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Famous 12 Poems by Famous Poets

These are examples of famous 12 poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous 12 poems. These examples illustrate what a famous 12 poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).

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by Whitman, Walt
...tumble curl’d upon the ground, 
Cold, cold in death, for precious life of you, 
Angry cloth I saw there leaping.) 

12
Are you he who would assume a place to teach, or be a poet here in The States? 
The place is august—the terms obdurate.

Who would assume to teach here, may well prepare himself, body and mind, 
He may well survey, ponder, arm, fortify, harden, make lithe, himself, 
He shall surely be question’d beforehand by me with many and stern questions. 

Wh...Read more of this...



by Pope, Alexander
...'rate, calm, and wise. 
If plagues or earthquakes break not Heav'n's design, 
Why then a Borgia,(11) or a Catiline?(12) 
Who knows but he, whose hand the light'ning forms, 
Who heaves old Ocean, and who wings the storms, 
Pours fierce Ambition in a Caesar's(13) mind, 
Or turns young Ammon(14) loose to scourge mankind? 
From pride, from pride, our very reas'ning springs; 
Account for moral as for nat'ral things: 
Why charge we Heav'n in those, in these acquit? 
In both, to...Read more of this...

by Walker, Alice
...ray,
not just her hair,
and I do not know
why this is so.


Is it a lack of vitamin E
pantothenic acid, or B-12?
Or is it from being frantic
and alone?


'How long does it take you to love someone?'
I ask her.
'A hot second,' she replies.
'And how long do you love them?'
'Oh, anywhere up to several months.'
'And how long does it take you
to get over loving them?'
'Three weeks,' she said, 'tops.'


Did I mention I am also
turning gray...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...
As, fill’d with friendship, love complete, the Elder Brother found, 
The Younger melts in fondness in his arms. 

12
Passage to more than India!
Are thy wings plumed indeed for such far flights? 
O Soul, voyagest thou indeed on voyages like these? 
Disportest thou on waters such as these? 
Soundest below the Sanscrit and the Vedas? 
Then have thy bent unleash’d.

Passage to you, your shores, ye aged fierce enigmas! 
Passage to you, to mastership of you, ye stranglin...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...he orchard—the forest—the oak, cedar, pine, pekan-tree,
The honey-locust, black-walnut, cottonwood, and magnolia. 

12
O Death! the voyage of Death! 
The beautiful touch of Death, soothing and benumbing a few moments, for reasons; 
Myself, discharging my excrementitious body, to be burn’d, or render’d to
 powder, or
 buried, 
My real body doubtless left to me for other spheres,
My voided body, nothing more to me, returning to the purifications, further offices,
 eternal
 ...Read more of this...



by Whitman, Walt
...pon the earth; 
Each of us allow’d the eternal purports of the earth;
Each of us here as divinely as any is here. 

12
You Hottentot with clicking palate! You woolly-hair’d hordes! 
You own’d persons, dropping sweat-drops or blood-drops! 
You human forms with the fathomless ever-impressive countenances of brutes! 
I dare not refuse you—the scope of the world, and of time and space, are upon me.

You poor koboo whom the meanest of the rest look down upon, for all your ...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...not know who puffs and declines with pendant and bending arch; 
They do not think whom they souse with spray. 

12
The butcher-boy puts off his killing clothes, or sharpens his knife at the stall
 in the market; 
I loiter, enjoying his repartee, and his shuffle and break-down.

Blacksmiths with grimed and hairy chests environ the anvil; 
Each has his main-sledge—they are all out—(there is a great heat in
 the fire.) 

From the cinder-strew’d threshold...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...the laws of nature receive them—she is strong, 
She too is a law of nature—there is no law stronger than she is. 

12
The main shapes arise!
Shapes of Democracy, total—result of centuries; 
Shapes, ever projecting other shapes; 
Shapes of turbulent manly cities; 
Shapes of the friends and home-givers of the whole earth, 
Shapes bracing the earth, and braced with the whole earth....Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...passionate kisses of
 parting, 
You shall not allow the hold of those who spread their reach’d hands toward you. 

12
Allons! after the GREAT COMPANIONS! and to belong to them!
They too are on the road! they are the swift and majestic men; they are the greatest
 women. 
Over that which hinder’d them—over that which retarded—passing impediments large or small,

Committers of crimes, committers of many beautiful virtues, 
Enjoyers of calms of seas, and storms of seas, ...Read more of this...

by Byron, George (Lord)
...'d chibouque, [10] 
And mounting featly for the mead, 
With Maugrabee [11] and Mamaluke, 
His way amid his Delis took, [12] 
To witness many an active deed 
With sabre keen, or blunt jerreed. 
The Kislar only and his Moors 
Watch well the Haram's massy doors. 

IX. 

His head was leant upon his hand, 
His eye look'd o'er the dark blue water 
That swiftly glides and gently swells 
Between the winding Dardanelles; 
But yet he saw nor sea nor strand, 
Nor even his Pa...Read more of this...

by Stevens, Wallace
...villages, a barber's eye, 
10 An eye of land, of simple salad-beds, 
11 Of honest quilts, the eye of Crispin, hung 
12 On porpoises, instead of apricots, 
13 And on silentious porpoises, whose snouts 
14 Dibbled in waves that were mustachios, 
15 Inscrutable hair in an inscrutable world. 

16 One eats one pat¨¦, even of salt, quotha. 
17 It was not so much the lost terrestrial, 
18 The snug hibernal from that sea and salt, 
19 That century of wind in a sin...Read more of this...

by Bradstreet, Anne
...br>10 Solid, hating all lightness, and all folly.
1.11 Childhood was cloth'd in white, and given to show,
1.12 His spring was intermixed with some snow.
1.13 Upon his head a Garland Nature set:
1.14 Of Daisy, Primrose, and the Violet.
1.15 Such cold mean flowers (as these) blossom betime,
1.16 Before the Sun hath throughly warm'd the clime.
1.17 His hobby striding, did not ride, but run,
1.18 And in his hand an hour-glass new be...Read more of this...

by Bridges, Robert Seymour
...manlier praise to be
Strong hand and will, and the heart best when most
'Tis sober, simple, true, and fancy-free. 

12
How could I quarrel or blame you, most dear,
Who all thy virtues gavest and kept back none;
Kindness and gentleness, truth without peer,
And beauty that my fancy fed upon?
Now not my life's contrition for my fault
Can blot that day, nor work me recompence,
Tho' I might worthily thy worth exalt,
Making thee long amends for short offence. 
For surely no...Read more of this...

by Chaucer, Geoffrey
...me, that am thy cousin and thy brother
Y-sworn full deep, and each of us to other,
That never for to dien in the pain ,
Till that the death departen shall us twain,
Neither of us in love to hinder other,
Nor in none other case, my leve* brother; *dear
But that thou shouldest truly farther me
In every case, as I should farther thee.
This was thine oath, and mine also certain;
I wot it well, thou dar'st it not withsayn*, *deny
Thus art thou of my counsel out of doubt,
...Read more of this...

by Chaucer, Geoffrey
...in Northumberland, the wave her cast
And in the sand her ship sticked so fast
That thennes would it not in all a tide: 
The will of Christ was that she should abide.

The Constable of the castle down did fare* *go
To see this wreck, and all the ship he sought*, *searched
And found this weary woman full of care;
He found also the treasure that she brought:
In her language mercy she besought,
The life out of her body for to twin*, *divide
Her to deliver of woe that she ...Read more of this...

by Blake, William
...ced that the Gods had orderd such 
things.
Thus men forgot that All deities reside in the human breast.


PLATE 12
A Memorable Fancy. 

The Prophets Isaiah and Ezekiel dined with me, and I asked
them how they dared so roundly to assert. that God spake to them; 
and whether they did not think at the time, that they would be 
misunderstood, & so be the cause of imposition.
Isaiah answer'd. I saw no God. nor heard any, in a finite
organical perception...Read more of this...

by Chaucer, Geoffrey
...
As broad as is the boss of a bucklere.
Her shoon were laced on her legges high;
She was a primerole,* a piggesnie , *primrose
For any lord t' have ligging* in his bed, *lying
Or yet for any good yeoman to wed.

Now, sir, and eft* sir, so befell the case, *again
That on a day this Hendy Nicholas
Fell with this younge wife to rage* and play, *toy, play the rogue
While that her husband was at Oseney,
As clerkes be full subtle and full quaint.
And privily he ...Read more of this...

by Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)
...millan Cambridge.

I. THE BURIAL OF THE DEAD
Line 20. Cf. Ezekiel 2:1.
23. Cf. Ecclesiastes 12:5.
31. V. Tristan und Isolde, i, verses 5-8.
42. Id. iii, verse 24.
46. I am not familiar with the exact constitution of the Tarot
pack
of cards, from which I have obviously departed to suit my own convenience.
The Hanged Man, a member of the traditional pack, fits my purpose
in two ways: because he is associated in my ...Read more of this...

by Chaucer, Geoffrey
...on thilke** day *unless **that
That I was born, and make me fresh and gay;
And but thou do to my norice* honour, *nurse 12
And to my chamberere* within my bow'r, *chamber-maid
And to my father's folk, and mine allies;* *relations
Thus sayest thou, old barrel full of lies.
And yet also of our prentice Jenkin,
For his crisp hair, shining as gold so fine,
And for he squireth me both up and down,
Yet hast thou caught a false suspicioun:
I will him not, though thou wert dead t...Read more of this...

by Plath, Sylvia
...er of leaves and sweetness
Who are these peitas?
The shadows of ringdoves chanting, but easing nothing.

note:
12 Ledas: Leda, the maiden who was raped by Zeus in the guise of a swan....Read more of this...

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