Famous Live On Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Live On poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous live on poems. These examples illustrate what a famous live on poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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...tender bliss . . .
How earth would rival paradise
If every day could be like this!
Why die, say I? Let us live on
In lyric world of song and shine,
With ecstasy from dawn to dawn,
Until we greet the dawn Devine.
For I believe, with star and sun,
With peak and plain, with sea and sod,
Inextricably we are one,
Bound in the Wholeness - God....Read more of this...
by
Service, Robert William
...
The child of grace and genius. Heartless things
Are done and said i' the world, and many worms
And beasts and men live on, and mighty Earth
From sea and mountain, city and wilderness,
In vesper low or joyous orison,
Lifts still its solemn voice:--but thou art fled--
Thou canst no longer know or love the shapes
Of this phantasmal scene, who have to thee
Been purest ministers, who are, alas!
Now thou art not! Upon those pallid lips
So sweet even in their silence, on those...Read more of this...
by
Shelley, Percy Bysshe
...the final sweetness in the heavy wine.
Whoever has no house now will establish none,
whoever lives alone now will live on long alone,
will waken, read, and write long letters,
wander up and down the barren paths
the parks expose when the leaves are blown.
Translated by William Gass,
"Reading Rilke: Reflections on the Problem of Translation" (Knopf)
Lord: it is time. The huge summer has gone by.
Now overlap the sundials with your shadows,
and on the me...Read more of this...
by
Rilke, Rainer Maria
...o they died for love:
And, Vivien, though ye beat me like your dog,
I too could die, as now I live, for thee.'
'Live on, Sir Boy,' she cried. 'I better prize
The living dog than the dead lion: away!
I cannot brook to gaze upon the dead.'
Then leapt her palfrey o'er the fallen oak,
And bounding forward 'Leave them to the wolves.'
But when their foreheads felt the cooling air,
Balin first woke, and seeing that true face,
Familiar up from cradle-time,...Read more of this...
by
Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...br>
For luck I count each cobble, there’s enough
Beneath the ginnel to take a breath
And that’s the luck I need to live on.
In the dark I saw a spark light up and
Whirl and twirl around my head and as it hissed
I drew in silver a lucky seven.
4
Spender, Stephen, Sir,
Whichever name you
Now prefer, it is
Irrelevant, you’re
Dead and but a one
Or two poem man I
Fear. High and clear
I hear your voice
Caressing Rilke’s
Elegies, relating
Them t...Read more of this...
by
Tebb, Barry
...y,
Let things take their course.
Tomorrow is another day.
I do not need my freedom when I'm dead.
I cannot live on tomorrow's bread.
Freedom
Is a strong seed
Planted
In a great need.
I live here, too.
I want freedom
Just as you....Read more of this...
by
Hughes, Langston
...of desolation,
And let my tortured spirit fly !
Vain as the passing gale, my crying;
Though lightning-struck, I must live on;
I know, at heart, there is no dying
Of love, and ruined hope, alone.
Still strong, and young, and warm with vigour,
Though scathed, I long shall greenly grow,
And many a storm of wildest rigour
Shall yet break o'er my shivered bough.
Rebellious now to blank inertion,
My unused strength demands a task;
Travel, and toil, and full exer...Read more of this...
by
Bronte, Charlotte
...ght sticking up out
of the Coast rack high as the dusty fluorescent
light.
The wage they pay us is too low to live on. Tragedy
reduced to numbers.
This for the poor shepherds. I am a communist.
Farewell ye Greyhound where I suffered so much,
hurt my knee and scraped my hand and built
my pectoral muscles big as a vagina.
May 9, 1956...Read more of this...
by
Ginsberg, Allen
...orgot
the battles lost and won,
forgot the final trek
over hopeless mountain roads,
defeat, surrender, the vows
to live on. I slept until
the lights came on and off.
A girl was prodding my arm,
for the place was closing.
A slender Indonesian girl
in sweater and American jeans,
her black hair falling
almost to my eyes, she told
me in perfect English
that I could come back,
and she swept up into a folder
the yellowing newspaper stories
and photos sp...Read more of this...
by
Levine, Philip
...might've jumped and died.
But it was High up there! It was high!
So since I'm still here livin',
I guess I will live on.
I could've died for love--
But for livin' I was born
Though you may hear me holler,
And you may see me cry--
I'll be dogged, sweet baby,
If you gonna see me die.
Life is fine! Fine as wine! Life is fine!...Read more of this...
by
Hughes, Langston
...g me hence; no other guide I seek."
"By miracle he may," replied the swain;
"What other way I see not; for we here
Live on tough roots and stubs, to thirst inured
More than the camel, and to drink go far—
Men to much misery and hardship born.
But, if thou be the Son of God, command
That out of these hard stones be made thee bread;
So shalt thou save thyself, and us relieve
With food, whereof we wretched seldom taste."
He ended, and the Son of God replied:—
"Thi...Read more of this...
by
Milton, John
...arde weather we're having,
the winds (a fugue for flute and oboe) pouring
into the windows which I left open although
I live on the ground floor and there have been
two burglaries on my block already this week,
do I quickly take a look to see
if the valuables are missing? No, that is I can't,
it's an epistemological quandary: what I consider
valuable, would they? Who are they, anyway? I'd answer that
with speculations based on newspaper accounts if I were
Donald E. Westla...Read more of this...
by
Lehman, David
...th hair as gray
As was my sire's that winter day,
How strange it seems with so much gone,
Of life and love, to still live on!
Ah, brother! only I and thou
Are left of all that circle now, --
The dear home faces whereupon
That fitful firelight paled and shone.
Henceforward, listen as we will,
The voices of that hearth are still;
Look where we may, the wide earth o'er,
Those lighted faces smile no more.
We tread the paths their feet have worn,
We sit beneat...Read more of this...
by
Whittier, John Greenleaf
...active, to obtain a better,
And thought that meagre abstinence, to wake
From his hard pallet with the midnight bell,
To live on eleemosynary bread,
And to renounce God's works, would please that God.
And now the poor pale wretch receives, amaz'd,
The pity, strangers give to his distress,
Because these Strangers are, by his dark creed,
Condemn'd as Heretics--and with sick heart
Regrets 2 his pious prison, and his beads.--
Another, of more haughty port, declines
The aid...Read more of this...
by
Turner Smith, Charlotte
...seen designs at Ree and Cades cross't,
5.46 And poor Palatinate for every lost.
5.47 I've seen a Prince to live on others' lands,
5.48 A Royal one, by alms from Subjects' hands.
5.49 I've seen base men, advanc'd to great degree,
5.50 And worthy ones, put to extremity,
5.51 But not their Prince's love, nor state so high,
5.52 Could once reverse, their shameful destiny.
5.53 I've seen one stabb'd, another lose his head,
5.54 And ...Read more of this...
by
Bradstreet, Anne
...re'er your spirits dwell,
Rejoice that yet on earth your fame is bright;
And that your names, remember'd day and night,
Live on the lips of those that love you well.
'Tis ye that conquer'd have the powers of hell,
Each with the special grace of your delight:
Ye are the world's creators, and thro' might
Of everlasting love ye did excel.
Now ye are starry names, above the storm
And war of Time and nature's endless wrong
Ye flit, in pictured truth and peaceful form,
Win...Read more of this...
by
Bridges, Robert Seymour
...s and friendships of to-day;
Sometimes, I think 'tis but a dream
I measure up so jealously,
All the sweet thoughts I live on seem
To vanish into vacancy:
And then, this strange, coarse world around
Seems all that's palpable and true;
And every sight, and every sound,
Combines my spirit to subdue
To aching grief, so void and lone
Is Life and Earthso worse than vain,
The hopes that, in my own heart sown,
And cherished by such sun and rain
As Joy and transient Sorr...Read more of this...
by
Bronte, Charlotte
...If you danced from midnight
to six A.M. who would understand?
The runaway boy
who chucks it all
to live on the Boston Common
on speed and saltines,
pissing in the duck pond,
rapping with the street priest,
trading talk like blows,
another missing person,
would understand.
The paralytic's wife
who takes her love to town,
sitting on the bar stool,
downing stingers and peanuts,
singing "That ole Ace down in the hole,"
would understand.
The passenge...Read more of this...
by
Sexton, Anne
...eir rosy feet,
As if they knew your diet spares
Whatever moved in that full sheet
Let down to Peter at his prayers;
Who live on milk and meal and grass;
And once for ten long weeks I tried
Your table of Pythagoras,
- And seem'd at first "a thing enskied,"
As Shakespeare has it, airy-light
To float above the ways of men,
Then fell from that half-spiritual height
Chill'd, till I tasted flesh again
One night when earth was winter-b]ack,
And all the heavens flash'd in frost;
And ...Read more of this...
by
Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...
Where are winters, when I fell asleep
In the morning in the sixth hour?
In a new way, severely and calmly,
I now live on the wild shore.
I can no longer pronounce
The tender or idle word.
I can't believe that Christmas-tide is coming.
Touchingly green is this the steppe before
The beaming sun. Like a warm
Wave, licks the tender shore.
When from happiness languid and tired
I was, then of such quiet
With trembling inexpressible I dreamed
...Read more of this...
by
Akhmatova, Anna
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