Famous Account Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Sonnet 58: That god forbid that made me first your slave

by William Shakespeare
 That god forbid, that made me first your slave,
I should in thought control your times of pleasure,
Or at your hand th' account of hours to crave,
Being your vassal bound to stay your leisure!
O, let me suffer, being at your beck,
Th' imprisoned absence of your liberty,
And patience tame to sufferance, bide each check,
Without accusing you of injury.
Be where you list,...Read more of this...

Psalm 90 part 2

by Isaac Watts
 v.8-12 
C. M.
Infirmities and mortality the effect of sin.

Lord, if thine eye surveys our faults,
And justice grows severe,
Thy dreadful wrath exceeds our thoughts,
And burns beyond our fear.

Thine anger turns our frame to dust;
By one offence to thee
Adam with all his sons have lost
Their immortality.

Life, like a vain amusement, flies,
A fable or a song;
By swift degrees our nature dies,
Nor can...Read more of this...

Account Of A Visit From St. Nicholas

by Ralph Waldo Emerson
 'Twas the night before Christmas, when all thro' the house, 
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse;

The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,
In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there;

The children were nestled all snug in their beds,
While visions of sugar plums danc'd in their heads,

And Mama in her 'kerchief, and I in my...Read more of this...

Audit yourself, your truce account to frame,

by Omar Khayyam
Audit yourself, your truce account to frame,
See! you go empty, as you empty came;
You say, «I will not drink and peril life,»
But, drink or no, you must die all the same!...Read more of this...

Psalm 90

by Isaac Watts
 Man mortal, and God eternal
A mournful song at a funeral.

Through every age, eternal God,
Thou art our rest, our safe abode;
High was thy throne ere heav'n was made,
Or earth thy humble footstool laid.

Long hadst thou reigned ere time began,
Or dust was fashioned to a man;
And long thy kingdom shall endure
When earth and time shall be no more.

But man, weak man,...Read more of this...

I Chop Some Parsley While Listening To Art Blakeys Version Of Three Blind Mice

by Billy Collins
 And I start wondering how they came to be blind.
If it was congenital, they could be brothers and sister,
and I think of the poor mother
brooding over her sightless young triplets.

Or was it a common accident, all three caught
in a searing explosion, a firework perhaps?
If not,
if each came to his or her blindness separately,

how did they ever manage to find...Read more of this...

Call To Account!

by Vladimir Mayakovsky
 The drum of war thunders and thunders.
It calls: thrust iron into the living.
From every country
slave after slave
are thrown onto bayonet steel.
For the sake of what?
The earth shivers
hungry
and stripped.
Mankind is vapourised in a blood bath
only so 
someone
somewhere
can get hold of Albania.
Human gangs bound in malice,
blow after blow strikes the world
only for 
someone’s vessels 
to pass without charge 
through the Bosporus....Read more of this...

Account of a Visit From ST. Nicholas

by Ralph Waldo Emerson
 "Twas the night before Christmas, when all thro' the house,
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse;
The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,
In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there;
The children were nestled all snug in their beds,
While visions of sugar plums danc'd in their heads,
And mama in her 'kerchief, and I in my cap,
Had...Read more of this...

At The Window

by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
 Every morning, as I walk down
From my dreary lodgings, toward the town,
I see at a window, near the street,
The face of a woman, fair and sweet,
With soft brown eyes and chestnut hair,
And red lips, warm with the kisses left there.
And she stands there as long as she can see
The man who walks just ahead of me.

At night, when I...Read more of this...

Elegy II: The Anagram

by John Donne
 Marry, and love thy Flavia, for she
Hath all things whereby others beautious be,
For, though her eyes be small, her mouth is great,
Though they be ivory, yet her teeth be jet,
Though they be dim, yet she is light enough,
And though her harsh hair fall, her skin is rough;
What though her cheeks be yellow, her hair's red;
Give her thine, and she...Read more of this...

Externalism

by Robert William Service
 The Greatest Writer of to-day
(With Maupassant I almost set him)
Said to me in a weary way,
The last occasion that I met him:
"Old chap, this world is more and more
Becoming bourgeois, blasé, blousy:
Thank God I've lived so long before
It got so definitely lousy."

Said I: "Old chap, I don't agree.
Why should one so dispraise the present?
For gainful guys like you and...Read more of this...

Hymn 11

by Isaac Watts
 The humble enlightened, and carnal reason humbled.

Luke 10:21,22. 

There was an hour when Christ rejoiced,
And spoke his joy in words of praise:
"Father, I thank thee, mighty God,
Lord of the earth, and heav'ns, and seas.

"I thank thy sovereign power and love
That crowns my doctrine with success,
And makes the babes in knowledge learn
The heights, and breadths, and lengths of grace.

"But all...Read more of this...

Carol of Words

by Walt Whitman
 1
EARTH, round, rolling, compact—suns, moons, animals—all these are words to be
 said; 
Watery, vegetable, sauroid advances—beings, premonitions, lispings of the future, 
Behold! these are vast words to be said. 

Were you thinking that those were the words—those upright lines? those curves,
 angles,
 dots? 
No, those are not the words—the substantial words are in the ground and sea,
They are in...Read more of this...

Sonnet 16

by John Milton
 XVI

When I consider how my light is spent,
E're half my days, in this dark world and wide,
And that one Talent which is death to hide,
Lodg'd with me useless, though my Soul more bent
To serve therewith my Maker, and present
My true account, least he returning chide,
Doth God exact day-labour, light deny'd,
I fondly ask; But patience to prevent
That murmur, soon replies,...Read more of this...

Honors - Part I

by Jean Ingelow
A Scholar is musing on his want of success.)

To strive—and fail. Yes, I did strive and fail;
  I set mine eyes upon a certain night
To find a certain star—and could not hail
      With them its deep-set light.
Fool that I was! I will rehearse my fault:
  I, wingless, thought myself on high to lift
Among...Read more of this...

The Duties of an Aide-de-camp

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 Oh, some folk think vice-royalty is festive and hilarious, 
The duties of an A.D.C. are manifold and various, 
So listen, whilst I tell in song 
The duties of an aide-de-cong. 
Whatsoever betide 
To the Governor's side 
We must stick -- or the public would eat him -- 
For each bounder we see 
Says, "Just introduce me 
To His Lordship...Read more of this...

Account

by Czeslaw Milosz
 The history of my stupidity would fill many volumes.

Some would be devoted to acting against consciousness,
Like the flight of a moth which, had it known,
Would have tended nevertheless toward the candle's flame.

Others would deal with ways to silence anxiety,
The little whisper which, thought it is a warning, is ignored.

I would deal separately with satisfaction and pride,
The time when I...Read more of this...

When to the sessions of sweet silent thought (Sonnet 30)

by William Shakespeare
 When to the sessions of sweet silent thought
I summon up remembrance of things past,
I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,
And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste:
Then can I drown an eye, unused to flow,
For precious friends hid in death's dateless night,
And weep afresh love's long since cancelled woe,
And moan the expense of many...Read more of this...

Dream Song 99: Temples

by John Berryman
 He does not live here but it is the god.
A priest tools in a top his motorbike.
You do not enter.
Us the landscape circles hard abroad,
sunned, stone. Like calls, too low, to like.

One submachine-gun cleared the Durga Temple.

It is very dark here in this groping forth

 Gulp rhubarb for a guilty heart,
rhubarb for a free, if the world's sway
waives customs...Read more of this...

For him who makes account of human ills, joy, sorrow,

by Omar Khayyam
For him who makes account of human ills, joy, sorrow,
pain are all identical. The good and the bad of
this world must one day end. What matters it whether
all be torment or pleasure for us?...Read more of this...

The Ballad of the Red Earl

by Rudyard Kipling
 (It is not for them to criticize too minutely
the methods the Irish followed, though they might deplore some of
their results. During the past few years Ireland had been going
through what was tantamount to a revolution. -- EARL SPENCER)



Red Earl, and will ye take for guide
 The silly camel-birds,
That ye bury your head in an Irish thorn,
 On a desert...Read more of this...

Less Time

by Richard Brautigan
 Less time than it takes to say it, less tears than it takes to die; I've taken account
of everything, there you have it. I've made a census of the stones, they are as numerous
as my fingers and some others; I've distributed some pamphelts to the plants, but not all
were willing to accpet them. I've kept company with music for...Read more of this...

Present a salutation on my account to Mostapha, and

by Omar Khayyam
Present a salutation on my account to Mostapha, and
afterward say to him with all the deference due: O
Lord Hachemite! why, in accordance with the law of the
Koran, is the sharp doug [whey] lawful, yet pure wine
prohibited?
358...Read more of this...

405. Epigram—Commissary Goldie's Brains

by Robert Burns
 LORD, to account who dares thee call,
 Or e’er dispute thy pleasure?
Else why, within so thick a wall,
 Enclose so poor a treasure?...Read more of this...

Fret not thyself on account of the inconstancy of

by Omar Khayyam
Fret not thyself on account of the inconstancy of
this world; seek wine and draw near to thy caressing
mistress, for, thou seest that he whom his mother brought
forth to-day to-morrow disappears from the earth—to-morrow
returns to annihilation.
373...Read more of this...

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