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Famous Strict Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Brackenridge, Hugh Henry
..., which on mount Sinai writ 
By God's own finger, and to Moses giv'n, 
And to the chosen seed, a rule of life. 
And strict obedience due; but now once more 
Grav'd on the living tablet of the heart, 
And deep impress'd by energy divine, 
Is legible through an eternal age. 


North of Judea now this day appears 
On Syria west, and in each city fair 
Full many a church of noble fame doth rise. 
In Antioch the seat of Syrian kings, 
And old Damascus, where Hazael rei...Read more of this...



by Frost, Robert
...me girl. 
Anyway all he talked about was love. 
They soon saw he would do someone a mischief 
If he wa'n't kept strict watch of, and it ended 
In father's building him a sort of cage, 
Or room within a room, of hickory poles, 
Like stanchions in the barn, from floor to ceiling,-- 
A narrow passage all the way around. 
Anything they put in for furniture 
He'd tear to pieces, even a bed to lie on. 
So they made the place comfortable with straw, 
Like a beast's s...Read more of this...

by Pope, Alexander
...'ry Part he came,
Nature and Homer were, he found, the same:
Convinc'd, amaz'd, he checks the bold Design,
And Rules as strict his labour'd Work confine,
As if the Stagyrite o'er looked each Line.
Learn hence for Ancient Rules a just Esteem;
To copy Nature is to copy Them.

Some Beauties yet, no Precepts can declare,
For there's a Happiness as well as Care.
Musick resembles Poetry, in each
Are nameless Graces which no Methods teach,
And which a Master-Hand alone c...Read more of this...

by Milosz, Czeslaw
...u cannot fail to see
The soundness of the advice we give you:
Let the sweetness of day fill your lungs
For this we have strict but wise rules.

3
There can be no question of force triumphant
We live in the age of victorious justice.

Do not mention force, or you will be accused
Of upholding fallen doctrines in secret.

He who has power, has it by historical logic.
Respectfully bow to that logic.

Let your lips, proposing a hypothesis
Not know about the han...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...locks with rosy twine,
Dropping odours, dropping wine.
Rigour now is gone to bed;
And Advice with scrupulous head,
Strict Age, and sour Severity,
With their grave saws, in slumber lie.
We, that are of purer fire,
Imitate the starry quire,
Who, in their nightly watchful spheres,
Lead in swift round the months and years.
The sounds and seas, with all their finny drove,
Now to the moon in wavering morrice move;
And on the tawny sands and shelves
Trip the pert fairie...Read more of this...



by Plath, Sylvia
...hello again in deaf
churchyard ears until the starlit stiff
 graves all carol in reply. 

Now kiss again: till our strict father leans
to call for curtain on our thousand scenes;
 brazen actors mock at him,
multiply pink harlequins and sing
in gay ventriloquy from wing to wing
 while footlights flare and houselights dim. 

Tell now, we taunq where black or white begins
and separate the flutes from violins:
 the algebra of absolutes
explodes in a kaleidoscope of shape...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...h grace to all, on promise made 
Of new subjection; with what eyes could we 
Stand in his presence humble, and receive 
Strict laws imposed, to celebrate his throne 
With warbled hyms, and to his Godhead sing 
Forced hallelujahs, while he lordly sits 
Our envied sovereign, and his altar breathes 
Ambrosial odours and ambrosial flowers, 
Our servile offerings? This must be our task 
In Heaven, this our delight. How wearisome 
Eternity so spent in worship paid 
To whom we h...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...pass to beware 
Impetuous winds: He thus began in haste. 
Gabriel, to thee thy course by lot hath given 
Charge and strict watch, that to this happy place 
No evil thing approach or enter in. 
This day at highth of noon came to my sphere 
A Spirit, zealous, as he seemed, to know 
More of the Almighty's works, and chiefly Man, 
God's latest image: I described his way 
Bent all on speed, and marked his aery gait; 
But in the mount that lies from Eden north, 
Where he fi...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...but to persevere 
He left it in thy power; ordained thy will 
By nature free, not over-ruled by fate 
Inextricable, or strict necessity: 
Our voluntary service he requires, 
Not our necessitated; such with him 
Finds no acceptance, nor can find; for how 
Can hearts, not free, be tried whether they serve 
Willing or no, who will but what they must 
By destiny, and can no other choose? 
Myself, and all the angelick host, that stand 
In sight of God, enthroned, our happy state ...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...ovelier can be found 
In woman, than to study houshold good, 
And good works in her husband to promote. 
Yet not so strictly hath our Lord imposed 
Labour, as to debar us when we need 
Refreshment, whether food, or talk between, 
Food of the mind, or this sweet intercourse 
Of looks and smiles; for smiles from reason flow, 
To brute denied, and are of love the food; 
Love, not the lowest end of human life. 
For not to irksome toil, but to delight, 
He made us, and del...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...y life; 
Whose failing, while her faith to me remains, 
I should conceal, and not expose to blame 
By my complaint: but strict necessity 
Subdues me, and calamitous constraint; 
Lest on my head both sin and punishment, 
However insupportable, be all 
Devolved; though should I hold my peace, yet thou 
Wouldst easily detect what I conceal.-- 
This Woman, whom thou madest to be my help, 
And gavest me as thy perfect gift, so good, 
So fit, so acceptable, so divine, 
That fro...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...ull time, 
Up to a better covenant; disciplined 
From shadowy types to truth; from flesh to spirit; 
From imposition of strict laws to free 
Acceptance of large grace; from servile fear 
To filial; works of law to works of faith. 
And therefore shall not Moses, though of God 
Highly beloved, being but the minister 
Of law, his people into Canaan lead; 
But Joshua, whom the Gentiles Jesus call, 
His name and office bearing, who shall quell 
The adversary-Serpent, and bring...Read more of this...

by Ashbery, John
...Hoffmann characters who have been deprived
Of a reflection, except that the whole of me
Is seen to be supplanted by the strict
Otherness of the painter in his
Other room. We have surprised him
At work, but no, he has surprised us
As he works. The picture is almost finished,
The surprise almost over, as when one looks out,
Startled by a snowfall which even now is
Ending in specks and sparkles of snow.
It happened while you were inside, asleep,
And there is no reaso...Read more of this...

by Stevens, Wallace
...0 Crispin beheld and Crispin was made new. 
81 The imagination, here, could not evade, 
82 In poems of plums, the strict austerity 
83 Of one vast, subjugating, final tone. 
84 The drenching of stale lives no more fell down. 
85 What was this gaudy, gusty panoply? 
86 Out of what swift destruction did it spring? 
87 It was caparison of mind and cloud 
88 And something given to make whole among 
89 The ruses that were shattered by the large. 

II 

...Read more of this...

by Lowell, Amy
...er trinkets. Should she dare to use
A ring or brooch her husband might accuse
Her of extravagance, and ask to see
A strict accounting, or still worse might be.
But Heinrich would not be persuaded. Why
Should he not give her what he liked? And in
He went, determined certainly to buy
A thing so beautiful that it would win
Her wavering fancy. Altgelt's violin
He would outscore by such a handsome jewel
That Lotta could no longer be so cruel!
Pity Charlotta, torn i...Read more of this...

by Scott, Sir Walter
...t for captive noble's hold.
     'Here,' said De Brent, 'thou mayst remain
     Till the Leech visit him again.
     Strict is his charge, the warders tell,
     To tend the noble prisoner well.'
     Retiring then the bolt he drew,
     And the lock's murmurs growled anew.
     Roused at the sound, from lowly bed
     A captive feebly raised his head.
     The wondering Minstrel looked, and knew—
     Not his dear lord, but Roderick Dhu!
     For, come from where ...Read more of this...

by Shakespeare, William
...t near.

From this session interdict
Every fowl of tyrant wing,
Save the eagle, feather'd king:
Keep the obsequy so strict.

Let the priest in surplice white,
That defunctive music can,
Be the death-defying swan,
Lest the requiem lack his right.

And thou, treble-dated crow,
That thy sable gender mak'st
With the breath thou giv'st and tak'st,
'Mongst our mourners shalt thou go.

Here the anthem doth commence:
Love and constancy is dead;
Phoenix and the turtle ...Read more of this...

by Thomson, James
...ge be kind;
Baffle the raging Year, and fill their Penns
With Food, at will: lodge them below the Blast,
And watch them strict; for from the bellowing East,
In this dire Season, oft the Whirlwind's Wing
Sweeps up the Burthen of whole wintry Plains,
In one fierce Blast, and o'er th'unhappy Flocks,
Lodg'd in the Hollow of two neighbouring Hills,
The billowy Tempest whelms; till, upwards urg'd,
The Valley to a shining Mountain swells,
That curls its Wreaths amid the freezing Sky...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...nventors, and the rich owners and pious and distinguish’d, may
 be
 well, 
But there is more account than that—there is strict account of all. 

The interminable hordes of the ignorant and wicked are not nothing, 
The barbarians of Africa and Asia are not nothing,
The common people of Europe are not nothing—the American aborigines are not nothing, 
The infected in the immigrant hospital are not nothing—the murderer or mean person is
 not
 nothing, 
The perpetual successio...Read more of this...

by Akhmatova, Anna
...
And fresh wind, and air so thin,
And the dark tree branches
Behind fence of iron.

For this reason we love the strict,
Many-watered, and dark city,
And we love the parting,
And brief meetings' hour.



x x x

Somewhere is light and happy, in elation,
Transparent, warm and simple life there is.
A man across the fence has conversation
With girl before the evening, and the bees
Hear only the tenderest of conversation.

And we are living pomp...Read more of this...

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