Famous Short Prison Poems
Famous Short Prison Poems. Short Prison Poetry by Famous Poets. A collection of the all-time best Prison short poems
by
Sarah Fuller Flower Adams
O Love! thou makest all things even
In earth or heaven;
Finding thy way through prison-bars
Up to the stars;
Or, true to the Almighty plan,
That out of dust created man,
Thou lookest in a grave,--to see
Thine immortality!
by
Sarah Fuller Flower Adams
O Love! thou makest all things even
In earth or heaven;
Finding thy way through prison-bars
Up to the stars;
Or, true to the Almighty plan,
That out of dust created man,
Thou lookest in a grave,--to see
Thine immortality!
by
Nazim Hikmet
I stand in the advancing light,
my hands hungry, the world beautiful.
My eyes can't get enough of the trees--
they're so hopeful, so green.
A sunny road runs through the mulberries,
I'm at the window of the prison infirmary.
I can't smell the medicines--
carnations must be blooming nearby.
It's this way:
being captured is beside the point,
the point is not to surrender.
by
William Butler Yeats
This great purple butterfly,
In the prison of my hands,
Has a learning in his eye
Not a poor fool understands.
Once he lived a schoolmaster
With a stark, denying look;
A string of scholars went in fear
Of his great birch and his great book.
Like the clangour of a bell,
Sweet and harsh, harsh and sweet.
That is how he learnt so well
To take the roses for his meat.
by
Elizabeth Bishop
The great light cage has broken up in the air,
freeing, I think, about a million birds
whose wild ascending shadows will not be back,
and all the wires come falling down.
No cage, no frightening birds; the rain
is brightening now.
The face is pale
that tried the puzzle of their prison
and solved it with an unexpected kiss,
whose freckled unsuspected hands alit.
by
Emily Dickinson
Of God we ask one favor,
That we may be forgiven --
For what, he is presumed to know --
The Crime, from us, is hidden --
Immured the whole of Life
Within a magic Prison
We reprimand the Happiness
That too competes with Heaven.
by
Carolyn Forche
In Spanish he whispers there is no time left.
It is the sound of scythes arcing in wheat,
the ache of some field song in Salvador.
The wind along the prison, cautious
as Francisco's hands on the inside, touching
the walls as he walks, it is his wife's breath
slipping into his cell each night while he
imagines his hand to be hers.
It is a small country.
There is nothing one man will not do to another.
by
William Strode
Tyme's picture here invites your eyes,
See with how running wheeles it flyes!
These strings can do what no man could--
The tyme they fast in prison hold.
by
Henry Van Dyke
I read within a poet's book
A word that starred the page:
"Stone walls do not a prison make,
Nor iron bars a cage!"
Yes, that is true; and something more
You'll find, where'er you roam,
That marble floors and gilded walls
Can never make a home.
But every house where Love abides,
And Friendship is a guest,
Is surely home, and home-sweet-home:
For there the heart can rest.
by
Victor Hugo
("Lorsqu'à l'antique Olympe immolant l'evangile.")
{Bk. II. v., 1823.}
{There was in Rome one antique usage as follows: On the eve of the
execution day, the sufferers were given a public banquet—at the prison
gate—known as the "Free Festival."—CHATEAUBRIAND'S "Martyrs."}
by
Emily Dickinson
Mine -- by the Right of the White Election!
Mine -- by the Royal Seal!
Mine -- by the Sign in the Scarlet prison --
Bars -- cannot conceal!
Mine -- here -- in Vision -- and in Veto!
Mine -- by the Grave's Repeal --
Tilted -- Confirmed --
Delirious Charter!
Mine -- long as Ages steal!
by
Louisa May Alcott
Thistledown in prison sings:
Bright shines the summer sun,
Soft is the summer air;
Gayly the wood-birds sing,
Flowers are blooming fair.
But, deep in the dark, cold rock,
Sadly I dwell,
Longing for thee, dear friend,
Lily-Bell! Lily-Bell!
Lily-Bell replies:
Through sunlight and summer air
I have sought for thee long,
Guided by birds and flowers,
And now by thy song.
Thistledown! Thistledown!
O'er hill and dell
Hither to comfort thee
Comes Lily-Bell.
by
Ruth Stone
Words make the thoughts.
Severe tyrants, like the scrubbers
and guardians of your cells.
They herd your visions
down the ramp to nexus
waiting with sledge hammer
to knock what is the knowing
without knowing into knowledge.
Yes, the tight bag of grammar,
syntax, the clever sidestep
from babble, is a comfortable
prison.
A mirror of the mirror.
And all that is uttered in its chains
is locked out from the secret.
by
Emily Dickinson
How soft this Prison is
How sweet these sullen bars
No Despot but the King of Down
Invented this repose
Of Fate if this is All
Has he no added Realm
A Dungeon but a Kinsman is
Incarceration -- Home.
by
William Morris
Wearily, drearily,
Half the day long,
Flap the great banners
High over the stone;
Strangely and eerily
Sounds the wind's song,
Bending the banner-poles.
While, all alone,
Watching the loophole's spark,
Lie I, with life all dark,
Feet tether'd, hands fetter'd
Fast to the stone,
The grim walls, square-letter'd
With prison'd men's groan.
Still strain the banner-poles
Through the wind's song,
Westward the banner rolls
Over my wrong.
by
William Morris
Wearily, drearily,
Half the day long,
Flap the great banners
High over the stone;
Strangely and eerily
Sounds the wind's song,
Bending the banner-poles.
While, all alone,
Watching the loophole's spark,
Lie I, with life all dark,
Feet tether'd, hands fetter'd
Fast to the stone,
The grim walls, square-letter'd
With prison'd men's groan.
Still strain the banner-poles
Through the wind's song,
Westward the banner rolls
Over my wrong.
by
Emily Dickinson
From all the Jails the Boys and Girls
Ecstatically leap --
Beloved only Afternoon
That Prison doesn't keep
They storm the Earth and stun the Air,
A Mob of solid Bliss --
Alas -- that Frowns should lie in wait
For such a Foe as this --
by
Edgar Lee Masters
What but the love of God could have softened
And made forgiving the people of Spoon River
Toward me who wronged the bed of Thomas Merritt
And murdered him beside?
Oh, loving hearts that took me in again
When I returned from fourteen years in prison!
Oh, helping hands that in the church received me,
And heard with tears my penitent confession,
Who took the sacrament of bread and wine!
Repent, ye living ones, and rest with Jesus.
by
Emily Dickinson
Of Tolling Bell I ask the cause?
"A Soul has gone to Heaven"
I'm answered in a lonesome tone --
Is Heaven then a Prison?
That Bells should ring till all should know
A Soul had gone to Heaven
Would seem to me the more the way
A Good News should be given.
by
Ellis Parker Butler
So great my debt to thee, I know my life
Is all too short to pay the least I owe,
And though I live it all in that sweet strife,
Still shall I be insolvent when I go.
Bid, then, thy Bailiff Cupid come to me
And bind and lead me wheresoe’er thou art,
And let me live in sweet captivity
Within the debtor’s prison of thy heart.
by
Emily Dickinson
Of Paul and Silas it is said
There were in Prison laid
But when they went to take them out
They were not there instead.
Security the same insures
To our assaulted Minds --
The staple must be optional
That an Immortal binds.
by
Omar Khayyam
From time to time my heart finds itself much straitened
in its cage. Shameful is it to be mixed with water
and clay. I have often thought of destroying this prison,
but my foot would come in contact with a stone and slip
on the stirrup of the Koran's law.
by
Omar Khayyam
That which is wisest is to seek joy in our hearts in
a cup of wine; and not preoccupy ourselves too much
with the present or the past; and, finally, were it only
for an instant, to free from the shackles of reason that
soul which has been loaned us and which groans in its
prison.