Nine Inspiring Poems about the Future

By Various Authors

Aug 29, 2023

by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

‘My future will not copy fair my past’—

I wrote that once; and thinking at my side

My ministering life-angel justified

The word by his appealing look upcast

To the white throne of God, I turned at last, . . .

And there, instead, saw thee, not unallied

To angels in thy soul! Then I, long tried

By natural ills, received the comfort fast,

While budding, at thy sight, my pilgrim’s staff

Gave out green leaves with morning dews impearled.

I seek no copy now of life’s first half:

Leave here the pages with long musing curled,

And write me new my future’s epigraph,

New angel mine, unhoped for in the world!

Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806–1861) was an English poet and anti-slavery campaigner.

Had Youth Been Willing to Listen

by Edgar Guest

If youth had been willing to listen

To all that its grandfathers told,

If the gray-bearded sage by the weight of his age,

Had been able attention to hold.

We’d be reading by candles and heating with wood,

And where we were we’d have certainly stood.

If youth had been willing to listen

To the warnings and hints of the wise,

Had it taken as true all the best that it knew,

And believed that no higher we’d rise,

The windows of sick rooms still would be kept shut

And we’d still use a cobweb to bandage a cut.

If youth had been willing to listen,

Had it clung to the best of the past,

With oxen right now we’d be struggling to plough

And thinking a horse travels fast.

We’d have stood where we were without question or doubt

If some pestilent germ hadn’t wiped us all out.

So, although I am gray at the temples,

And settled and fixed in my ways,

I wouldn’t hold youth to the limits of truth

That I learned in my brief yesterdays.

And I say to myself as they come and they go;

“Those kids may find something this age doesn’t know.”

Edgar Guest (1881–1959) was a British-American poet who became known as “the People’s Poet.”

Assurance

by James Oppenheim

Yea, there are as many stars under the Earth as over the Earth...

Plenty of room to roll around in has our planet...

And I, at the edge of the porch,

Hearing the crickets shrill in the star-thick armies of grass,

And beholding over the spread of Earth the spread of the heavens...

Drink this deep moment in my pilgrimage,

With a sense of how forever I have been alive,

With a conviction that I shall go on, ever safe, ever growing,

The stars to be included in my travels,

And the future sure before me.

James Oppenheim (1882–1932) was an American poet, novelist, editor, and amateur analytic psychologist.

The Prophet

by D. H. Lawrence

Ah, my darling, when over the purple horizon shall loom

The shrouded mother of a new idea, men hide their faces,

Cry out and fend her off, as she seeks her procreant groom,

Wounding themselves against her, denying her fecund embraces.

D. H. Lawrence (1885–1930) was an English novelist, short story writer, poet, and essayist.

It’s a Long Way

by William Stanley Braithwaite

It’s a long way the sea-winds blow

Over the sea-plains blue,—

But longer far has my heart to go

Before its dreams come true.

It’s work we must, and love we must,

And do the best we may,

And take the hope of dreams in trust

To keep us day by day.

It’s a long way the sea-winds blow—

But somewhere lies a shore—

Thus down the tide of Time shall flow

My dreams forevermore.

William Stanley Braithwaite (1878–1962) was an American writer, poet, and literary critic.

Some Future Day When What Is Now Is Not

by Arthur Hugh Clough

Some future day when what is now is not,

When all old faults and follies are forgot,

And thoughts of difference passed like dreams away,

We’ll meet again, upon some future day.

When all that hindered, all that vexed our love,

As tall rank weeds will climb the blade above,

When all but it has yielded to decay,

We’ll meet again upon some future day.

When we have proved, each on his course alone,

The wider world, and learnt what’s now unknown,

Have made life clear, and worked out each a way,

We’ll meet again, we shall have much to say.

With happier mood, and feelings born anew,

Our boyhood’s bygone fancies we’ll review,

Talk o’er old talks, play as we used to play,

And meet again, on many a future day.

Some day, which oft our hearts shall yearn to see,

In some far year, though distant yet to be,

Shall we indeed, ye winds and waters, say!

Meet yet again, upon some future day?

Arthur Hugh Clough (1819–1861) was an English poet and educator.

For I Dipped into the Future

by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

For I dipt into the future,

Far as human eye could see,

Saw the vision of the world,

And all the wonder that would be;

Saw the heavens fill with commerce,

Argosies of magic sails,

Pilots of the purple twilight,

Dropping down with costly bales;

Heard the heavens fill with shouting,

And there rain’d a ghastly dew

From the nations’ airy navies

Grappling in the central blue;

Far along the world-wide whisper

Of the south-wind rushing warm,

With the standards of the peoples

Plunging thro’ the thunder storm;

Till the war-drum throbb’d no longer,

And the battle-flags were furl’d

In Parliament of man,

The Federation of the world.

There the common sense of most

Shall hold a fretful realm in awe,

And the kindly earth shall slumber,

Lapt in universal law.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1850–1892) was a British poet and the nation’s poet laureate for much of Queen Victoria’s reign.

Building the Bridge

by Will Allen Dromgoole

An old man, going a lone highway,

Came, at the evening, cold and gray,

To a chasm, vast, and deep, and wide,

Through which was flowing a sullen tide.

The old man crossed in the twilight dim;

The sullen stream had no fears for him;

But he turned, when safe on the other side,

And built a bridge to span the tide.

“Old man,” said a fellow pilgrim, near,

“You are wasting strength with building here;

Your journey will end with the ending day;

You never again will pass this way;

You’ve crossed the chasm, deep and wide, —

Why build you this bridge at the eventide?”

The builder lifted his old gray head:

“Good friend, in the path I have come,” he said,

“There followeth after me to-day

A youth, whose feet must pass this way.

This chasm, that has been naught to me,

To that fair-haired youth may a pitfall be.

He, too, must cross in the twilight dim;

Good friend, I am building this bridge for him.”

Will Allen Dromgoole (1860-1934) was an American poet, author, and essayist.

Youth

by Langston Hughes

We have tomorrow

Bright before us

Like a flame

Yesterday

a night-gone thing,

A sun-down name.

And dawn to-day

Broad arch above the road we came.

We march!

Langston Hughes (1901–1967) was an American poet, social activist, novelist, playwright, and columnist.