Famous Years Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Years poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous years poems. These examples illustrate what a famous years poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
D. H. Lawrence
There are only two things now,
The great black night scooped out
And this fireglow.
This fireglow, the core,
And we the two ripe pips
That are held in store.
Listen, the darkness rings
As it circulates round our fire.
Take off your things.
Your shoulders, your bruised throat!
You breasts, your nakedness!
This fiery coat!
As the darkness flickers and dips,
As the firelight falls and leaps
From your feet to your...Read more of this...
by
William Butler Yeats
Has no one said those daring
Kind eyes should be more learn'd?
Or warned you how despairing
The moths are when they are burned?
I could have warned you; but you are young,
So we speak a different tongue.
O you will take whatever's offered
And dream that all the world's a friend,
Suffer as your mother suffered,
Be as broken in the end.
But I am old and...Read more of this...
by
Walt Whitman
YEARS of the modern! years of the unperform’d!
Your horizon rises—I see it parting away for more august dramas;
I see not America only—I see not only Liberty’s nation, but other nations
preparing;
I see tremendous entrances and exits—I see new combinations—I see the solidarity
of
races;
I see that force advancing with irresistible power on the world’s stage;
(Have...Read more of this...
by
Emile Verhaeren
For fifteen years our thoughts have run together, and our fine and serene ardour has vanquished habit, the dull-voiced shrew whose slow, rough hands wear out the most stubborn and the strongest love.
I look at you and I discover you each day, so intimate is your gentleness or your pride: time indeed obscures the eyes of your beauty, but it...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
Long Years apart -- can make no
Breach a second cannot fill --
The absence of the Witch does not
Invalidate the spell --
The embers of a Thousand Years
Uncovered by the Hand
That fondled them when they were Fire
Will stir and understand --...Read more of this...
by
Helen Hunt Jackson
Only a night from old to new!
Only a night, and so much wrought!
The Old Year's heart all weary grew,
But said: The New Year rest has brought."
The Old Year's hopes its heart laid down,
As in a grave; but trusting, said:
"The blossoms of the New Year's crown
Bloom from the ashes of the dead."
The...Read more of this...
by
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
1
He listened at the porch that day,
To hear the wheel go on, and on;
And then it stopped, ran back away,
While through the door he brought the sun:
But now my spinning is all done.
2
He sat beside me, with an oath
That love ne'er ended, once begun;
I smiled--believing for us both,
What was the truth for only...Read more of this...
by
Paul Celan
The line
that remained, that
became true: . . . your
house in Paris -- become
the alterpiece of your hands.
Breathed through thrice,
shone through thrice.
...................
It's turning dumb, turning deaf
behind our eyes.
I see the poison flower
in all manner of words and shapes.
Go. Come.
Love blots out its name: to
you it ascribes itself.
Tr. Michael Hamburger...Read more of this...
by
Paul Laurence Dunbar
Beyond the years the answer lies,
Beyond where brood the grieving skies
And Night drops tears.
Where Faith rod-chastened smiles to rise
And doff its fears,
And carping Sorrow pines and dies—
Beyond the years.
Beyond the years the prayer for rest
Shall beat no more within the breast;
The darkness clears,
And Morn perched on the mountain's crest
Her form uprears—
The day that is to come is best,
Beyond the years.
Beyond...Read more of this...
by
Kobayashi Issa
New Year's morning:
the ducks on the pond
quack and quack....Read more of this...
by
Thomas Hardy
How do you know that the pilgrim track
Along the belting zodiac
Swept by the sun in his seeming rounds
Is traced by now to the Fishes' bounds
And into the Ram, when weeks of cloud
Have wrapt the sky in a clammy shroud,
And never as yet a tinct of spring
Has shown in the Earth's apparelling;
O vespering bird, how do you know,
How do you...Read more of this...
by
Francis Thompson
What is the song the stars sing?
(And a million songs are as song of one)
This is the song the stars sing:
(Sweeter song's none)
One to set, and many to sing,
(And a million songs are as song of one)
One to stand, and many to cling,
The many things, and the one Thing,
The one that runs not, the many that run.
The ever new...Read more of this...
by
Omar Khayyam
Imitate the tulip which flowers at New-year's; take, like
her, a cup in thy hand and, if the occasion presents itself,
drink, drink of wine in happiness with some fair girl
whose cheeks are tinted with the color of this flower, for
this blue wheel [dome], like a breath of wind, can suddenly
overturn thee.
289...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
In Ebon Box, when years have flown
To reverently peer,
Wiping away the velvet dust
Summers have sprinkled there!
To hold a letter to the light --
Grown Tawny now, with time --
To con the faded syllables
That quickened us like Wine!
Perhaps a Flower's shrivelled check
Among its stores to find --
Plucked far away, some morning --
By gallant -- mouldering hand!
A curl, perhaps, from foreheads
Our Constancy...Read more of this...
by
Ted Kooser
Today, from a distance, I saw you
walking away, and without a sound
the glittering face of a glacier
slid into the sea. An ancient oak
fell in the Cumberlands, holding only
a handful of leaves, and an old woman
scattering corn to her chickens looked up
for an instant. At the other side
of the galaxy, a star thirty-five times
the size of our own sun exploded
and...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
I had been hungry, all the Years --
My Noon had Come -- to dine --
I trembling drew the Table near --
And touched the Curious Wine --
'Twas this on Tables I had seen --
When turning, hungry, Home
I looked in Windows, for the Wealth
I could not hope -- for Mine --
I did not know the ample Bread --
'Twas so unlike the...Read more of this...
by
Algernon Charles Swinburne
Send the stars light, but send not love to me.
Shelley.
I
Out of the dawning heavens that hear
Young wings and feet of the new year
Move through their twilight, and shed round
Soft showers of sound,
Soothing the season with sweet rain,
If greeting come to make me fain,
What is it I can send again?
2
I know not if the year shall send
Tidings to usward as...Read more of this...
by
Maria Mazziotti Gillan
I watch you walk up our front path,
the entire right side of your body,
stiff and unbending, your leg,
dragging on the ground,
your arm not moving.
Six different times you ask me
the date of our daughter's wedding,
seem surprised each time,
forget who called, though you can name
obscure desert animals,
and every detail of events...Read more of this...
by
Walt Whitman
QUICKSAND years that whirl me I know not whither,
Your schemes, politics, fail—lines give way—substances mock and elude me;
Only the theme I sing, the great and strong-possess’d Soul, eludes not;
One’s-self must never give way—that is the final substance—that out of all
is
sure;
Out of politics, triumphs, battles, life—what at last finally remains?
When shows break up, what...Read more of this...
by
Robert Southey
And I was once like this! that glowing cheek
Was mine, those pleasure-sparkling eyes, that brow
Smooth as the level lake, when not a breeze
Dies o'er the sleeping surface! twenty years
Have wrought strange alteration! Of the friends
Who once so dearly prized this miniature,
And loved it for its likeness, some are gone
To their last home; and some, estranged in heart,
Beholding me with...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
I Years had been from Home
And now before the Door
I dared not enter, lest a Face
I never saw before
Stare solid into mine
And ask my Business there --
"My Business but a Life I left
Was such remaining there?"
I leaned upon the Awe --
I lingered with Before --
The Second like an Ocean rolled
And broke against my ear --
I laughed a crumbling Laugh
That...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
There is a Zone whose even Years
No Solstice interrupt --
Whose Sun constructs perpetual Noon
Whose perfect Seasons wait --
Whose Summer set in Summer, till
The Centuries of June
And Centuries of August cease
And Consciousness -- is Noon....Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
As nothingness draws near
How I can see
Inexorably clear
My vanity.
My sum of worthiness
Always so small,
Dwindles from less to less
To none at all.
As grisly destiny
Claims me at last,
How grievous seem to me
Sins of my past!
How keen a conscience edge
Can come to be!
How pitiless the dredge
Of memory!
Ye proud ones of the earth
Who count...Read more of this...
by
Algernon Charles Swinburne
JANUARY
HAIL, January, that bearest here
On snowbright breasts the babe-faced year
That weeps and trembles to be born.
Hail, maid and mother, strong and bright,
Hooded and cloaked and shod with white,
Whose eyes are stars that match the morn.
Thy forehead braves the storm's bent bow,
Thy feet enkindle stars of snow.
FEBRUARY
Wan February with weeping cheer,
Whose cold hand guides the youngling year
Down misty roads of...Read more of this...
by
Phillis Wheatley
From dark abodes to fair etherial light
Th' enraptur'd innocent has wing'd her flight;
On the kind bosom of eternal love
She finds unknown beatitude above.
This known, ye parents, nor her loss deplore,
She feels the iron hand of pain no more;
The dispensations of unerring grace,
Should turn your sorrows into grateful praise;
Let then no tears for her henceforward flow,
No more distress'd in our dark...Read more of this...
Dont forget to view our wonderful member Years poems.