Famous Also Ran Poems by Famous Poets

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

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The Miracles

by Rudyard Kipling
 I sent a message to my dear --
 A thousand leagues and more to Her --
The dumb sea-levels thrilled to hear,
 And Lost Atlantis bore to Her.

Behind my message hard I came,
 And nigh had found a grave for me;
But that I launched of steel and flame
 Did war against the wave for me.

Uprose the deep, by gale on...Read more of this...

Many red devils ran from my heart

by Stephen Crane
 Many red devils ran from my heart
And out upon the page,
They were so tiny
The pen could mash them.
And many struggled in the ink.
It was strange
To write in this red muck
Of things from my heart....Read more of this...

My Heart ran so to thee

by Emily Dickinson
 My Heart ran so to thee
It would not wait for me
And I affronted grew
And drew away

For whatsoe'er my pace
He first achieve they Face
How general a Grace
Allotted two --

Not in malignity
Mentioned I this to thee --
Had he obliquity
Soonest to share
But for the Greed of him --
Boasting my Premium --
Basking in Bethleem
Ere I be there --...Read more of this...

A Pause

by Christina Rossetti
 They made the chamber sweet with flowers and leaves, 
And the bed sweet with flowers on which I lay; 
While my soul, love-bound, loitered on its way. 
I did not hear the birds about the eaves, 
Nor hear the reapers talk among the sheaves: 
Only my soul kept watch from day to day, 
My thirsty soul kept watch for...Read more of this...

Death and Fame

by Allen Ginsberg
 When I die
I don't care what happens to my body
throw ashes in the air, scatter 'em in East River
bury an urn in Elizabeth New Jersey, B'nai Israel Cemetery
But l want a big funeral
St. Patrick's Cathedral, St. Mark's Church, the largest synagogue in 
 Manhattan
First, there's family, brother, nephews, spry aged Edith stepmother 
 96, Aunt Honey from old Newark,
Doctor...Read more of this...

The Song Of Wandering Aengus

by William Butler Yeats
I went out to the hazel wood,
Because a fire was in my head,
And cut and peeled a hazel wand,
And hooked a berry to a thread;
And when white moths were on the wing,
And moth-like stars were flickering out,
I dropped the berry in a stream
And caught a little silver trout.

When I had laid it on the floor
I went to blow the fire...Read more of this...

Fair Elanor

by William Blake
 The bell struck one, and shook the silent tower;
The graves give up their dead: fair Elenor
Walk'd by the castle gate, and look?d in.
A hollow groan ran thro' the dreary vaults.
She shriek'd aloud, and sunk upon the steps,
On the cold stone her pale cheeks. Sickly smells
Of death issue as from a sepulchre,
And all is silent but the sighing vaults.

Chill Death...Read more of this...

Our New Horse

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 The boys had come back from the races 
All silent and down on their luck; 
They'd backed 'em, straight out and for places, 
But never a winner they's struck. 
They lost their good money on Slogan, 
And fell most uncommonly flat 
When Partner, the pride of the Bogan, 
Was beaten by Aristocrat. 
And one said, "I move that instanter...Read more of this...

Four Preludes on Playthings of the Wind

by Carl Sandburg
 “The past is a bucket of ashes.”

 1

THE WOMAN named To-morrow
sits with a hairpin in her teeth
and takes her time
and does her hair the way she wants it
and fastens at last the last braid and coil
and puts the hairpin where it belongs
and turns and drawls: Well, what of it?
My grandmother, Yesterday, is gone.
What of it? Let the dead be...Read more of this...

422. Epigrams against the Earl of Galloway

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...

The Wifes Will

by Charlotte Bronte
 SIT still­a word­a breath may break 
(As light airs stir a sleeping lake,) 
The glassy calm that soothes my woes, 
The sweet, the deep, the full repose. 
O leave me not ! for ever be 
Thus, more than life itself to me ! 

Yes, close beside thee, let me kneel­ 
Give me thy hand that I may feel 
The...Read more of this...

A Musical Instrument

by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
WHAT was he doing the great god Pan  
Down in the reeds by the river? 
Spreading ruin and scattering ban  
Splashing and paddling with hoofs of a goat  
And breaking the golden lilies afloat 5 
With the dragon-fly on the river. 

He tore out a reed the great god Pan  
From the deep cool bed of...Read more of this...

The Manor Farm

by Edward Thomas
 THE rock-like mud unfroze a little, and rills 
Ran and sparkled down each side of the road 
Under the catkins wagging in the hedge. 
But earth would have her sleep out, spite of the sun; 
Nor did I value that thin gliding beam 
More than a pretty February thing 
Till I came down to the old manor farm, 
And...Read more of this...

In the Droving Days

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 "Only a pound," said the auctioneer, 
"Only a pound; and I'm standing here 
Selling this animal, gain or loss -- 
Only a pound for the drover's horse? 
One of the sort that was ne'er afraid, 
One of the boys of the Old Brigade; 
Thoroughly honest and game, I'll swear, 
Only a little the worse for wear; 
Plenty as bad...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...

The Ballad Of One-Eyed Mike

by Robert William Service
 This is the tale that was told to me by the man with the crystal eye,
As I smoked my pipe in the camp-fire light, and the Glories swept the sky;
As the Northlights gleamed and curved and streamed, and the bottle of "hooch" was dry.

A man once aimed that my life be shamed, and wrought me a deathly wrong;
I vowed...Read more of this...

The Battle of Omdurman

by William Topaz McGonagall
 Ye Sons of Great Britain! come join with me
And King in praise of the gallant British Armie,
That behaved right manfully in the Soudan,
At the great battle of Omdurman. 

'Twas in the year of 1898, and on the 2nd of September,
Which the Khalifa and his surviving followers will long remember,
Because Sir Herbert Kitchener has annihilated them outright,
By the British troops...Read more of this...

Nymphidia The Court Of Fairy (excerpts)

by Michael Drayton
 But let us leave Queen Mab a while,
Through many a gate, o'er many a stile,
That now had gotten by this wile,
Her dear Pigwiggen kissing;
And tell how Oberon doth fare,
Who grew as mad as any hare,
When he had sought each place with care,
And found his queen was missing.
By grisly Pluto he doth swear,
He rent his clothes, and tore his hair,
And...Read more of this...

In the Home Stretch

by Robert Frost
 SHE stood against the kitchen sink, and looked
Over the sink out through a dusty window
At weeds the water from the sink made tall.
She wore her cape; her hat was in her hand.
Behind her was confusion in the room,
Of chairs turned upside down to sit like people
In other chairs, and something, come to look,
For every room a house has—parlor, bed-room,
And...Read more of this...

136 Syllables At Rocky Mountain Dharma Center

by Allen Ginsberg
 Tail turned to red sunset on a juniper crown a lone magpie cawks.

Mad at Oryoki in the shrine-room -- Thistles blossomed late afternoon.

Put on my shirt and took it off in the sun walking the path to lunch.

A dandelion seed floats above the marsh grass with the mosquitos.

At 4 A.M. the two middleaged men sleeping together holding hands.

In the...Read more of this...

The Red Lacquer Music-Stand

by Amy Lowell
 A music-stand of crimson lacquer, long since brought
In some fast clipper-ship from China, quaintly wrought
With bossed and carven flowers and fruits in blackening gold,
The slender shaft all twined about and thickly scrolled
With vine leaves and young twisted tendrils, whirling, curling,
Flinging their new shoots over the four wings, and swirling
Out on the three wide feet in golden lumps and streams;
Petals...Read more of this...

The Town Between the Hills

by Katherine Mansfield
 The further the little girl leaped and ran,
The further she longed to be;
The white, white fields of jonquil flowers
Danced up as high as her knee
And flashed and sparkled before her eyes
Until she could hardly see.
So into the wood went she.

It was quiet in the wood,
It was solemn and grave;
A sound like a wave
Sighed in the tree-tops
And then sighed no...Read more of this...

The White Lights

by Edwin Arlington Robinson
 When in from Delos came the gold 
That held the dream of Pericles, 
When first Athenian ears were told 
The tumult of Euripides, 
When men met Aristophanes,
Who fledged them with immortal quills— 
Here, where the time knew none of these, 
There were some islands and some hills. 

When Rome went ravening to see 
The sons of mothers end their...Read more of this...

Shirt

by Carl Sandburg
 I remember once I ran after you and tagged the fluttering
 shirt of you in the wind.
Once many days ago I drank a glassful of something and
 the picture of you shivered and slid on top of the
 stuff.
And again it was nobody else but you I heard in the
 singing voice of a careless humming woman.
One night when...Read more of this...

Brother And Sister

by Lewis Carroll
 "SISTER, sister, go to bed! 
Go and rest your weary head." 
Thus the prudent brother said. 

"Do you want a battered hide, 
Or scratches to your face applied?" 
Thus his sister calm replied. 

"Sister, do not raise my wrath. 
I'd make you into mutton broth 
As easily as kill a moth" 

The sister raised her beaming eye 
And looked...Read more of this...

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