Famous Shoreline Poems by Famous Poets

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

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The Lake

by Alphonse de Lamartine
Towards new and different shores forever driven onward,
Through endless darkness always borne away,
Upon the sea of time can we not lie at anchor
For but a single day?

Oh lake, the year has scarce run once more round its track,
And by these waves she had to see again,
Look! I have come alone to sit upon this rock
You saw her sit on then.

Beneath...Read more of this...

Dream Song 72: The Elder Presences

by John Berryman
 Shh! on a twine hung from disastered trees
Henry is swinging his daughter. They seem drunk.
Over across them look out,
tranquil, the high statues of the wise.
Her feet peep, like a lady's in sleep sunk.
That which this scene's about-”

he pushes violent, his calves distend,
his mouth is open with effort, so is hers,
in the Supreme Court garden,
the justices lean, *****, out, the...Read more of this...

A Litany For Survival

by Audre Lorde
For those of us who live at the shoreline
standing upon the constant edges of decision
crucial and alone
for those of us who cannot indulge
the passing dreams of choice
who love in doorways coming and going
in the hours between dawns
looking inward and outward
at once before and after
seeking a now that can breed
futures
like bread in our children’s mouths
so their dreams will not reflect
the death...Read more of this...

The Swan At Edgewater Park

by Ruth L Schwartz
 Isn't one of your prissy richpeoples' swans
Wouldn't be at home on some pristine pond
Chooses the whole stinking shoreline, candy wrappers, condoms
 in its tidal fringe
Prefers to curve its muscular, slightly grubby neck
 into the body of a Great Lake,
Swilling whatever it is swans swill,
Chardonnay of algae with bouquet of crud,
While Clevelanders walk by saying Look
 at that big duck!
Beauty...Read more of this...

The Stranger

by Aleksandr Blok
 The restaurants on hot spring evenings
Lie under a dense and savage air.
Foul drafts and hoots from dunken revelers
Contaminate the thoroughfare. 
Above the dusty lanes of suburbia
Above the tedium of bungalows
A pretzel sign begilds a bakery
And children screech fortissimo. 

And every evening beyond the barriers
Gentlemen of practiced wit and charm
Go strolling beside the drainage ditches -- 
A tilted derby and...Read more of this...

Hey Thats No Way To Say Goodbye

by Leonard Cohen
 I loved you in the morning, our kisses deep and warm, 
your hair upon the pillow like a sleepy golden storm, 
yes, many loved before us, I know that we are not new, 
in city and in forest they smiled like me and you, 
but now it's come to distances and both of us must try, 
your eyes are...Read more of this...

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