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Famous Admiration Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Spenser, Edmund
...hymn I eke should frame,
And with the brightness of her beauty clear,
The ravish'd hearts of gazeful men might rear
To admiration of that heavenly light,
From whence proceeds such soul-enchanting might.

Thereto do thou, great goddess, queen of beauty,
Mother of love, and of all world's delight,
Without whose sovereign grace and kindly duty
Nothing on earth seems fair to fleshly sight,
Do thou vouchsafe with thy love-kindling light
T' illuminate my dim and dulled eyne,
A...Read more of this...



by Robinson, Mary Darby
...[As a Tribute of Esteem and Admiration this Poem is inscribed to ROBERT MERRY, Esq. A. M. Member of the Royal Academy at Florence, and Author of the Laurel of Liberty, and the Della Crusca Poems.]


O THOU, to whom superior worth's allied,
Thy Country's honour­and the MUSES' pride;
Whose pen gives polish to the varying line
That blends instruction with the song divine;
...Read more of this...

by Donne, John
..., and brow.

Whilst thus to ballast love, I thought,
And so more steadily to have gone,
With wares which would sink admiration,
I saw, I had love's pinnace overfraught,
Ev'ry thy hair for love to work upon
Is much too much, some fitter must be sought;
For, nor in nothing, nor in things
Extreme, and scatt'ring bright, can love inhere;
Then as an Angel, face, and wings
Of air, not pure as it, yet pure doth wear,
So thy love may be my loves sphere;
Just such disparity
As is ...Read more of this...

by Atwood, Margaret
...br>


I ought to be watching
from behind a cliff or a cardboard storefront 
when the shooting starts, hands clasped 
in admiration, 


but I am elsewhere.
Then what about me


what about the I 
confronting you on that border 
you are always trying to cross? 


I am the horizon
you ride towards, the thing you can never lasso


I am also what surrounds you: 
my brain 
scattered with your 
tincans, bones, empty shells, 
the litter of your invasions.


I am the space you ...Read more of this...

by Browning, Robert
...aring my whole mind. 
Is this apparent, when thou turn'st to muse 
Upon the scheme of earth and man in chief, 
That admiration grows as knowledge grows? 
That imperfection means perfection hid, 
Reserved in part, to grace the after-time? 
If, in the morning of philosophy, 
Ere aught had been recorded, nay perceived, 
Thou, with the light now in thee, couldst have looked 
On all earth's tenantry, from worm to bird, 
Ere man, her last, appeared upon the stage-- 
Thou woulds...Read more of this...



by Hughes, Ted
...a hare and leaped for the hill
Having eaten Crow's words. 

Crow gazed after the bounding hare
Speechless with admiration. ...Read more of this...

by Collins, Billy
...hat or an umbrella,
without any money
or the keys to her doghouse
never fails to fill the saucer of my heart
with milky admiration.

Who provides a finer example 
of a life without encumbrance—
Thoreau in his curtainless hut
with a single plate, a single spoon?
Gandhi with his staff and his holy diapers?

Off she goes into the material world
with nothing but her brown coat
and her modest blue collar,
following only her wet nose, 
the twin portals of her steady breathing,
...Read more of this...

by Browning, Robert
...llow at the altar-foot, 
Fresh from his murder, safe and sitting there 
With the little children round him in a row 
Of admiration, half for his beard and half 
For that white anger of his victim's son 
Shaking a fist at him with one fierce arm, 
Signing himself with the other because of Christ 
(Whose sad face on the cross sees only this 
After the passion of a thousand years) 
Till some poor girl, her apron o'er her head, 
(Which the intense eyes looked through) came at eve...Read more of this...

by Robinson, Edwin Arlington
...
You are a man of mist, and have no shadow. 
God save you, Lancelot. If I laugh at you, 
I laugh in envy and in admiration.”

The joyless evanescence of a smile, 
Discovered on the face of Lancelot 
By Gawaine’s unrelenting vigilance, 
Wavered, and with a sullen change went out; 
And then there was the music of a woman
Laughing behind them, and a woman spoke: 
“Gawaine, you said ‘God save you, Lancelot.’ 
Why should He save him any more to-day 
Than on another...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...hich only shone 
 Filial obedience: as a sacrifice 
 Glad to be offered, he attends the will 
 Of his great Father. Admiration seized 
 All Heaven, what this might mean, and whither tend, 
 Wondering; but soon th' Almighty thus replied. 
 O thou in Heaven and Earth the only peace 
 Found out for mankind under wrath, O thou 
 My sole complacence! Well thou know'st how dear 
 To me are all my works; nor Man the least, 
 Though last created, that for him I spare 
 Thee f...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...ase their appetite, 
Though wandering. He, with his consorted Eve, 
The story heard attentive, and was filled 
With admiration and deep muse, to hear 
Of things so high and strange; things, to their thought 
So unimaginable, as hate in Heaven, 
And war so near the peace of God in bliss, 
With such confusion: but the evil, soon 
Driven back, redounded as a flood on those 
From whom it sprung; impossible to mix 
With blessedness. Whence Adam soon repealed 
The doubts th...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...and is become, 
Not dead, as we are threatened, but thenceforth 
Endued with human voice and human sense, 
Reasoning to admiration; and with me 
Persuasively hath so prevailed, that I 
Have also tasted, and have also found 
The effects to correspond; opener mine eyes, 
Dim erst, dilated spirits, ampler heart, 
And growing up to Godhead; which for thee 
Chiefly I sought, without thee can despise. 
For bliss, as thou hast part, to me is bliss; 
Tedious, unshared with thee, ...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...not couched in Moses' law,
The Pentateuch, or what the Prophets wrote;
The Gentiles also know, and write, and teach
To admiration, led by Nature's light;
And with the Gentiles much thou must converse,
Ruling them by persuasion, as thou mean'st. 
Without their learning, how wilt thou with them,
Or they with thee, hold conversation meet?
How wilt thou reason with them, how refute
Their idolisms, traditions, paradoxes?
Error by his own arms is best evinced.
Look once mo...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...er despised, and put to rout
All her array, her female pride deject,
Or turn to reverent awe! For Beauty stands 
In the admiration only of weak minds
Led captive; cease to admire, and all her plumes
Fall flat, and shrink into a trivial toy,
At every sudden slighting quite abashed.
Therefore with manlier objects we must try
His constancy—with such as have more shew
Of worth, of honour, glory, and popular praise
(Rocks whereon greatest men have oftest wrecked);
Or that whic...Read more of this...

by Chatterton, Thomas
...divine 
Should in your composition shine-- 
Sincerity, I mean. 

Tho' num'rous swains before you fall, 
'Tis empty admiration all, 
'Tis all that you require; 
How momentary are their chains! 
Like you, how unsincere the strains 
Of those who but admire! 

Accept, for once, advice from me, 
And let the eye of censure see 
Maria can be true; 
No more for fools or empty beaux, 
Heav'n's representatives disclose, 
Or butterflies pursue. 

Fly to your worthiest lover's a...Read more of this...

by Dove, Rita
...et knife.

"Tourists love us.The Parisians, of course"--
she blushed--"are amused, though not without
a certain admiration . . ."
The Chateaubriand

arrived on a bone-white plate, smug and absolute
in its fragrant crust, a black plug steaming
like the heart plucked from the chest of a worthy enemy;
one touch with her fork sent pink juices streaming.

"Admiration for what?"Wine, a bloody
Pinot Noir, brought color to her cheeks."Why,
the aplomb with ...Read more of this...

by Nin, Anais
...and brilliance and strangeness. By the end of the evening I had extricated myself from her power. She killed my admiration by her talk. Her talk. The enormous ego, false, weak, posturing. She lacks the courage of her personality, which is sensual, heavy with experience. Her role alone preoccupies her. She invents dramas in which she always stars. I am sure she creates genuine dramas, genuine chaos and whirlpools of feelings, but I feel that her...Read more of this...

by Bell, Marvin
...rts of people
where we were walking. We have no
experience to make us see the gingko
or any other tree,
and, in our admiration for whatever grows tall
and outlives us,
we look away, or look at the middles of things,
which would not be our way
if we truly thought we were gods....Read more of this...

by Hugo, Victor
...brows that looked so true, 
 And said "Oh, yes!" to each intent; 
 Your great bright eyes, that loved to view 
 With admiration innocent 
 My fine old Sèvres; the eager thought 
 That every kind of knowledge sought; 
 The elbow push with "Come and see!" 
 
 Oh, certes! spirits, sylphs, there be, 
 And fays the wind blows often here; 
 The gnomes that squat the ceiling near, 
 In corners made by old books dim; 
 The long-backed dwarfs, those goblins grim 
 That se...Read more of this...

by Swift, Jonathan
...ools with stars and garters,
So often seen caressing Chartres.
He never courted men in station,
Nor persons held in admiration.
Of no man's greatness was afraid,
Because he sought for no man's aid.
Though trusted long in great affairs,
He gave himself no haughty airs.
Without regarding private ends,
Spent all his credit for his friends;
And only chose the wise and good;
No flatterers; no allies in blood;
But succoured virtue in distress,
And seldom failed of g...Read more of this...

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