Famous Take A Break Poems by Famous Poets

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

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To break so vast a Heart

by Emily Dickinson
 To break so vast a Heart
Required a Blow as vast --
No Zephyr felled this Cedar straight --
'Twas undeserved Blast --...Read more of this...

The Break

by Anne Sexton
 It was also my violent heart that broke,
falling down the front hall stairs.
It was also a message I never spoke,
calling, riser after riser, who cares

about you, who cares, splintering up
the hip that was merely made of crystal,
the post of it and also the cup.
I exploded in the hallway like a pistol.

So I fell apart. So I came all undone.
Yes....Read more of this...

Mid-Term Break

by Seamus Heaney
 I sat all morning in the college sick bay
Counting bells knelling classes to a close.
At two o'clock our neighbors drove me home.

In the porch I met my father crying--
He had always taken funerals in his stride--
And Big Jim Evans saying it was a hard blow.

The baby cooed and laughed and rocked the pram
When I came in, and I was...Read more of this...

Break of Day

by Siegfried Sassoon
 There seemed a smell of autumn in the air 
At the bleak end of night; he shivered there 
In a dank, musty dug-out where he lay, 
Legs wrapped in sand-bags,—lumps of chalk and clay 
Spattering his face. Dry-mouthed, he thought, ‘To-day
We start the damned attack; and, Lord knows why, 
Zero’s at nine; how bloody if I’m done in 
Under...Read more of this...

Break of Day in the Trenches

by Isaac Rosenberg
 The darkness crumbles away 
It is the same old druid Time as ever, 
Only a live thing leaps my hand, 
A ***** sardonic rat, 
As I pull the parapet's poppy
To stick behind my ear. 
Droll rat, they would shoot you if they knew 
Your cosmopolitan sympathies, 
Now you have touched this English hand 
You will do the same to...Read more of this...

Fast Break

by Edward Hirsch
 In Memory of Dennis Turner, 1946-1984


A hook shot kisses the rim and
hangs there, helplessly, but doesn't drop,

and for once our gangly starting center
boxes out his man and times his jump

perfectly, gathering the orange leather
from the air like a cherished possession

and spinning around to throw a strike
to the outlet who is already shoveling

an underhand pass toward the other guard
scissoring past...Read more of this...

On The Sea Wall

by Paul Laurence Dunbar
I sit upon the old sea wall,
And watch the shimmering sea,
Where soft and white the moonbeams fall,
Till, in a fantasy,
Some pure white maiden's funeral pall
The strange light seems to me.
The waters break upon the shore
And shiver at my feet,
While I dream old dreams o'er and o'er,
And dim old scenes repeat;
Tho' all have dreamed the same before,
They still seem new and...Read more of this...

The Men That Dont Fit In

by Robert William Service
 There's a race of men that don't fit in,
 A race that can't stay still;
So they break the hearts of kith and kin,
 And they roam the world at will.
They range the field and they rove the flood,
 And they climb the mountain's crest;
Theirs is the curse of the gypsy blood,
 And they don't know how to rest.

If they...Read more of this...

Barley-break; Or Last In Hell

by Robert Herrick
 We two are last in hell; what may we fear
To be tormented or kept pris'ners here I
Alas! if kissing be of plagues the worst,
We'll wish in hell we had been last and first....Read more of this...

The Break Away

by Anne Sexton
 Your daisies have come
on the day of my divorce:
the courtroom a cement box,
a gas chamber for the infectious Jew in me
and a perhaps land, a possibly promised land
for the Jew in me,
but still a betrayal room for the till-death-do-us—
and yet a death, as in the unlocking of scissors
that makes the now separate parts useless,
even to cut each other up...Read more of this...

All things born to break

by Hafez
All things born to break
In meek sacrifice
For another’s sake,

All man’s striving vain,
Lavish’d as the price
Of the heart’s hid pain—

Long, O spirit-bird,
Of thy lonely fear
Hast thou sung unheard

In hope’s moon-lit wood,
While no creature near
Knew nor understood.


...Read more of this...

O Cupbearer! since time is here, ready to break down

by Omar Khayyam
O Cupbearer! since time is here, ready to break down
you and me, this world for neither you nor me can be a
place of permanence. But, equally, be well convinced
that while this jug of wine is here 'twixt you and me,
our God is in our hands.
292...Read more of this...

If so it be that I did break the fast,

by Omar Khayyam
If so it be that I did break the fast,
Think not I meant it; no! I thought 'twas past;—
That day more weary than a sleepless night,—
And blesséd breakfast-time had come at last!...Read more of this...

The Fairies Break Their Dances

by A E Housman
 The fairies break their dances 
And leave the printed lawn, 
And up from India glances 
The silver sail of dawn. 

The candles burn their sockets, 
The blinds let through the day, 
The young man feels his pockets 
And wonders what's to pay....Read more of this...

Psalm 49 part 1

by Isaac Watts
 v.6-14 
C. M.
Pride and death; or, The vanity of life and riches.

Why doth the man of riches grow
To insolence and pride,
To see his wealth and honors flow
With every rising tide?

[Why doth he treat the poor with scorn,
Made of the self-same clay,
And boast as though his flesh was born
Of better dust than they?]

Not all his treasures can procure
His soul a...Read more of this...

Towards Break Of Day

by William Butler Yeats
 Was it the double of my dream
The woman that by me lay
Dreamed, or did we halve a dream
Under the first cold gleam of day?

I thought: "There is a waterfall
Upon Ben Bulben side
That all my childhood counted dear;
Were I to travel far and wide
I could not find a thing so dear.'
My memories had magnified
So many times childish delight.

I would have...Read more of this...

Know you why, at the break of day, the early-rising

by Omar Khayyam
Know you why, at the break of day, the early-rising
cock makes its voice heard each moment? It is to tell
you, through the mirror of the morning, that one more
night has slipped away from your existence, and that
you are still in ignorance....Read more of this...

Come, see the Dawn, and, with a full cup of rose-colored

by Omar Khayyam
Come, see the Dawn, and, with a full cup of rose-colored
wine in hand, let us breathe for an instant. As
for honor, reputation, that fragile crystal, let us break it
against a stone. Renounce insatiable desires, and stroke
the silken tresses of the fair and list the harmonies of the
harp....Read more of this...

Intorduction to the Songs of Experience

by William Blake
 Hear the voice of the Bard,
Who present, past, and future, sees;
Whose ears have heard
The Holy Word
That walked among the ancient tree;

Calling the lapsed soul,
And weeping in the evening dew;
That might control
The starry pole,
And fallen, fallen light renew!

'O Earth, O Earth, return!
Arise from out the dewy grass!
Night is worn,
And the morn
Rises from the slumbrous mass.

'Turn away no more;
Why wilt thou...Read more of this...

Sonnet CLXXVIII

by Francesco Petrarch
SONNET CLXXVIII. Grazie ch' a pochi 'l ciel largo destina. THE ENCHANTMENTS THAT ENTHRALL HIM  Graces, that liberal Heaven on few bestows;Rare excellence, scarce known to human kind;With youth's bright locks age's ripe judgment join'd;Celestial charms, which a meek mortal shows;An elegance unmatch'd; and lips, whence flowsMusic that can the...Read more of this...

Break Break Break

by Alfred Lord Tennyson
 Break, break, break,
 On thy cold gray stones, O Sea!
And I would that my tongue could utter
 The thoughts that arise in me.

O, well for the fisherman's boy,
 That he shouts with his sister at play!
O, well for the sailor lad,
 That he sings in his boat on the bay!

And the stately ships go on
 To their haven under...Read more of this...

Proud of my broken heart since thou didst break it

by Emily Dickinson
 Proud of my broken heart, since thou didst break it,
Proud of the pain I did not feel till thee,

Proud of my night, since thou with moons dost slake it,
Not to partake thy passion, my humility.

Thou can'st not boast, like Jesus, drunken without companion
Was the strong cup of anguish brewed for the Nazarene

Thou can'st not pierce tradition with the peerless...Read more of this...

Canzone IV

by Francesco Petrarch
CANZONE IV. Si è debile il filo a cui s' attene. HE GRIEVES IN ABSENCE FROM LAURA.  The thread on which my weary life dependsSo fragile is and weak,If none kind succour lends,Soon 'neath the painful burden will it break;Since doom'd to take my sad farewell of her,In whom begins...Read more of this...

14. Song—Mary Morison

by Robert Burns
 O MARY, at thy window be,
 It is the wish’d, the trysted hour!
Those smiles and glances let me see,
 That make the miser’s treasure poor:
How blythely was I bide the stour,
 A weary slave frae sun to sun,
Could I the rich reward secure,
 The lovely Mary Morison.


Yestreen, when to the trembling string
 The dance gaed thro’ the lighted ha’,
To...Read more of this...

Break Of Day

by John Donne
 'Tis true, 'tis day; what though it be?
O wilt thou therefore rise from me?
Why should we rise? because 'tis light?
Did we lie down, because 'twas night?
Love which in spite of darkness brought us hither,
Should in despite of light keep us together.

Light hath no tongue, but is all eye;
If it could speak as well as spy,
This were the worst, that...Read more of this...

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