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I held a Jewel in My Fingers
I held a Jewel in my fingers
And went to sleep
The day was warm, and winds
were prosy
I said “Twill keep”
I woke and chid my honest fingers,
The Gem was gone
And now, an Amethyst
remembrance
Is all I own
Emily Dickinson
Famous Love Poems
The Definintion
Of Love
My love is of a birth as rare
As ‘tis for object strange
and high:
It was begotten by Despair
Upon
Impossibility.
Magnanimous Despair alone
Could show me so divine a
thing,
Where feeble Hope could ne’er
have flown
But vainly
flapped its tinsel wing.
And yet I quickly might
arrive
Where my extended soul is
fixed
But Fate does iron wedges
drive,
And always crowds itself betwixt.
For Fate with Jealous eye
does see
Two perfect loves, nor lets them
close:
Their union would her ruin
be,
And her tyrranic
power depose.
And therefore her decrees of
steel
Us as the distant Poles have
placed
(Though Love’s whole world on
us doth wheel)
Not by themselves to be
embraced,
Unless the giddy heaven fall,
And earth some new convulsion
tear;
And, us to join, the world
should all
Be cramped into a planishere.
As lines (so loves) oblique
may well
Themselves in every angle greet:
But ours so truly parallel,
Though infinite, can never
meet.
Therefore the love which us
doth bind,
But Fate so enviously debars,
Is the conjunction of the mind,
And
opposition of the stars.
Andrew Marvell
Famous I love you Poems
Sonnet #43, From the Portuguese
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and
breadth and height
My soul can reach, when
feeling out of sight
For the
ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of everyday’s
Most quiet need, by sun and
candlelight.
I love thee freely, as men
strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they
turn from Praise.
I love thee with passion put
to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith.
I love thee with a love I
seemed to lose
With my lost saints, - I love
thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my
life! – and, if God choose,
I shall but thee better after
death.
Elisabeth Barrett Browning
Famous funny Poems
“Faith” is a fine invention
“Faith” is a fine invention
When Gentlemen can see
But Microscopes are prudent
In a
Emergency.
Emily Dickinson
Famous Birthday Poems
Stella’s Birthday
Stella this day is
thirty-four,
(We shan’t dispute a year or
more: )
However, Stella, be not
troubled,
Although thy size and years
are doubled,
Since first I saw thee at
sixteen,
The brightest virgin on the
green;
So little is thy form declin’d;
Made up so
largely in thy mind.
Oh, would it please the gods
to split
Thy beauty, siz, and years, and wit:
No age could furnish out a
pair
Of nymphs so graceful, wise,
and fair;
With half the luster of your
eyes,
With half
you wit, your years, and size.
And the, before it grew too
late,
How should I beg of gentle Fate,
(That either nymph might have
her swain,)
To split my worship too in
twain
Jonathan Swift
Limericks
There was an Old Man with a
flute,
A sarpint
ran into his boot;
Till the sarpint
took flight,
And avoided
that man with a flute.
Edward Lear
Famous Best Friend Poems
When to the session of sweet
silent thought
I summon up remembrance of
things past,
I sigh the lack of many a
thing I sought,
And with old woes new wail my
dear time’s waste:
Then can I drown an eye,
unused to flow,
For precious friends hid in
death’s dateless night,
And weep afresh love’s long since cancelled woe,
And moan the expense of many
a vanished sight:
Then can I grieve at
grievances foregone,
And heavily from woe to woe
tell o’er
The sad account of
fore-bemoaned moan,
Which I new pay as if not
paid before.
But if the while I think on
thee, dear friend,
All losses are restored and
sorrows end.
William Shakespeare
Famous Friendship Poems
Friendship
A ruddy drop of manly blood
The surging sea outweighs:
The world uncertain comes and
goes,
The lover stays.
I fancied he was fled,
And, after many a year,
Glowed unexhausted kindliness
Like daily sunrise there.
My careful heart was free
again-
O friend, my bosom said,
Through thee alone the sky is
arched,
Through thee the rose is red,
All things through thee takes nobler form
And look beyond the earth,
The mill-round of our fate
appears
A sun-path
in thy worth.
Me too thy nobleness has
taught
To master my despair;
The fountains of my hidden
life
Are through
thy friendship fair.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Famous Sad Poems
Broken Dreams
There is grey in your hair.
Young men no longer suddenly
catch their breath
When you are passing;
But maybe some old gaffer
mutters a blessing
Because it was your prayer
Recovered
him upon the bed of death.
For your sole sake – that all
heart’s ache have known,
And given to others all
heart’s ache,
From meager girlhood’s
putting on
Burdensome beauty – for your
sole sake
Heaven has put away the
stroke of her doom,
So great her portion in that
peace you make
By merely
walking in a room.
Your beauty can but leave
among us
Vague
memories, nothing but memories.
A young man when the old men
are done talking
Will say to an old man, “Tell
me of that lady
The poet stubborn with his
passion sang us
When age
might well have chilled his blood.’
Vague memories, nothing but
memories,
But in the grave all, all, shall be renewed.
The
certainty that I shall be renewed.
The certainty that I shall
see that lady
Leaning or standing or
walking
In the first loveliness of
womanhood,
And with fervour
of my youthful eyes,
Has set me
muttering like a fool.
You are more beautiful than
any one,
And yet your body had a flaw:
Your small hands were not
beautiful,
And I am afraid that you will
run
And paddle to the wrist
In that mysterious, always
brimming lake
Where those What have obeyed the holy law
Paddle and are perfect. Leave unchanged
The hands that I have kissed,
For old
sake’s sake.
The last stroke of midnight
dies.
All day in the one chair
From dream to dream and rhyme
to rhyme I have
Ranged
In rambling talk with an
image of air:
Vague
memories, nothing but memories.
William
Famous Sad Love Poems
Wonder
Wonder,
A garden among the flames!
My heart can take on any
form:
A meadow for gazelles,
A cloister for monks,
For the idols, sacred ground,
Ka’ba for the circling pilgrim,
The tables of the Torah,
The scrolls
of the Quran.
My creed is Love;
Whereever its caravan turns along the way
That is my belief,
My faith.
Ibn Arabi
Famous Death Poems
Deaths And Entrances
On almost the incendiary eve
Of several near deaths,
When at the great least of
your best loved
And always known must leave
Lions and fires of his flying
breath,
Of your immortal friends
Who’d raise the organs of the
counted dust
To shoot and sing your
praise,
One who called deepest down
shall hold his peace
That cannot sink or cease
Endlessly to his wound
In many married
On almost the incendiary eve
When at your lips and keys,
Locking, unlocking, the
murdered strangers weave,
One who is most unknown,
Your polestar neighbour, sun of another street,
Will dive
up to his tears.
He’ll bathe his raining blood
in the male sea
Who strode for your own dead
And wind his globe out of
your water thread
And load the throats of
shells
With ever cry since light
Flashed
first across his thnderclapping eyes.
On almost the incendiary eve
Of deaths and entrances,
When near and strange wounded
on
Have sought your single
grave,
One enemy, of many, who knows
well
Your heart is luminous
In the watched dark,
quivering through locks and caves,
Will pull the thunderbolts
To shut the sun, plunge,
mount your darkened keys
And sear just riders back,
Until that one loved least
Looms the
last Samson of your zodiac.
Dylan Thomas
Famous Depression Poem
The Fury Of Rainstorms
The rain drums down like red
ants,
The ants are in great pain
And they cry out as they hit
As if their little legs were
only
Stitche don and their heads pasted.
And oh they bring to mind the
grave,
So humble, so willing to be
beat upon
With its awful lettering and
The body lying underneath
Without an
umbrella.
Depression is boring, I think
And I would do better to make
Some soup and light up the
cave.
Anne Sexton
Famous Family Poems
Jubilant Father
His face is like a sun, warms
the moon beside him.
She’s grown full; tonight
begins the waning.
The tide pulls through her
very bones,
Her form aches as each wave
crests.
The earth pulse, heavy, blood
warm with her
Beats new chords, old sun god
chants.
“You are the first mother and
the last,
All spring flesh has traveled
through you.”
Aztec plumed and gold beaded,
Your priest kneels at the
holy alter,
Gathers
each salt pearl shed, nectar for his sacrament.
You are the temple,
We pilgrims swept through the
gates,
Bent figures know the scent
and petals of your presence,
Spread our arms to harvest
blossoms,
And your priest, sun struck,
kneels beside you.
Christine McAuliffe
Famous Life Poems
I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud
I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o’er
vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a
crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the
trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the
breeze.
Continuous as the stars that
shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in
never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a
glance,
Tossing
their heads in sprightly dance.
The waves beside them danced,
but they
Out-did the sparkling leaves
in glee;
A poet could not be but gay,
In such a jocund company!
I gazed-and-gazed-but little
thought
What wealth the show to me
had brought:
For oft, when on my couch I
lie
Invacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward
eye
Which is
the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with
pleasure fills,
And dances
with the daffodils.
William Wordsworth
Famous Religious Poems
Amazing Grace
Amazing grace! (how sweet the sound)
That sav’d
a wretch like me!
I once was lost, but now am
found,
Was blind, but now I see.
‘Twas
grace that taught my heart to fear,
And grace my fears reliev’d;
How precious did that grace appear,
The hour I first believ’d!
Thro’ many dangers, toils and
snares,
I have already come;
‘Tis
grace has brought me safe thus far,
And grace will lead me home.
The Lord has promis’d good to me,
His word my hope secures;
He will my shield and portion
be,
As long as
life endures.
Yes, when this flesh and
heart shall fail,
And mortal life shall cease;
I shall possess, within the
veil,
A life of
joy and peace.
The earth shall soon dissolve
like snow,
The sun
forbear to shine;
But God, who call’d me here below,
Will be
forever mine.
John Newton
Famous Nature Poems
Autumn
Autumn: the year breathes
dully towards its death,
Beside its dying sacrificial
fire;
The dim world’s middle-age of
vain desire
Is strangely troubled,
waiting for the breath
That speaks the winter’s
welcome malison
To fix it in the unremembering sleep:
The silent woods brood o’er
an anxious deep,
And in the faded sorrow of
the sun,
I see my dreams’ dead colours, one by one,
Forth-conjur’d
from their smouldering palaces,
Fade slowly with the sigh of
the passing year.
They wander not nor wring
their hands nor weep,
Discrown’d belated dreams! But in the drear
And lingering world we sit
among the trees
And bow our heads as they,
with frozen mouth,
Looking, in ashen reverie,
towards the clear
Sad splendour of the winter of the far south.
Christopher Brennan
Famous Inspirational Poems
Peace Beings with Me
Peace begins with me
Starting over and breaking fre.
Peace begins with me
Opeing my eyes and beginning to see.
Peace begins with me
Curious about what I am going
to be.
Peace begins with me
Knowing I no longer have to flee.
Peace begins with me.
Having self
dignity.
Peace begins with me
Taking on
more responsibility.
Peace begins with me
Because
peace is being happy.
And this is why peace begins
with me!
Richard D. Marco III
Famous
A Christmas Carol
In The beak mid-winter
Frosty winds made moan,
Earth stood hard as iron,
Water like a stone
Snow had fallen, snow on
snow,
Snow on snow,
In the bleak mid-winter,
Long ago.
Our God, Heaven cannot hold
Him
Nor earth sustain;
Heaven and earth shall flee
away
When he comes to reign:
In the bleak mid-winter
A stable place sufficed
The Lord God Almighty
Jesus Christ.
Christina Rossetti
Famous Patriotic Poetry
The New Colosus
Not like the brazen giant of
Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride
from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed,
sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch,
whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning,
and her name Mother of Exiles.
From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her
mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that
twin cities frame.
“Keep, ancient lands, your
stories pomp!” cries
she
With silent
lips. “Give me your tired,
your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning
to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your
teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless,
tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the
golden door!”
Emma Lazarus
Famous War Poems
Nor dread nor hope attend
A dying animal;
A man awaits his end
Dreading and hoping all;
Many times he died,
Many times rose again.
A great man in his pride
Confronting murderous men
Casts derision upon
Supersession of breath;
He knows death to the bone
Man has created death.
William
Famous Teen Poems
To An Unborn Pauper Child
Breathe not, hid Heart: cease silently,
And though thy birth-hour
beckons thee,
Sleep the long sleep:
The Doomsters heap
Travails and teens around us
here,
And Time-Wraiths turn our songsingings to fear.
Hark, how the peoples surge
and sigh,
And laughters
fail, and greetings die;
Hopes dwindle; yea,
Faiths waste away,
Affections and enthusiasms
numb:
Thou canst not mend these
things if thou dost come.
Had I the ear of wombed souls
Ere their terrestrial chart
unrolls,
And thou wert free
To cease, or be,
Then would I tell thee all I
know,
And put it to thee: Wilt thou take Life so?
Vain vow! No hint of mine may hence
To theeward
fly: to thy locked sense
Explain none can
Life’s pending plan:
Thou wilt thy ignorant entry
make
Though
skies spout fire and blood and nations quake.
Fain would I, dear, find some
shut plot
Of earth’s wide world for
thee, where not
One tear,
on qualm,
Should
break the calm.
But I am weak as thou and
bare;
No man can change the common
lot to rare.
Must come and bide. And such are we-
Unreasoning, sanguine,
visionary-
That I can hope
Health, love, friends, scope
In full for thee; can dream thou’lt find
Joys seldom yet attained by
humankind!
Thomas Hardy
Famous Girlfriend Boyfriend Poems
The Rose Family
The rose is a rose,
And was
always a rose.
But the theory now goes
That the apple’s a rose,
And the pear is, and so’s
The dear only know
What will next prove a rose.
You, of course, are a rose-
But were
always a rose.
Robert Frost
Famous Teen Life Poems
The Pride of Youth
Proud Maisie
is in the woood,
Walking so early;
Sweet Robin sits on the bush,
Singing so
rarely.
“Tell me, thou bonny bird,
When shall I marry me?”-
“When six braw gentlemen
Kirkward shall carry ye.”
“Who makes the bridal bed,
Birdie, say truly?”-
“The gray-headed sexton
That delves the grave duly.
“The glowworm o’er grave and
stone
Shall light thee steady;
The owl
light thee steady;
The owl
from the steeple sing,
Welcome, proud lady.”
Walter Scott
Famous Teen Sad Poems
A Wintry Sonnet
A Robin said: The Spring will never come,
And I shall never care to
build again.
A Rosebush said: These frosts are wearisome,
My sap will never stir for
sun or rain.
The half Moon said: These nights are fogged and slow,
I neither care to wax nor
care to wane.
The Ocean said: I thirst from long ago,
Because earth’s rivers cannot
fill the main.-
When Springtime
came, red Robin built a nest,
And trilled
a lover’s song in sheer delight.
Grey hoarfrost vanished, and
the Rose with might
Clothed her
in leaves and buds of crimson core.
The dim Moon brightened. Ocean sunned his crest,
Dimpled his blue, yet
thirsted evermore.
Christina Rossetti