Famous Wanes Poems by Famous Poets

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

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A Commonplace Day

...y upon the panes 
The rain slides as have slid since morn my colourless thoughts; and 
yet 
 Here, while Day's presence wanes, 
And over him the sepulchre-lid is slowly lowered and set, 
 He wakens my regret. 

 Regret--though nothing dear 
That I wot of, was toward in the wide world at his prime, 
 Or bloomed elsewhere than here, 
To die with his decease, and leave a memory sweet, sublime, 
 Or mark him out in Time . . . 

 --Yet, maybe, in some soul, 
In some spot undiscern...Read more of this...
by Hardy, Thomas


A Poem Sacred to the Memory of Sir Isaac Newton

...numerous pour'd,
By him in all their mingled tracts were seen.
He also fix'd the wandering Queen of Night,
Whether she wanes into a scanty orb,
Or, waxing broad, with her pale shadowy light,
In a soft deluge overflows the sky.
Her every motion clear-discerning, he
Adjusted to the mutual main, and taught
Why now the mighty mass of water swells
Resistless, heaving on the broken rocks,
And the full river turning; till again
The tide revertive, unattracted, leaves
A yellow waste...Read more of this...
by Thomson, James

A Swimmers Dream

...

Toward the sunset's goal the sunless waters crowd, 
Fast as autumn days toward winter: yet it seems 
Here that autumn wanes not, here that woods and streams 
Lose not heart and change not likeness, chilled and bowed, 
Warped and wrinkled: here the days are fair as dreams. 

IV 
O russet-robed November, 
What ails thee so to smile? 
Chill August, pale September, 
Endured a woful while, 
And fell as falls an ember 
From forth a flameless pile: 
But golden-girt November 
Bids ...Read more of this...
by Swinburne, Algernon Charles

By The River

...lood;
Then, when thy fields thou tendest well,

It o'er them spreads its slime and mud.

The ships descend ere daylight wanes,

The prudent fisher upward goes;
Round reef and rock ice casts its chains,

And boys at will the pathway close.

To this attend, then, carefully,

And what thou wouldst, that execute!
Ne'er linger, ne'er o'erhasty be,

For time moves on with measured foot.

 1821.*...Read more of this...
by von Goethe, Johann Wolfgang

Four Riddles

...ic-ballads. 

How late it grows! The hour is surely past
That should have warned us with its double knock?
The twilight wanes, and morning comes at last -
"Oh, Uncle, what's o'clock?" 

The Uncle gravely nods, and wisely winks.
It MAY mean much, but how is one to know?
He opens his mouth - yet out of it, methinks,
No words of wisdom flow. 


II 

Empress of Art, for thee I twine
This wreath with all too slender skill.
Forgive my Muse each halting line,
And for the deed accept...Read more of this...
by Carroll, Lewis


Hero And Leander

...and wave,
Leander doth but burn to brave,
When love, that goads him, guides!
Still when the day, with fainter glimmer,
Wanes pale--he leaps, the daring swimmer,
Amid the darkening tides;
With lusty arms he cleaves the waves,
And strikes for that dear strand afar;
Where high from Hero's lonely tower
Lone streams the beacon-star.

In vain his blood the wave may chill,
These tender arms can warm it still--
And, weary if the way,
By many a sweet embrace, above
All earthly boons-...Read more of this...
by Schiller, Friedrich von

I Live I Die I Burn I Drown

...troubles mingled with joys

Suddenly I laugh and at the same time cry
And in pleasure many a grief endure
My happiness wanes and yet it lasts unchanged
All at once I dry up and grow green

Thus I suffer love's inconstancies
And when I think the pain is most intense
Without thinking, it is gone again.

Then when I feel my joys certain
And my hour of greatest delight arrived
I find my pain beginning all over once again....Read more of this...
by Labe, Louise

I Live I Die I Burn I Drown

...troubles mingled with joys

Suddenly I laugh and at the same time cry
And in pleasure many a grief endure
My happiness wanes and yet it lasts unchanged
All at once I dry up and grow green

Thus I suffer love's inconstancies
And when I think the pain is most intense
Without thinking, it is gone again.

Then when I feel my joys certain
And my hour of greatest delight arrived
I find my pain beginning all over once again....Read more of this...
by Agustini, Delmira

Immortal love forever full

...n,
We own Thy sway, we hear Thy call,
We test our lives by Thine.

The letter fails, the systems fall,
And every symbol wanes;
The Spirit over brooding all,
Eternal Love remains....Read more of this...
by Whittier, John Greenleaf

Incompatabilities

...For Brenda Williams



La lune diminue; divin septembre.

Divine September the moon wanes.

 Pierre Jean Jouve



Themes for poems and the detritus of dreams coalesce:

This is one September I shall not forget.



The grammar-school caretaker always had the boards re-blacked

And the floors waxed, but I never shone.

The stripes of the red and black blazer

Were prison-grey. You could never see things that way:

Your home had broken windows...Read more of this...
by Tebb, Barry

Lara

...ills increased, 
That sleep, the loveliest, since it dreams the least. 

____________ 

CANTO THE SECOND. 

I. 

Night wanes — the vapours round the mountains curl'd, 
Melt into morn, and Light awakes the world. 
Man has another day to swell the past, 
And lead him near to little, but his last; 
But mighty Nature bounds as from her birth, 
The sun is in the heavens, and life on earth; 
Flowers in the valley, splendour in the beam, 
Health on the gale, and freshness in the st...Read more of this...
by Byron, George (Lord)

Meditation On Saviors

...power ends let love, before it sours to jealousy.
 Leave the joys of government to Caesar.

Who is born when the world wanes, when the brave soul of the
 world falls on decay in the flesh increasing
Comes one with a great level mind, sufficient vision, sufficient
 blindness, and clemency for love.

This is the breath of rottenness I smelt; from the world
 waiting, stalled between storms, decaying a little,
Bitterly afraid to be hurt, but knowing it cannot draw the
 savior Ca...Read more of this...
by Jeffers, Robinson

Monna Innominata: A Sonnet of Sonnets

...s praise,
Still asks for grace and still gives thanks for grace,
Content with all day brings and night will bring.
Life wanes; and when love folds his wings above
Tired hope, and less we feel his conscious pulse,
Let us go fall asleep, dear friend, in peace:
A little while, and age and sorrow cease;
A little while, and life reborn annuls
Loss and decay and death, and all is love. 


11 

Vien dietro a me e lascia dir le genti. - Dante
Contando i casi della vita nostra. - Petr...Read more of this...
by Rossetti, Christina

Old Pictures In Florence

...torch,
Its face set full for the sun to shave.

VI.

Wherever a fresco peels and drops,
Wherever an outline weakens and wanes
Till the latest life in the painting stops,
Stands One whom each fainter pulse-tick pains:
One, wishful each scrap should clutch the brick,
Each tinge not wholly escape the plaster,
---A lion who dies of an ass's kick,
The wronged great soul of an ancient Master.

VII.

For oh, this world and the wrong it does
They are safe in heaven with their backs t...Read more of this...
by Browning, Robert

The Convent Threshold

...yet the time is short:
Flee for your life, gird up your strength
To flee; the shadows stretched at length
Show that day wanes, that night draws nigh;
Flee to the mountain, tarry not.
Is this a time for smile and sigh,
For songs among the secret trees
Where sudden blue birds nest and sport?
The time is short and yet you stay:
To-day, while it is called to-day,
Kneel, wrestle, knock, do violence, pray;
To-day is short, to-morrow nigh:
Why will you die? why will you die?

You si...Read more of this...
by Rossetti, Christina

The Eve Of Revolution

...ricken spring feels in her pains
When dying May bears June, too young to know
The fruit that waxes from the flower that wanes;
Strange tyrannies and vast,
Tribes frost-bound to their past,
Lands that are loud all through their length with chains,
Wastes where the wind's wings break,
Displumed by daylong ache
And anguish of blind snows and rack-blown rains,
And ice that seals the White Sea's lips,
Whose monstrous weights crush flat the sides of shrieking ships;



Horrible sig...Read more of this...
by Swinburne, Algernon Charles

The Fountain of Shadowy Beauty

...house hath many fanes;
Yet enter not and worship not,
For thought but follows after thought
Till last consuming self it wanes.


“The Fount of Shadowy Beauty flings
Its glamour o’er the light of day:
A music in the sunlight sings
To call the dreamy hearts away
Their mighty hopes to ease awhile:
We will not go the way of them:
The chant makes drowsy those who seek
The sceptre and the diadem.


“The Fount of Shadowy Beauty throws
Its magic round us all the night;
What things th...Read more of this...
by Russell, George William

The Swimmer

...our sleepy swirling surges hidden,
To gulfs foreshadow'd, through straits forbidden,
Where no light wearies and no love wanes....Read more of this...
by Gordon, Adam Lindsay

Three Women

...home, this is a death.
Again, this is a death. Is it the air,
The particles of destruction I suck up? Am I a pulse
That wanes and wanes, facing the cold angel?
Is this my lover then? This death, this death?
As a child I loved a lichen-bitten name.
Is this the one sin then, this old dead love of death?

THIRD VOICE:
I remember the minute when I knew for sure.
The willows were chilling,
The face in the pool was beautiful, but not mine--
It had a consequential look, like everyth...Read more of this...
by Plath, Sylvia

Ulysses

...te, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.
The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks:
The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep
Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,
'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
It may be we shall touch...Read more of this...
by Tennyson, Alfred Lord

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