Famous Turn Away Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Turn Away poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous turn away poems. These examples illustrate what a famous turn away poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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...A dream lies dead here. May you softly go
Before this place, and turn away your eyes,
Nor seek to know the look of that which dies
Importuning Life for life. Walk not in woe,
But, for a little, let your step be slow.
And, of your mercy, be not sweetly wise
With words of hope and Spring and tenderer skies.
A dream lies dead; and this all mourners know:
Whenever one drifted petal leaves the tree-
Though white of bl...Read more of this...
by
Parker, Dorothy
...What delightful hosts are they --
Life and Love!
Lingeringly I turn away,
This late hour, yet glad enough
They have not withheld from me
Their high hospitality.
So, with face lit with delight
And all gratitude, I stay
Yet to press their hands and say,
"Thanks. -- So fine a time! Good night."...Read more of this...
by
Riley, James Whitcomb
...must all treasure-taking and sword-giving,
all the joys of home, all comfort, cease for your kindred.
Every man must turn away, deprived of their land-rights
and their families, after nobler men shall learn from afar
of your flight, this glory-shorn deed. Death
would be better for every earl than a life of shame!” (ll. 2884-91)
XL.
Then Wiglaf ordered that battle-work be announced
to the dwellings of men along the sea-cliffs,
where that war-band sat mind-mi...Read more of this...
by
Anonymous,
...arm'd, or weak,
She knew not why, forbade to speak.
Yet speak she must — but when essay?
"How strange he thus should turn away!
Not thus we e'er before have met;
Not thus shall be our parting yet."
Thrice paced she slowly through the room,
And watched his eye — it still was fix'd:
She snatch'd the urn wherein was mix'd
The Persian Atar-g?l's perfume, [15]
And sprinkled all its odours o'er
The pictured roof and marble floor: [16]
The drops, that through his glitter...Read more of this...
by
Byron, George (Lord)
...r the space where once it stood.
After forty years I remember
The first kiss I gave you
And most that you did not
Turn away or flinch or make
Conditions about any kisses
To follow but took my kiss
Simply as a gift.
58
It’s been a problem ever since
With everyone, no-one else was
So simple, always wanting more or
Less than I could give, when all
There was to follow was more of
The same but this is not meant
As a treatise on the epistemology
Of kissing b...Read more of this...
by
Tebb, Barry
...is drenched, so am I,
his careful gestures clench my throat,
wrench a hunger out of me I don't understand,
can't turn away from. The last plant
sheltered, the man straightens his back,
swings the sack over his shouler, looks
at the sky, then at me and — as if to end
a conversation — says: I know they'd survive
without the bottles, I know. He leaves the garden,
plods downhill, blurs away. I hear myself
say it to no one: I never had a father....Read more of this...
by
Bosselaar, Laure-Anne
...love
but often
found myself there
in your pursuit.
I do not like it
and wanted to be
in heaven. Hear me out.
Do not turn away.
I have learned much in my life
from books
and out of them
about love.
Death
is not the end of it.
There is a hierarchy
which can be attained,
I think,
in its service.
Its guerdon
is a fairy flower;
a cat of twenty lives.
If no one came to try it
the world
would be the loser.
It has been
for you and me
as one who watches a storm
come i...Read more of this...
by
Williams, William Carlos (WCW)
...Earth return!
Arise from out the dewy grass!
Night is worn
And the morn
Rises from the slumbrous mass. 15
'Turn away no more;
Why wilt thou turn away?
The starry floor
The watery shore
Is given thee till the break of day.' 20 ...Read more of this...
by
Blake, William
...My brothers?
And what if they be brothers? What are brothers,
If they be not our friends, your friends and mine?
You turn away, and my words are no mark
On you affection or your memory?
So be it then, if so it is to be.
God save you, Lancelot; for by Saint Stephen,
You are no more than man to save yourself.”
“Gawaine, I do not say that you are wrong,
Or that you are ill-seasoned in your lightness;
You say that all you know is what you saw,
And on your own averment y...Read more of this...
by
Robinson, Edwin Arlington
...one,
Nothing but grip of claw, and the eye's complacency,
The innumerable clanging wings that have put out the moon.
I turn away and shut the door, and on the stair
Wonder how many times I could have proved my worth
In something that all others understand or share;
But O! ambitious heart, had such a proof drawn forth
A company of friends, a conscience set at ease,
It had but made us pine the more. The abstract joy,
The half-read wisdom of daemonic images,
Suffice the ageing ...Read more of this...
by
Yeats, William Butler
...nic oaf, you make a fuss,
With highbrow swank selecting us;
Saying: "I'll read you all some day' -
And now you yawn and turn away.
"Unwanted wait we with our store
Of facts and philosophic lore;
The scholarship of all the ages
Snug packed within our uncut pages;
The mystery of all mankind
In part revealed - but you are blind.
"You have no time to read, you tell us;
Oh, do not think that we are jealous
Of all the trash that wins your favour,
The flimsy fiction that you savou...Read more of this...
by
Service, Robert William
...forgetfulness, and dust and truth;
Lilacs and youth.
You laugh, I hear the after taken breath,
You darken your eyes and turn away your head
At something I have said
Some intuition that flew too deep,
And struck a plageant chord.
Tonight, tonight you will remember it as you fall asleep,
Your dream will suddenly blossom with sharp delight,
Goodnight! You say.
The leaves of the lilac dip and sway;
The purple spikes of bloom
Nod their sweetness upon us, lift again,
Your white fac...Read more of this...
by
Aiken, Conrad
...erbosity is vain;
let others wordy warfare wield,
From arguments abstain;
When faced with dialectic foes
Just shrug and turn away:
Be sure your wisest words are those
You do not say.
Yea, Silence is a gleaming sword
Whose wounds are hard to heal;
Its quiet stuns the spoken word
More than a thunder peal;
Against it there is no defense,
For like the grave-yard sod
Its hush is Heaven's eloquence,
The VOICE OF GOD....Read more of this...
by
Service, Robert William
...u art beautiful, O my love, as Tirzah, comely as Jerusalem,
terrible as an army with banners.
22:006:005 Turn away thine eyes from me, for they have overcome me: thy
hair is as a flock of goats that appear from Gilead.
22:006:006 Thy teeth are as a flock of sheep which go up from the
washing, whereof every one beareth twins, and there is not one
barren among them.
22:006:007 As a piece of a pomegranate are thy temples w...Read more of this...
by
Bible, The
...arm'd, or weak,
She knew not why, forbade to speak.
Yet speak she must — but when essay?
"How strange he thus should turn away!
Not thus we e'er before have met;
Not thus shall be our parting yet."
Thrice paced she slowly through the room,
And watched his eye — it still was fix'd:
She snatch'd the urn wherein was mix'd
The Persian Atar-g?l's perfume, [15]
And sprinkled all its odours o'er
The pictured roof and marble floor: [16]
The drops, that through his glitter...Read more of this...
by
Byron, George (Lord)
...urtured otherwise, my soul
Passes from higher heights of life to a more supreme goal.
Lo! while we spake the earth did turn away
Her visage from the God, and Hecate's boat
Rose silver-laden, till the jealous day
Blew all its torches out: I did not note
The waning hours, to young Endymions
Time's palsied fingers count in vain his rosary of suns!
Mark how the yellow iris wearily
Leans back its throat, as though it would be kissed
By its false chamberer, the dragon-fly,
Who, l...Read more of this...
by
Wilde, Oscar
...golden youth had been,
In pain, my faltering tongue had tried
To bless his memory ere I died;
But Heaven in wrath would turn away,
If guilt should for the guiltless pray.
I do not ask him not to blame,
Too gentle he to wound my name;
And what have I to do with fame?
I do not ask him not to mourn,
Such cold request might sound like scorn;
And what than friendship's manly tear
May better grace a brother's bier?
But bear this ring, his own of old,
And tell him - what thou dost b...Read more of this...
by
Byron, George (Lord)
...ther,—if such name
Douglas vouchsafe to Roderick's claim;
Mine honored mother;—Ellen,—why,
My cousin, turn away thine eye?—
And Graeme, in whom I hope to know
Full soon a noble friend or foe,
When age shall give thee thy command,
And leading in thy native land,—
List all!—The King's vindictive pride
Boasts to have tamed the Border-side,
Where chiefs, with hound and trawl; who came
To share their monarch's sylva...Read more of this...
by
Scott, Sir Walter
...mmandments: did he not mock at the sabbath, and so mock the
sabbaths God? murder those who were murderd because of him? turn away
the law from the woman taken in adultery? steal the labor of others
to support him? bear false witness when he omitted making a defence
before Pilate? covet when he pray'd for his disciples, and when he
bid them shake off the dust of their feet against such as refused to
lodge them? I tell you, no virtue can exis without breaking these
ten com...Read more of this...
by
Blake, William
...lks write about me.
They just can't see
how I work all week
at the factory.
Then get spruced up
and laugh and dance
And turn away from worry
with sassy glance.
They accuse me of livin'
from day to day,
but who are they kiddin'?
So are they.
My life ain't heaven
but it sure ain't hell.
I'm not on top
but I call it swell
if I'm able to work
and get paid right
and have the luck to be Black
on a Saturday night....Read more of this...
by
Angelou, Maya
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