Famous Against Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Against poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous against poems. These examples illustrate what a famous against poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Omar Khayyam
How long these cries, these groans against the things
of this world? Rise, rather, and pass gaily every instant.
When the universe shall be re-dressed in green from end
to end, drink wine in a ruby cup, full to the brim....Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
Pines against the sky,
Pluming the purple hill;
Pines . . . and I wonder why,
Heart, you quicken and thrill?
Wistful heart of a boy,
Fill with a strange sweet joy,
Lifting to Heaven nigh -
Pines against the sky.
Palms against the sky,
Failing the hot, hard blue;
Stark on the beach I lie,
Dreaming horizons new;
Heart of my youth elate,
Scorning a humdrum fate,
Keyed to adventure high -
Palms...Read more of this...
by
Dorothy Parker
If wild my breast and sore my pride,
I bask in dreams of suicide;
If cool my heart and high my head,
I think, "How lucky are the dead!"...Read more of this...
by
Omar Khayyam
There is no shield which is proof against an arrow
hurled by Destiny. Grandeur, money, gold all go for
nothing. The more I consider the things of this world,
the more I see that the only good is good, all else is
nothing.
303...Read more of this...
by
Jack Gilbert
I'd walk her home after work
buying roses and talking of Bechsteins.
She was full of soul.
Her small room was gorged with heat
and there were no windows.
She'd take off everything
but her pants
and take the pins from her hair
throwing them on the floor
with a great noise.
Like Crete.
We wouldn't make love.
She'd get on the bed
with those nipples
and we'd lie
sweating
and talking of my best...Read more of this...
by
William Butler Yeats
O heart, be at peace, because
Nor knave nor dolt can break
What's not for their applause,
Being for a woman's sake.
Enough if the work has seemed,
So did she your strength renew,
A dream that a lion had dreamed
Till the wilderness cried aloud,
A secret between you two,
Between the proud and the proud.
What, still you would have their praise!
But here's a haughtier text,
The labyrinth...Read more of this...
by
Omar Khayyam
Against my lusts I ever war, in vain,
I think on my ill deeds with shame and pain;
I trust Thou wilt assoil me of my sins,
But even so, my shame must still remain....Read more of this...
by
John Wilmot
Were I - who to my cost already am
One of those strange, prodigious creatures, man -
A spirit free to choose for my own share
What sort of flesh and blood I pleased to wear,
I'd be a dog, a monkey, or a bear,
Or anything but that vain animal,
Who is so proud of being rational.
His senses are too gross; and he'll contrive
A...Read more of this...
by
William Shakespeare
Against that time, if ever that time come,
When I shall see thee frown on my defects,
When as thy love hath cast his utmost sum,
Called to that audit by advised respects;
Against that time when thou shalt strangely pass,
And scarcely greet me with that sun, thine eye,
When love, converted from the thing it was,
Shall reasons find of settled gravity—
Against that time...Read more of this...
by
Anne Killigrew
OF all the Poisons that the fruitful Earth
E'er yet brought forth, or Monsters she gave Birth,
Nought to Mankind has e'er so fatal been,
As thou, accursed Gold, their Care and Sin.
Methinks I the Advent'rous Merchant see,
Ploughing the faithless Seas, in search of thee,
His dearest Wife and Children left behind,
(His real Wealth) while he,...Read more of this...
by
Katherine Philips
Hence Cupid! with your cheating toys,
Your real griefs, and painted joys,
Your pleasure which itself destroys.
Lovers like men in fevers burn and rave,
And only what will injure them do crave.
Men's weakness makes love so severe,
They give him power by their fear,
And make the shackles which they wear.
Who to another does his heart...Read more of this...
by
Jack Spicer
Hush now baby don't say a word
Mama's going to buy you a mocking bird
The third
Joyful mystery.
The joy that descends on you when all the trees are cut down
and all the fountains polluted and you are still alive waiting
for an absent savior. The third
Joyful mystery.
If the mocking bird don't sing
Mama's going to buy you a diamond ring
The diamond ring is...Read more of this...
by
Isaac Watts
Let dogs delight to bark and bite,
For God hath made them so:
Let bears and lions growl and fight,
For 'tis their nature, too.
But, children, you should never let
Such angry passions rise:
Your little hands were never made
To tear each other's eyes.
Let love through all your actions run,
And all your words be mild:
Live like the blessed Virgin's Son,
That sweet and...Read more of this...
by
Sidney Lanier
Frowning, the owl in the oak complained him
Sore, that the song of the robin restrained him
Wrongly of slumber, rudely of rest.
"From the north, from the east, from the south and the west,
Woodland, wheat-field, corn-field, clover,
Over and over and over and over,
Five o'clock, ten o'clock, twelve, or seven,
Nothing but robin-songs heard under heaven:
How can we sleep?
`Peep!' you whistle, and `cheep!...Read more of this...
by
William Shakespeare
Against my love shall be, as I am now,
With Time's injurious hand crushed and o'erworn;
When hours have drained his blood and filled his brow
With lines and wrinkles; when his youthful morn
Hath travelled on to age's steepy night,
And all those beauties whereof now he's king
Are vanishing, or vanished out of sight,
Stealing away the treasure of his spring;
For such a time...Read more of this...
by
Omar Khayyam
Against death's arrows what are buckles worth?
What all the pomps and riches of the earth?
When I survey the world, I see no good
But goodness, all beside is nothing worth....Read more of this...
by
Isaac Watts
O 'tis a lovely thing for youth
To early walk in wisdom's way;
To fear a lie, to speak the truth,
That we may trust to all they say!
But liars we can never trust,
Even when they say what is true.
And he who does one fault at first
And lies to hide it, makes it two.
Have we not known, nor heard, nor read
How God...Read more of this...
by
Robert Burns
WHAT dost thou in that mansion fair?
Flit, Galloway, and find
Some narrow, dirty, dungeon cave,
The picture of thy mind.
———No Stewart art thou, Galloway,
The Stewarts ’ll were brave;
Besides, the Stewarts were but fools,
Not one of them a knave.
Bright ran thy line, O Galloway,
Thro’ many a far-fam’d sire!
So ran the far-famed Roman way,
And ended in a...Read more of this...
by
Erica Jong
All the endings in my life
rise up against me
like that sea of troubles
Shakespeare mixed
with metaphors;
like Vikings in their boats
singing Wagner,
like witches
burning at
the stake--
I submit
to my fate.
I know beginnings,
their sweetnesses,
and endings,
their bitternesses--
but I do not know
continuance--
I do not know
the sweet demi-boredom
of life as it lingers,
of man and wife
regarding each other
across a table of shared witnesses,
of the hand-in-hand dreams
of those who...Read more of this...
by
Paul Eluard
There were only a few of them
In all the earth
Each one thought he was alone
They sang, they were right
To sing
But they sang the way you sack a city
The way you kill yourself.
Frayed moist night
Shall we endure you
Longer
Shall we not shake
Your cloacal evidence
We shall not wait for a morning
Made to measure
We wanted to see in other people's eyes
Their...Read more of this...
by
Omar Khayyam
But yesterday, at eve, I broke a china cup against a
stone. I was drunk when committing this senseless act.
This cup seemed to say to me: «I have been like thee;
thou wilt, in thy turn, be like me.»
380...Read more of this...
by
Rudyard Kipling
I will let loose against you the fleet-footed vines--
I will call in the Jungle to stamp out your lines!
The roofs shall fade before it,
The house-beams shall fall;
And the Karela,. the bitter Karela,
Shall cover it all!
In the gates of these your councils my people shall sing.
In the doors of these your garners the Bat-folk shall cling;
...Read more of this...
by
Erin Belieu
When I think of the many people
who privately despise children,
I can't say I'm completely shocked,
having been one. I was not
exceptional, uncomfortable as that is
to admit, and most children are not
exceptional. The particulars of
cruelty, sizes Large and X-Large,
memory gnawing it like
a fat dog, are ordinary: Mean Miss
Smigelsky from the sixth grade;
the orthodontist who
slapped you for crying out. Children
frighten us, other...Read more of this...
by
Walt Whitman
I HEAR it was charged against me that I sought to destroy institutions;
But really I am neither for nor against institutions;
(What indeed have I in common with them?—Or what with the destruction of them?)
Only I will establish in the Mannahatta, and in every city of These States, inland and
seaboard,
And in the fields and woods,...Read more of this...
by
Omar Khayyam
Last night I dashed my cup against a stone,
In a mad drunken freak, as I must own,
And lo! the cup cries out in agony,
«You too, like me, shall soon be overthrown.»...Read more of this...
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