Famous 40 Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous 40 poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous 40 poems. These examples illustrate what a famous 40 poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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...and side against their King,
38 And call in Foreign aid to help the thing?
39 Must Edward be depos'd? Or is 't the hour
40 That second Richard must be clapp'd i' th' Tower?
41 Or is it the fatal jar, again begun,
42 That from the red, white pricking Roses sprung?
43 Must Richmond's aid the Nobles now implore
44 To come and break the tushes of the Boar?
45 If none of these, dear Mother, what's your woe?
46 Pray, do not fear Spain's bragging Armado.
47 Doth your Ally, fair Fran...Read more of this...
by
Bradstreet, Anne
...and,¡ªand then, elate and gay,
I hasten'd to the spot whence I had come
That I might there present it¡ªoh! to Whom? 40 ...Read more of this...
by
Shelley, Percy Bysshe
...yearly oblique path,
38 Thy pleasing fervour, and thy scorching force,
39 All mortals here the feeling knowledge hath.
40 Thy presence makes it day, thy absence night,
41 Quaternal seasons caused by thy might.
42 Hail Creature, full of sweetness, beauty, and delight!
7
43 Art thou so full of glory that no Eye
44 Hath strength thy shining Rays once to behold?
45 And is thy splendid Throne erect so high
46 As, to approach it, can no earthly mould?
47 How full of glory then...Read more of this...
by
Bradstreet, Anne
...Flits across her bosom young
Of a joy apart from thee
Free be she fancy-free;
Nor thou detain her vesture's hem 40
Nor the palest rose she flung
From her summer diadem.
Though thou loved her as thyself
As a self of purer clay;
Though her parting dims the day 45
Stealing grace from all alive;
Heartily know
When half-gods go
The gods arrive. ...Read more of this...
by
Emerson, Ralph Waldo
...g, squat and bestial.
Headlong he charges down the wood, and falls
With roaring brain¡ªagony¡ªthe snap¡¯t spark¡ª 40
And blots of green and purple in his eyes.
Then the slow fingers groping on his neck,
And at his heart the strangling clasp of death. ...Read more of this...
by
Sassoon, Siegfried
...We'll be there to meet the great
Poet!"
well, I looked around and didn't see any
great poet. besides it was 7 a.m. and
40 degrees. those things
happen. the trouble was there were no
bars open. nothing open. not even a
jail.
he's a poet.
he's also a doctor, a head-shrinker.
no blood involved that
way. he won't tell me whether I am crazy or
not-I don't have the
money.
he walks out with his cocktail glass
disappears for 2 hours, 3 hours,
then suddenly comes walking back in
un...Read more of this...
by
Bukowski, Charles
...little town thy streets for evermore
Will silent be; and not a soul to tell
Why thou art desolate can e'er return. 40
O Attic shape! fair attitude! with brede
Of marble men and maidens overwrought
With forest branches and the trodden weed;
Thou silent form! dost tease us out of thought
As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral! 45
When old age shall this generation waste
Thou shalt remain in midst of other woe
Than ours a friend to man to whom thou say'st
'B...Read more of this...
by
Keats, John
...there is no light,
Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown
Through verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways. 40
I cannot see what flowers are at my feet,
Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs,
But, in embalm¨¨d darkness, guess each sweet
Wherewith the seasonable month endows
The grass, the thicket, and the fruit-tree wild; 45
White hawthorn, and the pastoral eglantine;
Fast-fading violets cover'd up in leaves;
And mid-May's eldest child,
T...Read more of this...
by
Keats, John
...y eye
Had bled or wept to see him die,
Had seen those scatter'd limbs composed,
And mourn'd above his turban-stone, [40]
That heart hath burst — that eye was closed —
Yea — closed before his own!
XXVII.
By Helle's stream there is a voice of wail!
And woman's eye is wet — man's cheek is pale:
Zuleika! last of Giaffir's race,
Thy destined lord is come too late:
He sees not — ne'er shall see — thy face!
Can he not hear
The loud Wul-wulleh warn his distant ear? [41...Read more of this...
by
Byron, George (Lord)
...ispin stem verboseness in the sea,
38 The old age of a watery realist,
39 Triton, dissolved in shifting diaphanes
40 Of blue and green? A wordy, watery age
41 That whispered to the sun's compassion, made
42 A convocation, nightly, of the sea-stars,
43 And on the cropping foot-ways of the moon
44 Lay grovelling. Triton incomplicate with that
45 Which made him Triton, nothing left of him,
46 Except in faint, memorial gesturings,
47 That were like arms and sh...Read more of this...
by
Stevens, Wallace
...read from the treasured volume
The poem of thy choice
And lend to the rhyme of the poet
The beauty of thy voice. 40
And the night shall be filled with music
And the cares that infest the day
Shall fold their tents like the Arabs
And as silently steal away....Read more of this...
by
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
...ud,
A child would watch her fair white rose,
When buried lay her whiter brows,
And silk was changed for shroud!¡ª 40
Nor thought that gardener (full of scorns
For men unlearn'd and simple phrase)
A child would bring it all its praise,
By creeping through the thorns!
To me upon my low moss seat, 45
Though never a dream the roses sent
Of science or love's compliment,
I ween they smelt as sweet.
It did not move my grief to see
The trace of human s...Read more of this...
by
Browning, Elizabeth Barrett
...n at Jerusalem;
She hadde passed many a strange stream
At Rome she had been, and at Bologne,
In Galice at Saint James, and at Cologne;
She coude* much of wand'rng by the Way. *knew
Gat-toothed* was she, soothly for to say. *Buck-toothed
Upon an ambler easily she sat,
Y-wimpled well, and on her head an hat
As broad as is a buckler or a targe.
A foot-mantle about her hippes large,
And on her feet a pair of spurres sharp.
In fellowship well could she laugh and carp* *je...Read more of this...
by
Chaucer, Geoffrey
...ce a charm doth lie,
The one thing lost more worth than all the rest,
Which seeing, he fears to say This child was I.
40
Tears of love, tears of joy and tears of care,
Comforting tears that fell uncomforted,
Tears o'er the new-born, tears beside the dead,
Tears of hope, pride and pity, trust and prayer,
Tears of contrition; all tears whatsoe'er
Of tenderness or kindness had she shed
Who here is pictured, ere upon her head
The fine gold might be turn'd to silver there.
The ...Read more of this...
by
Bridges, Robert Seymour
...asings* and Flattery, *falsehoods
Dispence, Business, and Jealousy,
That wore of yellow goldes* a garland, *sunflowers
And had a cuckoo sitting on her hand,
Feasts, instruments, and caroles and dances,
Lust and array, and all the circumstances
Of Love, which I reckon'd and reckon shall
In order, were painted on the wall,
And more than I can make of mention.
For soothly all the mount of Citheron,
Where Venus hath her principal dwelling,
Was showed on the wall in pourt...Read more of this...
by
Chaucer, Geoffrey
...weaves by night and day
A magic web with colours gay.
She has heard a whisper say,
A curse is on her if she stay 40
To look down to Camelot.
She knows not what the curse may be,
And so she weaveth steadily,
And little other care hath she,
The Lady of Shalott. 45
And moving thro' a mirror clear
That hangs before her all the year,
Shadows of the world appear.
There she sees the highway near
Winding down to Camelot: 50
There the river eddy whirls, ...Read more of this...
by
Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...nt unto the carpentere's wall
He coughed first, and knocked therewithal
Upon the window, light as he did ere*. *before
This Alison answered; "Who is there
That knocketh so? I warrant him a thief."
"Nay, nay," quoth he, "God wot, my sweete lefe*, *love
I am thine Absolon, my own darling.
Of gold," quoth he, "I have thee brought a ring,
My mother gave it me, so God me save!
Full fine it is, and thereto well y-grave*: *engraved
This will I give to thee, if thou me kiss."
No...Read more of this...
by
Chaucer, Geoffrey
...r, serene and gay,
38 Walks the wild heath, and sings his toil away.
39 Does envy seize thee? crush th' upbraiding joy,
40 Increase his riches and his peace destroy,
41 New fears in dire vicissitude invade,
42 The rustling brake alarms, and quiv'ring shade,
43 Nor light nor darkness bring his pain relief.
44 One shews the plunder, and one hides the thief.
45 Yet still one gen'ral cry the skies assails,
46 And gain and grandeur load the tainted gales,
47 Few know the toiling ...Read more of this...
by
Johnson, Samuel
...alas the poor Sprite is
Imprison'd for some fault of his
In a body like a grave¡ª
From you he only dares to crave 40
For his service and his sorrow
A smile to-day a song to-morrow.
The artist who this viol wrought
To echo all harmonious thought
Fell'd a tree while on the steep 45
The woods were in their winter sleep
Rock'd in that repose divine
On the wind-swept Apennine;
And dreaming some of autumn past
And some of spring approaching fast 50
...Read more of this...
by
Shelley, Percy Bysshe
...und is a tall cypress tree, almost dark like
a room. Adlai Stevenson spoke under the tree in 1956, before
a crowd of 40, 000 people.
There is a tall church across the street from the statue
with crosses, steeples, bells and a vast door that looks like
a huge mousehole, perhaps from a Tom and Jerry cartoon,
and written above the door is "Per L'Universo."
Around five o'clock in the afternoon of my cover for
Trout Fishing in America, people gather in the park acro...Read more of this...
by
Brautigan, Richard
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