Famous Take A Picture Poems by Famous Poets

These are examples of famous Take A Picture 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 picture poems. These examples illustrate what a famous take a picture poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).

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Upon Watts Picture Sic Transit

by John McCrae
 "What I spent I had; what I saved, I lost; what I gave, I have."

But yesterday the tourney, all the eager joy of life, 
The waving of the banners, and the rattle of the spears, 
The clash of sword and harness, and the madness of the strife; 
To-night begin the silence and the peace of endless years. 

( One...Read more of this...

To see her is a Picture --

by Emily Dickinson
 To see her is a Picture --
To hear her is a Tune --
To know her an Intemperance
As innocent as June --
To know her not -- Affliction --
To own her for a Friend
A warmth as near as if the Sun
Were shining in your Hand....Read more of this...

On Carpaccios Picture: The Dream of St. Ursula

by Amy Lowell
 Swept, clean, and still, across the polished floor
From some unshuttered casement, hid from sight,
The level sunshine slants, its greater light
Quenching the little lamp which pallid, poor,
Flickering, unreplenished, at the door
Has striven against darkness the long night.
Dawn fills the room, and penetrating, bright,
The silent sunbeams through the window pour.
And she lies sleeping, ignorant of Fate,
Enmeshed in listless dreams, her soul...Read more of this...

Upon the Book and Picture of the Seraphical Saint Teresa

by Richard Crashaw
 O THOU undaunted daughter of desires!
By all thy dower of lights and fires;
By all the eagle in thee, all the dove;
By all thy lives and deaths of love;
By thy large draughts of intellectual day,
And by thy thirsts of love more large than they;
By all thy brim-fill'd bowls of fierce desire,
By thy last morning's draught of liquid fire;
By the full...Read more of this...

On a Picture Painted by her self representing two Nimphs of DIANAs one in a posture to Hunt the other Batheing

by Anne Killigrew
 WE are Diana's Virgin-Train, 
Descended of no Mortal Strain; 
Our Bows and Arrows are our Goods, 
Our Pallaces, the lofty Woods, 
The Hills and Dales, at early Morn, 
Resound and Eccho with our Horn; 
We chase the Hinde and Fallow-Deer, 
The Wolf and Boar both dread our Spear; 

In Swiftness we out-strip the Wind, 
An Eye and Thought we...Read more of this...

For A Picture Of St. Dorothea

by Gerard Manley Hopkins
 I bear a basket lined with grass;
I am so light, I am so fair,
That men must wonder as I pass
And at the basket that I bear,
Where in a newly-drawn green litter
Sweet flowers I carry, -- sweets for bitter. 

Lilies I shew you, lilies none,
None in Caesar's gardens blow, -- 
And a quince in hand, -- not one
Is set upon...Read more of this...

165. Lines Written under the Picture of Miss Burns

by Robert Burns
 CEASE, ye prudes, your envious railing,
 Lovely Burns has charms—confess:
True it is, she had one failing,
 Had a woman ever less?...Read more of this...

I would not paint -- a picture --

by Emily Dickinson
 I would not paint -- a picture --
I'd rather be the One
Its bright impossibility
To dwell -- delicious -- on --
And wonder how the fingers feel
Whose rare -- celestial -- stir --
Evokes so sweet a Torment --
Such sumptuous -- Despair --

I would not talk, like Cornets --
I'd rather be the One
Raised softly to the Ceilings --
And out, and easy on...Read more of this...

The Picture Of Little T.C. In A Prospect Of Flowers

by Andrew Marvell
 See with what simplicity
This Nimph begins her golden daies!
In the green Grass she loves to lie,
And there with her fair Aspect tames
The Wilder flow'rs, and gives them names:
But only with the Roses playes;
And them does tell
What Colour best becomes them, and what Smell.

Who can foretel for what high cause
This Darling of the Gods was born!
Yet this is She whose...Read more of this...

To My Own Minature Picture Taken At Two Years Of Age

by Robert Southey
 And I was once like this! that glowing cheek
Was mine, those pleasure-sparkling eyes, that brow
Smooth as the level lake, when not a breeze
Dies o'er the sleeping surface! twenty years
Have wrought strange alteration! Of the friends
Who once so dearly prized this miniature,
And loved it for its likeness, some are gone
To their last home; and some, estranged in heart,
Beholding me with...Read more of this...

Picture Of A 23-Year-Old Youth Painted By His Friend Of The Same Age An Amature

by Constantine P Cavafy
 He finished the painting yesterday noon. Now
he studies it in detail. He has painted him in a
gray unbuttoned coat, a deep gray; without
any vest or any tie. With a rose-colored shirt;
open at the collar, so something might be seen
also of the beauty of his chest, of his neck.
The right temple is almost entirely
covered by his hair, his beautiful hair
(parted...Read more of this...

156. Verses inscribed under a Noble Earl's Picture

by Robert Burns
 WHOSE 1 is that noble, dauntless brow?
 And whose that eye of fire?
And whose that generous princely mien,
 E’en rooted foes admire?


Stranger! to justly show that brow,
 And mark that eye of fire,
Would take His hand, whose vernal tints
 His other works admire.


Bright as a cloudless summer sun,
 With stately port he moves;
His guardian Seraph eyes with awe
 The...Read more of this...

In The Picture Gallery

by Henrik Ibsen
 WITH palette laden 
She sat, as I passed her, 
A dainty maiden 
Before an Old Master. 

What mountain-top is 
She bent upon? Ah, 
She neatly copies 
Murillo's Madonna. 

But rapt and brimming 
The eyes' full chalice says 
The heart builds dreaming 
Its fairy-palaces. 

* * * 

The eighteenth year rolled 
By, ere returning, 
I greeted the dear old 
Scenes...Read more of this...

My Picture Left in Scotland

by Ben Jonson
 I now think Love is rather deaf than blind,
For else it could not be
That she,
Whom I adore so much, should so slight me
And cast my love behind.
I'm sure my language to her was as sweet,
And every close did meet
In sentence of as subtle feet,
As hath the youngest He
That sits in shadow of Apollo's tree.
O, but my conscious fears,
That fly...Read more of this...

Baby Picture

by Anne Sexton
 It's in the heart of the grape
where that smile lies.
It's in the good-bye-bow in the hair
where that smile lies.
It's in the clerical collar of the dress
where that smile lies.
What smile?
The smile of my seventh year,
caught here in the painted photograph.

It's peeling now, age has got it,
a kind of cancer of the background
and also in the assorted features.
It's like a...Read more of this...

Dream Song 119: Fresh-shaven past months and a picture in New York

by John Berryman
 Fresh-shaven, past months & a picture in New York
of Beard Two, I did have Three took off. Well. .
Shadow & act, shadow & act,
Better get white or you' get whacked,
or keep so-called black
& raise new hell.

I've had enough of this dying.
You've done me a dozen goodnesses; get well.
Fight again for our own.
Henry felt baffled, in the middle of the...Read more of this...

Mae Marsh Motion Picture Actress

by Vachel Lindsay
 I

The arts are old, old as the stones
From which man carved the sphinx austere.
Deep are the days the old arts bring:
Ten thousand years of yesteryear.


II

She is madonna in an art
As wild and young as her sweet eyes:
A frail dew flower from this hot lamp
That is today's divine surprise.

Despite raw lights and gloating mobs
She is not seared: a picture still:
Rare...Read more of this...

To Mary On Receiving Her Picture

by George (Lord) Byron
 This faint resemblance of thy charms,
(Though strong as mortal art could give,)
My constant heart of fear disarms,
Revives my hopes, and bids me live.

Here, I can trace the locks of gold
Which round thy snowy forehead wave;
The cheeks which sprung from Beauty's mould,
The lips, which made me Beauty's slave.

Here I can trace---ah, no! that eye,
Whose azure floats in liquid fire,
Must all...Read more of this...

Large Bad Picture

by Elizabeth Bishop
 Remembering the Strait of Belle Isle or
some northerly harbor of Labrador,
before he became a schoolteacher
a great-uncle painted a big picture.

Receding for miles on either side
into a flushed, still sky
are overhanging pale blue cliffs
hundreds of feet high,

their bases fretted by little arches,
the entrances to caves
running in along the level of a bay
masked by perfect waves.

On the middle of that quiet...Read more of this...

On The Picture Of Two Dolphins In A Fountayne

by William Strode
 These dolphins twisting each on either side
For joy leapt upp, and gazing there abide;
And whereas other waters fish doe bring,
Here from the fishes doe the waters spring,
Who think it is more glorious to give
Than to receive the juice whereby they live:
And by this milk-white bason learne you may
That pure hands you should bring or beare away,
For which the bason...Read more of this...

Picture Postcard From The Other World

by Philip Levine
 Since I don't know who will be reading 
this or even if it will be read, I must 
invent someone on the other end 
of eternity, a distant cousin laboring 
under the same faint stars I labored 
all those unnumbered years ago. I make you 
like me in everything I can -- a man 
or woman in middle years...Read more of this...

On Receipt Of My Mothers Picture

by William Cowper
 Oh that those lips had language! Life has pass'd
With me but roughly since I heard thee last.
Those lips are thine--thy own sweet smiles I see,
The same that oft in childhood solaced me;
Voice only fails, else, how distinct they say,
"Grieve not, my child, chase all thy fears away!"
The meek intelligence of those dear eyes
(Blest be the art that can immortalize,
The...Read more of this...

When Earths Last Picture Is Painted

by Rudyard Kipling
 When Earth's last picture is painted and the tubes are twisted and dried,
When the oldest colours have faded, and the youngest critic has died,
We shall rest, and, faith, we shall need it -- lie down for an aeon or two,
Till the Master of All Good Workmen shall put us to work anew.
And those that were good shall be happy;...Read more of this...

On A Picture Of A Black Centaur By Edmund Dulac

by William Butler Yeats
 Your hooves have stamped at the black margin of the wood,
Even where horrible green parrots call and swing.
My works are all stamped down into the sultry mud.
I knew that horse-play, knew it for a murderous thing.
What wholesome sun has ripened is wholesome food to eat,
And that alone; yet I, being driven half insane
Because of some green wing, gathered old...Read more of this...

Elegy V: His Picture

by John Donne
 Here take my picture; though I bid farewell,
Thine, in my heart, where my soul dwells, shall dwell.
'Tis like me now, but I dead, 'twill be more
When we are shadows both than 'twas before.
When weather-beaten I come back, my hand
Perhaps with rude oars torn, or sunbeams tanned,
My face and breast of haircloth, and my head
With cares rash sudden storms being...Read more of this...

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