Famous Yesternight Poems by Famous Poets

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

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The Peasants Confession

by Thomas Hardy
 Good Father!… ’Twas an eve in middle June,
And war was waged anew 
By great Napoleon, who for years had strewn 
Men’s bones all Europe through. 

Three nights ere this, with columned corps he’d crossed
The Sambre at Charleroi, 
To move on Brussels, where the English host 
Dallied in Parc and Bois. 

The yestertide we’d heard the gloomy gun 
Growl through...Read more of this...

Rome: The Vatican-Sala Delle Muse

by Thomas Hardy
 I sat in the Muses' Hall at the mid of the day, 
And it seemed to grow still, and the people to pass away, 
And the chiselled shapes to combine in a haze of sun, 
Till beside a Carrara column there gleamed forth One. 

She was nor this nor that of those beings divine, 
But each and the whole--an...Read more of this...

From 'LES VILLAGES ILLUSOIRES' RAIN

by Emile Verhaeren
Long as unending threads, the long-drawn rain
Interminably, with its nails of grey,
Athwart the dull grey day,
Rakes the green window-pane—
So infinitely, endlessly, the rain,
The long, long rain.
The rain.

Since yesternight it keeps unravelling
Down from the frayed and flaccid rags that cling
About the sullen sky.
The low black sky;
Since yesternight, so slowly, patiently.
Unravelling its threads upon the roads.
Upon the roads and lanes, with even...Read more of this...

For Anne Gregory

by William Butler Yeats
 'Never shall a young man,
Thrown into despair
By those great honey-coloured
Ramparts at your ear,
Love you for yourself alone
And not your yellow hair.'

'But I can get a hair-dye
And set such colour there,
Brown, or black, or carrot,
That young men in despair
May love me for myself alone
And not my yellow hair.'

'I heard an old religious man
But yesternight declare
That he had found a text...Read more of this...

Robin Hood A Child

by James Henry Leigh Hunt
 It was the pleasant season yet,
When the stones at cottage doors
Dry quickly, while the roads are wet,
After the silver showers.

The green leaves they looked greener still,
And the thrush, renewing his tune,
Shook a loud note from his gladsome bill
Into the bright blue noon.

Robin Hood's mother looked out, and said
"It were a shame and a sin
For fear of getting a wet...Read more of this...

Non Sum Qualis Eram Bonae Sub Regno Cynarae

by Ernest Dowson
 Last night, ah, yesternight, betwixt her lips and mine 
There fell thy shadow, Cynara! thy breath was shed 
Upon my soul between the kisses and the wine; 
And I was desolate and sick of an old passion, 
Yea, I was desolate and bowed my head: 
I have been faithful to thee, Cynara! in my fashion. 

All night upon mine...Read more of this...

299. Sketch—New Year's Day 1790

by Robert Burns
 THIS day, Time winds th’ exhausted chain;
To run the twelvemonth’s length again:
I see, the old bald-pated fellow,
With ardent eyes, complexion sallow,
Adjust the unimpair’d machine,
To wheel the equal, dull routine.


 The absent lover, minor heir,
In vain assail him with their prayer;
Deaf as my friend, he sees them press,
Nor makes the hour one moment less,
Will you (the Major’s with the hounds,
The...Read more of this...

Tears

by Lizette Woodworth Reese
 When I consider Life and its few years --
A wisp of fog betwixt us and the sun;
A call to battle, and the battle done
Ere the last echo dies within our ears;
A rose choked in the grass; an hour of fears;
The gusts that past a darkening shore do beat;
The burst of music down an unlistening street, --
I wonder at the...Read more of this...

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