Famous Not Poems by Famous Poets

These are examples of famous Not poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous not poems. These examples illustrate what a famous not poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).

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Not Every Day Fit For Verse

by Robert Herrick
 'Tis not ev'ry day that I
Fitted am to prophesy:
No, but when the spirit fills
The fantastic pannicles,
Full of fire, then I write
As the Godhead doth indite.
Thus enraged, my lines are hurl'd,
Like the Sibyl's, through the world:
Look how next the holy fire
Either slakes, or doth retire;
So the fancy cools:--till when
That brave spirit comes again....Read more of this...

The Pile of Years is not so high

by Emily Dickinson
 The Pile of Years is not so high
As when you came before
But it is rising every Day
From recollection's Floor
And while by standing on my Heart
I still can reach the top
Efface the mountain with your face
And catch me ere I drop...Read more of this...

It Is Not A Word

by Sara Teasdale
 It is not a word spoken,
Few words are said;
Nor even a look of the eyes
Nor a bend of the head,

But only a hush of the heart
That has too much to keep,
Only memories waking
That sleep so light a sleep....Read more of this...

Sonnet XXXIV: Marvel Not Love

by Michael Drayton
 To Admiration

Marvel not, Love, though I thy power admire, 
Ravish'd a world beyond the farthest thought, 
And knowing more than ever hath been taught, 
That I am only starv'd in my desire. 
Marvel not, Love, though I thy power admire, 
Aiming at things exceeding all perfection, 
To Wisdom's self to minister correction, 
That I am only starv'd in my...Read more of this...

How Could You Not

by Galway Kinnell
 -- for Jane kenyon


It is a day after many days of storms.
Having been washed and washed, the air glitters;
small heaped cumuli blow across the sky; a shower
visible against the firs douses the crocuses.
We knew it would happen one day this week.
Now, when I learn you have died, I go
to the open door and look across at New Hampshire
and see...Read more of this...

What I Will Not Tell You

by Lam Quang My
The night is ill
	The moon nurses
Drunken cloud
	Wanders ahead
Wind pretends
	Great busyness 
Rain cries his eyes out
	In a worried night

Crowd in your door
	Doubt if to go: in or out.
Far road
	Moon grants wings to me

I collect dry petals
	of last year’s flowers
to bury under them
	the distance of my longing...Read more of this...

Modern Love XXV: You Like Not That French Novel

by George Meredith
 You like not that French novel? Tell me why. 
You think it quite unnatural. Let us see. 
The actors are, it seems, the usual three: 
Husband, and wife, and lover. She--but fie! 
In England we'll not hear of it. Edmond, 
The lover, her devout chagrin doth share; 
Blanc-mange and absinthe are his penitent fare, 
Till his pale aspect makes...Read more of this...

Sonnet 55: Not marble nor the gilded monuments

by William Shakespeare
 Not marble, nor the gilded monuments
Of princes shall outlive this powerful rhyme,
But you shall shine more bright in these contents
Than unswept stone besmeared with sluttish time.
When wasteful war shall statues overturn,
And broils root out the work of masonry,
Nor Mars his sword, nor war's quick fire shall burn
The living record of your memory.
'Gainst death and all-oblivious enmity
Shall you pace forth;...Read more of this...

Of Glory not a Beam is left

by Emily Dickinson
 Of Glory not a Beam is left
But her Eternal House --
The Asterisk is for the Dead,
The Living, for the Stars --...Read more of this...

If I drink wine 'tis not for mere desire; nor for the

by Omar Khayyam
If I drink wine 'tis not for mere desire; nor for the
rousing of the mob or insult to the Faith. No, 'tis for a
passing knowledge of relief from self. No other motive
could enwreath the cup....Read more of this...

Oh Think Not I Am Faithful

by Edna St. Vincent Millay
 III

OH, THINK not I am faithful to a vow!
Faithless am I save to love's self alone.
Were you not lovely I would leave you now:
After the feet of beauty fly my own. 
Were you not still my hunger's rarest food,
And water ever to my wildest thirst,
I would desert you­think not but I would!­
And seek another as I sought you first....Read more of this...

The Broncho That Would Not Be Broken

by Vachel Lindsay
 A little colt — broncho, loaned to the farm
To be broken in time without fury or harm,
Yet black crows flew past you, shouting alarm,
Calling "Beware," with lugubrious singing...
The butterflies there in the bush were romancing,
The smell of the grass caught your soul in a trance,
So why be a-fearing the spurs and the traces,
O broncho that would not be broken...Read more of this...

Sonnet 36 - When we met first and loved I did not build

by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
 When we met first and loved, I did not build
Upon the event with marble. Could it mean
To last, a love set pendulous between
Sorrow and sorrow? Nay, I rather thrilled,
Distrusting every light that seemed to gild
The onward path, and feared to overlean
A finger even. And, though I have grown serene
And strong since then, I think that God has willed
A still...Read more of this...

A worldly love knows not how to produce reflection

by Omar Khayyam
A worldly love knows not how to produce reflection.
It is like a fire half extinguished which no longer gives
heat. A true love should know neither tranquillity, nor
repose, nor nourishment, nor sleep for months and years,
day nor night.
320...Read more of this...

Upon Being Asked Why I Am Not Writing

by Barry Tebb
 Too much gone wrong – 

No Muse, no song....Read more of this...

To Daisies Not To Shut So Soon

by Robert Herrick
 Shut not so soon; the dull-eyed night
Has not as yet begun
To make a seizure on the light,
Or to seal up the sun.

No marigolds yet closed are;
No shadows great appear;
Nor doth the early shepherds' star
Shine like a spangle here.

Stay but till my Julia close
Her life-begetting eye,
And let the whole world then dispose
Itself to live or die....Read more of this...

Oh! Think Not My Spirits Are Always As Light

by Thomas Moore
 Oh! think not my spirits are always as light, 
And as free from a pang as they seem to you now, 
Nor expect that the heart-beaming smile of to-night 
Will return with to-morrow to brighten my brow. 
No: -- life is a waste of wearisome hours, 
Which seldom the rose of enjoyment adorns; 
And the heart that is soonest...Read more of this...

Let not base avarice enslave thy mind,

by Omar Khayyam
Let not base avarice enslave thy mind,
Nor vain ambition in its trammels bind;
Be sharp as fire, as running water swift,
Not, like earth's dust, the sport of every wind!...Read more of this...

Sonnet XIV: Alas Have I Not

by Sir Philip Sidney
 Alas, have I not pain enough, my friend, 
Upon whose breast a fiercer gripe doth tire, 
Than did on him who first stole down the fire, 
While Love on me doth all his quiver spend, 

But with your rhubarb words you must contend, 
To grieve me worse, in saying that desire 
Doth plunge my well-form'd soul even in the...Read more of this...

In Cheeban (a month) I must not embrace the vine; in

by Omar Khayyam
In Cheeban [a month] I must not embrace the vine; in
Redjeb I am consecrate to Him. By right these sixty
suns to Allah and his Prophet are assigned: let Ramazan
in mercy bring the cooling cup again....Read more of this...

Ask not (TU NE QUAESIERIS)

by Horace
   Ask not ('tis forbidden knowledge), what our destined term of years,
   Mine and yours; nor scan the tables of your Babylonish seers.
   Better far to bear the future, my Leuconoe, like the past,
   Whether Jove has many winters yet to give, or this our last;
   THIS, that makes the...Read more of this...

Where Roses would not dare to go

by Emily Dickinson
 Where Roses would not dare to go,
What Heart would risk the way --
And so I send my Crimson Scouts
To sound the Enemy --...Read more of this...

Do Not Accept

by Yehuda Amichai
 Do not accept these rains that come too late.
Better to linger. Make your pain
An image of the desert. Say it's said
And do not look to the west. Refuse

To surrender. Try this year too
To live alone in the long summer,
Eat your drying bread, refrain
 From tears. And do not learn from

Experience. Take as an example my youth,
My return late at...Read more of this...

It is not necessary to knock at every door unless there

by Omar Khayyam
It is not necessary to knock at every door unless there
be a reason for it. It is better to accommodate oneself
to the good and the bad here below, for hereafter we
can only enjoy the number of moves which destiny presents
upon the chessboard of this terrestrial ball....Read more of this...

The revolution will not be televised

by Gil Scott-Heron
You will not be able to stay home, brother
 You will not be able to plug in, turn on and cop out
 You will not be able to lose yourself on skag
 And skip out for beer during commercials
 Because the revolution will not be televised

The revolution will not be televised
 The revolution will not be brought to you by...Read more of this...

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