new wail my dear times' waste;
Then can I drown an eye, unus'd to flow,
For precious friends hid in death's dateless night,
And weep afresh love's long since cancell'd woe,
And moan the expense of many a vanish'd sight:
Then ca...Read more of this...
by Shakespeare, William

Sonnets iii

...WHEN to the Sessions of sweet silent thought 
I summon up remembrance of things past, 
I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought, 
And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste: 
Then can I drown an eye, unused to flow, 
For precious friends hid in death's dateless night, 
And weep afresh love's long-since-cancell'd woe, 
And moan th' expense of many a vanish'd sight: ...Read more of this...
by Shakespeare, William

Sonnets XXX: When to the sessions of sweet silent thought

...When to the sessions of sweet silent thought
I summon up remembrance of things past,
I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,
And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste:
Then can I drown an eye, unus'd to flow,
For precious friends hid in death's dateless night,
And weep afresh love's long since cancell'd woe,
And moan th' expense of many a vanish'd sight;
Then ca...Read more of this...
by Shakespeare, William

The General Prologue

...nd sharp, and ready all his gear.
His table dormant* in his hall alway *fixed
Stood ready cover'd all the longe day.
At sessions there was he lord and sire.
Full often time he was *knight of the shire* *Member of Parliament*
An anlace*, and a gipciere** all of silk, *dagger **purse
Hung at his girdle, white as morning milk.
A sheriff had he been, and a countour
Was nowhere such a worthy vavasour.

 An HABERDASHER, and a CARPENTER,
A WEBBE*, a DYER, and a TAPISER**, *w...Read more of this...
by Chaucer, Geoffrey

The Princess (The Conclusion)

...raiser of huge melons and of pine, 
A patron of some thirty charities, 
A pamphleteer on guano and on grain, 
A quarter-sessions chairman, abler none; 
Fair-haired and redder than a windy morn; 
Now shaking hands with him, now him, of those 
That stood the nearest--now addressed to speech-- 
Who spoke few words and pithy, such as closed 
Welcome, farewell, and welcome for the year 
To follow: a shout rose again, and made 
The long line of the approaching rookery swerve 
From ...Read more of this...
by Tennyson, Alfred Lord

Voyages II

...s of our love;

Take this Sea, whose diapason knells
On scrolls of silver snowy sentences,
The sceptred terror of whose sessions rends
As her demeanors motion well or ill,
All but the pieties of lovers' hands.

And onward, as bells off San Salvador
Salute the crocus lustres of the stars,
In these poinsettia meadows of her tides,--
Adagios of islands, O my Prodigal,
Complete the dark confessions her veins spell.

Mark how her turning shoulders wind the hours,
And hasten while ...Read more of this...
by Crane, Hart

When to the sessions of sweet silent thought (Sonnet 30)

...When to the sessions of sweet silent thought
I summon up remembrance of things past,
I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,
And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste:
Then can I drown an eye, unused to flow,
For precious friends hid in death's dateless night,
And weep afresh love's long since cancelled woe,
And moan the expense of many a vanished sight:
Then ca...Read more of this...
by Shakespeare, William

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