Famous Tonight Poems by Famous Poets

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

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The moon tonight

by Kobayashi Issa
 The moon tonight--
I even miss
her grumbling....Read more of this...

A Form Of Women

by Robert Creeley
 I have come far enough
from where I was not before
to have seen the things
looking in at me from through the open door

and have walked tonight
by myself
to see the moonlight
and see it as trees

and shapes more fearful
because I feared
what I did not know
but have wanted to know.

My facd is my own, I thought.
But you have seen it
turn into a thousand...Read more of this...

It has been some time

by Omer Tarin
It has been some time, since we spoke in rhyme
my love;

And tonight I behold you anew
Burning with your adored endlessness

As reckless as the morning dew,
caressing the rose in its repose

Rising with the sun, 
to be one, 
descending with the rain,

Reborn in pain
torn in twain
driven insane;

Somewhere, out there,
within your vast domain,
when we unite
there is no day or night. 




(from ''Burnt Offerings'',...Read more of this...

The Klondike

by Edwin Arlington Robinson
 Never mind the day we left, or the day the women clung to us; 
All we need now is the last way they looked at us. 
Never mind the twelve men there amid the cheering— 
Twelve men or one man, ’t will soon be all the same; 
For this is what we know: we are five men together,
Five left...Read more of this...

The Song Of The Jellicles

by T S (Thomas Stearns) Eliot
 Jellicle Cats come out tonight,
Jellicle Cats come one come all:
The Jellicle Moon is shining bright--
Jellicles come to the Jellicle Ball.

Jellicle Cats are black and white,
Jellicle Cats are rather small;
Jellicle Cats are merry and bright,
And pleasant to hear when they caterwaul.
Jellicle Cats have cheerful faces,
Jellicle Cats have bright black eyes;
They like to practise their airs and graces
And wait for the...Read more of this...

Saddest Poem

by Pablo Neruda
 I can write the saddest poem of all tonight. 

Write, for instance: "The night is full of stars,
and the stars, blue, shiver in the distance." 

The night wind whirls in the sky and sings. 

I can write the saddest poem of all tonight.
I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too. 

On nights like this, I held her in...Read more of this...

An Old Twenty-Third Man

by Robert Graves
 “Is that the Three-and-Twentieth, Strabo mine, 
Marching below, and we still gulping wine?” 
From the sad magic of his fragrant cup 
The red-faced old centurion started up, 
Cursed, battered on the table. “No,” he said,
“Not that! The Three-and-Twentieth Legion’s dead, 
Dead in the first year of this damned campaign— 
The Legion’s dead, dead, and won’t rise again. 
Pity? Rome...Read more of this...

Tonight

by Sara Teasdale
 The moon is a curving flower of gold,
 The sky is still and blue;
The moon was made for the sky to hold,
 And I for you.

The moon is a flower without a stem,
 The sky is luminous;
Eternity was made for them,
 To-night for us....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...

Requiescat

by Dorothy Parker
 Tonight my love is sleeping cold
Where none may see and none shall pass.
The daisies quicken in the mold,
And richer fares the meadow grass.

The warding cypress pleads the skies,
The mound goes level in the rain.
My love all cold and silent lies-
Pray God it will not rise again!...Read more of this...

The Charm Of 5:30

by David Berman
 It's too nice a day to read a novel set in England.

We're within inches of the perfect distance from the sun,
the sky is blueberries and cream,
and the wind is as warm as air from a tire.
Even the headstones in the graveyard
 Seem to stand up and say "Hello! My name is..."

It's enough to be sitting here on my porch,
thinking...Read more of this...

Sleepless

by Sara Teasdale
 If I could have your arms tonight-
But half the world and the broken sea
Lie between you and me.

The autumn rain reverberates in the courtyard,
Beating all night against the barren stone,
The sound of useless rain in the desolate courtyard
Makes me more alone.

If you were here, if you were only here-
My blood cries out to you all night in vain
As sleepless...Read more of this...

Docker

by Seamus Heaney
 There, in the corner, staring at his drink. 
The cap juts like a gantry's crossbeam, 
Cowling plated forehead and sledgehead jaw. 
Speech is clamped in the lips' vice. 

That fist would drop a hammer on a Catholic- 
Oh yes, that kind of thing could start again; 
The only Roman collar he tolerates 
Smiles all round his sleek pint of...Read more of this...

Tell

by Paul Muldoon
 He opens the scullery door, and a sudden rush
of wind, as raw as raw,
brushes past him as he himself will brush
past the stacks of straw

that stood in earlier for Crow
or Comanche tepees hung with scalps
but tonight past muster, row upon row,
for the foothills of the Alps.

He opens the door of the peeling-shed
just as one of the apple-peelers
(one of almost...Read more of this...

Oatmeal

by Galway Kinnell
 I eat oatmeal for breakfast.
I make it on the hot plate and put skimmed milk on it.
I eat it alone. 
I am aware it is not good to eat oatmeal alone.
Its consistency is such that is better for your mental health 
 if somebody eats it with you.
That is why I often think up an imaginary companion to have...Read more of this...

Tonight I Can Write

by Pablo Neruda
 Tonight I can write the saddest lines.

Write, for example, 'The night is starry
and the stars are blue and shiver in the distance.'

The night wind revolves in the sky and sings.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.

Through nights like this one I held her in my arms.
I kissed her again and again...Read more of this...

The Ballad Of The Lonely Masturbator

by Anne Sexton
 The end of the affair is always death. 
She's my workshop. Slippery eye, 
out of the tribe of myself my breath 
finds you gone. I horrify 
those who stand by. I am fed. 
At night, alone, I marry the bed. 
Finger to finger, now she's mine. 
She's not too far. She's my encounter. 
I beat her like a bell....Read more of this...

To the Thawing Wind

by Robert Frost
 COME with rain. O loud Southwester!
Bring the singer, bring the nester;
Give the buried flower a dream;
make the settled snowbank steam;
Find the brown beneath the white;
But whate'er you do tonight,
bath my window, make it flow,
Melt it as the ice will go;
Melt the glass and leave the sticks
Like a hermit's crucifix;
Burst into my narrow stall;
Swing the picture on the wall;
Run the...Read more of this...

There Is a Solemn Wind Tonight

by Katherine Mansfield
 There is a solemn wind to-night
That sings of solemn rain;
The trees that have been quiet so long
Flutter and start again.

The slender trees, the heavy trees,
The fruit trees laden and proud,
Lift up their branches to the wind
That cries to them so loud.

The little bushes and the plants
Bow to the solemn sound,
And every tiniest blade of grass
Shakes on the quiet ground....Read more of this...

The Day Is A Poem (September 19 1939)

by Robinson Jeffers
 This morning Hitler spoke in Danzig, we hear his voice.
A man of genius: that is, of amazing
Ability, courage, devotion, cored on a sick child's soul,
Heard clearly through the dog wrath, a sick child
Wailing in Danzig; invoking destruction and wailing at it.
Here, the day was extremely hot; about noon
A south wind like a blast from hell's mouth spilled a slight...Read more of this...

Why Did I Laugh Tonight? No Voice Will Tell

by John Keats
 Why did I laugh tonight? No voice will tell:
No God, no Demon of severe response,
Deigns to reply from Heaven or from Hell.
Then to my human heart I turn at once.
Heart! Thou and I are here, sad and alone;
I say, why did I laugh? O mortal pain!
O Darkness! Darkness! ever must I moan,
To question Heaven and Hell and Heart in...Read more of this...

Mists over Thandiani

by Omer Tarin
Tonight on the veranda
I behold
The crystalline hilltops
Sublimate into an avalanche
Of snowflakes, in turn
Dissolving into the haze
Of silent mists;

Trees stand frozen
Like stiff soldiers
Mantled in unstirring ranks
Braced for some dire consequence
Ill-defined;

A wolf’s eldritch howl
Echoes
And night-birds trill their alarm
As the sickle moon
Glides away behind its many veils;

Owl-flights haunt
My dreams now
And your long green hair
Bewilders me with witchcraft.



(Omer Tarin, Selected Poems, 2005) ...Read more of this...

The Wifebeater

by Anne Sexton
 There will be mud on the carpet tonight
and blood in the gravy as well.
The wifebeater is out,
the childbeater is out
eating soil and drinking bullets from a cup.
He strides bback and forth
in front of my study window
chewing little red pieces of my heart.
His eyes flash like a birthday cake
and he makes bread out of rock.
Yesterday he was walking
like a man...Read more of this...

Invocation To The Muses

by Edna St. Vincent Millay
 Read by the poet at The Public Ceremonial of The Naional Institute 
of Arts and Letters at Carnegie Hall, New York, January 18th, 1941.

Great Muse, that from this hall absent for long
Hast never been, 
Great Muse of Song,
Colossal Muse of mighty Melody,
Vocal Calliope,
With thine august and contrapuntal brow
And thy vast throat builded for Harmony,
For the strict monumental pure design,
And...Read more of this...

Moonlit Night

by Du Fu
 This night Fuzhou moon Woman's chamber in only alone watch Far pity little boy girl Not understand remember Chang'an Fragrant mist cloud dressed hair wet Clear brightness jade arm cold What time lean on empty curtain Pair shine tears trace dry  The moon shines in Fuzhou tonight, In her chamber, she watches alone. I pity...Read more of this...

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