Get Your Premium Membership

Famous Almost Poems by Famous Poets

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

See also:

by Byron, George (Lord)
...ay; 
But lack of tidings from another clime 
Had lent a flagging wing to weary Time. 
They see, they recognise, yet almost deem 
The present dubious, or the past a dream. 

He lives, nor yet is past his manhood's prime, 
Though sear'd by toil, and something touch'd by time; 
His faults, whate'er they were, if scarce forgot, 
Might be untaught him by his varied lot; 
Nor good nor ill of late were known, his name 
Might yet uphold his patrimonial fame. 
His soul in ...Read more of this...



by Wordsworth, William
...bsp;I'll teach him how the owlet sings.  My little babe! thy lips are still,  And thou hast almost suck'd thy fill.  —Where art thou gone my own dear child?  What wicked looks are those I see?  Alas! alas! that look so wild,  It never, never came from me:  If thou art mad, my pretty lad,  Then I must be for ever sad.   Oh! smile on me, my little...Read more of this...

by Frost, Robert
...turbing roar above the river
Beyond the highest city built with hands.
Someone was saying in such natural tones
She almost wrote the words down on her knee,
"Do you know you remind me of a tree--
A maple tree?"

 "Because my name is Maple?"
"Isn't it Mabel? I thought it was Mabel."

 "No doubt you've heard the office call me Mabel.
I have to let them call me what they like."

 They were both stirred that he should have divined
Without the name her personal mys...Read more of this...

by Frost, Robert
...delphia every year
With a great flock of chickens of rare breeds
He wants to give the educational
Advantages of growing almost wild
Under the watchful eye of hawk and eagle 
Dorkings because they're spoken of by Chaucer,
Sussex because they're spoken of by Herrick.

She has a touch of gold. New Hampshire gold—
You may have heard of it. I had a farm
Offered me not long since up Berlin way
With a mine on it that was worked for gold;
But not gold in commercial quanti...Read more of this...

by Ashbery, John
...room contains this flow like an hourglass
Without varying in climate or quality
(Except perhaps to brighten bleakly and almost
Invisibly, in a focus sharpening toward death--more 
Of this later). What should be the vacuum of a dream
Becomes continually replete as the source of dreams
Is being tapped so that this one dream
May wax, flourish like a cabbage rose,
Defying sumptuary laws, leaving us
To awake and try to begin living in what
Has now become a slum. Sydney Fre...Read more of this...



by Shakespeare, William
...,
Desiring this man's art and that man's scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least;
Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
Haply I think on thee—and then my state,
Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate;
   For thy sweet love rememb'red such wealth brings
   That then I scorn to change my state with kings....Read more of this...

by Byron, George (Lord)
...the caves of Istakar. [19] 
This morning clouds upon me lower'd, 
Reproaches on my head were shower'd, 
And Giaffir almost call'd me coward! 
Now I have motive to be brave; 
The son of his neglected slave — 
Nay, start not, 'twas the term he gave — 
May shew, though little apt to vaunt, 
A heart his words nor deeds can daunt. 
His son, indeed! — yet, thanks to thee, 
Perchance I am, at least shall be! 
But let our plighted secret vow 
Be only known to us as now. 
...Read more of this...

by Byron, George (Lord)
...it had no further change.
It was of a strange order, that the doom
Of these two creatures should be thus traced out
Almost like a reality—the one
To end in madness—both in misery....Read more of this...

by Wordsworth, William
...an all—  Stirring the air with such an harmony,  That should you close your eyes, you might almost  Forget it was not day!                          A most gentle maid  Who dwelleth in her hospitable home  Hard by the Castle, and at latest eve,  (Even like a La...Read more of this...

by Bradstreet, Anne
...rm a Sheaf of wheat he bore,
1.44 A Harvest of the best: what needs he more?
1.45 In's other hand a glass, ev'n almost run,
1.46 This writ about: This out, then I am done.
1.47 His hoary hairs and grave aspect made way,
1.48 And all gave ear to what he had to say.
1.49 These being met, each in his equipage
1.50 Intend to speak, according to their age,
1.51 But wise Old-age did with all gravity
1.52 To childish childhood give precede...Read more of this...

by Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...elf and Galahad, for a strength 
Was in us from this vision, overthrew 
So many knights that all the people cried, 
And almost burst the barriers in their heat, 
Shouting, "Sir Galahad and Sir Percivale!" 

`But when the next day brake from under ground-- 
O brother, had you known our Camelot, 
Built by old kings, age after age, so old 
The King himself had fears that it would fall, 
So strange, and rich, and dim; for where the roofs 
Tottered toward each other in the sky, 
M...Read more of this...

by Carroll, Lewis
...n Natural History--I will take the more prosaic course of simply explaining how it happened. 

The Bellman, who was almost morbidly sensitive about appearances, used to have the bowsprit unshipped once or twice a week to be revarnished, and it more than once happened, when the time came for replacing it, that no one on board could remember which end of the ship it belonged to. They knew it was not of the slightest use to appeal to the Bellman about it--he would only r...Read more of this...

by Wordsworth, William
...there's a moon in heaven,"  Cries Betty, "he'll be back again;  They'll both be here, 'tis almost ten,  They'll both be here before eleven."   Poor Susan moans, poor Susan groans,  The clock gives warning for eleven;  'Tis on the stroke—"If Johnny's near,"  Quoth Betty "he will soon be here,  As sure as there's a moon in heaven."  &nb...Read more of this...

by Chaucer, Geoffrey
...br>
There *as I left*, I will again begin. *where I left off*

This Duke, of whom I make mentioun,
When he was come almost unto the town,
In all his weal, and in his moste pride,
He was ware, as he cast his eye aside,
Where that there kneeled in the highe way
A company of ladies, tway and tway,
Each after other, clad in clothes black:
But such a cry and such a woe they make,
That in this world n'is creature living,
That hearde such another waimenting* *lamenting 
And o...Read more of this...

by Scott, Sir Walter
...iff shot to the bay,
     That round the promontory steep
     Led its deep line in graceful sweep,
     Eddying, in almost viewless wave,
     The weeping willow twig to rave,
     And kiss, with whispering sound and slow,
     The beach of pebbles bright as snow.
      The boat had touched this silver strand
     Just as the Hunter left his stand,
     And stood concealed amid the brake,
     To view this Lady of the Lake.
      The maiden paused, as if again
  ...Read more of this...

by Blake, William
...men
best, those who envy or calumniate great men hate God, for there
is no other God.
The Angel hearing this became almost blue but mastering
himself he grew yellow, & at last white pink & smiling, and then
replied,
Thou Idolater, is not God One? & is not he visible in Jesus
Christ? and has not Jesus Christ given his sanction to the law of
ten commandments and are not all other men fools, sinners, &
nothings?
The Devil answer'd; bray a fool in a morter with wheat. yet...Read more of this...

by Bukowski, Charles
...br>" 
She threw the elephant leaf down on me in the bathtub. 
"How did you know I'd be in the tub?" 
"I knew." 
Almost every day Cass arrived when I was in the tub. The times were different but she
seldom missed, and there was the elephant leaf. And then we'd make love. One or two nights
she phoned and I had to bail her out of jail for drunkenness and fighting. 
"These sons of bitches," she said, "just because they buy you a few
drinks they think they ...Read more of this...

by Byron, George (Lord)
...ccasion his own work abhorr'd, 
So surfeited with the infernal revel: 
Though he himself had sharpen'd every sword, 
It almost quench'd his innate thirst of evil. 
(Here Satan's sole good work deserves insertion — 
'Tis, that he has both generals in reveration.) 

VII

Let's skip a few short years of hollow peace, 
Which peopled earth no better, hell as wont, 
And heaven none — they form the tyrant's lease, 
With nothing but new names subscribed upon't; 
'Twill one da...Read more of this...

by Miller, Alice Duer
...ready to assert 
Americans are easily hurt.

XVII 
Strange to look back to the days 
So long ago 
When a friend was almost a foe, 
When you hurried to find a phrase 
For your easy light dispraise 
Of a spirit you did not know, 
A nature you could not plumb 
In the moment of meeting, 
Not guessing a day would come 
When your heart would ache to hear 
Other men's tongues repeating 
Those same light phrases that jest and jeer 
At a friend now grown so dear— so dear.
Stra...Read more of this...

by Akhmatova, Anna
...-chested bird.



x x x

Immortelle's dry and pink. On the fresh heaven
The clouds are roughly pasted, almost dark.
The leaves of only oak within the park
Are still colorless and thin.

The rays of dusk are burning until midnight.
How nice it is inside my cramped abode!
Today with me converse many-a-bird
About the most tender, in delight.

I'm happy. But the way,
Forest and smooth, is to me most dear,
The crippled bridge, curved...Read more of this...

Dont forget to view our wonderful member Almost poems.


Book: Reflection on the Important Things