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Famous Tired Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Crowley, Aleister
...ss for every glade.
Worry, starvation, illness and distress?
Each moment was a mine of happiness.

Then we grew tired of being country mice,
Came up to Paris, lived our sacrifice
There, giving holy berries to the moon,
July's thanksgiving for the joys of June.

And you are gone away --- and how shall I
Make August sing the raptures of July?
And you are gone away --- what evil star
Makes you so competent and popular?
How have I raised this harpy-hag of Hell's
Malic...Read more of this...



by Robinson, Edwin Arlington
...on’t know now whether he’s here alive,
Or whether he’s here dead. But that, of course, 
As you would say, is only a tired man’s fancy. 
You know that I have driven the wheels too fast 
Of late, and all for gold I do not need. 
When are we mortals to be sensible,
Paying no more for life than life is worth? 
Better for us, no doubt, we do not know 
How much we pay or what it is we buy.” 
He waited, gazing at me as if asking 
The worth of what the universe had fo...Read more of this...

by Wilde, Oscar
...rysting place,
Beneath my shadow Amaryllis lay,
And round my trunk would laughing Daphnis chase
The timorous girl, till tired out with play
She felt his hot breath stir her tangled hair,
And turned, and looked, and fled no more from such delightful
snare.

Then come away unto my ambuscade
Where clustering woodbine weaves a canopy
For amorous pleasaunce, and the rustling shade
Of Paphian myrtles seems to sanctify
The dearest rites of love; there in the cool
And green reces...Read more of this...

by Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
...oughs of Wachita willows, that grew by the margin,
Safely their boat was moored; and scattered about on the greensward,
Tired with their midnight toil, the weary travellers slumbered.
Over them vast and high extended the cope of a cedar.
Swinging from its great arms, the trumpet-flower and the grapevine
Hung their ladder of ropes aloft like the ladder of Jacob,
On whose pendulous stairs the angels ascending, descending,
Were the swift humming-birds, that flitted from ...Read more of this...

by Sexton, Anne
...cember and its Novocain. 

It begins: 

Interrogator: 
What can you say of your last seven days? 

Anne: 
They were tired. 

Interrogator: 
One day is enough to perfect a man. 

Anne: 
I watered and fed the plant. 

* 

My undertaker waits for me. 
he is probably twenty-three now, 
learning his trade. 
He'll stitch up the gren, 
he'll fasten the bones down 
lest they fly away. 
I am flying today. 
I am not tired today. 
I am a motor. 
I...Read more of this...



by Kipling, Rudyard
...ou can trust yourself when all men doubt you, 
But make allowance for their doubting too: 
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting, 
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies, 
Or being hated don't give way to hating, 
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise; 

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master; 
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim, 
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster 
And treat those two impostors just the same:. ...Read more of this...

by Ashbery, John
...ide which side they are on.
Their reticence has undermined
The urban scenery, made its ambiguities
Look willful and tired, the games of an old man.
What we need now is this unlikely
Challenger pounding on the gates of an amazed
Castle. Your argument, Francesco,
Had begun to grow stale as no answer
Or answers were forthcoming. If it dissolves now
Into dust, that only means its time had come
Some time ago, but look now, and listen:
It may be that another life is...Read more of this...

by Chesterton, G K
...hadow,
And not upon the Name;
That though we scatter and though we fly,
And you hang over us like the sky,
You are more tired of victory,
Than we are tired of shame.

"That though you hunt the Christian man
Like a hare on the hill-side,
The hare has still more heart to run
Than you have heart to ride.

"That though all lances split on you,
All swords be heaved in vain,
We have more lust again to lose
Than you to win again.

"Your lord sits high in the saddle,
A br...Read more of this...

by Goldsmith, Oliver
...ol frolicked o'er the ground,
And sleights of art and feats of strength went round;
And still as each repeated pleasure tired,
Succeeding sports the mirthful band inspired;
The dancing pair that simply sought renown
By holding out to tire each other down!
The swain mistrustless of his smutted face,
While secret laughter tittered round the place;
The bashful virgin's sidelong look of love,
The matron's glance that would those looks reprove:
These were thy charms, sweet village...Read more of this...

by Browning, Robert
...;
And Max, who rode on her other hand,
Said, no bird flew past but she inquired
What its true name was, nor ever seemed tired---
If that was an eagle she saw hover,
And the green and grey bird on the field was the plover.
When suddenly appeared the Duke:
And as down she sprung, the small foot pointed
On to my hand,---as with a rebuke,
And as if his backbone were not jointed,
The Duke stepped rather aside than forward,
And welcomed her with his grandest smile;
And, mind yo...Read more of this...

by Wordsworth, William
...hom you love, your idiot boy?   Beneath the moon that shines so bright,  Till she is tired, let Betty Foy  With girt and stirrup fiddle-faddle;  But wherefore set upon a saddle  Him whom she loves, her idiot boy?   There's scarce a soul that's out of bed;  Good Betty put him down again;  His lips with joy they burr at you,  But, Betty! wh...Read more of this...

by Scott, Sir Walter
...
     Her latticed bower, the strain was sung.
     XXIV.

     Lay of the Imprisoned Huntsman.

     'My hawk is tired of perch and hood,
     My idle greyhound loathes his food,
     My horse is weary of his stall,
     And I am sick of captive thrall.
     I wish I were as I have been,
     Hunting the hart in forest green,
     With bended bow and bloodhound free,
     For that's the life is meet for me.

     I hate to learn the ebb of time
     From yon ...Read more of this...

by Bukowski, Charles
...ed out. I
found a job as a parker in a factory the next day and the rest of the week went to
working. I was too tired to get about much but that Friday night I did get to the West End
Bar. I sat and waited for Cass. Hours went by . After I was fairly drunk the bartender
said to me, "I'm sorry about your girlfriend."
"What is it?" I asked. 
"I'm sorry, didn't you know?" 
"No." 
"Suicide. She was buried yesterday." 
"Buried?" I asked....Read more of this...

by Strand, Mark
...nattainable states.
It was as if he were drawn
irresistably to failure."
It was hard to keep reading.
I was tired and wanted to give up.
The book seemed aware of this.
It hinted at changing the subject.
I waited for you to wake not knowing
how long I waited,
and it seemed that I was no longer reading.
I heard the wind passing
like a stream of sighs
and I heard the shiver of leaves
in the trees outside the window.
It would be in the book.
Ev...Read more of this...

by Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)
...silk hat on a Bradford millionaire.
The time is now propitious, as he guesses,
The meal is ended, she is bored and tired,
Endeavours to engage her in caresses
Which still are unreproved, if undesired.
Flushed and decided, he assaults at once;
Exploring hands encounter no defence; 
His vanity requires no response,
And makes a welcome of indifference.
(And I Tiresias have foresuffered all
Enacted on this same divan or bed;
I who have sat by Thebes below the wall
An...Read more of this...

by Miller, Alice Duer
...s father had before;
Coming home at evening
To read the cricket score,
Back to the old house
Where all his race belong,
Tired and contented—
Rosamund was wrong. 

XLIX 
If some immortal strangers walked our land 
And heard of death, how could they understand 
That we—doomed creatures—draw our meted breath 
Light-heartedly—all unconcerned with death. 
So in these years between the wars did men 
From happier continents look on us when 
They brought us sympathy, and saw ...Read more of this...

by Shelley, Percy Bysshe
...weet waters mighty wakes
Of those huge forms;--within the brazen doors
Of the Great Labyrinth slept both boy and beast,
Tired with the pomp of their Osirian feast.

And where within the surface of the river
The shadows of the massy temples lie,
And never are erased, but tremble ever
Like things which every cloud can doom to die,--
Through lotus-paven canals, and wheresoever
The works of man pierced that serenest sky
With tombs and towers and fanes,--'twas her delight
To w...Read more of this...

by Bronte, Charlotte
...d there are scents of flowers around, 
The evening dew draws from the ground;
How soothingly they spread ! 

Yes; I was tired, but not at heart; 
No­that beats full of sweet content, 
For now I have my natural part 
Of action with adventure blent; 
Cast forth on the wide vorld with thee, 
And all my once waste energy
To weighty purpose bent. 

Yet­say'st thou, spies around us roam, 
Our aims are termed conspiracy ? 
Haply, no more our English home 
An anchorage for us may...Read more of this...

by Hikmet, Nazim
...8th
I'm sitting by the window on the Prague-Berlin train 
night is falling
I never knew I liked
night descending like a tired bird on a smoky wet plain 
I don't like
comparing nightfall to a tired bird

I didn't know I loved the earth
can someone who hasn't worked the earth love it 
I've never worked the earth
it must be my only Platonic love

and here I've loved rivers all this time
whether motionless like this they curl skirting the hills
European hills crowned with chateau...Read more of this...

by Akhmatova, Anna
...,
That on deck of a yacht alabaster
Incorruptible day's light we'd meet.



x x x

When with a strong but tired hand
In dreary capital of nation
Upon the whiteness of the page
I did record my recantations,

And wind into the window round
Poured in a wet and silent stream
The sky was burning, burning bright
With smoky dawn, it so did seem.

I did not look at the Nieva,
The dawn-drenched granite did not view,
And it appeared that that I, awake, my
...Read more of this...

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