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Famous Sophocles Poems by Famous Poets

These are examples of famous Sophocles poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous sophocles poems. These examples illustrate what a famous sophocles poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).

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by Dickinson, Emily
...Literature of Man --

What interested Scholars -- most --
What Competitions ran --
When Plato -- was a Certainty --
And Sophocles -- a Man --

When Sappho -- was a living Girl --
And Beatrice wore
The Gown that Dante -- deified --
Facts Centuries before

He traverses -- familiar --
As One should come to Town --
And tell you all your Dreams -- were true --
He lived -- where Dreams were born --

His presence is Enchantment --
You beg him not to go --
Old Volume shake their Vel...Read more of this...



by Hardy, Thomas
...Where once we danced, where once we sang, 
Gentlemen, 
The floors are sunken, cobwebs hang, 
And cracks creep; worms have fed upon 
The doors. Yea, sprightlier times were then 
Than now, with harps and tabrets gone, 
Gentlemen! 

Where once we rowed, where once we sailed, 
Gentlemen, 
And damsels took the tiller, veiled 
Against too strong a stare (God...Read more of this...

by Robinson, Edwin Arlington
...n has in him to put forth? 
‘Of all the many marvelous things that are, 
Nothing is there more marvelous than man,’
Said Sophocles; and he lived long ago; 
‘And earth, unending ancient of the gods 
He furrows; and the ploughs go back and forth, 
Turning the broken mould, year after year.’… 

“I turned a little furrow of my own
Once on a time, and everybody laughed— 
As I laughed afterwards; and I doubt not 
The First Intelligence, which we have drawn 
In our competitive h...Read more of this...

by Arnold, Matthew
...The sea is calm to-night.
The tide is full, the moon lies fair
Upon the straits; on the French coast the light
Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand,
Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.
Come to the window, sweet is the night-air!
Only, from the long line of spray
Where the sea meets the moon-blanch'd land,
Listen! you hea...Read more of this...

by St Vincent Millay, Edna
...rated, watched by barbs of bayonet and wire,
Give ye to them their hearts' intense desire—
The words of Shelley, Virgil, Sophocles.

And thou, O lovely and not sad,
Euterpe, be thou in this hall tonight!
Bid us remember all we ever had 
Of sweet and gay delight—
We who are free,
But cannot quite be glad,
Thinking of huge, abrupt disaster brought
Upon so many of our kind
Who treasure as do we the vivid look on the unfrightened face,
The careless happy stride from place to ...Read more of this...



by Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
...is too late! Ah, nothing is too late 
Till the tired heart shall cease to palpitate. 
Cato learned Greek at eighty; Sophocles 
Wrote his grand Oedipus, and Simonides 
Bore off the prize of verse from his compeers, 
When each had numbered more than fourscore years, 
And Theophrastus, at fourscore and ten, 
Had but begun his "Characters of Men." 
Chaucer, at Woodstock with the nightingales, 
At sixty wrote the Canterbury Tales; 
Goethe at Weimar, toiling to the last, 
...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...le as may stand best with
verisimilitude and decorum; they only will best judge who are not
unacquainted with Aeschulus, Sophocles, and Euripides, the three
Tragic Poets unequall'd yet by any, and the best rule to all who
endeavour to write Tragedy. The circumscription of time wherein
the whole Drama begins and ends, is according to antient rule, and
best example, within the space of 24 hours.



The ARGUMENT.


Samson made Captive, Blind, and now in the Prison at...Read more of this...

by Hecht, Anthony
...So there stood Matthew Arnold and this girl
With the cliffs of England crumbling away behind them,
And he said to her, "Try to be true to me,
And I'll do the same for you, for things are bad
All over, etc., etc."
Well now, I knew this girl. It's true she had read
Sophocles in a fairly good translation
And caught that bitter allusion to the sea,...Read more of this...

by Jonson, Ben
...br> From thence to honour thee, I would not seek For names : but call forth thund'ring Aeschylus, Euripides, and Sophocles to us, Pacuvius, Accius, him of Cordova dead, To life again, to hear thy buskin tread And shake a stage : or when thy socks were on, Leave thee alone for the comparison Of all that insolent Greece or haughty Rome Sent forth, or since did from their ashes come.  Triumph, my Britain, thou hast one to show To whom all ...Read more of this...

by Jonson, Ben
...d less Greek,
From thence to honour thee I would not seek
For names; but call forth thundering Aeschylus,
Euripides, and Sophocles to us,
Pacuvius, Accius, him of Cordova dead,
To live again, to hear thy buskin tread,
And shake a stage; or, when thy socks were on,
Leave thee alone for the comparison
Of all that insolent Greece or haughty Rome
Sent forth, or since did from their ashes come.
Triumph, my Britain, thou hast one to show
To whom all scenes of Europe homage owe....Read more of this...

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