Graduation is such a bittersweet, beautiful time for students, parents, and teachers. As one chapter of life ends, a new one begins. All of the weeks, months, and years of perseverance have paid off. Now it’s time to move forward. Graduation poems are the perfect way to capture this emotional and exciting moment. Here are all of our favorite graduation poems to share with students.
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1. Ongoing by Jenny Xie
“Never mind the distances traveled.”
2. If by Rudyard Kipling
“Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it.”
“There are thousands to tell you it cannot be done.”
4. Up-Hill by Christina Rossetti
“Does the road wind up-hill all the way?”
“Here I learned certain things and didn’t learn others.”
“Your whole life’s an education that has only just begun.”
“Two roads diverged in a yellow wood.”
“… and who now goes and will always go forth every day”
9. Life by Charlotte Brontë
“Yet Hope again elastic springs.”
“The day that is to come is best.”
“Whose music is the gladness of the world.”
12. A Psalm of Life by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
“Life is real! Life is earnest!”
13. Invictus by William Ernest Henley
“I am the master of my fate.”
14. The Prize by Joanna Fuchs
“Spread your wings: You’re going to soar!”
“And with ambitious feet, secure and proud,
Ascends the ladder leaning on the cloud!”
“More than the fuchsia funnels breaking out of the crabapple tree …”
“Go, poor, child, and be not to thyself abhorred.”
18. To You by Walt Whitman
“Whoever you are! claim your own at any hazard!”
“So was it when my life began.”
“But could It teach it?”
21. A Blessing by Luci Tapahonso
“Today we reflect a rainbow of creation.”
22. Remember by Joy Harjo
“Remember the sky that you were born under.”
23. Coming of Age by Taylor Lauren Davis
“You’re not perfect, you are everything perfection could not be.”
“Lift your chin and set your shoulders.”
25. Aspiration by Henrietta Cordelia Ray
“And eyes wide-stretched, nor dream of coming gloom.”
“I’ve been a Black hole in the classroom for far too long;
Absorbing everything, without allowing my light escape.”
“And all the men and women merely players.”
28. Dreams by Langston Hughes
“Life is a broken-winged bird.”
“What is your character?”
30. Famous by Naomi Shihab Nye
“The river is famous to the fish.”
“You can get there from here, though there’s no going home.”
“We real cool. We
Left school. We
Lurk late. …”
“What summons do I hear?”
“Success is counted sweetest
By those who ne’er succeed.”
“Youth, large, lusty, loving—youth full of grace, force, fascination …”
“You may write me down in history …”
37. Barter by Sara Teasdale
“Life has loveliness to sell.”
“With doubt and dismay you are smitten.”
“Get with child a mandrake root.”
“Your life is your life
Don’t let it be clubbed into dank submission.”
“Often your tasks will be many,
And more than you think you can do.”
“The people I love the best
jump into work head first.”
43. Begin by Brendan Kennelly
“Begin again to the summoning birds, to the sight of the light at the window.”
“For there is always light, if only we’re brave enough to see it.”
“Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul.”
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