Famous Accomplished Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Accomplished poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous accomplished poems. These examples illustrate what a famous accomplished poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
John Dryden
To the Pious Memory of the Accomplished Young Lady, Mrs Anne Killigrew,
Excellent in the Two Sister-arts of Poesy and Painting
Thou youngest Virgin Daughter of the skies,
Made in the last promotion of the blest;
Whose palms, new-plucked from Paradise,
In spreading branches more sublimely rise,
Rich with immortal green, above the rest:
Whether, adopted to some neighbouring star,
Thou roll'st above us in thy wand'ring...Read more of this...
by
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
You shall hear how Hiawatha
Prayed and fasted in the forest,
Not for greater skill in hunting,
Not for greater craft in fishing,
Not for triumphs in the battle,
And renown among the warriors,
But for profit of the people,
For advantage of the nations.
First he built a lodge for fasting,
Built a wigwam in the forest,
By the...Read more of this...
by
Li Po
Last year we fought by the head-stream of the Sang-kan,
This year we are fighting on the Tsung-ho road.
We have washed our armor in the waves of the Chiao-chi lake,
We have pastured our horses on Tien-shan's snowy slopes.
The long, long war goes on ten thousand miles from home,
Our three armies are worn and grown old.
The barbarian does man-slaughter for plowing;
On...Read more of this...
by
John Wilmot
Much wine had passed, with grave discourse
Of who fucks who, and who does worse
(Such as you usually do hear
From those that diet at the Bear),
When I, who still take care to see
Drunkenness relieved by lechery,
Went out into St. James's Park
To cool my head and fire my heart.
But though St. James has th' honor on 't,
'Tis consecrate to prick and...Read more of this...
by
Edgar Lee Masters
Do you think that odes and sermons,
And the ringing of church bells,
And the blood of old men and young men,
Martyred for the truth they saw
With eyes made bright by faith in God,
Accomplished the world's great reformations?
Do you think that the Battle Hymn of the Republic
Would have been heard if the chattel slave
Had crowned the dominant dollar,
In spite of Whitney's...Read more of this...
by
Rudyard Kipling
1919
As I pass through my incarnations in every age and race,
Make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Market-Place.
'eering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all.
Ne were living in trees when they met us. They showed us each in turn
That Water would certainly wet us,...Read more of this...
by
Sir Walter Raleigh
Our great work, the Otia Merseiana,
Edited by learned Mister Sampson,
And supported by Professor Woodward,
Is financed by numerous Bogus Meetings
Hastily convened by Kuno Meyer
To impose upon the Man of Business.
All in vain! The accomplished Man of Business
Disapproves of Otia Merseiana,
Turns his back on Doctor Kuno Meyer;
Cannot be enticed by Mister Sampson,
To...Read more of this...
by
Rainer Maria Rilke
Dedication
These to His Memory--since he held them dear,
Perchance as finding there unconsciously
Some image of himself--I dedicate,
I dedicate, I consecrate with tears--
These Idylls.
And indeed He seems to me
Scarce other than my king's ideal knight,
`Who reverenced his conscience as his king;
Whose glory was, redressing human wrong;
Who spake no slander, no, nor...Read more of this...
by
Sylvia Plath
Who are these people at the bridge to meet me? They are the villagers----
The rector, the midwife, the sexton, the agent for bees.
In my sleeveless summery dress I have no protection,
And they are all gloved and covered, why did nobody tell me?
They are smiling and taking out veils tacked to ancient hats.
I am nude as a chicken neck, does...Read more of this...
by
Amy Levy
To E.M.S.
Here, where your garden fenced about and still is,
Here, where the unmoved summer air is sweet
With mixed delight of lavender and lilies,
Dreaming I linger in the noontide heat.
Of many summers are the trees recorders,
The turf a carpet many summers wove;
Old-fashioned blossoms cluster in the borders,
Love-in-a-mist and crimson-hearted clove.
All breathes of peace and sunshine in the present,
All tells of...Read more of this...
by
Archibald MacLeish
Oh, not the loss of the accomplished thing!
Not dumb farewells, nor long relinquishment
Of beauty had, and golden summer spent,
And savage glory of the fluttering
Torn banners of the rain, and frosty ring
Of moon-white winters, and the imminent
Long-lunging seas, and glowing students bent
To race on some smooth beach the gull's wing:
Not these, nor all...Read more of this...
by
Robert Bly
In rainy September when leaves grow down to the dark
I put my forehead down to the damp seaweed-smelling sand.
What can we do but choose? The only way for human beings
is to choose. The fern has no choice but to live;
for this crime it receives earth water and night.
we close the door. "I have no claim on you."
Dusk comes. "The...Read more of this...
by
Omar Khayyam
In the first place, my being was given me without my
consent, which makes my own existence a lasting problem
to me. Then, we leave this world with regret, and without
having accomplished the aim of our coming, of our
stay, or our departure....Read more of this...
by
Carl Sandburg
EVERY year Emily Dickinson sent one friend
the first arbutus bud in her garden.
In a last will and testament Andrew Jackson
remembered a friend with the gift of George
Washington’s pocket spy-glass.
Napoleon too, in a last testament, mentioned a silver
watch taken from the bedroom of Frederick the Great,
and passed along this trophy to a particular friend.
O. Henry took a blood carnation from...Read more of this...
by
Czeslaw Milosz
You whom I could not save
Listen to me.
Try to understand this simple speech as I would be ashamed of another.
I swear, there is in me no wizardry of words.
I speak to you with silence like a cloud or a tree.
What strengthened me, for you was lethal.
You mixed up farewell to an epoch with the beginning of a new one,
Inspiration...Read more of this...
by
Rudyard Kipling
1898
Being a translation of the song that was made by a Mohammedanschoolmaster of Bengal Infantry (some time on service at Suakim)when he heard that Kitchener was taking money from the English tobuild a Madrissa for Hubshees -- or a college for the Sudanese.
Oh Hubshee, carry your shoes in your hand and bow your head on your breast!
This is the...Read more of this...
by
John Berryman
Henry's pelt was put on sundry walls
where it did much resemble Henry and
them persons was delighted.
Especially his long & glowing tail
by all them was admired, and visitors.
They whistled: This is it!
Golden, whilst your frozen daiquiris
whir at midnight, gleams on you his fur
& silky & black.
Mission accomplished, pal.
My molten yellow & moonless bag,
drained, hangs at rest.
Collect in the cold depths...Read more of this...
by
Robert Herrick
The Rose was sick, and smiling died;
And, being to be sanctified,
About the bed, there sighing stood
The sweet and flowery sisterhood.
Some hung the head, while some did bring,
To wash her, water from the spring;
Some laid her forth, while others wept,
But all a solemn fast there kept.
The holy sisters some among,
The sacred dirge and trental sung;
But ah! what sweets smelt everywhere,
As...Read more of this...
by
John Dryden
Thou youngest virgin-daughter of the skies,
Made in the last promotion of the Blest;
Whose palms, new pluck'd from Paradise,
In spreading branches more sublimely rise,
Rich with immortal green above the rest:
Whether, adopted to some neighbouring star,
Thou roll'st above us, in thy wand'ring race,
Or, in procession fix'd and regular,
Mov'd with the Heavens' majestic pace:
Or, call'd to more superior...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
There is a word
Which bears a sword
Can pierce an armed man --
It hurls its barbed syllables
And is mute again --
But where it fell
The saved will tell
On patriotic day,
Some epauletted Brother
Gave his breath away.
Wherever runs the breathless sun --
Wherever roams the day --
There is its noiseless onset --
There is its victory!
Behold the keenest marksman!
The most accomplished shot!
Time's sublimest target
Is a...Read more of this...
by
Jonas Mekas
I do not know, whether the sun
accomplished it,
the rain or wind –
but I was missing so
the whiteness and the snow.
I listened to the rustling
of spring rain,
washing the reddish buds
of chestnut-trees, –
and a tiny spring ran down
into the valley from the hill –
and I was missing
the whiteness
and the...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
How fits his Umber Coat
The Tailor of the Nut?
Combined without a seam
Like Raiment of a Dream --
Who spun the Auburn Cloth?
Computed how the girth?
The Chestnut aged grows
In those primeval Clothes --
We know that we are wise --
Accomplished in Surprise --
Yet by this Countryman --
This nature -- how undone!...Read more of this...
by
William Butler Yeats
(For Harry Clifton)
I HAVE heard that hysterical women say
They are sick of the palette and fiddle-bow.
Of poets that are always gay,
For everybody knows or else should know
That if nothing drastic is done
Aeroplane and Zeppelin will come out.
Pitch like King Billy bomb-balls in
Until the town lie beaten flat.
All perform their tragic play,
There struts Hamlet, there is Lear,
That's Ophelia, that Cordelia;
Yet...Read more of this...
by
William Butler Yeats
A certain poet in outlandish clothes
Gathered a crowd in some Byzantine lane,
Talked1 of his country and its people, sang
To some stringed instrument none there had seen,
A wall behind his back, over his head
A latticed window. His glance went up at time
As though one listened there, and his voice sank
Or let its meaning mix into the strings.
Maeve the great queen...Read more of this...
by
Robert Herrick
First, for effusions due unto the dead,
My solemn vows have here accomplished;
Next, how I love thee, that my grief must tell,
Wherein thou liv'st for ever.--Dear, farewell!...Read more of this...
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