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Famous Vitae Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry
...he vittel in the yard,
 An’ theekit right,
I mean your ingle-side to guard
 Ae winter night.


Then muse-inspirin’ aqua-vitae
Shall make us baith sae blythe and witty,
Till ye forget ye’re auld an’ gatty,
 An’ be as canty
As ye were nine years less than thretty—
 Sweet ane an’ twenty!


But stooks are cowpit wi’ the blast,
And now the sinn keeks in the west,
Then I maun rin amang the rest,
 An’ quat my chanter;
Sae I subscribe myself’ in haste,
 Yours, Rab the Ranter.Sept. 13...Read more of this...
by Burns, Robert



...1992

1) I was born in a Free City, near the North Sea.

2) In the year of my birth, money was shredded into 
confetti. A loaf of bread cost a million marks. Of 
course I do not remember this.

3) Parents and grandparents hovered around me. The 
world I lived in had a soft voice and no claws.

4) A cornucopia filled with treats took me into a building 
wit...Read more of this...
by Hecht, Anthony
...As though it were reluctant to be day,
.......Morning deploys a scale
.......Of rarities in gray,
And winter settles down in its chain-mail,

Victorious over legions of gold and red.
......The smokey souls of stones,
......Blunt pencillings of lead,
Pare down the world to glintless monotones

Of graveyard weather, vapors of a fen
.......We reckon through o...Read more of this...
by Hecht, Anthony
...uentia longe
Celarant Plantae virides, & concolor Umbra.
O! mibi si vestros liceat violasse recessus.
Erranti, lasso, & vitae melioris anhelo,
Municipem servate novum, votoque potitum,
Frondosae Cives optate in florea Regna.
Me quoque, vos Musae, &, te conscie testor Apollo,
Non Armenta juvant hominum, Circique boatus,
Mugitusve Fori; sed me Penetralia veris,
Horroresque trahunt muti, & Consortia sola.
Virgineae quem non suspendit Gratia formae?
Quam candore Nives vincentum, ...Read more of this...
by Marvell, Andrew
...To stab my youth with desperate knives, to wear
This paltry age's gaudy livery,
To let each base hand filch my treasury,
To mesh my soul within a woman's hair,
And be mere Fortune's lackeyed groom, - I swear
I love it not! these things are less to me
Than the thin foam that frets upon the sea,
Less than the thistledown of summer air
Which hath no seed: bet...Read more of this...
by Wilde, Oscar



...OUR Johnie's deid. The mair's the pity!
He's deid, an' deid o' Aqua-vitae.
O Embro', you're a shrunken city,
Noo Johnie's deid!
Tak hands, an' sing a burial ditty
Ower Johnie's heid....Read more of this...
by Stevenson, Robert Louis
...They are not long, the weeping and the laughter, 
 Love and desire and hate: 
I think they have no portion in us after 
 We pass the gate. 

They are not long, the days of wine and roses: 
 Out of a misty dream 
Our path emerges for a while, then closes 
 Within a dream. 


[The title translates, from the Latin, as 
'The brief sum of life forbids us the ho...Read more of this...
by Dowson, Ernest

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Book: Reflection on the Important Things