Famous Affects Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Absalom And Achitophel

...undone.
If so, by force he wishes to be gain'd;
Like women's lechery, to seem constrain'd:
Doubt not; but when he most affects the frown,
Commit a pleasing rape upon the crown.
Secure his person to secure your cause;
They who possess the prince, possess the laws.

He said, and this advice above the rest
With Absalom's mild nature suited best;
Unblam'd of life, (ambition set aside,)
Not stain'd with cruelty, nor puff'd with pride.
How happy had he been, if destiny
Had higher ...Read more of this...
by Dryden, John


Alexanders Feast; Or The Power Of Music

...! they shout around:
A present deity! the vaulted roofs rebound!
With ravished ears
The monarch hears,
Assumes the god,
Affects to nod,
And seems to shake the spheres.

The praise of Bacchus then the sweet musician sung,
Of Bacchus ever fair and ever young:
The jolly god in triumph comes!
Sound the trumpets, beat the drums!
Flushed with a purple grace
He shows his honest face:
Now give the hautboys breath; he comes, he comes!
Bacchus, ever fair and young,
Drinking joys did fi...Read more of this...
by Dryden, John

An Epistle Containing the Strange Medical Experience of Kar

...ease. 
He even seeketh not to please God more 
(Which meaneth, otherwise) than as God please. 
Hence, I perceive not he affects to preach 
The doctrine of his sect whate'er it be, 
Make proselytes as madmen thirst to do: 
How can he give his neighbour the real ground, 
His own conviction? Ardent as he is-- 
Call his great truth a lie, why, still the old 
"Be it as God please" reassureth him. 
I probed the sore as thy disciple should: 
"How, beast," said I, "this stolid carele...Read more of this...
by Browning, Robert

An Essay On Criticism

...rly low,
That shunning Faults, one quiet Tenour keep;
We cannot blame indeed--but we may sleep.
In Wit, as Nature, what affects our Hearts
Is nor th' Exactness of peculiar Parts;
'Tis not a Lip, or Eye, we Beauty call,
But the joint Force and full Result of all.
Thus when we view some well-proportion'd Dome,
The World's just Wonder, and ev'n thine O Rome!)
No single Parts unequally surprize;
All comes united to th' admiring Eyes;
No monstrous Height, or Breadth, or Length app...Read more of this...
by Pope, Alexander

Berck-Plage

...
Boomerang like anchored elastics, hurting the owner.
Is it any wonder he puts on dark glasses?

Is it any wonder he affects a black cassock?
Here he comes now, among the mackerel gatherers

Who wall up their backs against him.
They are handling the black and green lozenges like the parts of a body.

The sea, that crystallized these, 
Creeps away, many-snaked, with a long hiss of distress.


(2)

This black boot has no mercy for anybody.
Why should it, it is t...Read more of this...
by Plath, Sylvia


Chanting the Square Deific

...
Solid, four-sided, (all the sides needed)... from this side JEHOVAH am I, 
Old Brahm I, and I Saturnius am; 
Not Time affects me—I am Time, old, modern as any;
Unpersuadable, relentless, executing righteous judgments; 
As the Earth, the Father, the brown old Kronos, with laws, 
Aged beyond computation—yet ever new—ever with those mighty laws rolling, 
Relentless, I forgive no man—whoever sins, dies—I will have that man’s
 life; 
Therefore let none expect mercy—Have the seas...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt

Comus

...enighted walks under the mid-day sun;
Himself is his own dungeon.
 SEC. BRO. 'Tis most true
That musing meditation most affects
The pensive secrecy of desert cell,
Far from the cheerful haunt of men and herds,
And sits as safe as in a senate house
For who would rob a hermit of his weeds,
His few books, or his beads, or maple dish,
Or do his grey hairs any violence?
But Beauty, like the fair Hesperian tree
Laden with blooming gold, had need the guard
Of dragon-watch with unenc...Read more of this...
by Milton, John

Epistles to Several Persons: Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot

...ty in distress,
Who loves a lie, lame slander helps about,
Who writes a libel, or who copies out:
That fop, whose pride affects a patron's name,
Yet absent, wounds an author's honest fame;
Who can your merit selfishly approve,
And show the sense of it without the love;
Who has the vanity to call you friend,
Yet wants the honour, injur'd, to defend;
Who tells what'er you think, whate'er you say,
And, if he lie not, must at least betray:
Who to the Dean, and silver bell can swe...Read more of this...
by Pope, Alexander

Genius

...s a general thing. 

Geniuses are very singular. 

If you see a young man who has frowsy hair 
and distraught look, and affects eccentricity in dress, 
you may set him down for a genius. 

If he sings about the degeneracy of a world 
which courts vulgar opulence 
and neglects brains, 
he is undoubtedly a genius. 

If he is too proud to accept assistance, 
and spurns it with a lordly air 
at the very same time 
that he knows he can't make a living to save his life, 
he is most...Read more of this...
by Montgomery, Lucy Maud

Imitations of Horace: The First Epistle of the Second Book

...lic is a fool.
But let them own, that greater faults than we
They had, and greater virtues, I'll agree.
Spenser himself affects the obsolete,
And Sidney's verse halts ill on Roman feet:
Milton's strong pinion now not Heav'n can bound,
Now serpent-like, in prose he sweeps the ground,
In quibbles, angel and archangel join,
And God the Father turns a school divine.
Not that I'd lop the beauties from his book,
Like slashing Bentley with his desp'rate hook,
Or damn all Shakespeare...Read more of this...
by Pope, Alexander

In Harm's Way

...ot better but touchy as a prima donna

And couldn’t take it when I said he’d be a whole lot better

If he’d unloose his affects and let them scatter

I’m envious of his habitat, The Haworth Moors

Living there should be the inspiration of my old age

But being monophobic I can’t face the isolation

Or persuade my passionate friend to join me.

What urban experiences can improve

Upon a cottage life with my own muse!...Read more of this...
by Tebb, Barry

Initial Love

...ce some elder virtue's token,
And his good is evil spoken.
Failing sometimes of his own,
He is headstrong and alone;
He affects the wood and wild,
Like a flower-hunting child,
Buries himself in summer waves,
In trees, with beasts, in mines, and caves,
Loves nature like a horned cow,
Bird, or deer, or cariboo.

Shun him, nymphs, on the fleet horses!
He has a total world of wit,
O how wise are his discourses!
But he is the arch-hypocrite,
And through all science and all art,
Se...Read more of this...
by Emerson, Ralph Waldo

Manhattan Streets I Saunter'd Pondering

...nce to what ensues; 
All that a person does, says, thinks, is of consequence; 
Not a move can a man or woman make, that affects him or her in a day, month, any part of
 the
 direct
 life-time, or the hour of death, but the same affects him or her onward afterward through
 the
 indirect life-time. 

3
The indirect is just as much as the direct, 
The spirit receives from the body just as much as it gives to the body, if not more.

Not one word or deed—not venereal sore, discolo...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt

Nature affects to be sedate

...Nature affects to be sedate
Upon occasion, grand
But let our observation shut
Her practices extend

To Necromancy and the Trades
Remote to understand
Behold our spacious Citizen
Unto a Juggler turned --...Read more of this...
by Dickinson, Emily

Of the Mean and Sure Estate

...travail and care.
Make plain thine heart, that it be not knotted
With hope or dread, and see thy will be bare

From all affects, whom vice hath ever spotted.
Thyself content with that is thee assigned,
And use it well that is to thee allotted.

Then seek no more out of thyself to find
The thing that thou hast sought so long before,
For thou shalt feel it sitting in thy mind.

Mad, if ye list to continue your sore,
Let present pass and gape on time to come,
And deep yourself i...Read more of this...
by Wyatt, Sir Thomas

Paradise Lost: Book 05

..., and thus Adam answered sad. 
Best image of myself, and dearer half, 
The trouble of thy thoughts this night in sleep 
Affects me equally; nor can I like 
This uncouth dream, of evil sprung, I fear; 
Yet evil whence? in thee can harbour none, 
Created pure. But know that in the soul 
Are many lesser faculties, that serve 
Reason as chief; among these Fancy next 
Her office holds; of all external things 
Which the five watchful senses represent, 
She forms imaginations, aery ...Read more of this...
by Milton, John

The Flesh and the Spirit

...ll sore?
Behold enough of precious store.
Earth hath more silver, pearls, and gold
Than eyes can see or hands can hold.
Affects thou pleasure? Take thy fill.
Earth hath enough of what you will.
Then let not go what thou maist find
For things unknown only in mind.'
pirit. 
'Be still, thou unregenerate part,
Disturb no more my settled heart,
For I have vow'd (and so will do)
Thee as a foe still to pursue,
And combat with thee will and must
Until I see thee laid in th' dust.
Sis...Read more of this...
by Bradstreet, Anne

The Lady of the Lake

...d household fire,
     Father for child, and son for sire Lover
     for maid beloved!—But why
     Is it the breeze affects mine eye?
     Or dost thou come, ill-omened tear!
     A messenger of doubt or fear?
     No! sooner may the Saxon lance
     Unfix Benledi from his stance,
     Than doubt or terror can pierce through
     The unyielding heart of Roderick Dhu!
     'tis stubborn as his trusty targe.
     Each to his post!—all know their charge.'
     The p...Read more of this...
by Scott, Sir Walter

The Undertakers Horse

...the Undertaker's Horse.

Neither shies he nor is restive,
But a hideously suggestive
Trot, professional and placid, he affects;
And the cadence of his hoof-beats
To my mind this grim reproof beats: --
"Mend your pace, my friend, I'm coming. Who's the next?"

Ah! stud-bred of ill-omen,
I have watched the strongest go -- men
Of pith and might and muscle -- at your heels,
Down the plantain-bordered highway,
(Heaven send it ne'er be my way!)
In a lacquered box and jetty upon whe...Read more of this...
by Kipling, Rudyard

To the Honourable T. H. Esq; on the Death of his Daughter

...ach fear dismiss?
"Amidst unutter'd pleasures whilst I play
"In the fair sunshine of celestial day,
"As far as grief affects an happy soul
"So far doth grief my better mind controul,
"To see on earth my aged parents mourn,
"And secret wish for T-----! to return:
"Let brighter scenes your ev'ning-hours employ:
"Converse with heav'n, and taste the promis'd joy"...Read more of this...
by Wheatley, Phillis

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