Famous Signify Poems by Famous Poets

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

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I Have Lived With Shades

by Thomas Hardy
 I

I have lived with Shades so long,
So long have talked to them,
I sped to street and throng,
That sometimes they
In their dim style
Will pause awhile
To hear my say;

II

And take me by the hand,
And lead me through their rooms
In the To-Be, where Dooms
Half-wove and shapeless stand:
And show from there
The dwindled dust
And rot and rust
Of things that were.

III

"Now turn," they said to...Read more of this...

I make His Crescent fill or lack --

by Emily Dickinson
 I make His Crescent fill or lack --
His Nature is at Full
Or Quarter -- as I signify --
His Tides -- do I control --

He holds superior in the Sky
Or gropes, at my Command
Behind inferior Clouds -- or round
A Mist's slow Colonnade --

But since We hold a Mutual Disc --
And front a Mutual Day --
Which is the Despot, neither knows...Read more of this...

Diversity of creed divides the human race into about

by Omar Khayyam
Diversity of creed divides the human race into about
seventy-two sects. Amongst all these dogmas, I have
chosen that of Thy love. What signify these words:
Impiety, Islamism, creed, sin? My true aim is to seek
Thee. Far be from me all these vain, indifferent pretexts.
341...Read more of this...

1985

by Brooks Haxton
 The righteous shall rejoice when he seeth 
 the vengeance; he shall wash his feet in 
 the blood of the wicked. Psalm 58

It was the fortieth year since Buchenwald: two thousand
Jewish refugees in Sudan starved while Reagan visited
the graves of Nazis. CBS paid off Westmoreland
for their rude disclosure of his lies and crimes:
he had killed thirty of the...Read more of this...

A Fountain a Bottle a Donkeys Ears and Some Books

by Robert Frost
 Old Davis owned a solid mica mountain
In Dalton that would someday make his fortune.
There'd been some Boston people out to see it:
And experts said that deep down in the mountain
The mica sheets were big as plate-glass windows.
He'd like to take me there and show it to me.

"I'll tell you what you show me. You remember
You said you knew the...Read more of this...

Sisters cake

by Eugene Field
 I'd not complain of Sister Jane, for she was good and kind,
Combining with rare comeliness distinctive gifts of mind;
Nay, I'll admit it were most fit that, worn by social cares,
She'd crave a change from parlor life to that below the stairs,
And that, eschewing needlework and music, she should take
Herself to the substantial art of manufacturing cake.

At breakfast, then, it...Read more of this...

Elemental Drifts

by Walt Whitman
 1
ELEMENTAL drifts! 
How I wish I could impress others as you have just been impressing me! 

As I ebb’d with an ebb of the ocean of life, 
As I wended the shores I know, 
As I walk’d where the ripples continually wash you, Paumanok,
Where they rustle up, hoarse and sibilant, 
Where the fierce old mother endlessly cries for her...Read more of this...

Canzone VI

by Francesco Petrarch
CANZONE VI. Quando il suave mio fido conforto. SHE APPEARS TO HIM, AND, WITH MORE THAN WONTED AFFECTION, ENDEAVOURS TO CONSOLE HIM.  When she, the faithful soother of my pain,This life's long weary pilgrimage to cheer,Vouchsafes beside my nightly couch to appear,With her sweet speech attempering reason's strain;O'ercome by tenderness, and...Read more of this...

A Desolation

by Allen Ginsberg
 Now mind is clear
as a cloudless sky.
Time then to make a
home in wilderness.

What have I done but
wander with my eyes
in the trees? So I 
will build: wife,
family, and seek
for neighbors.

 Or I
perish of lonesomeness
or want of food or
lightning or the bear
(must tame the hart
and wear the bear).

And maybe make an image
of my wandering, a little
image—shrine by the
roadside to signify
to...Read more of this...

I Have Lived With Shades

by Thomas Hardy
 I 

I have lived with shades so long, 
And talked to them so oft, 
Since forth from cot and croft 
I went mankind among, 
 That sometimes they 
 In their dim style 
 Will pause awhile 
 To hear my say; 

II 

And take me by the hand, 
And lead me through their rooms 
In the To-be, where...Read more of this...

The House Of Dust: Part 03: 03: Haunted Chambers

by Conrad Aiken
 The lamplit page is turned, the dream forgotten;
The music changes tone, you wake, remember
Deep worlds you lived before,—deep worlds hereafter
Of leaf on falling leaf, music on music,
Rain and sorrow and wind and dust and laughter.

Helen was late and Miriam came too soon.
Joseph was dead, his wife and children starving.
Elaine was married and soon to have a child.
You dreamed last...Read more of this...

Fragment of a Greek Tragedy

by A E Housman
 CHORUS: O suitably-attired-in-leather-boots
Head of a traveller, wherefore seeking whom
Whence by what way how purposed art thou come
To this well-nightingaled vicinity?
My object in inquiring is to know.
But if you happen to be deaf and dumb
And do not understand a word I say,
Then wave your hand, to signify as much.

ALCMAEON: I journeyed hither a Boetian road.
CHORUS: Sailing on horseback, or with...Read more of this...

Spring

by John Gould Fletcher
 To what purpose, April, do you return again?
Beauty is not enough.
You can no longer quiet me with the redness
Of little leaves opening stickily.
I know what I know.
The sun is hot on my neck as I observe
The spikes of the crocus.
The smell of the earth is good.
It is apparent that there is no death.
But what does that signify?
Not only under...Read more of this...

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