Famous Transience Poems by Famous Poets

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

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On a Hill-top

by George William Russell
 BEARDED with dewy grass the mountains thrust
Their blackness high into the still grey light,
Deepening to blue: far up the glimmering height
In silver transience shines the starry dust.


Silent the sheep about me; fleece by fleece
They sleep and stir not: I with awe around
Wander uncertain o’er the giant mound,
A fire that moves between their peace and peace.


The city myriads dream or...Read more of this...

In The Baggage Room At Greyhound

by Allen Ginsberg
 I

In the depths of the Greyhound Terminal 
sitting dumbly on a baggage truck looking at the sky 
 waiting for the Los Angeles Express to depart 
worrying about eternity over the Post Office roof in 
 the night-time red downtown heaven 
staring through my eyeglasses I realized shuddering 
 these thoughts were not eternity, nor the poverty 
 of...Read more of this...

Beauty is a waving tree

by Hafez
Beauty is a waving tree,
Beauty is a flower,
Beauty is a grassy lea
& a shady bower,
Beauty is the verdant Spring
In our hearts awakening.

Beauty is a summer sun
Warming all the land,
Whose full bounty doth o’errun
More than our demand;
Spreadeth Beauty her kind feast
Lavishly for man & beast.

Autumn’s quiet hast thou too,
Beauty, who canst feed
Every craving, known or new
Of the spirit’s need,
Laying up a...Read more of this...

The Human Face

by Paul Eluard
 I. Soon 

Of all the springtimes of the world 
This one is the ugliest 
Of all of my ways of being 
To be trusting is the best 

Grass pushes up snow 
Like the stone of a tomb 
But I sleep within the storm 
And awaken eyes bright 

Slowness, brief time ends 
Where all streets must pass 
Through my innermost...Read more of this...

Dining-Room Tea

by Rupert Brooke
 When you were there, and you, and you, 
Happiness crowned the night; I too, 
Laughing and looking, one of all, 
I watched the quivering lamplight fall 
On plate and flowers and pouring tea
And cup and cloth; and they and we 
Flung all the dancing moments by 
With jest and glitter. Lip and eye 
Flashed on the glory, shone and...Read more of this...

Today

by Siegfried Sassoon
 This is To-day, a child in white and blue 
Running to meet me out of Night who stilled 
The ghost of Yester-eve; this is fair Morn 
The mother of To-morrow. And these clouds 
That chase the sunshine over gleaming hills
Are thoughts, delighting in the golden change 
And the ceremony of their drifting state. 

This is To-day. To-morrow might bring...Read more of this...

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