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Famous Aspired Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Milosz, Czeslaw
...I have always aspired to a more spacious form
that would be free from the claims of poetry or prose
and would let us understand each other without exposing
the author or reader to sublime agonies.

In the very essence of poetry there is something indecent:
a thing is brought forth which we didn't know we had in us,
so we blink our eyes, as if a tiger had sprung out
an...Read more of this...



by Service, Robert William
...So I read in the New Yorker);
If it's true, in terms of courtin'
 Benny must have been a corker.
To be prudent I've aspired,
 And my passions I have mastered;
So that I have never sired
 A single bastard.

One of course can never know;
 But I think that if I had
It would give me quite a glow
 When a kiddie called me 'Dad.'
Watching toddlers at their play,
 Parentage I'd gladly claim,
But their mothers smiling say:
 'You're not to blame.'

Ben founded the Satev...Read more of this...

by Browning, Robert
...gh) 
Which whether here, in Dublin or New York, 
Will get you, prompt as at my eyebrow's wink, 
Such terms as never you aspired to get 
In all our own reviews and some not ours. 
Go write your lively sketches! be the first 
"Blougram, or The Eccentric Confidence"-- 
Or better simply say, "The Outward-bound." 
Why, men as soon would throw it in my teeth 
As copy and quote the infamy chalked broad 
About me on the church-door opposite. 


You will not wait for that ...Read more of this...

by Mueller, Lisel
...em
by a long-dead German poet
in which the woods stood safe
under the moon's milky eye
and the white fog in the meadows
aspired to become lighter than air....Read more of this...

by Edgar, Marriott
...his having slain Richard the Third 
He put himself up as his heir.

T'were a bit of a blow to the Barons
When Henry aspired to the Throne,
And some who'd been nursing imperial hopes 
Started pushing out claims of their own.

But they didn't get far with their scheming,
For the moment the matter were pressed
A stroke of the pen took them off to the Tower,
Where a stroke of the axe did the rest.

A feller they called Perkin Warbeck
Was the one who led Henry a dance,...Read more of this...



by Ingelow, Jean
...y yearning and resolve thy doubt?
That which I know, and that which I divine,
      Alas! have left thee out.
I have aspired to know the might of God,
  As if the story of His love was furled,
Nor sacred foot the grasses e'er had trod
      Of this redeemèd world:—
Have sunk my thoughts as lead into the deep,
  To grope for that abyss whence evil grew,
And spirits of ill, with eyes that cannot weep,
      Hungry and desolate flew;
As if their legions did not one da...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...gel, I had stood 
Then happy; no unbounded hope had raised 
Ambition! Yet why not some other Power 
As great might have aspired, and me, though mean, 
Drawn to his part; but other Powers as great 
Fell not, but stand unshaken, from within 
Or from without, to all temptations armed. 
Hadst thou the same free will and power to stand? 
Thou hadst: whom hast thou then or what to accuse, 
But Heaven's free love dealt equally to all? 
Be then his love accursed, since love or ha...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...ined 
Into a beast; and, mixed with bestial slime, 
This essence to incarnate and imbrute, 
That to the highth of Deity aspired! 
But what will not ambition and revenge 
Descend to? Who aspires, must down as low 
As high he soared; obnoxious, first or last, 
To basest things. Revenge, at first though sweet, 
Bitter ere long, back on itself recoils: 
Let it; I reck not, so it light well aimed, 
Since higher I fall short, on him who next 
Provokes my envy, this new favourit...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...o propose
What might improve my knowledge or their own,
And was admired by all. Yet this not all
To which my spirit aspired. Victorious deeds
Flamed in my heart, heroic acts—one while
To rescue Israel from the Roman yoke;
Then to subdue and quell, o'er all the earth,
Brute violence and proud tyrannic power,
Till truth were freed, and equity restored: 
Yet held it more humane, more heavenly, first
By winning words to conquer willing hearts,
And make persuasion do the w...Read more of this...

by Browning, Robert
...the throe!

For thence,--a paradox
Which comforts while it mocks,--
Shall life succeed in that it seems to fail:
What I aspired to be,
And was not, comforts me:
A brute I might have been, but would not sink i' the scale.

What is he but a brute
Whose flesh has soul to suit,
Whose spirit works lest arms and legs want play?
To man, propose this test--
Thy body at its best,
How far can that project thy soul on its lone way?

Yet gifts should prove their use:
I own the Past p...Read more of this...

by Service, Robert William
...Od's blood! but he was tired.
What matter! Charles was crushed and George was King;
His party high in power; how he aspired!
Red guineas packed his purse, too tight to ring.
The fire-light gleamed upon his silken hose,
His silver buckles and his powdered wig.
What ho! more wine! He drank, he slowly rose.
What made the shadows dance that madcap jig?
He clutched the candle, steered his way to bed,
And in a trice was sleeping like the dead.

. . ....Read more of this...

by Byron, George (Lord)
...
Of that inexorable sire, 
Whose heart refused him in its ire, 
When Alp, beneath his Christian name, 
Her virgin hand aspired to claim. 
In happier mood, and earlier time, 
While unimpeach'd for traitorous crime, 
Gayest in gondola or hall, 
He glitter'd through the Carnival; 
And tuned the softest serenade 
That e'er on Adria's waters play'd 
At midnight to Italian maid. 

VIII. 

And many deem'd her heart was won; 
For sought by numbers, given to none, 
Had yo...Read more of this...

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