Famous 18 Poems by Famous Poets

These are examples of famous 18 poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous 18 poems. These examples illustrate what a famous 18 poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).

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Hymn 18

by Isaac Watts
 Blessed are the dead that die in the Lord.

Rev. 14:13. 

Hear what the voice from heav'n proclaims,
For all the pious dead;
Sweet is the savor of their names,
And soft their sleeping bed.

They die in Jesus, and are blest;
How kind their slumbers are!
From suff'rings and from sins released,
And freed from every snare.

Far from this world of toil and strife,
They're present with...Read more of this...

Dream Song 18: A Strut for Roethke

by John Berryman
 Westward, hit a low note, for a roarer lost
across the Sound but north from Bremerton,
hit a way down note.
And never cadenza again of flowers, or cost.
Him who could really do that cleared his throat
& staggered on.

The bluebells, pool-shallows, saluted his over-needs,
while the clouds growled, heh-heh, & snapped, & crashed.

No stunt he'll ever unflinch once more will fail
(O lucky fellow,...Read more of this...

The Spring Bird's Lesson

by Anonymous
Thou’rt up betimes, my little bird,And out this morning early,For still the tender bud is closed,And still the grass is pearly.Why rise so soon, thou little bird,Thy soft, warm nest forsaking?To brave the dull, cold morning sky,While day is scarcely breaking?Ah! thou art wise, thou little bird,For fast the hours are flying;And this young day, but dawning now,Will soon, alas!...Read more of this...

Heroic Stanzas

by John Dryden
 Consecrated to the Glorious Memory of His 
Most Serene and Renowned Highness, Oliver,
Late Lord Protector of This Commonwealth, etc.
(Oliver Cromwell)

Written After the Celebration of his Funeral 


1

And now 'tis time; for their officious haste, 
Who would before have borne him to the sky, 
Like eager Romans ere all rites were past 
Did let too soon the sacred eagle fly....Read more of this...

Psalm 18 part 1

by Isaac Watts
 v.1-6,15-18 
L. M.
Deliverance from despair.

Thee will I love, O Lord, my strength,
My rock, my tower, my high defence:
Thy mighty arm shall be my trust,
For I have found salvation thence.

Death, and the terrors of the grave,
Stood round me with their dismal shade;
While floods of high temptations rose,
And made my sinking soul afraid.

I saw the op'ning gates of hell,
With endless pains...Read more of this...

The Mystery

by Paul Laurence Dunbar
I was not; now I am—a few days hence
I shall not be; I fain would look before
And after, but can neither do; some Power
Or lack of power says "no" to all I would.
I stand upon a wide and sunless plain,[Pg 18]
Nor chart nor steel to guide my steps aright.
Whene'er, o'ercoming fear, I dare to move,
I grope without direction...Read more of this...

Isaiah 43: 18-20

by The Bible
Do not earnestly remember
The former things of the past,
Neither consider the things of old,
Following the same old paths
Behold, I am doing a new thing,
Do you not see it, nor understand?
It springs forth as rivers flowing
Through a desert and barren land
It makes a way in the wilderness
Refreshing those that honour me,
So do not be looking back on the past,
But look forward...Read more of this...

The Three Fishers

by Charles Kingsley
 1 Three fishers went sailing away to the west,
2 Away to the west as the sun went down;
3 Each thought on the woman who loved him the best,
4 And the children stood watching them out of the town;
5 For men must work, and women must weep,
6 And there's little to earn, and many to keep,
7 Though the harbour bar...Read more of this...

Hohenlinden

by Thomas Campbell
 1 On Linden, when the sun was low,
2 All bloodless lay the untrodden snow,
3 And dark as winter was the flow
4 Of Iser, rolling rapidly.

5 But Linden saw another sight
6 When the drum beat at dead of night,
7 Commanding fires of death to light
8 The darkness of her scenery.

9 By torch and trumpet fast arrayed,
10 Each horseman drew his...Read more of this...

Psalm 18 part 2

by Isaac Watts
 v.20-26 
L. M.
Sincerity proved and rewarded.

Lord, thou hast seen my soul sincere,
Hast made thy truth and love appear;
Before mine eyes I set thy laws,
And thou hast owned my righteous cause.

Since I have learned thy holy ways,
I've walked upright before thy face;
Or if my feet did e'er depart,
'Twas never with a wicked heart.

What sore temptations broke my rest!
What wars and...Read more of this...

18. The First Six Verses of the Ninetieth Psalm versified

by Robert Burns
 O THOU, the first, the greatest friend
 Of all the human race!
Whose strong right hand has ever been
 Their stay and dwelling place!


Before the mountains heav’d their heads
 Beneath Thy forming hand,
Before this ponderous globe itself
 Arose at Thy command;


That Pow’r which rais’d and still upholds
 This universal frame,
From countless, unbeginning time
 Was ever still the same.


Those mighty periods...Read more of this...

Sonnet: July 18th 1787

by William Lisle Bowles
 O Time! who know'st a lenient hand to lay
Softest on sorrow's wound, and slowly thence
(Lulling to sad repose the weary sense)
The faint pang stealest unperceived away;
On thee I rest my only hope at last,
And think, when thou hast dried the bitter tear
That flows in vain o'er all my soul held dear,
I may look back on every sorrow past,
And meet...Read more of this...

Poem 18

by Edmund Spenser
 NOw welcome night, thou night so long expected,
that long daies labour doest at last defray,
And all my cares, which cruell loue collected,
Hast sumd in one, and cancelled for aye:
Spread thy broad wing ouer my loue and me,
that no man may vs see,
And in thy sable mantle vs enwrap,
>From feare of perrill and foule horror free.
Let no false treason seeke...Read more of this...

Christs Nativity

by Henry Vaughan
 1 Awake, glad heart! get up and sing!
2 It is the birth-day of thy King.
3 Awake! awake!
4 The Sun doth shake
5 Light from his locks, and all the way
6 Breathing perfumes, doth spice the day.

7 Awake, awake! hark how th' wood rings;
8 Winds whisper, and the busy springs
9 A concert make;
10 Awake! awake!
11 Man is their high-priest, and should...Read more of this...

The Sands of Dee

by Charles Kingsley
 1 "O Mary, go and call the cattle home,
2 And call the cattle home,
3 And call the cattle home
4 Across the sands of Dee";
5 The western wind was wild and dank with foam,
6 And all alone went she.

7 The western tide crept up along the sand,
8 And o'er and o'er the sand,
9 And round and round the sand,
10 As...Read more of this...

Sonnet 18

by John Milton
 XVIII

Cyriack, whose Grandsire on the Royal Bench
Of Brittish Themis, with no mean applause
Pronounc't and in his volumes taught our Lawes,
Which others at their Barr so often wrench:
To day deep thoughts resolve with me to drench
In mirth, that after no repenting drawes;
Let Euclid rest and Archimedes pause,
And what the Swede intend, and what the French.
To measure life, learn thou betimes,...Read more of this...

April 18

by Sylvia Plath
 the slime of all my yesterdays
rots in the hollow of my skull

and if my stomach would contract
because of some explicable phenomenon
such as pregnancy or constipation

I would not remember you

or that because of sleep
infrequent as a moon of greencheese
that because of food
nourishing as violet leaves
that because of these

and in a few fatal yards of grass
in a few spaces of sky...Read more of this...

Poem 18

by Edmund Spenser
 NOw welcome night, thou night so long expected,
that long daies labour doest at last defray,
And all my cares, which cruell loue collected,
Hast sumd in one, and cancelled for aye:
Spread thy broad wing ouer my loue and me,
that no man may vs see,
And in thy sable mantle vs enwrap,
>From feare of perrill and foule horror free.
Let no false treason seeke...Read more of this...

Nagasaki Days

by Allen Ginsberg
 I -- A Pleasant Afternoon

 for Michael Brownstein and Dick Gallup


One day 3 poets and 60 ears sat under a green-striped Chau-
 tauqua tent in Aurora
listening to Black spirituals, tapping their feet, appreciating
 words singing by in mountain winds
on a pleasant sunny day of rest -- the wild wind blew thru
 blue Heavens
filled with fluffy clouds stretched from Central...Read more of this...

Psalm 18 part 3

by Isaac Watts
 v.30,31,34,35,46-50 
L. M.
Rejoicing in God.

Just are thy ways, and true thy word,
Great Rock of my secure abode:
Who is a God beside the Lord?
Or where's a refuge like our God?

'Tis he that girds me with his might,
Gives me his holy sword to wield,
And while with sin and hell I fight,
Spreads his salvation for my shield.

He lives, and blessed be my...Read more of this...

Sonnet 18 - I never gave a lock of hair away

by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
 I never gave a lock of hair away
To a man, Dearest, except this to thee,
Which now upon my fingers thoughtfully,
I ring out to the full brown length and say
'Take it.' My day of youth went yesterday;
My hair no longer bounds to my foot's glee,
Nor plant I it from rose or myrtle-tree,
As girls do, any more: it only may
Now shade...Read more of this...

Hymn 46 part 2

by Isaac Watts
 The privileges of the living above the dead.

Isa. 38:18,19. 

Awake, my zeal; awake, my love,
To serve my Savior here below,
In works which perfect saints above
And holy angels cannot do.

Awake, my charity, to feed
The hungry soul, and clothe the poor;
In heav'n are found no sons of need,
There all these duties are no more.

Subdue thy passions, O my soul!
Maintain the fight,...Read more of this...

I Walkd the Other Day

by Henry Vaughan
 1 I walk'd the other day, to spend my hour,
2 Into a field,
3 Where I sometimes had seen the soil to yield
4 A gallant flow'r;
5 But winter now had ruffled all the bow'r
6 And curious store
7 I knew there heretofore.

8 Yet I, whose search lov'd not to peep and peer
9 I' th' face of things,
10 Thought with my self,...Read more of this...

Dictated Before The Rhone Glacier

by Victor Hugo
 ("Souvent quand mon esprit riche.") 
 
 {VII., May 18, 1828.} 


 When my mind, on the ocean of poesy hurled, 
 Floats on in repose round this wonderful world, 
 Oft the sacred fire from heaven— 
 Mysterious sun, that gives light to the soul— 
 Strikes mine with its ray, and above the pole 
 Its upward...Read more of this...

Shall I compare thee to a summers day? (Sonnet 18 XVIII)

by William Shakespeare
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate.
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date.
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature's changing course, untrimmed;
But thy eternal summer shall not...Read more of this...

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