Famous Why Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Why poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous why poems. These examples illustrate what a famous why poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Alfred Lord Tennyson
‘Te somnia nostra reducunt.’
OVID.
And ask ye why these sad tears stream?
Why these wan eyes are dim with weeping?
I had a dream–a lovely dream,
Of her that in the grave is sleeping.
I saw her as ’twas yesterday,
The bloom upon her cheek still glowing;
And round her play’d a golden ray,
And on her brows were gay flowers blowing.
With angel-hand she swept a lyre,
A...Read more of this...
by
Russell Edson
This is the house of the closet-man. There are no rooms,
just hallways and closets.
Things happen in rooms. He does not like things to
happen . . . Closets, you take things out of closets,
you put things into closets, and nothing happens . . .
Why do you have such a strange house?
I am...Read more of this...
by
Edwin Arlington Robinson
Much as he left it when he went from us
Here was the room again where he had been
So long that something oh him should be seen,
Or felt—and so it was. Incredulous,
I turned about, loath to be greeted thus,
And there he was in his old chair, serene
As ever, and as laconic as lean
As when he lived, and as cadaverous.
Calm as...Read more of this...
by
Mary Darby Robinson
Why, through each aching vein, with lazy pace
Thus steals the languid fountain of my heart,
While, from its source, each wild convulsive start
Tears the scorch'd roses from my burning face?
In vain, O Lesbian Vales! your charms I trace;
Vain is the poet's theme, the sculptor's art;
No more the Lyre its magic can impart,
Though wak'd to sound, with more than mortal...Read more of this...
by
Bliss Carman
FOR a name unknown,
Whose fame unblown
Sleeps in the hills
For ever and aye;
For her who hears
The stir of the years
Go by on the wind
By night and day;
And heeds no thing
Of the needs of spring,
Of autumn's wonder
Or winter's chill;
For one who sees
The great sun freeze,
As he wanders a-cold
From hill to hill;
And all her heart
Is a woven part
Of the flurry and drift
Of...Read more of this...
by
Marge Piercy
You ask why sometimes I say stop
why sometimes I cry no
while I shake with pleasure.
What do I fear, you ask,
why don't I always want to come
and come again to that molten
deep sea center where the nerves
fuse open and the brain
and body shine with a black wordless light
fluorescent and heaving like plankton.
If you turn over the old refuse
of sexual slang,...Read more of this...
by
Rabindranath Tagore
Why do you whisper so faintly in
my ears, O Death, my Death?
When the flowers droop in the
evening and cattle come back to their
stalls, you stealthily come to my side
and speak words that I do not
understand.
Is this how you must woo and win
me with the opiate of drowsy murmur
and cold kisses, O Death, my Death?
Will there be no proud ceremony
for...Read more of this...
by
Sadakichi Hartmann
Why I love thee?
Ask why the seawind wanders,
Why the shore is aflush with the tide,
Why the moon through heaven meanders;
Like seafaring ships that ride
On a sullen, motionless deep;
Why the seabirds are fluttering the strand
Where the waves sing themselves to sleep
And starshine lives in the curves of the sand!
...Read more of this...
by
William Shakespeare
Music to hear, why hear'st thou music sadly?
Sweets with sweets war not, joy delights in joy.
Why lov'st thou that which thou receiv'st not gladly,
Or else receiv'st with pleasure thine annoy?
If the true concord of well-tunèd sounds,
By unions married, do offend thine ear,
They do but sweetly chide thee, who confounds
In singleness the parts that thou shouldst bear.
Mark how one string,...Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
He was our leader and our guide;
He was our saviour and our star.
We walked in friendship by his side,
Yet set him where our heroes are.
He taught disdain of fame and wealth;
With courage he inspired our youth;
He preached the purity of health,
And held aloft the torch of truth.
He bade us battle for the Right,
And led us in the carnage grim;
He...Read more of this...
by
Mother Goose
Johnny shall have a new bonnet,
And Johnny shall go to the fair,
And Johnny shall have a blue ribbon
To tie up his bonny brown hair.
And why may not I love Johnny?
And why may not Johnny love me?
And why may not I love Johnny
As well as another body?
And here's a leg for a stocking,
...Read more of this...
by
Ben Jonson
I. — WHY I WRITE NOT OF LOVE. Can poets hope to fetter me ? It is enough, they once did get 5 Mars and my mother, in their net : I wear not these my wings in vain. With which he fled me ; and again, Into my rhymes could ne'er be got By any art : then wonder not, 10 That...Read more of this...
by
Walter de la Mare
Ever, ever
Stir and shiver
The reeds and rushes
By the river:
Ever, ever,
As if in dream,
The lone moon's silver
Sleeks the stream.
What old sorrow,
What lost love,
Moon, reeds, rushes,
Dream you of?...Read more of this...
by
Stephen Crane
Why do you strive for greatness, fool?
Go pluck a bough and wear it.
It is as sufficing.
My Lord, there are certain barbarians
Who tilt their noses
As if the stars were flowers,
And Thy servant is lost among their shoe-buckles.
Fain would I have mine eyes even with their eyes.
Fool, go pluck a bough and wear it....Read more of this...
by
Omar Khayyam
Why unripe grapes are sharp, prithee explain,
And then grow sweet, while wine is sharp again?
When one has carved a block into a lute,
Can he from that same block a pipe obtain?...Read more of this...
by
Paul Muldoon
Why Brownlee left, and where he went,
Is a mystery even now.
For if a man should have been content
It was him; two acres of barley,
One of potatoes, four bullocks,
A milker, a slated farmhouse.
He was last seen going out to plough
On a March morning, bright and early.
By noon Brownlee was famous;
They had found all abandoned, with
The last rig unbroken, his pair...Read more of this...
by
Edna St. Vincent Millay
What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why,
I have forgotten, and what arms have lain
Under my head till morning; but the rain
Is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh
Upon the glass and listen for reply,
And in my heart there stirs a quiet pain
For unremembered lads that not again
Will turn...Read more of this...
by
Spike Milligan
American Detectives
Never remove their hats
When investigating murders
In other people's flats.
P.S. Chinese Tecs
Are far more dreaded!
And they always appear
Bare-headed!...Read more of this...
by
Omar Khayyam
Since you all secrets know, my friend, why be a prey
to so many vain torments? Suppose things do not fall
in touch with your desires, you can at least be gay while
you still breathe....Read more of this...
by
Omar Khayyam
The people say, «Why not drink somewhat less?
What reasons have you for such great excess?»
First, my Love's face, second, my morning draught;
Can there be clearer reasons, now confess?...Read more of this...
by
Omar Khayyam
O men of morals! why do ye defame,
And thus misjudge me? I am not to blame.
Save weakness for the grape, and female charms,
What sins of mine can any of ye name?...Read more of this...
by
Rg Gregory
i met a frog in my garden today
lurking under a stone - it said
there used to be a pond here
i know i said i had to dig it up
pity said the frog and looked at me
as if i was the thickest mortal
a garden without water it croaked
is worse than a tongue without spit
there's a pond next door i said
you...Read more of this...
by
William Blake
Why should I care for the men of thames
Or the cheating waves of charter'd streams
Or shrink at the little blasts of fear
That the hireling blows into my ear
Tho born on the cheating banks of Thames
Tho his waters bathed my infant limbs
The Ohio shall wash his stains from me
I was born a slave but I...Read more of this...
by
William Shakespeare
Why is my verse so barren of new pride?
So far from variation or quick change?
Why with the time do I not glance aside
To new-found methods, and to compounds strange?
Why write I still all one, ever the same,
And keep invention in a noted weed,
That every word doth almost tell my name,
Showing their birth and where they did proceed?
O, know, sweet...Read more of this...
by
Omar Khayyam
Why ponder thus the future to foresee,
And jade thy brain to vain perplexity?
Cast off thy care, leave Allah's plans to him,
He formed them all without consulting thee....Read more of this...
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