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Famous Access Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Raleigh, Sir Walter
...groans of buried ghosts the heavens did pierce:
   Where Homer's spright did tremble all for grief,
   And cursed the access of that celestial thief!...Read more of this...



by Dryden, John
...more discerning eyes, or hands more clean:
Unbrib'd, unsought, the wretched to redress;
Swift of dispatch, and easy of access.
Oh, had he been content to serve the crown,
With virtues only proper to the gown;
Or, had the rankness of the soil been freed
From cockle, that opprest the noble seed:
David, for him his tuneful harp had strung,
And heav'n had wanted one immortal song.
But wild ambition loves to slide, not stand;
And fortune's ice prefers to virtue's land:
Ac...Read more of this...

by Shelley, Percy Bysshe
...s
The bones of Desolation's nakedness
Pass, till the spirit of the spot shall lead
Thy footsteps to a slope of green access
Where, like an infant's smile, over the dead
A light of laughing flowers along the grass is spread;

And grey walls moulder round, on which dull Time
Feeds, like slow fire upon a hoary brand;
And one keen pyramid with wedge sublime,
Pavilioning the dust of him who planned
This refuge for his memory, doth stand
Like flame transformed to marble...Read more of this...

by Browning, Robert
...troubled much to know. 
Thou canst not think a mere barbarian Jew, 
As Paulus proves to be, one circumcised, 
Hath access to a secret shut from us? 
Thou wrongest our philosophy, O king, 
In stooping to inquire of such an one, 
As if his answer could impose at all! 
He writeth, doth he? well, and he may write. 
Oh, the Jew findeth scholars! certain slaves 
Who touched on this same isle, preached him and Christ; 
And (as I gathered from a bystander) 
Their doctrine co...Read more of this...

by Stevenson, Robert Louis
...porters on the pier.
And if so rare the house, how rarer far
The welcome and the weal that therein are!
So free the access, the doors so widely thrown,
You half imagine all to be your own....Read more of this...



by Shelley, Percy Bysshe
...ress
The bones of Desolation's nakedness
Pass, till the spirit of the spot shall lead
Thy footsteps to a slope of green access
Where, like an infant's smile, over the dead
A light of laughing flowers along the grass is spread;

50

And gray walls moulder round, on which dull Time
Feeds, like slow fire upon a hoary brand;
And one keen pyramid with wedge sublime,
Pavilioning the dust of him who planned
This refuge for his memory, doth stand
Like flame transformed to marble; and...Read more of this...

by Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...And thou hast given me but a kitchen-knave.' 
Then ere a man in hall could stay her, turned, 
Fled down the lane of access to the King, 
Took horse, descended the slope street, and past 
The weird white gate, and paused without, beside 
The field of tourney, murmuring 'kitchen-knave.' 

Now two great entries opened from the hall, 
At one end one, that gave upon a range 
Of level pavement where the King would pace 
At sunrise, gazing over plain and wood; 
And down from...Read more of this...

by Browning, Elizabeth Barrett
...nly men incredulous of despair  
Half-taught in anguish through the midnight air 
Beat upward to God's throne in loud access 
Of shrieking and reproach. Full desertness 5 
In souls as countries lieth silent-bare 
Under the blanching vertical eye-glare 
Of the absolute Heavens. Deep-hearted man express 
Grief for thy Dead in silence like to death¡ª 
Most like a monumental statue set 10 
In everlasting watch and moveless woe 
Till itself crumble to the dust be...Read more of this...

by Browning, Robert
...sh,
Choicest cates and the flagon's best spilth:
Still he kept to his filth.

IV.

Had he kith now or kin, were access
To his heart, did I press:
Just a son or a mother to seize!
No such booty as these.
Were it simply a friend to pursue
'Mid my million or two,
Who could pay me in person or pelf
What he owes me himself!
No: I could not but smile through my chafe:
For the fellow lay safe 
As his mates do, the midge and the nit,
---Through minuteness, to wit.

V....Read more of this...

by Tebb, Barry
...ate,

A notorious weekly newsletter to edit, a quarterly to write reviews for

And – I must confess – cable TV so I can access Starsky and Hutch. 

I need a cottage in Haworth to go with the wife,

Companion or whatever, to see with me the changing

Seasons of heather from purple September glory

To the browns of winter and wisps of summer green

And meet with Michael Haslam, fellow poet,

Maestro of the moors and shape-shifter supreme.

I write these verses sitting i...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...egiment 
By place or choice the worthiest: they anon 
With hundreds and with thousands trooping came 
Attended. All access was thronged; the gates 
And porches wide, but chief the spacious hall 
(Though like a covered field, where champions bold 
Wont ride in armed, and at the Soldan's chair 
Defied the best of Paynim chivalry 
To mortal combat, or career with lance), 
Thick swarmed, both on the ground and in the air, 
Brushed with the hiss of rustling wings. As bees ...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...hing; and by proof we feel 
Our power sufficient to disturb his Heaven, 
And with perpetual inroads to alarm, 
Though inaccessible, his fatal throne: 
Which, if not victory, is yet revenge." 
 He ended frowning, and his look denounced 
Desperate revenge, and battle dangerous 
To less than gods. On th' other side up rose 
Belial, in act more graceful and humane. 
A fairer person lost not Heaven; he seemed 
For dignity composed, and high exploit. 
But all was fa...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...rowns with her enclosure green, 
 As with a rural mound, the champaign head 
 Of a steep wilderness, whose hairy sides 
Access denied; and overhead upgrew 
 Insuperable height of loftiest shade, 
 Cedar, and pine, and fir, and branching palm, 
 A sylvan scene, and, as the ranks ascend, 
 Shade above shade, a woody theatre 
 Of stateliest view. Yet higher than their tops 
 The verdurous wall of Paradise upsprung; 

Which to our general sire gave prospect large 
Into his ne...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...must be, who could seduce 
Angels; nor think superfluous other's aid. 
I, from the influence of thy looks, receive 
Access in every virtue; in thy sight 
More wise, more watchful, stronger, if need were 
Of outward strength; while shame, thou looking on, 
Shame to be overcome or over-reached, 
Would utmost vigour raise, and raised unite. 
Why shouldst not thou like sense within thee feel 
When I am present, and thy trial choose 
With me, best witness of thy virtue tri...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...at Moses might report to them his will, 
And terrour cease; he grants what they besought, 
Instructed that to God is no access 
Without Mediator, whose high office now 
Moses in figure bears; to introduce 
One greater, of whose day he shall foretel, 
And all the Prophets in their age the times 
Of great Messiah shall sing. Thus, laws and rites 
Established, such delight hath God in Men 
Obedient to his will, that he vouchsafes 
Among them to set up his tabernacle; 
The Ho...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...holy things,
Praying or vowing, and voutsafed his voice 
To Balaam reprobate, a prophet yet
Inspired: disdain not such access to me."
 To whom our Saviour, with unaltered brow:—
"Thy coming hither, though I know thy scope,
I bid not, or forbid. Do as thou find'st
Permission from above; thou canst not more."
 He added not; and Satan, bowling low
His gray dissimulation, disappeared,
Into thin air diffused: for now began
Night with her sullen wing to double-shade 
T...Read more of this...

by Frost, Robert
...The three stood listening to a fresh access
Of wind that caught against the house a moment,
Gulped snow, and then blew free again—the Coles
Dressed, but dishevelled from some hours of sleep,
Meserve belittled in the great skin coat he wore.

Meserve was first to speak. He pointed backward
Over his shoulder with his pipe-stem, saying,
“You can just see it glancing off the roof
Making a g...Read more of this...

by Atwood, Margaret
...ing as a bruise,
a plastic hose poised in a vicious
coil; even the too-fixed stare of the wide windows


give momentary access to
the landscape behind or under
the future cracks in the plaster


when the houses, capsized, will slide
obliquely into the clay seas, gradual as glaciers
that right now nobody notices.


That is where the City Planners
with the insane faces of political conspirators
are scattered over unsurveyed
territories, concealed from each other,
each in hi...Read more of this...

by Stevens, Wallace
...hought.
The house was quiet because it had to be.

The quiet was part of the meaning, part of the mind:
The access of perfection to the page.

And the world was calm. The truth in a calm world,
In which there is no other meaning, itself

Is calm, itself is summer and night, itself
Is the reader leaning late and reading there....Read more of this...

by Arnold, Matthew
...e crowned hair
Are flowers first open'd on Sicilian air,
And flute his friend, like Orpheus, from the dead.

O easy access to the hearer's grace
When Dorian shepherds sang to Proserpine!
For she herself had trod Sicilian fields,
She knew the Dorian water's gush divine,
She knew each lily white which Enna yields
Each rose with blushing face;
She loved the Dorian pipe, the Dorian strain.
But ah, of our poor Thames she never heard!
Her foot the Cumner cowslips never stir...Read more of this...

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Book: Reflection on the Important Things