Famous Shut Away Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Night and Day

by Sidney Lanier
 When the golden day is done, 
Through the closing portal, 
Child and garden, Flower and sun, 
Vanish all things mortal. 

As the blinding shadows fall 
As the rays diminish, 
Under evening's cloak they all 
Roll away and vanish. 

Garden darkened, daisy shut, 
Child in bed, they slumber-- 
Glow-worm in the hallway rut, 
Mice among the lumber. 

In the darkness...Read more of this...

Baby Charley

by Sidney Lanier
 He's fast asleep. See how, O Wife,
Night's finger on the lip of life
Bids whist the tongue, so prattle-rife,
Of busy Baby Charley.

One arm stretched backward round his head,
Five little toes from out the bed
Just showing, like five rosebuds red,
-- So slumbers Baby Charley.

Heaven-lights, I know, are beaming through
Those lucent eyelids, veined with blue,
That shut away from mortal view
Large eyes of...Read more of this...

Song Of An Old General

by Wang Wei
When he was a youth of fifteen or twenty, 
He chased a wild horse, he caught him and rode him, 
He shot the white-browed mountain tiger, 
He defied the yellow-bristled Horseman of Ye. 
Fighting single- handed for a thousand miles, 
With his naked dagger he could hold a multitude. 
...Granted that the troops of China were as swift as heaven's...Read more of this...

Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front

by Wendell Berry
 Love the quick profit, the annual raise,
vacation with pay. Want more 
of everything ready-made. Be afraid 
to know your neighbors and to die.

And you will have a window in your head. 
Not even your future will be a mystery 
any more. Your mind will be punched in a card 
and shut away in a little drawer. 

When they want...Read more of this...

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