Famous Waits Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Light and Dark

by George William Russell
 NOT the soul that’s whitest
 Wakens love the sweetest:
When the heart is lightest
 Oft the charm is fleetest.


While the snow-frail maiden,
 Waits the time of learning,
To the passion laden
 Turn with eager yearning.


While the heart is burning
 Heaven with earth is banded:
To the stars returning
 Go not empty-handed.


Ah, the snow-frail maiden!
 Somehow truth has missed her,
Left the heart unladen
...Read more of this...

Effort

by Anonymous
Scorn not the slightest word nor deed,Nor deem it void of power;There’s fruit in each wind-wafted seed,That waits its natal hour.A whispered word may touch the heart,And call it back to life;A look of love bid sin depart,And still unholy strife.No act falls fruitless; none can tellHow vast its powers may be,Nor what results, unfolded, dwellWithin it, silently.Work on,—despair not,—bring...Read more of this...

They Did Not Expect This

by Vernon Scannell
 They did not expect this. Being neither wise nor brave 
And wearing only the beauty of youth's season 
They took the first turning quite unquestioningly 
And walked quickly without looking back even once. 

It was of course the wrong turning. First they were nagged 
By a small wind that tugged at their clothing like a dog; 
Then the rain...Read more of this...

A Woman Waits for Me

by Walt Whitman
 A WOMAN waits for me—she contains all, nothing is lacking, 
Yet all were lacking, if sex were lacking, or if the moisture of the right man were
 lacking. 

Sex contains all, 
Bodies, Souls, meanings, proofs, purities, delicacies, results, promulgations, 
Songs, commands, health, pride, the maternal mystery, the seminal milk;
All hopes, benefactions, bestowals, 
All the passions, loves, beauties, delights of...Read more of this...

The Organ-Blower

by Oliver Wendell Holmes
 DEVOUTEST of my Sunday friends,
The patient Organ-blower bends;
I see his figure sink and rise,
(Forgive me, Heaven, my wandering eyes!)
A moment lost, the next half seen,
His head above the scanty screen,
Still measuring out his deep salaams
Through quavering hymns and panting psalms.

No priest that prays in gilded stole,
To save a rich man's mortgaged soul;
No sister, fresh from holy vows,
So humbly stoops,...Read more of this...

A Dream

by Helen Hunt Jackson
 I dreamed that I ws dead and crossed the heavens,-- 
Heavens after heavens with burning feet and swift,-- 
And cried: "O God, where art Thou?" I left one 
On earth, whose burden I would pray Thee lift." 

I was so dead I wondered at no thing,-- 
Not even that the angels slowly turned 
Their faces, speechless, as I hurried...Read more of this...

In Memoriam A. H. H.

by Alfred Lord Tennyson
Strong Son of God, immortal Love,
   Whom we, that have not seen thy face,
   By faith, and faith alone, embrace,
Believing where we cannot prove;
 
Thine are these orbs of light and shade;
   Thou madest Life in man and brute;
   Thou madest Death; and lo, thy foot
Is on the skull which thou hast...Read more of this...

O Gather Me the Rose

by William Ernest Henley
 O gather me the rose, the rose,
While yet in flower we find it,
For summer smiles, but summer goes,
And winter waits behind it.

For with the dream foregone, foregone,
The deed foreborn forever,
The worm Regret will canker on,
And time will turn him never.

So were it well to love, my love,
And cheat of any laughter
The fate beneath us, and above,
The dark before and...Read more of this...

Something Left Undone

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
 Labor with what zeal we will,
Something still remains undone,
Something uncompleted still
Waits the rising of the sun.

By the bedside, on the stair,
At the threshhold, near the gates,
With its menace or its prayer,
Like a medicant it waits;

Waits, and will not go away;
Waits, and will not be gainsaid;
By the cares of yesterday
Each to-day is heavier made;

Till at length the burden seems
Greater than...Read more of this...

The Red Lacquer Music-Stand

by Amy Lowell
 A music-stand of crimson lacquer, long since brought
In some fast clipper-ship from China, quaintly wrought
With bossed and carven flowers and fruits in blackening gold,
The slender shaft all twined about and thickly scrolled
With vine leaves and young twisted tendrils, whirling, curling,
Flinging their new shoots over the four wings, and swirling
Out on the three wide feet in golden lumps and streams;
Petals...Read more of this...

The Farewell

by Lucy Maud Montgomery
 He rides away with sword and spur,
Garbed in his warlike blazonry,
With gallant glance and smile for her
Upon the dim-lit balcony.
Her kiss upon his lips is warm,
Upon his breast he wears her rose,
From her fond arms to stress and storm
Of many a bannered field he goes. 

He dreams of danger, glory, strife,
His voice is blithe, his hand is strong,
He rides...Read more of this...

The Sausage Candidate-A Tale of the Elections

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 Our fathers, brave men were and strong, 
And whisky was their daily liquor; 
They used to move the world along 
In better style than now -- and quicker. 
Elections then were sport, you bet! 
A trifle rough, there's no denying 
When two opposing factions met 
The skin and hair were always flying. 
When "cabbage-trees" could still be worn 
Without...Read more of this...

The Last Trump

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 "You led the trump," the old man said 
With fury in his eye, 
"And yet you hope my girl to wed! 
Young man! your hopes of love are fled, 
'Twere better she should die! 
"My sweet young daughter sitting there, 
So innocent and plump! 
You don't suppose that she would care 
To wed an outlawed man who'd dare 
To...Read more of this...

With Scindia to Delphi

by Rudyard Kipling
 More than a hundred years ago, in a great battle fought near Delhi,
an Indian Prince rode fifty miles after the day was lost
with a beggar-girl, who had loved him and followed him in all his camps,
on his saddle-bow. He lost the girl when almost within sight of safety.
A Maratta trooper tells the story: --


The wreath of banquet overnight lay...Read more of this...

The Lover

by Frank O'Hara
He waits and it is not without
a great deal of trouble that he tickles
a nightingale with his guitar.

He would like to cry Andiamo!
but alas! no one has arrived
yet although the dew is perfect

for adieux. How bitterly he beats
his hairy chest! because he is
a man sitting out an indignity.

The mean moon is like a nasty
little lemon above the ubiquitous
snivelling fir trees...Read more of this...

The Man Rock

by Russell Edson
 A man is a rock in a garden of chairs and waits 
for a longtime to be over.

 It is easier for a rock in a garden than a man 
inside his mother. He decided to be a rock when 
he got outside.

 A rock asks only what is a rock.

 A rock waits to be a rock.

 A...Read more of this...

Love Among The Ruins

by Robert Browning
 I

Where the quiet-coloured end of evening smiles
 Miles and miles
On the solitary pastures where our sheep
 Half-asleep
Tinkle homeward thro' the twilight, stray or stop
 As they crop— 
Was the site once of a city great and gay,
 (So they say)
Of our country's very capital, its prince
 Ages since
Held his court in, gathered councils, wielding far
 Peace or war.

II

Now—the country...Read more of this...

Leaves From Australian Forests - Dedication

by Henry Kendall
To her who, cast with me in trying days, 
Stood in the place of health and power and praise;- 
Who, when I thought all light was out, became 
A lamp of hope that put my fears to shame;- 
Who faced for love's sole sake the life austere 
That waits upon the man of letters here;- 
Who, unawares, her deep affection...Read more of this...

The Division Of Parts

by Anne Sexton
 1.
Mother, my Mary Gray,
once resident of Gloucester
and Essex County,
a photostat of your will
arrived in the mail today.
This is the division of money.
I am one third
of your daughters counting my bounty
or I am a queen alone
in the parlor still,
eating the bread and honey.
It is Good Friday.
Black birds pick at my window sill.
Your coat in my closet,
your bright stones on my...Read more of this...

Sonnet LVII

by Francesco Petrarch
SONNET LVII. L' ultimo, lasso! de' miei giorni allegri. HE REVERTS TO THEIR LAST MEETING.  The last, alas! of my bright days and glad—Few have been mine in this brief life below—[Pg 285]Had come; I felt my heart as tepid snow,Presage, perchance, of days both dark and sad.As...Read more of this...

Go Where Glory Waits Thee

by Thomas Moore
 Go where glory waits thee, 
But while fame elates thee, 
Oh! still remember me. 
When the praise thou meetest 
To thine ear is sweetest, 
Oh! then remember me. 
Other arms may press thee, 
Dearer friends caress thee, 
All the joys that bless thee, 
Sweeter far may be; 
But when friends are nearest, 
And when joys are dearest, 
Oh! then...Read more of this...

All Night

by Lisel Mueller
 All night the knot in the shoelace 
waits for its liberation, 
and the match on the table packs its head 
with anticipation of light. 
The faucet sweats out a bead of water, 
which gathers strength for the free fall, 
while the lettuce in the refrigerator 
succumbs to its brown killer. 
And in the novel I put down 
before I...Read more of this...

Flee On Your Donkey

by Anne Sexton
 Because there was no other place
to flee to,
I came back to the scene of the disordered senses,
came back last night at midnight,
arriving in the thick June night
without luggage or defenses,
giving up my car keys and my cash,
keeping only a pack of Salem cigarettes
the way a child holds on to a toy.
I signed myself in where a stranger
puts the inked-in...Read more of this...

Not Revelation -- tis -- that waits

by Emily Dickinson
 Not "Revelation" -- 'tis -- that waits,
But our unfurnished eyes --...Read more of this...

My Lady Of Castle Grand

by Paul Laurence Dunbar
Gray is the palace where she dwells,
Grimly the poplars stand
There by the window where she sits,
My Lady of Castle Grand.
There does she bide the livelong day,
Grim as the poplars are,
Ever her gaze goes reaching out,
Steady, but vague and far.
Bright burn the fires in the castle hall,
Brightly the fire-dogs stand;
But cold is the body and cold the heart
Of my Lady of...Read more of this...

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