Famous Short Lived Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Short Lived poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous short lived poems. These examples illustrate what a famous short lived poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Housman, A E
...In my own shire, if I was sad,
Homely comforters I had:
The earth, because my heart was sore,
Sorrowed for the son she bore;
And standing hills, long to remain,
Shared their short-lived comrade's pain.
And bound for the same bourn as I,
On every road I wandered by,
Trod beside me, close and dear,
The beautiful and death-struck year:
Whether i...Read more of this...
by
Laurence Dunbar, Paul
...I held my heart so far from harm,
I let it wander far and free
In mead and mart, without alarm,
Assured it must come back to me.
And all went well till on a day,
Learned Dr. Cupid wandered by
A search along our sylvan way
For some peculiar butterfly.
A flash of wings, a hurried dive,
A flutter and a short-lived flit;
This Scientist, as I am alive
...Read more of this...
by
Emerson, Ralph Waldo
...I
Thy trivial harp will never please
Or fill my craving ear;
Its chords should ring as blows the breeze,
Free, peremptory, clear.
No jingling serenader's art,
Nor tinkle of piano strings,
Can make the wild blood start
In its mystic springs.
The kingly bard
Must smile the chords rudely and hard,
As with hammer or with mace;
That they may ...Read more of this...
by
Emerson, Ralph Waldo
...The rhyme of the poet
Modulates the king's affairs,
Balance-loving nature
Made all things in pairs.
To every foot its antipode,
Each color with its counter glowed,
To every tone beat answering tones,
Higher or graver;
Flavor gladly blends with flavor;
Leaf answers leaf upon the bough,
And match the paired cotyledons.
Hands to hands, and feet to fee...Read more of this...
by
Bryant, William Cullen
...They talk of short-lived pleasure--be it so--
Pain dies as quickly; stern, hard-featured pain
Expires, and lets her weary prisoner go.
The fiercest agonies have shortest reign;
And after dreams of horror, comes again
The welcome morning with its rays of peace.
Oblivion, softly wiping out the stain,
Makes the strong secret pangs of pain to ce...Read more of this...
by
Bowles, William Lisle
...Fallen pile! I ask not what has been thy fate;
But when the winds, slow wafted from the main,
Through each rent arch, like spirits that complain,
Come hollow to my ear, I meditate
On this world's passing pageant, and the lot
Of those who once majestic in their prime
Stood smiling at decay, till bowed by time
Or injury, their early boast forgot,
The...Read more of this...
by
Cather, Willa
...THROUGH halls of vanished pleasure,
And hold of vanished power,
And crypt of faith forgotten,
A came to Ludlow tower.
A-top of arch and stairway,
Of crypt and donjan cell,
Of council hall, and chamber,
Of wall, and ditch, and well,
High over grated turrets
Where clinging ivies run,
A thousand scarlet poppies
Enticed the rising sun,
Upon ...Read more of this...
by
Nicolson, Adela Florence Cory
...Sad is the Evening: all the level sand
Lies left and lonely, while the restless sea,
Tired of the green caresses of the land,
Withdraws into its own infinity.
But still more sad this white and chilly Dawn
Filling the vacant spaces of the sky,
While little winds blow here and there forlorn
And all the stars, weary of ...Read more of this...
by
Petrarch, Francesco
...SONNET CXIII. Pommi ove 'l sol occide i fiori e l' erba. HIS INVINCIBLE CONSTANCY. Place me where herb and flower the sun has dried,Or where numb winter's grasp holds sterner sway:Place ...Read more of this...
by
Thomas, Edward
...The glory of the beauty of the morning, -
The cuckoo crying over the untouched dew;
The blackbird that has found it, and the dove
That tempts me on to something sweeter than love;
White clouds ranged even and fair as new-mown hay;
The heat, the stir, the sublime vacancy
Of sky and meadow and forest and my own heart: -
The glory invites me, yet it leaves...Read more of this...
by
Cowper, William
...The poplars are felled, farewell to the shade
And the whispering sound of the cool colonnade:
The winds play no longer and sing in the leaves,
Nor Ouse on his bosom their image receives.
Twelve years have elapsed since I first took a view
Of my favourite field, and the bank where they grew,
And now in the grass behold they are laid,
And the tree is my...Read more of this...
by
Laurence Dunbar, Paul
...A little dreaming by the way,
A little toiling day by day;
A little pain, a little strife,
A little joy,—and that is life.
A little short-lived summer's morn,
When joy seems all so newly born,
When one day's sky is blue above,
And one bird sings,—and that is love.
A little sickening of the years,
The tribute of a few hot tears
Two folded hands, th...Read more of this...
by
Wilmot, John
...Nothing, thou elder brother even to shade,
That hadst a being ere the world was made,
And (well fixed) art alone of ending not afraid.
Ere time and place were, time and place were not,
When primitive Nothing Something straight begot,
Then all proceeded from the great united--What?
Something, the general attribute of all,
Severed from thee, its sole ori...Read more of this...
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