Famous Amazing Poems by Famous Poets

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

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The House Of Dust: Part 03: 11: Conversation: Undertones

by Conrad Aiken
 What shall we talk of? Li Po? Hokusai?
You narrow your long dark eyes to fascinate me;
You smile a little. . . .Outside, the night goes by.
I walk alone in a forest of ghostly trees . . .
Your pale hands rest palm downwards on your knees.

'These lines—converging, they suggest such distance!
The soul is drawn away, beyond horizons.
Lured out to what?...Read more of this...

Dust

by Rupert Brooke
 When the white flame in us is gone,
And we that lost the world's delight
Stiffen in darkness, left alone
To crumble in our separate night;

When your swift hair is quiet in death,
And through the lips corruption thrust
Has stilled the labour of my breath --
When we are dust, when we are dust! --

Not dead, not undesirous yet,
Still sentient, still unsatisfied,
We'll ride the...Read more of this...

This was a Poet -- It is That

by Emily Dickinson
 This was a Poet -- It is That
Distills amazing sense
From ordinary Meanings --
And Attar so immense

From the familiar species
That perished by the Door --
We wonder it was not Ourselves
Arrested it -- before --

Of Pictures, the Discloser --
The Poet -- it is He --
Entitles Us -- by Contrast --
To ceaseless Poverty --

Of portion -- so unconscious --
The Robbing -- could...Read more of this...

The Lark

by Robert William Service
 From wrath-red dawn to wrath-red dawn,
 The guns have brayed without abate;
And now the sick sun looks upon
 The bleared, blood-boltered fields of hate
As if it loathed to rise again.
 How strange the hush! Yet sudden, hark!
From yon down-trodden gold of grain,
 The leaping rapture of a lark.

A fusillade of melody,
 That sprays us from yon trench of sky;
A...Read more of this...

246. Song—Robin Shure in Hairst

by Robert Burns
 HIS face with smile eternal drest,
Just like the Landlord’s to his Guest’s,
High as they hang with creaking din,
To index out the Country Inn.
He looked just as your sign-post Lions do,
With aspect fierce, and quite as harmless too.
——————A head, pure, sinless quite of brain and soul,
The very image of a barber’s Poll;
It shews a human face, and wears a wig,
And...Read more of this...

Ai

by Denise Duhamel
 There is a chimp named Ai who can count to five.
There's a poet named Ai whose selected poems Vice
just won the National Book Award.
The name "Ai" is pronounced "I"
so that whenever I talk about the poet Ai
such as I'm teaching Ai's poems again this semester
it sounds like I'm teaching my own poems
or when I say I love Ai's work
it...Read more of this...

Psalm 139 part 1

by Isaac Watts
 The all-seeing God.

Lord, thou hast searched and seen me through,
Thine eye commands with piercing view
My rising and my resting hours,
My heart and flesh with all their powers.

My thoughts, before they are my own,
Are to my God distinctly known;
He knows the words I mean to speak
Ere from my op'ning lips they break.

Within thy circling power I stand;
On every side I...Read more of this...

There was an Old Person of Basing

by Edward Lear
There was an Old Person of Basing,Whose presence of mind was amazing;He purchased a steed, which he rode at full speed,And escaped from the people of Basing. ...Read more of this...

(i) the inkman

by Rg Gregory
 whirligig twister
dancer prancer
st vitus’s quester
chancer romancer

the inkman cometh
from that nether world
where dream and coincidence
are darkly furled
accident rubbed him
into puzzling light
he is what he isn’t
(he’s the geist of zeit)

whirligig twister
dancer prancer
st vitus’s quester
chancer romancer

he cannot move
but he never stops
particle-wave
(ask the science-cops)
all creation swirls
from his restless frame
he isn’t what he is
that’s the inkman’s game

whirligig twister
dancer prancer
st vitus’s quester
chancer romancer


(ii) ninkam poop

so...Read more of this...

The First Chantey

by Rudyard Kipling
 1896

Mine was the woman to me, darkling I found her:
Haling her dumb from the camp, held her and bound her.
Hot rose her tribe on our track ere I had proved her;
Hearing her laugh in the gloom, greatly I loved her.

Swift through the forest we ran, none stood to guard us,
Few were my people and fa; then the flood barred...Read more of this...

Hymn 63

by Isaac Watts
 Christ's humiliation and exaltation.

Rev. 5:12. 

What equal honors shall we bring
To thee, O Lord our God, the Lamb,
When all the notes that angels sing
Are far inferior to thy name?

Worthy is he that once was slain,
The Prince of Peace that groaned and died;
Worthy to rise, and live, and reign
At his Almighty Father's side.

Power and dominion are his due
Who stood condemned...Read more of this...

Philadelphia

by Rudyard Kipling
 "Brother Square-Toes"--Rewards and Fairies.
If you're off to Philadelphia in the morning,
 You mustn't take my stories for a guide.
There's little left, indeed, of the city you will read of,
 And all the folk I write about have died.
Now few will understand if you mention Talleyrand,
 Or remember what his cunning and his skill did;
And the cabmen at the wharf...Read more of this...

There was an old man on the Humber

by Edward Lear
There was an old man on the Humber,Who dined on a cake of Burnt Umber;When he said, "It's enough!" they only said, "Stuff!You amazing old man on the Humber!" ...Read more of this...

Men Of The High North

by Robert William Service
 Men of the High North, the wild sky is blazing;
 Islands of opal float on silver seas;
Swift splendors kindle, barbaric, amazing;
 Pale ports of amber, golden argosies.
Ringed all around us the proud peaks are glowing;
 Fierce chiefs in council, their wigwam the sky;
Far, far below us the big Yukon flowing,
 Like threaded quicksilver, gleams to the eye.

Men of the...Read more of this...

Goliath Of Gath

by Phillis Wheatley
 SAMUEL, Chap. xvii.

YE martial pow'rs, and all ye tuneful nine,
Inspire my song, and aid my high design.
The dreadful scenes and toils of war I write,
The ardent warriors, and the fields of fight:
You best remember, and you best can sing
The acts of heroes to the vocal string:
Resume the lays with which your sacred lyre,
Did then the poet and the sage...Read more of this...

Letter to mother

by Sergei Yesenin
Are you still alive, my dear granny?
I am alive as well. Hello! Hello!
May there always be above you, honey,
The amazing stream of evening glow.
 
I"ve been told that hiding your disquiet,
Worrying  about me a lot,
You go out  to the roadside every night,
Wearing your shabby overcoat.
 
In the evening  darkness, very often,
You conceive the same old scene of...Read more of this...

More astonishing to me

by Khosrovidukht
More astonishing to me
than the lyrics made for you
more amazing than the music composed
for your death
is the sound of the sobbing mourning
you, Lord Vahan, chosen of God
...Read more of this...

The House Of Dust: Part 03: 07: Porcelain

by Conrad Aiken
 You see that porcelain ranged there in the window—
Platters and soup-plates done with pale pink rosebuds,
And tiny violets, and wreaths of ivy?
See how the pattern clings to the gleaming edges!
They're works of art—minutely seen and felt,
Each petal done devoutly. Is it failure
To spend your blood like this?

Study them . . . you will see there, in the porcelain,
If you...Read more of this...

Bridge-Guard in the Karroo

by Rudyard Kipling
 1901 ". . . and will supply details to guard the Blood River Bridge." District Orders-Lines of Communication, South African War.
Sudden the desert changes,
 The raw glare softens and clings,
Till the aching Oudtshoorn ranges
 Stand up like the thrones of Kings --

Ramparts of slaughter and peril --
 Blazing, amazing, aglow --
'Twixt the sky-line's belting beryl
 And the wine-dark flats...Read more of this...

When I have seen the Sun emerge

by Emily Dickinson
 When I have seen the Sun emerge
From His amazing House --
And leave a Day at every Door
A Deed, in every place --

Without the incident of Fame
Or accident of Noise --
The Earth has seemed to me a Drum,
Pursued of little Boys...Read more of this...

The Santa-Fe Trail (A Humoresque)

by Vachel Lindsay
 I asked the old *****, "What is that bird that sings so well?" He answered: "That is the Rachel-Jane." "Hasn't it another name, lark, or thrush, or the like?" "No. Jus' Rachel-Jane."


I. IN WHICH A RACING AUTO COMES FROM THE EAST

This is the order of the music of the morning: —
First, from the far East comes but a crooning.
The...Read more of this...

Holy Sonnet XIII: What If This Present Were The Worlds Last Night?

by John Donne
 What if this present were the world's last night?
Mark in my heart, O soul, where thou dost dwell,
The picture of Christ crucified, and tell
Whether that countenance can thee affright,
Tears in his eyes quench the amazing light,
Blood fills his frowns, which from his pierced head fell.
And can that tongue adjudge thee unto hell,
Which prayed forgiveness for his foes' fierce spite?
No,...Read more of this...

A Poem Sacred to the Memory of Sir Isaac Newton

by James Thomson
 Shall the great soul of Newton quit this earth, 
To mingle with his stars; and every muse,
Astonish'd into silence, shun the weight
Of honours due to his illustrious name?
But what can man?--Even now the sons of light,
In strains high-warbled to seraphic lyre,
Hail his arrival on the coast of bliss.
Yet am not I deterr'd, though high the theme,
And sung to harps...Read more of this...

A Challenge To The Dark

by Charles Bukowski
 shot in the eye 
shot in the brain 
shot in the ass 
shot like a flower in the dance 

amazing how death wins hands down 
amazing how much credence is given to idiot forms of life 

amazing how laughter has been drowned out 
amazing how viciousness is such a constant 

I must soon declare my own war on their...Read more of this...

Sonnet Reversed

by Rupert Brooke
 Hand trembling towards hand; the amazing lights 
Of heart and eye. They stood on supreme heights. 

Ah, the delirious weeks of honeymoon! 
Soon they returned, and, after strange adventures, 
Settled at Balham by the end of June. 
Their money was in Can. Pacs. B. Debentures, 
And in Antofagastas. Still he went 
Cityward daily; still she did abide 
At home....Read more of this...

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