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Famous Short Change Poems

Famous Short Change Poems. Short Change Poetry by Famous Poets. A collection of the all-time best Change short poems


by Edward Estlin (E E) Cummings
as is the sea marvelous
from god’s
hands which sent her forth
to sleep upon the world

and the earth withers
the moon crumbles
one by one
stars flutter into dust

but the sea
does not change
and she goes forth out of hands and
she returns into hands

and is with sleep....

love,
         the breaking

of your
               soul
               upon
my lips



by Gabriela Mistral
 Let us go now into the forest.
Trees will pass by your face,
and I will stop and offer you to them,
but they cannot bend down.
The night watches over its creatures,
except for the pine trees that never change:
the old wounded springs that spring
blessed gum, eternal afternoons.
If they could, the trees would lift you
and carry you from valley to valley,
and you would pass from arm to arm,
a child running
from father to father.

by Robert Frost
 The way a crow
Shook down on me
The dust of snow
From a hemlock tree
Has given my heart
A change of mood
And saved some part
Of a day I had rued.

by Sara Teasdale
 Like barley bending
In low fields by the sea,
Singing in hard wind
Ceaselessly;

Like barley bending
And rising again,
So would I, unbroken,
Rise from pain;

So would I softly,
Day long, night long,
Change my sorrow
Into song.

by Emily Dickinson
 The look of thee, what is it like
Hast thou a hand or Foot
Or Mansion of Identity
And what is thy Pursuit?

Thy fellows are they realms or Themes
Hast thou Delight or Fear
Or Longing -- and is that for us
Or values more severe?

Let change transfuse all other Traits
Enact all other Blame
But deign this least certificate --
That thou shalt be the same.



On Gut  Create an image from this poem
by Ben Jonson
CXVIII. ? ON GUT.         GUT eats all day and letchers all the night,    So all his meat he tasteth over twice ; And striving so to double his delight,    He makes himself a thorough-fare of vice. Thus, in his belly, can he change a sin, Lust it comes out, that gluttony went in.  

by William Shakespeare
 FULL fathom five thy father lies; 
Of his bones are coral made; 
Those are pearls that were his eyes: 
 Nothing of him that doth fade, 
But doth suffer a sea-change 
Into something rich and strange. 
Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell: 
 Ding-dong. 
 Hark! now I hear them-- 
 Ding-dong, bell!

by Sara Teasdale
 Your eyes drink of me,
Love makes them shine,
Your eyes that lean
So close to mine.

We have long been lovers,
We know the range
Of each other's moods
And how they change;

But when we look
At each other so
Then we feel
How little we know;

The spirit eludes us,
Timid and free—
Can I ever know you
Or you know me?

by Christina Rossetti
 Oh why is heaven built so far,
 Oh why is earth set so remote?
I cannot reach the nearest star
 That hangs afloat.

I would not care to reach the moon,
 One round monotonous of change;
Yet even she repeats her tune
 Beyond my range.

I never watch the scatter'd fire
 Of stars, or sun's far-trailing train,
But all my heart is one desire,
 And all in vain:

For I am bound with fleshly bands,
 Joy, beauty, lie beyond my scope;
I strain my heart, I stretch my hands,
 And catch at hope.

by Ron Padgett
 Here is my philosophy:
Everything changes (the word "everything"
has just changed as the
word "change" has: it now
means "no change") so
quickly that it literally surpasses my belief,
charges right past it
like some of the giant
ideas in this area.
I had no beginning and I shall have
no end: the beam of light
stretches out before and behind
and I cook the vegetables
for a few minutes only,
the fewer the better. Butter
and serve. Here is my
philosophy: butter and serve.

by Victor Hugo
 The Grave said to the Rose, 
"What of the dews of dawn, 
Love's flower, what end is theirs?" 
"And what of spirits flown, 
The souls whereon doth close 
The tomb's mouth unawares?" 
The Rose said to the Grave. 

The Rose said, "In the shade 
From the dawn's tears is made 
A perfume faint and strange, 
Amber and honey sweet." 
"And all the spirits fleet 
Do suffer a sky-change, 
More strangely than the dew, 
To God's own angels new," 
The Grave said to the Rose.

by Wang Wei
 Under the crescent moon a light autumn dew 
Has chilled the robe she will not change -- 
And she touches a silver lute all night, 
Afraid to go back to her empty room.

by Allen Ginsberg
 O dear sweet rosy 
 unattainable desire 
...how sad, no way 
 to change the mad 
cultivated asphodel, the 
 visible reality... 

and skin's appalling 
 petals--how inspired 
to be so Iying in the living 
 room drunk naked 
and dreaming, in the absence 
 of electricity... 
over and over eating the low root 
 of the asphodel, 
gray fate... 

 rolling in generation 
on the flowery couch 
 as on a bank in Arden-- 
my only rose tonite's the treat 
 of my own nudity. 

 Fall, 1953

by Emily Dickinson
 The murmuring of Bees, has ceased
But murmuring of some
Posterior, prophetic,
Has simultaneous come.
The lower metres of the Year
When Nature's laugh is done
The Revelations of the Book
Whose Genesis was June.
Appropriate Creatures to her change
The Typic Mother sends
As Accent fades to interval
With separating Friends
Till what we speculate, has been
And thoughts we will not show
More intimate with us become
Than Persons, that we know.

by Amy Levy
 If I were a woman of old,
What prayers I would pray for you, dear;
My pitiful tribute behold--
Not a prayer, but a tear.

The pitiless order of things,
Whose laws we may change not nor break,
Alone I could face it--it wrings
My heart for your sake.

by Robert Frost
 Sea waves are green and wet,
But up from where they die,
Rise others vaster yet,
And those are brown and dry.

They are the sea made land
To come at the fisher town,
And bury in solid sand
The men she could not drown.

She may know cove and cape,
But she does not know mankind
If by any change of shape,
She hopes to cut off mind.

Men left her a ship to sink:
They can leave her a hut as well;
And be but more free to think
For the one more cast-off shell.

by Sylvia Plath
 Full fathom five thy father lies; 
Of his bones are coral made; 
Those are pearls that were his eyes: 
Nothing of him that doth fade 
But doth suffer a sea-change 
Into something rich and strange. 
Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell: 
Ding-dong. 
Hark! now I hear them,--ding-dong, bell.

by Sara Teasdale
 It will not change now
After so many years;
Life has not broken it
With parting or tears;
Death will not alter it,
It will live on
In all my songs for you
When I am gone.

Growth  Create an image from this poem
by Ernest Dowson
 I watched the glory of her childhood change,
Half-sorrowful to find the child I knew,
 (Loved long ago in lily-time),
Become a maid, mysterious and strange,
With fair, pure eyes - dear eyes, but not the eyes I knew
 Of old, in the olden time!

Till on my doubting soul the ancient good
Of her dear childhood in the new disguise
 Dawned, and I hastened to adore
The glory of her waking maidenhead,
And found the old tenderness within her deepening eyes,
 But kinder than before.

by Walter Savage Landor
 Here, ever since you went abroad,
If there be change, no change I see,
I only walk our wonted road,
The road is only walkt by me.

Yes; I forgot; a change there is;
Was it of that you bade me tell?
I catch at times, at times I miss
The sight, the tone, I know so well.

Only two months since you stood here!
Two shortest months! then tell me why
Voices are harsher than they were,
And tears are longer ere they dry.

by Emily Dickinson
 Me, change! Me, alter!
Then I will, when on the Everlasting Hill
A Smaller Purple grows --
At sunset, or a lesser glow
Flickers upon Cordillera --
At Day's superior close!

by Rabindranath Tagore
 The road is my wedded companion. She speaks to me under my feet all
day, she sings to my dreams all night.
My meeting with her had no beginning, it begins endlessly at
each daybreak, renewing its summer in fresh flowers and songs, and
her every new kiss is the first kiss to me.
The road and I are lovers. I change my dress for her night
after night, leaving the tattered cumber of the old in the wayside
inns when the day dawns.

by William Blake
 Truly My Satan thou art but a Dunce
And dost not know the Garment from the Man
Every Harlot was a Virgin once
Nor canst thou ever change Kate into Nan

Tho thou art Worship'd by the Names Divine 
Of Jesus & Jehovah thou art still
The Son of Morn in weary Nights decline
The lost Travellers Dream under the Hill

by Ellis Parker Butler
 Whene’er I feed the barnyard folk
 My gentle soul is vexed;
My sensibilities are torn
 And I am sore perplexed.

The rooster so politely stands
 While waiting for his food,
But when I feed him, what a change!
 He then is rough and rude.

He crowds his gentle wives aside
 Or pecks them on the head;
Sometimes I think it would be best
 If he were never fed.

And so I often stand for hours
 Deciding which is right—
To impolitely have enough,
 Or starve and be polite.

Summer  Create an image from this poem
by William Morris
 Summer looked for long am I:
Much shall change or e'er I die.
Prithee take it not amiss
Though I weary thee with bliss.


Book: Reflection on the Important Things