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Famous Outlive Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry
...re astray)
 Who but deplores that hapless friend?


Mine was th’ insensate frenzied part,
 Ah! why should I such scenes outlive?
Scenes so abhorrent to my heart!—
 ’Tis thine to pity and forgive....Read more of this...
by Burns, Robert



...
heady spirit with bloody need
nothing can stop the sky from tingling
intrinsic hope rewords its screed
assumes it must outlive its bruises

stained glass deigns to face the mingling
of atavistic search for creed
with each desire gets what it chooses
it tries to suck out truth from greed
and calmly pacifies the wrangling

lasting spirit allows no ruses
what's bottled dreads to pay much heed
between the two meek life is dangling

(from le trianon - stained glass window by berg...Read more of this...
by Gregory, Rg
...f to wait for my age to pass. 
Only in this hoarded span will love persevere. 
Whether you are pretty or not, I outlive you, 
bend down my strange face to yours and forgive you....Read more of this...
by Sexton, Anne
...d of the gender things.

Last night I had a dream
and I said to it...
"You are the answer.
You will outlive my husband and my father."
In that dream there was a city made of chains
where Joan was put to death in man's clothes
and the nature of the angels went unexplained,
no two made in the same species,
one with a nose, one with an ear in its hand,
one chewing a star and recording its orbit,
each one like a poem obeying itself,
performing God's functi...Read more of this...
by Sexton, Anne
...s growing kinder, 
The child-hearts growing wise. 

What is the final ending? 
The issue, can we know? 
Will Christ outlive Mohammed? 
Will Kali's altar go? 
This is our faith tremendous, — 
Our wild hope, who shall scorn, — 
That in the name of Jesus 
The world shall be reborn!...Read more of this...
by Lindsay, Vachel



...in their necks, 
lose their vocabulary inside the artwork's depths 
and colors. 

Father, I want your reputation to outlive the pursuits 
of others with their iron-on reviews after an hour's 
worth of browsing at a lifetime of your work. 

Father, are you crying? 
Stop that sound. 

Copyright © Lisa Zaran, 2005 

...Read more of this...
by Zaran, Lisa
...istening, living,
(Oh, but not forever,
Oh, end arriving)

How shall I praise them:
All the sweet beings
Eternally that outlive
Me and my dying?

Mountains, I mean; wind, water, air;
Grass, and huge trees; clouds, flowers,
And thunder, and night.

Turtles, I mean, and toads; hawks, herons, owls;
Graveyards, and towns, and trout; roads, gardens,
Red berries, and deer.

Lightning, I mean, and eagles; fences; snow;
Sunrise, and ferns; waterfalls, serpents,
Green islands,...Read more of this...
by Van Doren, Mark
...hat made old wrong
Melt down, as it were wax in the sun's rays;
Public opinion ripening for so long
We thought it would outlive all future days.
O what fine thought we had because we thought
That the worst rogues and rascals had died out.

All teeth were drawn, all ancient tricks unlearned,
And a great army but a showy thing;
What matter that no cannon had been turned
Into a ploughshare? Parliament and king
Thought that unless a little powder burned
The trumpeters mig...Read more of this...
by Yeats, William Butler
...Not marble nor the gilded monuments
Of princes shall outlive this powerful rhyme;
But you shall shine more bright in these contents
Than unswept stone, besmear'd with sluttish time.
When wasteful war shall statues overturn,
And broils root out the work of masonry,
Nor Mars his sword nor war's quick fire shall burn
The living record of your memory.
'Gainst death and all-oblivious enmity
Shall you pace f...Read more of this...
by Shakespeare, William
...Take better ornaments, my tears and verse.  If any sword could save from Fates', ROE'S could ;      If any Muse outlive their spight, his can ;  If any friends' tears could restore, his would ;      If any pious life ere lifted man To heaven ; his hath : O happy state ! wherein We, sad for him, may glory, and not sin. [AJ Notes:Scutcheons, escutcheons, emblazoned shields, which     would decorate a hearse buried in state ...Read more of this...
by Jonson, Ben
...y mother's lap; or be with ease 
Gathered, nor harshly plucked; for death mature: 
This is Old Age; but then, thou must outlive 
Thy youth, thy strength, thy beauty; which will change 
To withered, weak, and gray; thy senses then, 
Obtuse, all taste of pleasure must forego, 
To what thou hast; and, for the air of youth, 
Hopeful and cheerful, in thy blood will reign 
A melancholy damp of cold and dry 
To weigh thy spirits down, and last consume 
The balm of life. To whom ...Read more of this...
by Milton, John
...er it was my house, mine alone, 
That fell, leaving you safe. Be glad for that. 
There’s life in you that shall outlive my clay
That’s for a time alive and will in time 
Be nothing—but not yet. You that are there 
Where I have painted you are safe enough, 
Though I see dragons. Verily, that was a fall— 
A dislocating fall, a blinding fall,
A fall indeed. But there are no bones broken; 
And even the teeth and eyes that I make out 
Among the shadows, intermi...Read more of this...
by Robinson, Edwin Arlington
...sustainer there had been.

When flowers were dead, and grass was green
Upon my mother's grave--that mother
Whom to outlive, and cheer, and make 
My wan eyes glitter for her sake,
Was my vowed task, the single care
Which once gave life to my despair--
When she was a thing that did not stir,
And the crawling worms were cradling her
To a sleep more deep and so more sweet
Than a baby's rocked on its nurse's knee,
I lived; a living pulse then beat
Beneath my heart that awaken...Read more of this...
by Shelley, Percy Bysshe
...intermixed"?
Because he needs no praise, wilt thou be dumb?
Excuse not silence so, for't lies in thee
To make him much outlive a gilded tomb
And to be praised of ages yet to be.
Then do thy office, Muse; I teach thee how
To make him seem, long hence, as he shows now....Read more of this...
by Shakespeare, William
...Not marble, nor the gilded monuments
Of princes, shall outlive this powerful rhyme;
But you shall shine more bright in these contènts
Than unswept stone, besmeared with sluttish time.
When wasteful war shall statues overturn,
And broils root out the work of masonry,
Nor Mars his sword nor war's quick fire shall burn
The living record of your memory.
'Gainst death and all-oblivious enmity
Shall yo...Read more of this...
by Shakespeare, William
...ne; 
Till thy shed seed, O shining sunflower, 
Bring forth such growth of the world's garden-bed 
As like the sun shall outlive age and death. 
And yet I would thine heart had heed of her 
Who loves thee alive; but not till she be dead. 
Come, Love, then, quickly, and take her utmost breath. 

Song, speak for me who am dumb as are the dead; 
From my sad bed of tears I send forth thee, 
To fly all day from sun's birth to sun's death 
Down the sun's way after the fl...Read more of this...
by Swinburne, Algernon Charles
...ake
Substances, and people planets of its own
With beings brighter than have been, and give
A breath to forms which can outlive all flesh.
I would recall a vision which I dreamed
Perchance in sleep—for in itself a thought,
A slumbering thought, is capable of years,
And curdles a long life into one hour.

II

I saw two beings in the hues of youth
Standing upon a hill, a gentle hill,
Green and of mild declivity, the last
As 'twere the cape of a long ridge of such,
Save ...Read more of this...
by Byron, George (Lord)
...calcium fragments,
we were in our own bodies
(that room that will bury us)
and you were in my body
(that room that will outlive us)
and at first I rubbed your 
feet dry with a towel
becuase I was your slave
and then you called me princess.
Princess!

Oh then
I stood up in my gold skin
and I beat down the psalms
and I beat down the clothes
and you undid the bridle
and you undid the reins
and I undid the buttons,
the bones, the confusions,
the New England postcards,
the Jan...Read more of this...
by Sexton, Anne
...eak, and I might be (O God!) the first to go.
For her what triumph that would be - she thinks of it, I know.
To outlive all her kith and kin - how she would glow beneath her skin!

She says she will not make her Will, until she takes to bed;
She little thinks if thoughts could kill, to-morrow she'd be dead. . . .

"Please come to breakfast, Mother dear; Your coffee will be cold I fear."...Read more of this...
by Service, Robert William
...held you for a summer more,
But at the cost of words I value highly,
And no such summer as the one before.
Should I outlive this anguish—and men do—
I shall have only good to say of you....Read more of this...
by St Vincent Millay, Edna

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Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry