Famous Year Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Year poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous year poems. These examples illustrate what a famous year poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
See also:
by
Raymond Carver
October. Here in this dank, unfamiliar kitchen
I study my father's embarrassed young man's face.
Sheepish grin, he holds in one hand a string
of spiny yellow perch, in the other
a bottle of Carlsbad Beer.
In jeans and denim shirt, he leans
against the front fender of a 1934 Ford.
He would like to pose bluff and hearty...Read more of this...
by
Vachel Lindsay
Sweetheart Spring
Our Sweetheart, Spring, came softly,
Her gliding hands were fire,
Her lilac breath upon our cheeks
Consumed us with desire.
By her our God began to build,
Began to sow and till.
He laid foundations in our loves
For every good and ill.
We asked Him not for blessing,
We asked Him not for pain —
Still, to...Read more of this...
by
Fannie Isabelle Sherrick
Low at my feet there lies to-night
A crushed and withered rose;
Within its heart of fading red
No crimson fire glows;
For o'er its leaves the frost of death
Steals like an icy breath;
And soon 't will vanish from my sight,
A thing of gloom and death.
Ah! beauteous flower, once thou wert
My pleasure and my...Read more of this...
by
Robert Louis Stevenson
IF you see this song, my dear,
And last year's toast,
I'm confoundedly in fear
You'll be serious and severe
About the boast.
Blame not that I sought such aid
To cure regret.
I was then so lowly laid
I used all the Gasconnade
That I could get.
Being snubbed is somewhat smart,
Believe, my sweet;
And I needed all my art
To restore my broken heart
To its conceit.
Come and smile, dear,...Read more of this...
by
Rg Gregory
when the new year
came out of nowhere
and peeped into rooms
it was so flattered to find
all the tv's drinking its health
praising its innocent appearance
it responded with its warm
dark smile and went round
filling people's dry hearts
with joy
over the coming weeks though
those same tv's attacked it
criticising its puerile style
its sickly contemptible face
one year is the same as another
(they said) for the doom
time...Read more of this...
by
Robert Burns
FOR lords or kings I dinna mourn,
E’en let them die-for that they’re born:
But oh! prodigious to reflec’!
A Towmont, sirs, is gane to wreck!
O Eighty-eight, in thy sma’ space,
What dire events hae taken place!
Of what enjoyments thou hast reft us!
In what a pickle thou has left us!
The Spanish empire’s tint a head,
And my auld teethless, Bawtie’s dead:
The tulyie’s teugh...Read more of this...
by
Ellis Parker Butler
Nature, when she made thee, dear,
Begged the treasures of the year.
For thy cheeks, all pink and white,
Spring gave apple blossoms light;
Summer, for thy matchless eyes,
Gave the azure of her skies;
Autumn spun her gold and red
In a mass of silken thread—
Gold and red and sunlight rare
For the wonder of thy hair!
Surly Winter would impart
But his coldness, for thy heart.
Dearest, let...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
'Twas just this time, last year, I died.
I know I heard the Corn,
When I was carried by the Farms --
It had the Tassels on --
I thought how yellow it would look --
When Richard went to mill --
And then, I wanted to get out,
But something held my will.
I thought just how Red -- Apples wedged
The Stubble's joints between --
And the...Read more of this...
by
William Shakespeare
That time of year thou mayst in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
In me thou see'st the twilight of such day
As after sunset fadeth in the west;
Which by and by black night doth take away,
Death's second self, that seals all...Read more of this...
by
Denise Duhamel
We must have clamored for the same mother, hurried for
the same womb.
I know it now as I read that my birthday is his.
Since the first time I saw his picture, I sensed something—
and with a fierce bonding and animosity
began following his career.
Look where I am and look where he is!
There is a book documenting his every haircut
while...Read more of this...
by
Edna St. Vincent Millay
I cannot but remember
When the year grows old—
October—November—
How she disliked the cold!
She used to watch the swallows
Go down across the sky,
And turn from the window
With a little sharp sigh.
And often when the brown leaves
Were brittle on the ground,
And the wind in the chimney
Made a melancholy sound,
She had a look about her
That I...Read more of this...
by
Omar Khayyam
Now the New Year reviving old Desires,
The thoughtful Soul to Solitude retires,
Where the White Hand of Moses on the Bough
Puts out, and Jesus from the Ground suspires....Read more of this...
by
Philip Larkin
New eyes each year
Find old books here,
And new books,too,
Old eyes renew;
So youth and age
Like ink and page
In this house join,
Minting new coin....Read more of this...
by
George (Lord) Byron
Missolonghi, Jan. 22, 1824
'Tis time this heart should be unmoved,
Since others it hath ceased to move:
Yet, though I cannot be beloved,
Still let me love!
My days are in the yellow leaf;
The flowers and fruits of love are gone;
The worm, the canker, and the grief,
Are mine alone!
The fire that on my bosom preys
Is lone as some volcanic isle;
No torch is kindled...Read more of this...
by
Walter Savage Landor
Mild is the parting year, and sweet
The odour of the falling spray;
Life passes on more rudely fleet,
And balmless is its closing day.
I wait its close, I court its gloom,
But mourn that never must there fall
Or on my breast or on my tomb
The tear that would have soothed it all....Read more of this...
by
Algernon Charles Swinburne
From the depths of the green garden-closes
Where the summer in darkness dozes
Till autumn pluck from his hand
An hour-glass that holds not a sand;
From the maze that a flower-belt encloses
To the stones and sea-grass on the strand
How red was the reign of the roses
Over the rose-crowned land!
The year of the rose is brief;
From the first blade blown to the sheaf,
From...Read more of this...
by
Omar Khayyam
Count upon life not longer than the sixtieth year.
Place thy foot in no direction without being overcome
with wine. As long as thy skull hath not been made a
pitcher, go always on thy way, nor take the wine-gourd
from thy shoulder or the wine-cup from thy hand....Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
To love thee Year by Year --
May less appear
Than sacrifice, and cease --
However, dear,
Forever might be short, I thought to show --
And so I pieced it, with a flower, now....Read more of this...
by
Robert Louis Stevenson
ON now, although the year be done,
Now, although the love be dead,
Dead and gone;
Hear me, O loved and cherished one,
Give me still the hand that led,
Led me on....Read more of this...
by
Anne Sexton
a prayer
O Mary, fragile mother,
hear me, hear me now
although I do not know your words.
The black rosary with its silver Christ
lies unblessed in my hand
for I am the unbeliever.
Each bead is round and hard between my fingers,
a small black angel.
O Mary, permit me this grace,
this crossing over,
although I am...Read more of this...
by
Thomas Hardy
I
Winter is white on turf and tree,
And birds are fled;
But summer songsters pipe to me,
And petals spread,
For what I dreamt of secretly
His lips have said!
II
O 'tis a fine May morn, they say,
And blooms have blown;
But wild and wintry is my day,
My birds make...Read more of this...
by
Walt Whitman
1
A GREAT year and place;
A harsh, discordant, natal scream out-sounding, to touch the mother’s heart closer
than
any yet.
I walk’d the shores of my Eastern Sea,
Heard over the waves the little voice,
Saw the divine infant, where she woke, mournfully wailing, amid the roar of cannon,
curses,
shouts, crash of falling buildings;
Was not so sick from...Read more of this...
by
Sharon Olds
When I got to his marker, I sat on it,
like sitting on the edge of someone's bed
and I rubbed the smooth, speckled granite.
I took some tears from my jaw and neck
and started to wash a corner of his stone.
Then a black and amber ant
ran out onto the granite, and off it,
and another ant hauled a dead
ant onto the...Read more of this...
by
Rg Gregory
owls and pussy cats can make up their minds
to sail out to sea and even get married
but they don't have parents or other such binds
whose one job in life is to see that they're harried
now a seven year old boy whose mind is quite clear
about what the world is and his proper place
will feel deeply distraught and totally drear
when...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
This was in the White of the Year --
That -- was in the Green --
Drifts were as difficult then to think
As Daisies now to be seen --
Looking back is best that is left
Or if it be -- before --
Retrospection is Prospect's half,
Sometimes, almost more....Read more of this...
Dont forget to view our wonderful member Year poems.