Famous Any Theme Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Any Theme poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous any theme poems. These examples illustrate what a famous any theme poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Langston Hughes
The instructor said,
Go home and write
a page tonight.
And let that page come out of you--
Then, it will be true.
I wonder if it's that simple?
I am twenty-two, colored, born in Winston-Salem.
I went to school there, then Durham, then here
to this college on the hill above Harlem.
I am the only colored student in my class.
The steps from...Read more of this...
by
George William Russell
I FAIN would leave the tender songs
I sang to you of old,
Thinking the oft-sung beauty wrongs
The magic never told.
And touch no more the thoughts, the moods,
That win the easy praise;
But venture in the untrodden woods
To carve the future ways.
Though far or strange or cold appear
The shadowy things I tell,
Within the heart the hidden seer
...Read more of this...
by
Edgar Bowers
Long days, short nights, this Southern summer
Fixes the mind within its timeless place.
Athwart pale limbs the brazen hummer
Hangs and is gone, warm sound its quickened space.
Butterfly weed and cardinal flower,
Orange and red, with indigo the band,
Perfect themselves unto the hour.
And blood suffused within the sunlit hand,
Within the...Read more of this...
by
Robert Burns
WHY, why tell thy lover
Bliss he never must enjoy”?
Why, why undeceive him,
And give all his hopes the lie?
O why, while fancy, raptur’d slumbers,
“Chloris, Chloris” all the theme,
Why, why would’st thou, cruel—
Wake thy lover from his dream?...Read more of this...
by
Lewis Carroll
I never loved a dear Gazelle--
Nor anything that cost me much:
High prices profit those who sell,
But why should I be fond of such?
To glad me with his soft black eye
My son comes trotting home from school;
He's had a fight but can't tell why--
He always was a little fool!
But, when he came...Read more of this...
by
Kenneth Koch
1
I chopped down the house that you had been saving to live in next summer.
I am sorry, but it was morning, and I had nothing to do
and its wooden beams were so inviting.
2
We laughed at the hollyhocks together
and then I sprayed them with lye.
Forgive me. I simply do not know what I am doing.
3
I gave away the...Read more of this...
by
Henry Lawson
The rafters are open to sun, moon, and star,
Thistles and nettles grow high in the bar --
The chimneys are crumbling, the log fires are dead,
And green mosses spring from the hearthstone instead.
The voices are silent, the bustle and din,
For the railroad hath ruined the Cherry-tree Inn.
Save the glimmer of stars, or the moon's...Read more of this...
by
Francesco Petrarch
SONNET IV. Quel ch' infinita providenza ed arte. HE CELEBRATES THE BIRTHPLACE OF LAURA. He that with wisdom, goodness, power divine,Did ample Nature's perfect book design,Adorn'd this beauteous world, and those above,Kindled fierce Mars, and soften'd milder Jove:When seen on earth the shadows to fulfillOf the less volume which conceal'd...Read more of this...
by
John Keats
O golden-tongued Romance with serene lute!
Fair plumed Syren! Queen of far away!
Leave melodizing on this wintry day,
Shut up thine olden pages, and be mute.
Adieu! for once again the fierce dispute
Betwixt damnation and impassioned clay
Must I burn through; once more humbly assay
The bitter-sweet of this Shakespearian fruit.
Chief Poet! and ye clouds of Albion,
Begetters of our deep eternal theme,
When through the...Read more of this...
by
Isaac Watts
Universal praise to God.
Loud hallelujahs to the Lord,
From distant worlds where creatures dwell;
Let heav'n begin the solemn word,
And sound it dreadful down to hell.
The Lord, how absolute he reigns!
Let every angel bend the knee;
Sing of his love in heav'nly strains,
And speak how fierce his terrors be.
High on a throne his glories dwell,
An awful throne of shining bliss;
Fly through the...Read more of this...
by
Alan Seeger
Thy petals yet are closely curled,
Rose of the world,
Around their scented, golden core;
Nor yet has Summer purpled o'er
Thy tender clusters that begin
To swell within
The dewy vine-leaves' early screen
Of sheltering green.
O hearts that are Love's helpless prey,
While yet you may,
Fly, ere the shaft is on the string!
The fire that...Read more of this...
by
Lucy Maud Montgomery
There is never a wind to sing o'er the sea
On its dimpled bosom that holdeth in fee
Wealth of silver and magicry;
And the harbor is like to an ebon cup
With mother-o'-pearl to the lips lined up,
And brimmed with the wine of entranced delight,
Purple and rare, from the flagon of night.
Lo, in the east...Read more of this...
by
John Donne
DEAR love for nothing less than thee
Would I have broke this happy dream;
It was a theme
For reason much too strong for fantasy.
Therefore thou waked'st me wisely; yet 5
My dream thou brok'st not but continued'st it.
Thou art so true that thoughts of thee suffice
To make dreams truths and fables histories;
Enter these arms for...Read more of this...
by
Denise Levertov
"Adam, where are you?"
God's hands
palpate darkness, the void
that is Adam's inattention,
his confused attention to everything,
impassioned by multiplicity, his despair.
Multiplicity, his despair;
God's hands
enacting blindness. Like a child
at a barbaric fairgrounds --
noise, lights, the violent odors --
Adam fragments himself. The whirling rides!
Fragmented Adam stares.
God's hands
unseen, the whirling rides
dazzle, the lights blind him. Fragmented,
he is not present to himself....Read more of this...
by
Francesco Petrarch
SONNET XXVII. Soleano i miei pensier soavemente. HE COMFORTS HIMSELF WITH THE HOPE THAT SHE HEARS HIM. My thoughts in fair alliance and arrayHold converse on the theme which most endears:Pity approaches and repents delay:E'en now she speaks of us, or hopes, or fears.Since the last day, the terrible hour when...Read more of this...
by
Robert Southey
The lilly cheek, the "purple light of love,"
The liquid lustre of the melting eye,--
Mary! of these the Poet sung, for these
Did Woman triumph! with no angry frown
View this degrading conquest. At that age
No MAID OF ARC had snatch'd from coward man
The heaven-blest sword of Liberty; thy sex
Could boast no female ROLAND'S martyrdom;
No CORDE'S angel and avenging arm
Had sanctified again...Read more of this...
by
George (Lord) Byron
Thy days are done, thy fame begun;
Thy country's strains record
The triumphs of her chosen Son,
The slaughter of his sword!
The deeds he did, the fields he won,
The freedom he restored!
Though thou art fall'n, while we are free
Thou shalt not taste of death!
The generous blood that flow'd from thee
Disdain'd to sink beneath:
Within our veins its currents be,
Thy spirit on our breath!
Thy...Read more of this...
by
Horace
Not I, but Varius:—he, of Homer's brood
A tuneful swan, shall bear you on his wing,
Your tale of trophies, won by field or flood,
Mighty alike to sing.
Not mine such themes,...Read more of this...
by
William Butler Yeats
Speech after long silence; it is right,
All other lovers being estranged or dead,
Unfriendly lamplight hid under its shade,
The curtains drawn upon unfriendly night,
That we descant and yet again descant
Upon the supreme theme of Art and Song:
Bodily decrepitude is wisdom; young
We loved each other and were ignorant....Read more of this...
by
Carl Sandburg
I spot the hills
With yellow balls in autumn.
I light the prairie cornfields
Orange and tawny gold clusters
And I am called pumpkins.
On the last of October
When dusk is fallen
Children join hands
And circle round me
Singing ghost songs
And love to the harvest moon;
I am a jack-o'-lantern
With terrible teeth
And the children know
I am fooling....Read more of this...
by
Francesco Petrarch
SONNET LXXVI. Ahi bella libertà, come tu m' hai. HE DEPLORES HIS LOST LIBERTY AND THE UNHAPPINESS OF HIS PRESENT STATE. Alas! fair Liberty, thus left by thee,Well hast thou taught my discontented heartTo mourn the peace it felt, ere yet Love's dartDealt me the wound which heal'd can never be;Mine...Read more of this...
by
Denise Levertov
A certain day became a presence to me;
there it was, confronting me--a sky, air, light:
a being. And before it started to descend
from the height of noon, it leaned over
and struck my shoulder as if with
the flat of a sword, granting me
honor and a task. The day's blow
rang out, metallic--or it was I, a bell awakened,
and what I heard was...Read more of this...
by
Robert Francis
Amherst never had a witch
O Coos or of Grafton
But once upon a time
There were three old women.
One wore a small beard
And carried a big umbrella.
One stood in the middle
Of the road hailing cars.
One drove an old cart
All over the town collecting junk.
They were not weird sisters,
No relation to one another.
A duly accredited witch I
Never heard Amherst ever had
But as...Read more of this...
by
Francesco Petrarch
CANZONE II. Amor, se vuoi ch' i' torni al giogo antico. UNLESS LOVE CAN RESTORE HER TO LIFE, HE WILL NEVER AGAIN BE HIS SLAVE. If thou wouldst have me, Love, thy slave again,One other proof, miraculous and new,Must yet be wrought by you,Ere, conquer'd, I resume my ancient chain—Lift my...Read more of this...
by
Robert Burns
“PRAISE Woman still,” his lordship roars,
“Deserv’d or not, no matter?”
But thee, whom all my soul adores,
Ev’n Flattery cannot flatter:
Maria, all my thought and dream,
Inspires my vocal shell;
The more I praise my lovely theme,
The more the truth I tell....Read more of this...
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