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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69. Third Epistle to J. Lapraik

by Robert Burns
 GUID speed and furder to you, Johnie,
Guid health, hale han’s, an’ weather bonie;
Now, when ye’re nickin down fu’ cannie
 The staff o’ bread,
May ye ne’er want a stoup o’ bran’y
 To clear your head.


May Boreas never thresh your rigs,
Nor kick your rickles aff their legs,
Sendin the stuff o’er muirs an’ haggs
 Like drivin wrack;
But may the tapmost grain that...Read more of this...

Taedium Vitae

by Oscar Wilde
 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...Read more of this...

Hortus

by Andrew Marvell
 Quisnam adeo, mortale genus, praecordia versat:
Heu Palmae, Laurique furor, vel simplicis Herbae!
Arbor ut indomitos ornet vix una labores;
Tempora nec foliis praecingat tota maglignis.
Dum simud implexi, tranquillae ad ferta Quiaetis,
Omnigeni coeunt Flores, integraque Sylva.
Alma Quies, teneo te! & te Germana Quietis
Simplicitas! Vos ergo diu per Templa, per urbes,
Quaesivi, Regum perque alta Palatia frustra.
Sed vos Hotrorum per opaca siluentia longe
Celarant Plantae...Read more of this...

Curriculum Vitae

by Anthony Hecht
 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 our pores.
.......Save for the garbage men,
Our children are the first ones out...Read more of this...

To Charles Baxter

by Robert Louis Stevenson
 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...

Vitae Summa Brevis Spem Nos Vetat Incohare Longam

by Ernest Dowson
 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...Read more of this...

Curriculum Vitae

by Anthony Hecht
 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...Read more of this...

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