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Famous About Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Ginsberg, Allen
...ed hungry and lonesome through Houston 
 seeking jazz or sex or soup, and followed the 
 brilliant Spaniard to converse about America 
 and Eternity, a hopeless task, and so took ship 
 to Africa, 
who disappeared into the volcanoes of Mexico leaving 
 behind nothing but the shadow of dungarees 
 and the lava and ash of poetry scattered in fire 
 place Chicago, 
who reappeared on the West Coast investigating the 
 F.B.I. in beards and shorts with big pacifist 
 ey...Read more of this...



by Keats, John
...morn,
Far from the fiery noon, and eve's one star,
Sat gray-hair'd Saturn, quiet as a stone,
Still as the silence round about his lair;
Forest on forest hung above his head
Like cloud on cloud. No stir of air was there,
Not so much life as on a summer's day
Robs not one light seed from the feather'd grass,
But where the dead leaf fell, there did it rest.
A stream went voiceless by, still deadened more
By reason of his fallen divinity
Spreading a shade: the Naiad 'mid ...Read more of this...

by Kipling, Rudyard
...If you can keep your head when all about you 
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you; 
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, 
But make allowance for their doubting too: 
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting, 
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies, 
Or being hated don't give way to hating, 
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise; 

If you can dream - and...Read more of this...

by Alighieri, Dante
...their lords. She 
 And empties, godlike in her mood. No pause 
 Her changes leave, so many are those who call 
 About her gates, so many she dowers, and all 
 Revile her after, and would crucify 
 If words could reach her, but she heeds nor hears, 
 Who dwells beyond the noise of human laws 
 In the blest silence of the Primal Spheres. 

 - But let us to the greater woes descend. 
 The stars from their meridian fall, that rose 
 When first these hells we enter...Read more of this...

by Wordsworth, William
...away.  Oh! press me with thy little hand;  It loosens something at my chest;  About that tight and deadly band  I feel thy little fingers press'd.  The breeze I see is in the tree;  It comes to cool my babe and me.   Oh! love me, love me, little boy!  Thou art thy mother's only joy;  And do not dread the waves below,  When o'er the...Read more of this...



by Whitman, Walt
...of concord and harmony. 

O to go back to the place where I was born! 
To hear the birds sing once more!
To ramble about the house and barn, and over the fields, once more, 
And through the orchard and along the old lanes once more. 

5
O male and female! 
O the presence of women! (I swear there is nothing more exquisite to me than the mere
 presence
 of women;) 
O for the girl, my mate! O for the happiness with my mate!
O the young man as I pass! O I am sick after t...Read more of this...

by Frost, Robert
...ver such a man for seeing likeness?”

“Or disregarding people’s civil questions—
What? We’ve found out in one hour more about him
Than we had seeing him pass by in the road
A thousand times. If that’s the way he preaches!
You didn’t think you’d keep him after all.
Oh, I’m not blaming you. He didn’t leave you
Much say in the matter, and I’m just as glad
We’re not in for a night of him. No sleep
If he had stayed. The least thing set him going.
It’s quiet...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...ues! 
And I perceive they do not come from the roofs of mouths for nothing. 

I wish I could translate the hints about the dead young men and women, 
And the hints about old men and mothers, and the offspring taken soon out of
 their laps. 

What do you think has become of the young and old men?
And what do you think has become of the women and children? 

They are alive and well somewhere; 
The smallest sprout shows there is really no death; 
And if ever ...Read more of this...

by Chesterton, G K
...ws drive.

Lady, by one light only
We look from Alfred's eyes,
We know he saw athwart the wreck
The sign that hangs about your neck,
Where One more than Melchizedek
Is dead and never dies.

Therefore I bring these rhymes to you
Who brought the cross to me,
Since on you flaming without flaw
I saw the sign that Guthrum saw
When he let break his ships of awe,
And laid peace on the sea.

Do you remember when we went
Under a dragon moon,
And `mid volcanic tints of nigh...Read more of this...

by Bridges, Robert Seymour
...--
The flaming flowers of heaven, making May-dance
In dear Imagination's rich pleasance. 

20
The world still goeth about to shew and hide,
Befool'd of all opinion, fond of fame:
But he that can do well taketh no pride,
And see'th his error, undisturb'd by shame:
So poor's the best that longest life can do,
The most so little, diligently done;
So mighty is the beauty that doth woo,
So vast the joy that love from love hath won. 
God's love to win is easy, for He loveth...Read more of this...

by Carroll, Lewis
...take the more prosaic course of simply explaining how it happened. 

The Bellman, who was almost morbidly sensitive about appearances, used to have the bowsprit unshipped once or twice a week to be revarnished, and it more than once happened, when the time came for replacing it, that no one on board could remember which end of the ship it belonged to. They knew it was not of the slightest use to appeal to the Bellman about it--he would only refer to his Naval Code, an...Read more of this...

by Wordsworth, William
...e lengthens out his lonely shout,  Halloo! halloo! a long halloo!   —Why bustle thus about your door,  What means this bustle, Betty Foy?  Why are you in this mighty fret?  And why on horseback have you set  Him whom you love, your idiot boy?   Beneath the moon that shines so bright,  Till she is tired, let Betty Foy  With girt and stirru...Read more of this...

by Blake, William
...any stones throw from
us appeard and sunk again the scaly fold of a monstrous serpent.
at last to the east, distant about three degrees appeard a fiery
crest above the waves slowly it reared like a ridge of golden
rocks till we discoverd two globes of crimson fire. from which
the sea fled away in clouds of smoke, and now we saw, it was the
head of Leviathan. his forehead was divided into streaks of green
& purple like those on a tygers forehead: soon we saw his mo...Read more of this...

by Frost, Robert
...he better claim 
Because it was grassy and wanted wear; 
Though as for that, the passing there 
Had worn them really about the same, 

And both that morning equally lay 
In leaves no step had trodden black. 
Oh, I marked the first for another day! 
Yet knowing how way leads on to way 
I doubted if I should ever come back. 

I shall be telling this with a sigh 
Somewhere ages and ages hence: 
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I, 
I took the one less trave...Read more of this...

by Shakur, Tupac
...Did you hear about the rose that grew
from a crack in the concrete?
Proving nature's law is wrong it
learned to walk with out having feet.
Funny it seems, but by keeping it's dreams,
it learned to breathe fresh air.
Long live the rose that grew from concrete
when no one else ever cared. ...Read more of this...

by Shelley, Percy Bysshe
...common men, and round their heads did soar,
"Or like small gnats & flies, as thick as mist
On evening marshes, thronged about the brow
Of lawyer, statesman, priest & theorist,
"And others like discoloured flakes of snow
On fairest bosoms & the sunniest hair
Fell, and were melted by the youthful glow
"Which they extinguished; for like tears, they were
A veil to those from whose faint lids they rained
In drops of sorrow.--I became aware
"Of whence those forms proceeded whic...Read more of this...

by Byron, George (Lord)
...blications, as he was of yore in the 'Anti-jacobin,' by his present patrons. Hence all this 'skimble-scamble stuff' about 'Satanic,' and so forth. However, it is worthy of him — 'qualis ab incepto.' 

If there is anything obnoxious to the political opinions of a portion of the public in the following poem, they may thank Mr. Southey. He might have written hexameters, as he has written everything else, for aught that the writer cared — had they been upon an...Read more of this...

by Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)
...formed thought to pass:
"Well now that's done: and I'm glad it's over."
When lovely woman stoops to folly and
Paces about her room again, alone,
She smoothes her hair with automatic hand,
And puts a record on the gramophone.
 "This music crept by me upon the waters"
And along the Strand, up Queen Victoria Street.
O City city, I can sometimes hear
Beside a public bar in Lower Thames Street, 
The pleasant whining of a mandoline
And a clatter and a chatter from withi...Read more of this...

by Plath, Sylvia
...A Poem for Three Voices

Setting: A Maternity Ward and round about

FIRST VOICE:
I am slow as the world. I am very patient,
Turning through my time, the suns and stars
Regarding me with attention.
The moon's concern is more personal:
She passes and repasses, luminous as a nurse.
Is she sorry for what will happen? I do not think so.
She is simply astonished at fertility.

When I walk out, I am a gre...Read more of this...

by Akhmatova, Anna
...ated for her sight,
I'm trading product that is very rare -
I sell your tenderness and loving light.



Song about Song

So many stones have been thrown at me
That I don't fear them any longer
Like elegant tower the westerner stands free
Among tall towers, the taller.
I'm grateful to their builders -- so be gone
Their sadness and their worry, go away,
Early from here I can see the dawn
And here triumphant lives the sun's last ray.
And frequently ...Read more of this...

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Book: Reflection on the Important Things