Pretty women wonder where my secret lies.
I'm not cute or built to suit a fashion model's size
But when I start to tell them,
They think I'm telling lies.
...
You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may tread me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise.
...
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
...
Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.
...
Do not stand at my grave and weep
I am not there. I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow.
I am the diamond glints on snow.
...
It was many and many a year ago,
In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
By the name of ANNABEL LEE;
...
The free bird leaps
on the back of the wind
and floats downstream
till the current ends
...
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too:
...
Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village, though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
...
Writing a poem is not about bringing some words together to create some charming sentences. It's so much deeper than that. Writing poetry is a bridge that allows people to express their feelings and make others live every single word they read. Poetry is to educate people, to lead them away from hate to love, from violence to mercy and pity. Writing poetry is to help this community better understand life and live it more passionately. PoemHunter.com contains an enormous number of famous poems from all over the world, by both classical and modern poets. You can read as many as you want, and also submit your own poems to share your writings with all our poets, members, and visitors.
OR OF THE BEGINNINGS OF THE HUMAN RACE.
Illustrious fathers of the human race,
Of you, the song of your afflicted sons
Will chant the praise; of you, more dear, by far,
Unto the Great Disposer of the stars,
Who were not born to wretchedness, like ours.
Immedicable woes, a life of tears,
The silent tomb, eternal night, to find
More sweet, by far, than the ethereal light,
These things were not by heaven's gracious law
Imposed on you. If ancient legends speak
Of sins of yours, that brought calamity
Upon the human race, and fell disease,
Alas, the sins more terrible, by far,
Committed by your children, and their souls
More restless, and with mad ambition fixed,
Against them roused the wrath of angry gods,
The hand of all-sustaining Nature armed,
By them so long neglected and despised.
Then life became a burden and a curse,
And every new-born babe a thing abhorred,
And hell and chaos reigned upon the earth.
Thou first the day, and thou the shining lights
Of the revolving stars didst see, the fields,
And their new flocks and herds, O leader old
And father of the human family!
The wandering air that o'er the meadows played,
When smote the rocks, and the deserted vales,
...
She plucked a blossom fair to see;
Upon my coat I let her pin it;
And thus we stood beneath the tree
A minute.
She turned her smiling face to me;
I saw a roguish sweetness in it;
I kissed her once;—it took, maybe,
A minute.
...
Churned in the ceaseless torrent of time,
Creating harmony in life's vast rhyme,
A tale unfolds of a radiant mind,
Whose words made human life refined.
A prince he was, of royal line,
Surrounded by pleasures, riches divine,
Yet bound by love's delusive chain,
Attached to wife and child in worldly domain.
...
Lovely looks this rose,
Much more lovely is her scent:
Rose-scented Beauty.
...
Slowly lose myself day by day,
Sometimes feeling controlled I may say.
I'm no longer feeling myself,
But a weaker version of me.
...
دانـــــی دزدان بی وقــوف وطن
خویش عالـــی جنـــاب می دانند
هر نــــوع ظلم و هر نوع بیداد
کـــــردنش را ثـــــواب می دانند
...
Despite quantum leaps
in genetic engineering
the retrovirus of envy
still eludes scientists.
...
A poem's flavour
is sealed by
a best before date
for all that was
...
The poem you jotted down in the café
and corrected on the bus
will outlive you even if your soul
fails heaven's entry requirements.
...
A man named Wolf, with tales to tell,
Of secrets kept, and what befell.
He said he served, with hidden might,
In shadows deep, away from light.
...
Words our tongue has corroded
are not left to die in dignity
on some remote skeleton coast.
...
The poet is anti-matter
in the stream of the accelerator.
He collides with matter
and produces light.
...
From the cracks of an agony
you had thought hermetic
springs a poetry that speaks
to you, that only for you
...
Passed Me By
All my life's gone now
In the embrace of...
...
There are no rules of syntax
in the grammar of Loss.
Just a few cruel tenses
and a desolate verb
...
I dwell
In the absence
You left behind
...
If you die before me
I would jump down into your grave
and hug you so innocently
that angels will become jealous.
...
Beautiful is the 'thank you'
Wrapped with gratitude,
Offered to peace prone people
Who offer what is real-themselves
...
Indoors by technology, outdoors by speedy transport
I travel the world
Today in Japan, tomorrow in Rome,
Next day by an ancient civilization or in Hawaii or Coast Ivory,
...
The low lands call
I am tempted to answer
They are offering me a free dwelling
Without having to conquer
...
The Peace Warrior Of Mzansi, among heroes - a colossus!
Sun Of The Nation; a rare gift of Providence.
Once, entangled in the web of racist succubus;
Unruffled he declares before High Justice:
...
(This is a composition in Pilipino Language the first one I did, the only one, and hope some of the Filipinos will get this funny poem in this site. The poem is updated with English translation)
Noong taong otsenta dekada
...
Love and lust are poles apart.
Lust is chaos, love is art.
...
Rappelle-toi Barbara
Il pleuvait sans cesse sur Brest ce jour-là
Et tu marchais souriante
Épanouie ravie ruisselante
...
you put this pen
in my hand and you
take the pen from you put this pen
...
On this dry prepared path walk heavy feet.
This is not "dinner music." This is a power structure.
...
"Come, pretty birds, present your lays,
And learn to chaunt a goddess praise;
Ye wood-nymphs, let your voices be
Employ'd to serve her deity:
...
If you had the choice of two women to wed,
(Though of course the idea is quite absurd)
And the first from her heels to her dainty head
Was charming in every sense of the word:
...
A little while, a little while,
The weary task is put away,
And I can sing and I can smile,
Alike, while I have holiday.
...
Between us now and here -
Two thrown together
Who are not wont to wear
Life's flushest feather -
...
185
"Faith" is a fine invention
When Gentlemen can see—
...