Famous Who Am I Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Who Am I poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous who am i poems. These examples illustrate what a famous who am i poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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Emerges in the spring!
A Feather on each shoulder!
You'd scarce recognize him!
By Men, yclept Caterpillar!
By me! But who am I,
To tell the pretty secret
Of the Butterfly!...Read more of this...
by
Dickinson, Emily
...faces put the shadows of the earth to rout,
And faint and fragile as a moth your white hand fluttered and went out.
Oh, who am I who tower beside this goddess of the twilight air?
The burning doves fly from my heart, and melt within her bosom there.
I know the sacrifice of old they offered to the mighty queen,
And this adoring love has brought us back the beauty that has been.
As to her worshippers she came descending from her glowing skies,
So Aphrodite I have seen with shin...Read more of this...
by
Russell, George William
...with faith!--is my advice.
Will not that hurry us upon our knees,
Knocking our breasts, "It can't be--yet it shall!
"Who am I, the worm, to argue with my Pope?
"Low things confound the high things!" and so forth.
That's better than acquitting God with grace
As some folk do. He's tried--no case is proved,
Philosophy is lenient--he may go!
You'll say, the old system's not so obsolete
But men believe still: ay, but who and where?
King Bomba's lazzaroni foster yet
T...Read more of this...
by
Browning, Robert
...you know your betters! Then, you'll take
Your hand away that's fiddling on my throat,
And please to know me likewise. Who am I?
Why, one, sir, who is lodging with a friend
Three streets off--he's a certain . . . how d'ye call?
Master--a ...Cosimo of the Medici,
I' the house that caps the corner. Boh! you were best!
Remember and tell me, the day you're hanged,
How you affected such a gullet's-gripe!
But you, sir, it concerns you that your knaves
Pick up a manner nor ...Read more of this...
by
Browning, Robert
...But then again, there are tree-climbing fish, called anabases.
They climb the trees out of stupidity, or so it is said.
Who am I to judge? I want to break out of here.
A bee is not strong in geometry: it cannot tell
a square from a triangle or a circle.
The locker room of my skull is full of panting egrets.
I'm saying that strictly for effect.
In time I will heal, I know this, or I believe this.
The contents and furnishings of my secret room will be labeled
and organized so t...Read more of this...
by
Tate, James
...But then again, there are tree-climbing fish, called anabases.
They climb the trees out of stupidity, or so it is said.
Who am I to judge? I want to break out of here.
A bee is not strong in geometry: it cannot tell
a square from a triangle or a circle.
The locker room of my skull is full of panting egrets.
I'm saying that strictly for effect.
In time I will heal, I know this, or I believe this.
The contents and furnishings of my secret room will be labeled
and organized so t...Read more of this...
by
Taylor, Edward
...s, else equal, in me more heinous?
And Mercy being easy, and glorious
To God; in his stern wrath, why threatens he?
But who am I, that dare dispute with thee
O God? Oh! of thine only worthy blood,
And my tears, make a heavenly Lethean flood,
And drown in it my sin's black memory;
That thou remember them, some claim as debt,
I think it mercy, if thou wilt forget....Read more of this...
by
Donne, John
...- not
the clambering up crags to seek
more favour from the sun
(or long-haired moon) harped for
since those sparks of who am i
first clicked through consciousness
how the river sidles round
rocks blocking the painful straight
seems to brush aside
all snags disrupting its ambition
to be sea - certain from its source
downwardness is good - legs don’t have
that gift (being boned with doubt)
rivers in their waywardness
become a rattling cage of tigers
when the storm god ...Read more of this...
by
Gregory, Rg
...et,
Yet for me He keeps His weary watch in the turmoil of the street:
The King of Kings awaits me, wherever I may go,
O who am I that He should deign to love and serve me so?...Read more of this...
by
Kilmer, Joyce
...
Leathery knights of the dim old trail,
Lawful fighters or scamps from jail,
Dimly your virtues shine.
Yet who am I that I judge your wars,
Deeds that my daintier soul abhors,
Wide-open sins of the wide outdoors,
Manlier sins than mine.
Dear old mavericks, customs mend.
I would not glory to make an end
Marked like a homemade sieve.
But with a touch of your own old pride
Grant me to travel the trail I ride.
Gamely and gaily, the wa...Read more of this...
by
Clark, Badger
...right and my clippers ready,
And I wriggle out to the chosen place,
When I hear a rustle . . . Steady! . . . Steady!
Who am I staring slap in the face?
There in the dark I can hear him breathing,
A foot away, and as still as death;
And my heart beats hard, and my brain is seething,
And I know he's a Hun by the smell of his breath.
Then: "Will you surrender?" I whisper hoarsely,
For it's death, swift death to utter a cry.
"English schwein-hund!" he murmurs coarsely.
"T...Read more of this...
by
Service, Robert William
...ile he settled down.
When I looked, I dared not sigh:—In the light of God's splendor,
With His daily blue and gold, who am I? what am I?
But that passion and outpouring seemed an awful sign and tender,
Like the blood of the Redeemer, shown on earth and sky.
O for comfort, O the waste of a long doubt and trouble!
On that sultry August eve trouble had made me meek;
I was tired of my sorrow—O so faint, for it was double
In the weight of its oppression, that I cou...Read more of this...
by
Ingelow, Jean
...ver would have guessed before
you claimed your barn with shot gun,
torch, and hounds. Why am I here?
What do I want? Who am I?
You demand from the blank mask
which amuses the dogs. Leave me!
I do your work so why ask?...Read more of this...
by
Levine, Philip
...vast and grey and—
In the tall, dried grasses
a goat stirs
with nozzle searching the ground.
My head is in the air
but who am I . . . ?
—and my heart stops amazed
at the thought of love
vast and grey
yearning silently over me....Read more of this...
by
Williams, William Carlos (WCW)
...asten by
And shining angels kneel and pray.
The door swings wide -- I cannot go --
I must and yet I dare not see.
Lord, who am I that I should know --
Lord, God, be merciful to me!
VI
O Whiteness, whiter than the fleece
Of new-washed sheep on April sod!
O Breath of Life, O Prince of Peace,
O Lamb of God, O Lamb of God!...Read more of this...
by
Kilmer, Joyce
...harder
and the pain enlarges.
I had a dream once,
perhaps it was a dream,
that the crab was my ignorance of God.
But who am I to believe in dreams?...Read more of this...
by
Sexton, Anne
...d Bisesa, stretching out her hands,
As one in darkness fearing Devils: -- "Help!
O Priests, I am a woman very weak,
And who am I to know the will of Gods?
Taman hath called me -- whither shall I go?"
The Chief in War, the Man of Sixty Spears,
Howled in his torment, fettered by the Priests,
But dared not come to her to drag her forth,
And dared not lift his spear against the Priests.
Then all men wept.
There was a Priest of Kysh
Bent with a hundred winters, hairless, blind,
...Read more of this...
by
Kipling, Rudyard
..., like every man of sense,
For I know Allah will not take offence;
Before time was, He knew that I should drink,
And who am I to thwart His prescience?...Read more of this...
by
Khayyam, Omar
...My head knocks against the stars.
My feet are on the hilltops.
My finger-tips are in the valleys and shores of
universal life.
Down in the sounding foam of primal things I
reach my hands and play with pebbles of
destiny.
I have been to hell and back many times.
I know all about heaven, for I have talked with God.
I dabble in the blood and guts of the terri...Read more of this...
by
Sandburg, Carl
...elons on trial in courts;
You convicts in prison-cells—you sentenced assassins, chain’d and
hand-cuff’d
with
iron;
Who am I, too, that I am not on trial, or in prison?
Me, ruthless and devilish as any, that my wrists are not chain’d with iron, or my
ankles
with
iron?
You prostitutes flaunting over the trottoirs, or obscene in your rooms,
Who am I, that I should call you more obscene than myself?
O culpable!
I acknowledge—I exposé!
(O admirers! praise not me! co...Read more of this...
by
Whitman, Walt
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