Poetic form

What is a Lyric Poem?

Definition

A short personal poem expressing feeling — the default mode of most poetry.

'Lyric' once meant a poem sung to a lyre; now it names poetry's most common mode: a short poem in a personal voice, capturing feeling or thought rather than telling a story. Most poems you know — sonnets, odes, elegies, nearly everything on this site — are lyric poems of one kind or another.

The lyric's power is intimacy: one voice, speaking as if only to you, about the things prose handles badly — longing, grief, wonder, the weather of the inner life.

Structure of a lyric poem

Short to medium length, personal voice
Feeling-first rather than story-first
Any form: rhymed, metered, or free

How to write a lyric poem

Start from a feeling lodged in a specific moment — not 'sadness' but 'the kitchen after the call.'
Stay in one moment; resist the urge to narrate before and after.
Find the one image that holds the feeling, and trust it.

963 lyric poem examples

Classic and original lyric poem poems, free to read in full.

She Walks in Beauty

Lord Byron · 1814

She walks in beauty, like the nightOf cloudless climes and starry skies;And all that's best of dark and bright

18 lines · lyric

Love's Philosophy

Percy Bysshe Shelley · 1819

The fountains mingle with the riverAnd the rivers with the ocean,The winds of heaven mix for ever

16 lines · lyric

When You Are Old

W. B. Yeats · 1893

When you are old and grey and full of sleep,And nodding by the fire, take down this book,And slowly read, and dream of the soft look

12 lines · lyric

He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven

W. B. Yeats · 1899

Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths,Enwrought with golden and silver light,The blue and the dim and the dark cloths

8 lines · lyric

Meeting at Night

Robert Browning · 1845

The grey sea and the long black land;And the yellow half-moon large and low;And the startled little waves that leap

12 lines · lyric

When I Am Dead, My Dearest (Song)

Christina Rossetti · 1862

When I am dead, my dearest,Sing no sad songs for me;Plant thou no roses at my head,

16 lines · lyric

Music, When Soft Voices Die

Percy Bysshe Shelley · 1821

Music, when soft voices die,Vibrates in the memory—Odours, when sweet violets sicken,

8 lines · lyric

So We'll Go No More a Roving

Lord Byron · 1817

So, we'll go no more a rovingSo late into the night,Though the heart be still as loving,

12 lines · lyric

The Passionate Shepherd to His Love

Christopher Marlowe · 1599

Come live with me and be my love,And we will all the pleasures prove,That valleys, groves, hills, and fields,

24 lines · lyric

To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time

Robert Herrick · 1648

Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,Old Time is still a-flying;And this same flower that smiles today

16 lines · lyric

Another Trip Around the Sun

The QuillOak Editors

Another trip around the sun,another year of you —of all the laughter you have caused,

8 lines · lyric

Snow Day

The QuillOak Editors

The radio said two words today,the finest ever spoken —no math, no bus, no spelling quiz,

8 lines · lyric

The Tassel

The QuillOak Editors

It's just a string, the tassel is,a finger's worth of thread —but look what it took to move it

8 lines · lyric

How You Take Your Coffee

The QuillOak Editors

I know the way you take your coffee,half a sugar, too much cream;I know which song you skip, embarrassed,

8 lines · lyric

Slow Dance in the Kitchen

The QuillOak Editors

We never learned the proper steps,we sway more than we dance,the dinner's burning on the stove,

8 lines · lyric

Still

The QuillOak Editors

After all the years and weather,after every flight delayed,after arguments in IKEA

8 lines · lyric

He Checks the Locks

The QuillOak Editors

You check the doors, you check the stove,you check the windows twice;you'd never call it tenderness —

8 lines · lyric

Two Degrees

The QuillOak Editors

We battle on the thermostat —you win by two degrees;I get you back in hoodie theft

8 lines · lyric

First Call

The QuillOak Editors

Whatever news the day brings in,the triumph or the squall,my thumb already knows the way:

8 lines · lyric

To Mom, Who Worried

The QuillOak Editors

You worried that we'd catch a cold,you worried we would fall,you worried half your nights away —

8 lines · lyric

The Sound of Childhood

The QuillOak Editors

We groaned at every pun you made,we begged you, "Dad, please stop";you'd grin and double down, of course —

8 lines · lyric

Doorframe

The QuillOak Editors

You marked my height in pencilon the doorframe every spring,and I stretched up on tiptoe,

8 lines · lyric

A Word from the Fire Marshal

The QuillOak Editors

We bought the pack of candles,then went back and bought two more;the cake is now a fire risk

8 lines · lyric

The Zero on the Cake

The QuillOak Editors

A zero on the birthday cakecan read like a full stop —a summit marker, halfway sign,

8 lines · lyric

Common questions

Are song lyrics lyric poems?

They're cousins — same ancestor, same name. Many song lyrics stand as poems; many poems have been set to music. The craft overlaps heavily.