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In this post, we have compiled the greatest collection of renowned figurative language poems. Figurative language is made up of words and idioms that are employed in poetry and writings to communicate other different interpretations from the actual meaning.
When creating poetry, sonnets, or choruses, figurative techniques play an important role. They are the ideal instrument for a writer to use to appeal to the reader’s senses. These techniques provide the reader with in-depth, colorful, and emotive insights.
Figurative language adds richness to poetry and helps the writer to express himself with more flair and color. Simile, Metaphor, Symbolism, Alliteration, Hyperbole, and other figurative language methods are commonly used in poetry.
Figurative language poems include a wealth of figurative language. Though metaphorical language may be found in many forms of writing, probably none more so than in poetry.
Poets use loads of words of significance into small little figurative language poems. These poems elicit feelings, ideas, and, at times, societal change. Here are some of the poems with figurative language we’ve collected for you.
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Best Figurative Language Poems
Figurative language is an amazing communication technique that we use on a regular basis to help ourselves express complicated concepts or feelings quickly and efficiently. Here are some of the poems with figurative language highlighted in them.
1. Ode to a Nightingale
by John Keats
My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains
My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,..
O for a beaker full of the warm South,
Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene,….
Where Beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes,
Or new Love pine at them beyond to-morrow…
White hawthorn, and the pastoral eglantine;
Fast fading violets cover’d up in leaves;…
Forlorn! the very word is like a bell
To toll me back from thee to my sole self!
2. All the World’s a Stage
by William Shakespeare
All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;…
Mewling and puking in the nurse’s arms;
And then the whining school-boy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad…
second childishness and mere oblivion;
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.
3. The Kiss
by Anonymous
Lids glide closed:
Like leaves of autumn fall.
Lips so shyly part —
Proprietry deposed.
Cracked, then crumbled wall.
Never ending, without a start.
So slowly touch —
It seems they must.
Each of knew we knew
Saw it secret of a such
Daring little but to trust
Invisibly, our fingers drew
The outline of the other’s trace
Breathed the breath of love at last
Tumbled to the ground — but when
Had I ever fallen with such grace?
When had slow become so fast?
When had not become so then?
And after on the forest floor,
With shreds of leaves in golden hair,
And thrashers sang our songs of glee,
How I reached and drank your core,
Ran falling up your spiral stair,
Closed my eyes to truly see:
The we of us in you and me
The game I lost and truly won
And round and round
The singing sound
As two became so one
And one became so three.
4. The Wind
by Robert Louis Stevenson
I Saw you toss the kites on high
And blow the birds about the sky:
And all around I heard you pass,
Like ladies’ skirts across the grass
O wind, a-blowing all day long,
O wind, that sings so loud a song!
I saw the different things you did,
But always you yourself you hid.
I felt you push, I heard you call,
I could not see yourself at all
O wind, a-blowing all day long.
O wind, that sings so loud a song
O you that are so strong and cold,
O blower, are you young or old?
Are you a beast of field and free,
Or just a stronger child than me?
O wind, a-blowing all day long,
O wind, that sings so loud a song.
5. Sonnet 18
by William Shakespeare
Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date;
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm’d;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature’s changing course untrimm’d;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st;
Nor shall death brag thou wander’st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
6. I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud
by William Wordsworth
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 waves in glee:
A poet could not but be 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
In vacant 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.
7. Still I Rise
by Maya Angelou
You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I’ll rise.
Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
’Cause I walk like I’ve got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.
Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I’ll rise.
Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops,
Weakened by my soulful cries?
Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don’t you take it awful hard
’Cause I laugh like I’ve got gold mines
Diggin’ in my own backyard.
You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I’ll rise.
Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I’ve got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?
Out of the huts of history’s shame
I rise
Up from a past that’s rooted in pain
I rise
I’m a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.
8. Summer
by Walter Dean Myers
I like hot days, hot days
Sweat is what you got days
Bugs buzzin from cousin to cousin
Juices dripping
Running and ripping
Catch the one you love days
Birds peeping
Old men sleeping
Lazy days, daisies lay
Beaming and dreaming
Of hot days, hot days,
Sweat is what you got days.
9. Morte d’Arthur
by Lord Tennyson
So all day long the noise of battle roll’d
Among the mountains by the winter sea;
Until King Arthur’s table, man by man,
Had fallen in Lyonnesse about their Lord,
King Arthur: then, because his wound was deep,
The bold Sir Bedivere uplifted him,
Sir Bedivere, the last of all his knights,
And bore him to a chapel nigh the field,
A broken chancel with a broken cross,
That stood on a dark strait of barren land.
On one side lay the ocean, and on one
Lay a great water, and the moon was full.
10. Smart
by Anonymous
My dad gave me one dollar bill
‘Cause I’m his smartest son,
And I swapped it for two shiny quarters
‘Cause two is more than one!
And then I took the quarters
And traded them to Lou
For three dimes I guess he don’t know
That three is more than two!
Just then, along came old blind Bates
And just ’cause he can’t see
He gave me four nickels for my three dimes,
And four is more than three!
And I took the nickels to Hiram Coombs
Down at the seed-feed store,
And the fool gave me five pennies for them,
And five is more than four!
And then I went and showed my dad.
And he got red in the cheeks
And closed his eyes and shook his head
Too proud of me to speak!
Famous Figurative Language Poems
Let us now go through some famous poems with figurative language. Figurative language, often known as “figures of speech,” may be used to convince, engage, and communicate with an audience, as well as to magnify your true intent. These are some of the poems using figurative language.
1. Tartary
by Walter De La Mare
And in the evening lamps would shine,
Yellow as honey, red as wine,
Her bird-delighting, citron trees
In every purple vale!
2. Little Boy Blue
by Mother Goose
Little Boy Blue,
Come blow your horn,
The sheep’s in the meadow,
The cow’s in the corn.
But where is the boy
Who looks after the sheep?
He’s under a haystack,
Fast asleep.
3. Kubla Khan
by S. T. Coleridge
As e’er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By woman wailing for her demon-lover!
And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,
As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,
A mighty fountain momently was forced:
Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst
Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher’s flail:
4. Like Stars in the Sky
by Michele Meleen
Friends are like the stars in the sky,
always there even when you can’t see them.
They shine brightly in dark times,
guiding me as the North Star does for travelers.
In daylight, they blend in,
a natural part of my every day.
5. Music I Heard
by Conrad Aiken
Music I heard with you was more than music,
And bread I broke with you was more than bread.
Now that I am without you, all is desolate,
All that was once so beautiful is dead.
Your hands once touched this table and this silver,
And I have seen your fingers hold this glass.
These things do not remember you, beloved:
And yet your touch upon them will not pass.
For it was in my heart you moved among them,
And blessed them with your hands and with your eyes.
And in my heart they will remember always:
They knew you once, O beautiful and wise!
6. The Bight
by Elizabeth Bishop
Black-and-white man-of-war birds soar
on impalpable drafts
and open their tails like scissors on the curves
or tense them like wishbones, till they tremble.
The frowsy sponge boats keep coming in
with the obliging air of retrievers,
bristling with jackstraw gaffs and hooks
and decorated with bobbles of sponges.
7. Harlem
by Langston Hughes
What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore—
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over—
like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.
Or does it explode?
8. Speech to the Young
by Gwendolyn Brooks
Say to them,
say to the down-keepers,
the sun-slappers,
the self-soilers,
the harmony-hushers,
“Even if you are not ready for day
it cannot always be night.”
You will be right.
For that is the hard home-run.
Live not for battles won.
Live not for the-end-of-the-song.
Live in the along.
9. In The Nature
by Stephanie Mcgrath
In the nature is beauty
in the nature is earth
in the nature I find my worth
in the nature is peace
in the nature i find myself
in the nature every lasting greens
In the nature there is more to be seen
in the nature a beauty untold
In the nature everything is worth more than gold
10. The Second Coming
by William Butler Yeats
TURNING and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of i{Spiritus Mundi)
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
Short Figurative Language Poems
To adequately express your intended meaning, you must use figurative language with careful consideration and thorough observation. We will go through several typical forms of figurative language in these short poems with figurative language to help you grasp it better. Here are some of those figurative poems.
1. Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening
by Robert Frost
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
2.Mom’s Embrace
by Michele Meleen
My mom is like a cloud,
comfortable and strong.
I am like a raindrop
she keeps safe and sound.
When I am fully formed
she’ll let me go
dropping into the world
like a raindrop to the ground.
3. My Family
by Stacy Zeiger
My mom is like a fire.
She’s always warm, but sometimes she gets too hot.
My brother is like a tornado.
He always moves fast and spreads destruction wherever he goes.
My sister is like a snowstorm.
She’s pretty to look at and icy at times, but with a little sunshine, that iciness melts.
Together we are like a partly cloudy day.
We have our moments of darkness and gloom, but the sun always peeks through.
4. Before the Storm
by Kelly Roper
The air was heavy like a wet towel that needed
to be rung out,
And the thunderheads began to rumble like
an angry volcano.
The wind stirred up in fury like a swarm of
locusts suddenly taking flight,
And then the heavens opened and drenched
the thirsty earth.
5. You Left Me
by Emily Dickinson
You left me, sweet, two legacies, —
A legacy of love
A Heavenly Father would content,
Had He the offer of;
You left me boundaries of pain
Capacious as the sea,
Between eternity and time,
Your consciousness and me
6. Let Me Tell You What a Poem Brings
by Juan Felipe Herrera
Before you go further,
let me tell you what a poem brings,
first, you must know the secret, there is no poem
to speak of, it is a way to attain a life without boundaries,
yes, it is that easy, a poem, imagine me telling you this,
instead of going day by day against the razors, well,
the judgments, all the tick-tock bronze, a leather jacket
sizing you up, the fashion mall, for example, from
the outside you think you are being entertained,
when you enter, things change, you get caught by surprise,
your mouth goes sour, you get thirsty, your legs grow cold
standing still in the middle of a storm, a poem, of course,
is always open for business too, except, as you can see,
it isn’t exactly business that pulls your spirit into
the alarming waters, there you can bathe, you can play,
you can even join in on the gossip—the mist, that is,
the mist becomes central to your existence.
7. Time out
Jana Ghossein
Help how much my heart hurts
my mouth is as dry as a desert
my throught is sore
my voice is a goner
my heart is beating as fast as a tiger
my hand is a rattling snake
my face is a tomato
bye bye, boring life
I cannot take it no more
I lay my head
upon my knee
now blow the whistle refree
8. Your Last Drive
by Thomas Hardy
And on your left you passed the spot
Where eight days later you were to lie,
And be spoken of as one who was not;
Beholding it with a heedless eye
As alien from you, though under its tree
You soon would halt everlastingly.
9. Sailing to Byzantium
by W. B. Yeats
In one another’s arms, birds in the trees,
A tattered coat upon a stick, unless
Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing
For every tatter in its mortal dress,
Consume my heart away; sick with desire
And fastened to a dying animal
10. Note to Self
by Donna Marie
Be like the willow that bends,
shade that it sends,
peace that it lends.
During the breeze
its leaves will appease
and shift with ease.
Enduring, alluring, maturing.
Be like the willow that bends
Figurative Language Poems about Love
Let us now go through some of the love poems with figurative language. Almost all of the most famous poets use a variety of figurative tactics to convey the sensation of love in their poetry. Here are a few examples of poems that have figurative language.
1. A Red, Red Rose
by Robert Burns
O my Luve is like a red, red rose
That’s newly sprung in June;
O my Luve is like the melody
That’s sweetly played in tune.
So fair art thou, my bonnie lass,
So deep in luve am I;
And I will luve thee still, my dear,
Till a’ the seas gang dry.
Till a’ the seas gang dry, my dear,
And the rocks melt wi’ the sun;
I will love thee still, my dear,
While the sands o’ life shall run.
And fare thee weel, my only luve!
And fare thee weel awhile!
And I will come again, my luve,
Though it were ten thousand mile.
2. You’re the Poem
by Silent One
If only this poetry could define,
how your presence takes me towards cloud nine.
Your touch brings sensations that feel divine,
yet, my tongue is quiet, fighting this muse of mine.
Waiting for the moment our lips can greet,
your sweet voice takes control of my heartbeat.
I sigh hallelujah, as our eyes meet,
the taste of your mouth makes my life complete.
Suddenly the pen flows like buoyant streams,
describing love that’s only seen in daydreams.
I’m just a star within universal schemes,
basking within the passion of your moonbeams.
Our love can’t be hidden in a metaphor,
you’re the poem my pen will always adore.
3. Love Is an Abstract Painting
by Mr. Ian Sane
Love is an abstract painting
The heart is not red alone
red for passion
it beats yellow with hesitation
blue with melancholy
black when the love is gone
Love is an abstract painting
with the colors swirling
in a morass of misunderstandings
questions on whether one is worthy
or whether one truly belongs
in this surrealist picture
when up is down and down is out
your loves favor becomes doubt
This heady picture you embraced
how do you master emotions?
you don’t fully own your own
and someone else’s you never
could fathom
4. A Simile Like Love, A Metaphor Is Love
by Allen Steble
(love is like)
Love is like a painting
filled with all colours and shades
love is like a bleeding heart
cut with many sharp blades
love is like a never ending story
that always begins with a kiss
love is like a space everlasting
that fills bitterness with bliss
love is like the circle of eternity
always there to take for free
(love is)
Love is an open clear pool
where no hate can dare swim
love is a captured sunset
where the warmth never grows dim
love is desire held in the eye
that spreads quickly to the heart
love is a black starry night sky
a metaphor of glorious art
love is a deep dark hole of mystery
always there to take free
5. I Do Not Love You Except Because I Love You
by Pablo Neruda
I do not love you except because I love you;
I go from loving to not loving you,
From waiting to not waiting for you
My heart moves from cold to fire.
I love you only because it’s you the one I love;
I hate you deeply, and hating you
Bend to you, and the measure of my changing love for you
Is that I do not see you but love you blindly.
Maybe January light will consume
My heart with its cruel
Ray, stealing my key to true calm.
In this part of the story I am the one who
Dies, the only one, and I will die of love because I love you,
Because I love you, Love, in fire and blood.
6. Love Is
by Jessica
Love is a walk in the rain at night,
Two hands holding onto each other tight;
Love is honey on a pair of lips,
Onto a tender heart it drips;
Love is a soft and gentle touch;
Your heart, a child’s hand may clutch,
Love is a song that stains the air,
Dead or not, it’s always there;
Love is both the sun and moon,
Across the sky, like stars, it’s strewn;
Love is a tree of abundant fruit,
Giving and serving with every new shoot;
Love is a document, faithful and strong,
To one another, now do you belong;
Love is a river that rages with passion,
Finding ways to calm pools no matter the fashion.
7. Similes and Metaphors of Love
by Ronalyn Pupa
LOVE is like a figure of speech
It adds beauty to life
It inspires us to beat strife
It gives colors to sight
It expresses feelings tight.
LOVE is a rainbow
It has its perfect timing
To beautify your surrounding
It appears unexpectedly
Yet disappears inevitably.
LOVE is like a dictionary
It connotes different meanings
For different beings
It happens synonymously
Nor perceive reversely.
Love is a fairy tale
It brings someone a magic
Or leaves you in tragic
In just a glimpse or wink of an eye
You and I can’t deny.
LOVE is like a wifi
If you’re near
You’re connected to a dear
If you’re far away
You’re searching for a day.
LOVE is movie
Where everyone has role to play
It’s up to you if you do it that way
As long as you don’t go astray
Still you know how to pray.
LOVE is like the value of x and y
If someone is missing
You need to seek unremitting
For they must go together
To fulfill their functions better.
LOVE is a flower
It blooms abundantly
When needs are given sufficiently
It adapts itself to seasons
Yet it withers at certain reasons.
Love is like an antidote
It cures something
It heals hurt feeling
It offers a therapy
Until you look happy.
8. Love?
by Luis Nuñez
If love is blind, how do we see?
It’s not a cage but it is a key.
To unlocking our heart and setting us free, because it is the wind beneath our wings.
Love is a garden, love is a rose
Once its planted, it’ll spread out and continue to grow.
Love can’t be described but it can be shown.
Love follows a road, to a place called home.
Love has no distance, it’ll travel the distance to see how far it’ll go but how can that be, if it starts from the minute we’re born.
Love is endless, love is hope
Love is an Angel, waiting to be home.
Love is infinite, love is divine
True love is easy to find.
Just give it time, patience is a virtue
Love will find someone for you.
We all have an insecurity, that no one can’t see
We find the strength from within inside, to open up and give love a try.
Love will travel, beyond forever more
Even if it can’t stay around, it’s not lost if it’s found because it completes life’s golden crown.
9. Love’s Silence
by Mark Massey
To count the ways, I dare to comprehend
such finite love defined in written line,
for quantity shall never find an end
to love that lets infinity define.
A Summer’s day, to love shall not compare,
though shines to bathe your beauty in its light,
and as it wanes, waits breathlessly to share
the passion of a sultry Summer’s night.
To laureates and bards of metaphor,
each scribbled phrase, I bid them credit due,
but all their words and phrases heretofore
can ne’er describe this love I have for you.
When words fall short and poetry departs,
love’s silence fills the cockles of our hearts.
10. An Unwritten Fairytale
by Daniel Turner
Inside an inkwell, lives a fairy tale
A classic, filled with love and misery
Where,” Once upon a time” has long set sail
And “happy ever after’s” yet to be
It’s plot, a knight, once schooled in chivalry
His quest for love, the dragons he has slain
From Crusades ’round the world to frippery
The jousts with Father Time who drew disdain
Yet deep inside is where brave knight remains
A lifetime of adventures, good and bad
The love he searches for, still unobtained
Still finding peace, his “grail” this Gallahad
Perhaps, I’ll buy a quill one of these days
Release Sir Knight and legends of his ways
Figurative Language Poems about Life
Let us now take a look at figurative language poems about life. Figurative language uses imaginative terminology to create imagery that deepens the audience’s comprehension of reality and helps bring strength to words by utilizing various emotive, mental, and sensual connections. Here are some examples of examples of figurative language in poetry.
1. Life Simile
by Roshana Phillips
Life is like a flower
When you don’t know that hour
You stood so bold and tall
Then within a blink you fall
And all your hope was gone.
Life is like a movie
Where there are many scenes
Some scary, some not
Some cold, some hot
The scenes are the road to success
And the climax is when YOU get there
Being hopeful and perseverous in all those stress
That turns out to be a bless.
2. Living in Peace
by Alkas Poetry
Who lives peacefully with nature,
so with the dusk it softens
someone who lives with pure beauty
yes smile and life praises him…
Sunny of light rises,
sweet smile of pure joy
moonlit by the moon that is holy
innocent laughter of full harmony…
In spare time his noble soul weaves
In the wind friendly prays his prayer…!
3. Metaphorical Life
by Alkas Poetry
My metaphorical life
I serve it on a platter, and
grace…
youth is a
visible comet that further
that quickly passes….
And life only exists
for those who live it
and feel… with grace!
4. Life
by Alkas Poetry
Life is a wide field
of learning,
in it we find
the chaos and the pier…
Is the bright sun
and the moon, also thick fog…
Life is for understanding
the mysteries that we will never reach
to understand…
Even so, she offers us the signs
and show the formulas
so that we can come to an understanding…
Easy or arduous we need courage
to live… to live is to love…
Without the truth of love, we’ll never reach there
to currently live…!
5. Fragment of Poetic Life
by Alkas Poetry
I am possessor
of some poetic grace!
Sentenced to have some happiness
in commented praise..
But not having it in my pocket
no pecuniary pleasure…
This is the poet’s life!
6. Life, a Metaphor Poem
by Albero Centrale
Growing up is like driving down a curvy dirt road.
Sometimes you get a flat tire and have to stop.
We always take a step back and remember it’s not the end of the world.
Life is like homework. We try to erase the mistakes but it’s always faintly there.
Sometimes you lose important papers, it fills us with regret.
We all need to start over sometimes.
Finding love is like looking for a pin in a pitch black room.
Sometimes we think we have it, only to realize it’s not there.
We will always keep looking, even when we feel like giving up.
Dreaming is like getting a present.
Sometimes it can be perfect, others can be disappointing.
We all have that hope that maybe someday it will come true.
7. Life Metaphor
by Konkista Drake
Life is like a neverending highway embedded with speed bumps
and stop signs.
I drive my car and it leads me into the unknown.
Impricating me with sharp curves and steep hills, making
me pounce off the ground.
Suddenly, it leads me into my destination
Its bright yellow lines illuminate my path during dark gloomy
nights.
As I release my foot from the pedal, the highway seems to have fewer
speed bumps and fewer stop signs.
The road seems shorter now.
Then I begin to wonder was there another path I could have taken.
8. A Psalm of Life
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Tell me not, in mournful numbers,
Life is but an empty dream!
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
And things are not what they seem.
Life is real! Life is earnest!
And the grave is not its goal;
Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
Was not spoken of the soul.
Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
Is our destined end or way;
But to act, that each to-morrow
Find us farther than to-day.
Art is long, and Time is fleeting,
And our hearts, though stout and brave,
Still, like muffled drums, are beating
Funeral marches to the grave.
In the world’s broad field of battle,
In the bivouac of Life,
Be not like dumb, driven cattle!
Be a hero in the strife!
Trust no Future, howe’er pleasant!
Let the dead Past bury its dead!
Act,—act in the living Present!
Heart within, and God o’erhead!
Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time;
Footprints, that perhaps another,
Sailing o’er life’s solemn main,
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
Seeing, shall take heart again.
Let us, then, be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labor and to wait.
9. Later Life
by Christina Rossetti
Something this foggy day, a something which
Is neither of this fog nor of today,
Has set me dreaming of the winds that play
Past certain cliffs, along one certain beach,
And turn the topmost edge of waves to spray:
Ah pleasant pebbly strand so far away,
So out of reach while quite within my reach,
As out of reach as India or Cathay!
I am sick of where I am and where I am not,
I am sick of foresight and of memory,
I am sick of all I have and all I see,
I am sick of self, and there is nothing new;
Oh weary impatient patience of my lot!
Thus with myself: how fares it, Friends, with you?
10. Life
by Sir Walter Raleigh
What is our life? A play of passion,
Our mirth the music of division,
Our mother’s wombs the tiring-houses be,
Where we are dressed for this short comedy.
Heaven the judicious sharp spectator is,
That sits and marks still who doth act amiss.
Our graves that hide us from the setting sun
Are like drawn curtains when the play is done.
Thus march we, playing, to our latest rest,
Only we die in earnest, that’s no jest.
Figurative Language Poems for 5th Grade
If you have been looking for poems with figurative language for 5th grade you have come to the right place. If you want to teach figurative language and literary devices to 5th class students you will find these poems to teach figurative language very useful.
1. Because I Could Not Stop For Death
by Emily Dickinson
He kindly stopped for me
The Carriage held but just Ourselves…
We passed the Setting Sun –
We paused before a House that seemed
A Swelling of the Ground –
2. Patriot into Traitor
by Robert Browning
It was roses, roses, all the way,
With myrtle mixed in my path like mad:
The house-roofs seemed to heave and sway,
The church-spires flames, such flags they had,
A year ago on this very day…
There’s nobody on the house-tops now–
Just a palsied few at the windows set
3. Childhood Home
by Anonymous
Morning is love, when mom bids me arise,
Eggs shaped like hearts, a breakfast surprise.
The sun barely risen, looks down with a smile,
And says, “take your time, just sit for a while.”
Tea time is rest, as the light starts to fade.
Homework is done and the table is laid.
The kettle whistles “You know me, you do.”
The saucepan bubbles, “And I know you, too.”
Though distance and time have claimed it from me,
This home lives within, a memory.
My room is a picture which stays in my head –
The books in the corner, the cat on the bed.
Home is my best friend, my partner, my all,
Be it ever so humble, be it ever so small.
4. Song of Sorrows
by Lucie Lou Snowfall
If our lives were but an illusion
And we never had to die
Then such songs would i sing to you
Until the end of time
For you i would walk thru fire and rain
Shed a thousand tears and endure pain
For you are my life; my love
A fallen angel sent from above
5. A Coat
by William Butler Yeats
I made my song a coat
Covered with embroideries
Out of old mythologies
From heel to throat;
But the fools caught it,
Wore it in the world’s eyes
As though they’d wrought it.
6. Annabel Lee
by Edgar Allan Poe
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;
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
Than to love and be loved by me.
I was a child and she was a child,
In this kingdom by the sea,
But we loved with a love that was more than love—
I and my Annabel Lee—
With a love that the wingèd seraphs of Heaven
Coveted her and me.
And this was the reason that, long ago,
In this kingdom by the sea,
A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling
My beautiful Annabel Lee;
So that her highborn kinsmen came
And bore her away from me,
To shut her up in a sepulchre
In this kingdom by the sea.
The angels, not half so happy in Heaven,
Went envying her and me—
Yes!—that was the reason (as all men know,
In this kingdom by the sea)
That the wind came out of the cloud by night,
Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.
But our love it was stronger by far than the love
Of those who were older than we—
Of many far wiser than we—
And neither the angels in Heaven above
Nor the demons down under the sea
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
For the moon never beams, without bringing me dreams
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And the stars never rise, but I feel the bright eyes
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
Of my darling—my darling—my life and my bride,
In her sepulchre there by the sea—
In her tomb by the sounding sea.
7. Butter
by Elizabeth Alexander
My mother loves butter more than I do,
more than anyone. She pulls chunks off
the stick and eats it plain, explaining
cream spun around into butter! Growing up
we ate turkey cutlets sauteed in lemon
and butter, butter and cheese on green noodles,
butter melting in small pools in the hearts
of Yorkshire puddings, butter better
than gravy staining white rice yellow,
butter glazing corn in slipping squares,
butter the lava in white volcanoes
of hominy grits, butter softening
in a white bowl to be creamed with white
sugar, butter disappearing into
whipped sweet potatoes, with pineapple,
butter melted and curdy to pour
over pancakes, butter licked off the plate
with warm Alaga syrup. When I picture
the good old days I am grinning greasy
with my brother, having watched the tiger
chase his tail and turn to butter. We are
Mumbo and Jumbo’s children despite
historical revision, despite
our parent’s efforts, glowing from the inside
out, one hundred megawatts of butter.
8. There Will Come Soft Rains
by Sara Teasdale
There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground,
And swallows circling with their shimmering sound;
And frogs in the pools singing at night,
And wild plum trees in tremulous white,
Robins will wear their feathery fire
Whistling their whims on a low fence-wire;
And not one will know of the war, not one
Will care at last when it is done.
Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree
If mankind perished utterly;
And Spring herself, when she woke at dawn,
Would scarcely know that we were gone.
9. Friendship
by Emma Guest
A friend is like a flower,
a rose to be exact,
Or maybe like a brand new gate
That never come unlatched.
A friend is like an owl,
Both beautiful and wise.
Or perhaps a friend is like a ghost,
Whose spirit never dies.
A friend is like a heart that goes
Strong until the end.
Where would we be in this world
If we didn’t have a friend.
10. A Vision
by Oscar Wilde
Two crowned Kings, and One that stood alone
With no green weight of laurels round his head,
But with sad eyes as one uncomforted,
And wearied with man’s never-ceasing moan
For sins no bleating victim can atone,
And sweet long lips with tears and kisses fed.
Girt was he in a garment black and red,
And at his feet i marked a broken stone
Which sent up lilies, dove-like, to his knees.
Now at their sight, my heart being lit with flame,
I cried to Beatrice, ‘Who are these?’
And she made answer, knowing well each name,
‘AEschylos first, the second Sophokles,
And last (wide stream of tears!) Euripides.’
Final Thoughts on Figurative Language Poems
Thank you for going through the figurative language poems we shared with you. One tactic to approach language is to divide it into two major categories: figurative and literal. Figurative language is the deliberate use of phrases to depart from their normal meaning.
Figurative language use words to convey meaning that goes beyond the literal. Because figurative language poems are the heart of figurative language poetry, they might be difficult for some readers.
Figurative language abounds in poetry! There are just too many literary methods that fit within the genre of figurative language. There are some that are prevalent in poems with figurative language, such as metaphor, and those that are uncommon, such as metonymy.
Some other examples of figurative language in poetry are personification, puns, synecdoche, hyperbole, etc.
