Famous All Poetry by Famous Poets

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

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With my old hands lifted to your forehead

by Emile Verhaeren
With my old hands lifted to your forehead, during your brief sleep by the black hearth this evening, I part your hair, and I kiss the fervour of your eyes hidden beneath your long lashes.
Oh! the sweet affection of this day's end! My eyes follow the years that have completed their course, and suddenly your life appears so perfect in...Read more of this...

We have violated all the vows that we have made; we

by Omar Khayyam
We have violated all the vows that we have made; we
have closed upon us the door of what is called good and
what is called bad. Then blame me not if you see me
committing senseless deeds, for we are drunk with the
wine of love, and all are drunk as we....Read more of this...

Existing things were already predestined upon the

by Omar Khayyam
Existing things were already predestined upon the
tablet of creation. The brush [of the universe] did not
paint good and bad. With destiny God imprinted whatever
should be so imprinted, and the efforts that we
make in these directions are wholly lost....Read more of this...

Your big enemy

by Ehsan Sehgal
"Your big enemy resides inside you and that is your "angry". Your sweet friend also resides inside you and that is your "patience". First one shows your weakness and narrowness and other one shows your strongness and broadness." 
(Ehsan Sehgal)...Read more of this...

Bachin'

by Badger Clark
  Our lives are hid; our trails are strange;
    We're scattered through the West
  In canyon cool, on blistered range
    Or windy mountain crest.
  Wherever Nature drops her ears
    And bares her claws to scratch,
  From Yuma to the north frontiers,
    You'll likely find...Read more of this...

Because you came one day

by Emile Verhaeren
Because you came one day so simply along the paths of devotion and took my life into your beneficent hands, I love and praise and thank you with my senses, with my heart and brain, with my whole being stretched like a torch towards your unquenchable goodness and charity.
Since that day, I know what love, pure and bright as the...Read more of this...

Grass

by Russell Edson
 The living room is overgrown with grass. It has 
come up around the furniture. It stretches through 
the dining room, past the swinging door into the 
kitchen. It extends for miles and miles into the 
walls . . .

 There's treasure in grass, things dropped or put 
there; a stick of rust that was once a penknife, a 
grave...Read more of this...

The sky has unfolded into night

by Emile Verhaeren
The sky has unfolded into night, and the moon seems to watch over the sleeping silence.
All is so pure and clear; all is so pure and so pale in the air and on the lakes of the friendly countryside, that there is anguish in the fall from a reed of a drop of water, that tinkles and then is silent...Read more of this...

In the face of the decrees of Providence, nothing avails

by Omar Khayyam
In the face of the decrees of Providence, nothing avails
but resignation. Among men nothing avails but seeming
and hypocrisy. I have employed every ruse, the strongest
that the human mind can invent, but destiny has always
overturned my projects....Read more of this...

The Outlaw

by Badger Clark
  When my rope takes hold on a two-year-old,
    By the foot or the neck or the horn,
  He kin plunge and fight till his eyes go white
    But I'll throw him as sure as you're born.
  Though the taut ropes sing like a banjo string
    And the...Read more of this...

Thoreaus Flute

by Louisa May Alcott
 We sighing said, "Our Pan is dead; 
His pipe hangs mute beside the river 
Around it wistful sunbeams quiver, 
But Music's airy voice is fled. 
Spring mourns as for untimely frost; 
The bluebird chants a requiem; 
The willow-blossom waits for him; 
The Genius of the wood is lost." 

Then from the flute, untouched by hands, 
There came a low,...Read more of this...

The Colonel

by Carolyn Forche
 What you have heard is true. I was in his house. 
His wife carried a tray of coffee and sugar. His 
daughter filed her nails, his son went out for the 
night. There were daily papers, pet dogs, a pistol 
on the cushion beside him. The moon swung bare on 
its black cord over the house. On the television...Read more of this...

I bring you this evening

by Emile Verhaeren
I bring you this evening, as an offering, my joy at having plunged my body into the silk and gold of the frank and joyous wind and the gorgeous sun; my feet are bright with having walked among the grasses; my hands sweet with having touched the heart of flowers; my eyes shining at having felt the tears suddenly well...Read more of this...

Beauty XXV

by Kahlil Gibran
 And a poet said, "Speak to us of Beauty." 

Where shall you seek beauty, and how shall you find her unless she herself be your way and your guide? 

And how shall you speak of her except she be the weaver of your speech? 

The aggrieved and the injured say, "Beauty is kind and gentle. 

Like a young mother...Read more of this...

My Masters

by Robert William Service
 Of Poetry I've been accused,
But much more often I have not;
Oh, I have been so much amused
By those who've put me on the spot,
And measured me by rules above
Those I observe with equal love.

An artisan of verse am I,
Of simple sense and humble tone;
My Thesaurus is handy by,
A rhyming lexicon I own;
Without them I am ill at ease -
What...Read more of this...

How happy we are still

by Emile Verhaeren
How happy we are still and proud of living when the least ray of sunshine glimpsed in the heavens lights up for a moment the poor flowers of rime that the hard and delicate frost engraved on our window-panes.
Rapture leaps in us and hope carries us away, and our old garden appears to us again, in spite of its long...Read more of this...

Curse of a Rich Polish Peasant on His Sister Who Ran Away With a Wild Man

by Carl Sandburg
 FELIKSOWA has gone again from our house and this time for good, I hope.
She and her husband took with them the cow father gave them, and they sold it.
She went like a swine, because she called neither on me, her brother, nor on her father, before leaving for those forests.
That is where she ought to live, with bears, not...Read more of this...

A Poets Voice XV

by Kahlil Gibran
 Part One


The power of charity sows deep in my heart, and I reap and gather the wheat in bundles and give them to the hungry. 

My soul gives life to the grapevine and I press its bunches and give the juice to the thirsty. 

Heaven fills my lamp with oil and I place it at my window to direct...Read more of this...

For Others

by Ehsan Sehgal
If you devote your life to the service of others with honesty and dedication you must be ready to endure insults and contempt from those you help.


...Read more of this...

On days of fresh and tranquil health

by Emile Verhaeren
On days of fresh and tranquil health, when life is as fine as a conquest, the pleasant task sits down by my side like an honoured friend.
He comes from gentle, radiant countries, with words brighter than the dews, in which to set, illuminating them, our feelings and our thoughts.
He seizes our being in a mad whirlwind; he lifts up the...Read more of this...

When our bright garden was gay

by Emile Verhaeren
When our bright garden was gay with all its flowers, the regret at having shrunk our hearts sprang from our lips in moments of passion; and forgiveness, offered but deserved always, and the exaggerated display of our wretchedness and so many tears moistening our sad, sincere eyes uplifted our love.
But in these months of heavy rain, when everything huddles together...Read more of this...

Judgement

by Ehsan Sehgal
"On the one hand you claim your true love, and on the other hand you judge your beloved, that is a business and selfishness, not a true love, true love does not require any kind of judgement in any way."
Ehsan Sehgal...Read more of this...

Original Preface

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
 I feel no small reluctance in venturing to give to the public a 
work of the character of that indicated by the title-page to the 
present volume; for, difficult as it must always be to render satisfactorily 
into one's own tongue the writings of the bards of other lands, 
the responsibility assumed by the translator is immeasurably increased 
when...Read more of this...

Hours Continuing Long

by Walt Whitman
 HOURS continuing long, sore and heavy-hearted, 
Hours of the dusk, when I withdraw to a lonesome and unfrequented spot, seating myself,
 leaning
 my face in my hands; 
Hours sleepless, deep in the night, when I go forth, speeding swiftly the country roads,
 or
 through the city streets, or pacing miles and miles, stifling plaintive cries; 
Hours discouraged, distracted—for the...Read more of this...

You have traveled over the world! Ah, well! all that

by Omar Khayyam
You have traveled over the world! Ah, well! all that
you have seen is nothing; all that you have seen and all
that you have heard are equally nothing. You have gone
from one end of the universe to the other, all that is
nothing; you have summed it all up in one corner of your
room, all that is nothing, still nothing....Read more of this...

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