Famous Sit Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by D. H. Lawrence
Now I am come again, you who have so desired
My coming, why do you look away from me?
Why does your cheek burn against me--have I inspired
Such anger as sets your mouth unwontedly?

Ah, here I sit while you break the music beneath
Your bow; for broken it is, and hurting to hear:
Cease then from music--does anguish of absence bequeath
Me only aloofness when...Read more of this...

I Sit By The Window

by Joseph Brodsky
 I said fate plays a game without a score,
and who needs fish if you've got caviar?
The triumph of the Gothic style would come to pass
and turn you on--no need for coke, or grass.
I sit by the window. Outside, an aspen.
When I loved, I loved deeply. It wasn't often.

I said the forest's only part of a tree.
Who needs the whole...Read more of this...

Dream Song 127: Again his friends death made the man sit still

by John Berryman
 Again, his friend's death made the man sit still
and freeze inside-”his daughter won first price-”
his wife scowled over at him-”
It seemed to be Hallowe'en.
His friend's death had been adjudged suicide,
which dangles a trail

longer than Henry's chill, longer than his loss
and longer than the letter that he wrote 
that day to the widow
to find out what the hell had happened...Read more of this...

If He Were Alive Today Mayhap Mr. Morgan Would Sit on the Midgets Lap

by Ogden Nash
 "Beep-beep.
BANKERS TRUST AUTOMOBILE LOAN
You'll find a banker at Bankers Trust"
Advertisement in N.Y. Times

When comes my second childhood,
As to all men it must,
I want to be a banker
Like the banker at Bankers Trust.
I wouldn't ask to be president
Or even assistant veep,
I'd only ask for a kiddie car
And permission to go beep-beep.

The banker at Chase Manhattan,
He bids a polite Good-day;
The banker...Read more of this...

Justice Denied In Massachusetts

by Edna St. Vincent Millay
 Let us abandon then our gardens and go home
And sit in the sitting-room
Shall the larkspur blossom or the corn grow under this cloud?
Sour to the fruitful seed
Is the cold earth under this cloud,
Fostering quack and weed, we have marched upon but cannot
conquer;
We have bent the blades of our hoes against the stalks of them.

Let us go home, and sit...Read more of this...

The Player Piano

by Randall Jarrell
 I ate pancakes one night in a Pancake House
Run by a lady my age. She was gay.
When I told her that I came from Pasadena
She laughed and said, "I lived in Pasadena
When Fatty Arbuckle drove the El Molino bus."

I felt that I had met someone from home.
No, not Pasadena, Fatty Arbuckle.
Who's that? Oh, something that we had in common
Like...Read more of this...

I Sit and Look Out

by Walt Whitman
 I SIT and look out upon all the sorrows of the world, and upon all oppression and shame; 
I hear secret convulsive sobs from young men, at anguish with themselves, remorseful after
 deeds
 done; 
I see, in low life, the mother misused by her children, dying, neglected, gaunt,
 desperate; 
I see the wife misused by her husband—I see the...Read more of this...

Though you should sit in sage Aristo's room,

by Omar Khayyam
Though you should sit in sage Aristo's room,
Or rival Cæsar on his throne of Rum,
Drain Jemshid's goblet, for your end's the tomb,
Yea, were you Bahram's self, your end's the tomb!...Read more of this...

In springtime let me sit upon the edge of a broad

by Omar Khayyam
In springtime let me sit upon the edge of a broad
field with one fair girl, and wine in plenty if wine is at
hand. Though this may culpable be thought, I should
be worse than any dog did I not dream of Paradise....Read more of this...

Talking To My Father Whose Ashes Sit In A Closet And Listen

by Lisa Zaran
 Death is not the final word. 
Without ears, my father still listens, 
still shrugs his shoulders 
whenever I ask a question he doesn't want to answer. 

I stand at the closet door, my hand on the knob, 
my hip leaning against the frame and ask him 
what does he think about the war in Iraq 
and how does he...Read more of this...

Ne Sit Ancillae Tibi Amor Pudor

by Robert Louis Stevenson
 THERE'S just a twinkle in your eye
That seems to say I MIGHT, if I
Were only bold enough to try
An arm about your waist.
I hear, too, as you come and go,
That pretty nervous laugh, you know;
And then your cap is always so
Coquettishly displaced.

Your cap! the word's profanely said.
That little top-knot, white and red,
That quaintly crowns your graceful head,
No bigger than...Read more of this...

As by the dead we love to sit

by Emily Dickinson
 As by the dead we love to sit,
Become so wondrous dear --
As for the lost we grapple
Tho' all the rest are here --

In broken mathematics
We estimate our prize
Vast -- in its fading ration
To our penurious eyes!...Read more of this...

Music At The Villa Marina

by Robert Louis Stevenson
 FOR some abiding central source of power,
Strong-smitten steady chords, ye seem to flow
And, flowing, carry virtue. Far below,
The vain tumultuous passions of the hour
Fleet fast and disappear; and as the sun
Shines on the wake of tempests, there is cast
O'er all the shattered ruins of my past
A strong contentment as of battles won.

And yet I cry in anguish, as I...Read more of this...

Sit Smiling

by Rabindranath Tagore
 I boasted among men that I had known you. 
They see your pictures in all works of mine. 
They come and ask me, `Who is he?' 
I know not how to answer them. I say, `Indeed, I cannot tell.' 
They blame me and they go away in scorn. 
And you sit there smiling. 

I put my tales of you...Read more of this...

I Sit and Think

by J R R Tolkien
 I sit beside the fire and think
of all that I have seen,
of meadow-flowers and butterflies
in summers that have been;

Of yellow leaves and gossamer
in autumns that there were,
with morning mist and silver sun
and wind upon my hair.

I sit beside the fire and think
of how the world will be
when winter comes without a spring
that I shall never see.

For still there are...Read more of this...

Smoky the Bear Sutra

by Gary Snyder
Smokey the Bear Sutra

Once in the Jurassic about 150 million years ago,
 the Great Sun Buddha in this corner of the Infinite
 Void gave a Discourse to all the assembled elements
 and energies: to the standing beings, the walking beings,
 the flying beings, and the sitting beings -- even grasses,
 to the number of thirteen billion, each one born from...Read more of this...

Autumn Meditations (3)

by Du Fu
 1000 home mountain suburb quiet morning light One day river tower sit green hill Two nights fishermen still float float Clear autumn swallow old fly fly Kuang Heng submit memorial achieve rank little Liu Xiang transmit classic heart affair apart Schoolmates early years many not poor 5 tombs furs horse self light fat  A mountain...Read more of this...

The Mores

by John Clare
 Far spread the moorey ground a level scene
Bespread with rush and one eternal green
That never felt the rage of blundering plough
Though centurys wreathed spring's blossoms on its brow
Still meeting plains that stretched them far away
In uncheckt shadows of green brown, and grey
Unbounded freedom ruled the wandering scene
Nor fence of ownership crept in between
To hide the prospect of the following...Read more of this...

O my heart! when thou art admitted to sit at the banquet

by Omar Khayyam
O my heart! when thou art admitted to sit at the banquet
of this idol [the Divinity], it is after thou hast gone
out of thyself in order to re-enter thyself again. When
thou hast tasted a mouthful of the wine of annihilation,
thou art entirely separate from those that are and from
those that are no more....Read more of this...

Tableau at Twilight

by Ogden Nash
 I sit in the dusk. I am all alone.
Enter a child and an ice-cream cone.

A parent is easily beguiled
By sight of this coniferous child.

The friendly embers warmer gleam,
The cone begins to drip ice cream.

Cones are composed of many a vitamin.
My lap is not the place to bitamin.

Although my raiment is not chinchilla,
I flinch to see it become vanilla.

Coniferous child,...Read more of this...

Let us both sit down on the old worm-eaten bench

by Emile Verhaeren
Let us both sit down on the old worm-eaten bench near the path; and let my hand remain a long while within your two steadfast hands.
With my hand that remains a long while given up to the sweet consciousness of being on your knees, my heart also, my earnest, gentle heart, seems to rest between your two kind hands.
And we...Read more of this...

To A Cat

by Algernon Charles Swinburne
 STATELY, kindly, lordly friend,
Condescend
Here to sit by me, and turn
Glorious eyes that smile and burn,
Golden eyes, love's lustrous meed,
On the golden page I read.

All your wondrous wealth of hair,
Dark and fair,
Silken-shaggy, soft and bright
As the clouds and beams of night,
Pays my reverent hand's caress
Back with friendlier gentleness.

Dogs may fawn on all and some
As they come;
You, a friend of loftier...Read more of this...

Frost at Midnight

by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
The Frost performs its secret ministry,
Unhelped by any wind. The owlet's cry
Came loud---and hark, again! loud as before.
The inmates of my cottage, all at rest,
Have left me to that solitude, which suits
Abstruser musings: save that at my side
My cradled infant slumbers peacefully.
`Tis calm indeed! so calm, that it disturbs
And vexes meditation with its strange
And extreme silentness. Sea, hill, and wood,
This...Read more of this...

Alone Looking at the Mountain

by Li Bai
All the birds have flown up and gone;
A lonely cloud floats leisurely by.
We never tire of looking at each other -
Only the mountain and I.
-----------------------------------------------
The birds have vanished down the sky.
Now the last cloud drains away.
We sit together, the mountain and me,
until only the mountain remains.
...Read more of this...

Sonnet XLV: Muses Which Sadly Sit

by Michael Drayton
 Muses, which sadly sit about my chair, 
Drown'd in the tears extorted by my lines, 
With heavy sighs whilst thus I break the air, 
Painting my passions in these sad designs, 
Since she disdains to bless my happy verse, 
The strong-built trophies to her living fame, 
Ever henceforth my bosom be your hearse, 
Wherein the world shall now entomb...Read more of this...

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