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Famous Aspiring(P) Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry
..."Aug." 10, 1911.

Full moon to-night; and six and twenty years
Since my full moon first broke from angel spheres!
A year of infinite love unwearying ---
No circling seasons, but perennial spring!
A year of triumph trampling through defeat,
The first made holy and the last made sweet
By this same love; a year of wealth and woe,
Joy, poverty, health, sicknes...Read more of this...
by Crowley, Aleister



...Were I - who to my cost already am
One of those strange, prodigious creatures, man -
A spirit free to choose for my own share
What sort of flesh and blood I pleased to wear,
I'd be a dog, a monkey, or a bear,
Or anything but that vain animal,
Who is so proud of being rational.

His senses are too gross; and he'll contrive
A sixth, to contradict the other f...Read more of this...
by Wilmot, John
...Dear Thomas, didst thou never pop
Thy head into a tin-man's shop?
There, Thomas, didst thou never see
('Tis but by way of simile)
A squirrel spend his little rage
In jumping round a rolling cage?
The cage, as either side turn'd up,
Striking a ring of bells a-top?--

Mov'd in the orb, pleas'd with the chimes,
The foolish creature thinks he climbs:
But here ...Read more of this...
by Prior, Matthew
...PART I

O! nothing earthly save the ray
(Thrown back from flowers) of Beauty's eye,
As in those gardens where the day
Springs from the gems of Circassy-
O! nothing earthly save the thrill
Of melody in woodland rill-
Or (music of the passion-hearted)
Joy's voice so peacefully departed
That like the murmur in the shell,
Its echo dwelleth and will dwell-
Oh, ...Read more of this...
by Poe, Edgar Allan
...To Henry St. John, Lord Bolingbroke
Awake, my St. John! leave all meaner things 
To low ambition, and the pride of kings.
Let us (since life can little more supply
Than just to look about us and to die)
Expatiate free o'er all this scene of man;
A mighty maze! but not without a plan;
A wild, where weeds and flow'rs promiscuous shoot;
Or garden, tempting wi...Read more of this...
by Pope, Alexander



...The First Epistle

Awake, my ST. JOHN!(1) leave all meaner things 
To low ambition, and the pride of Kings. 
Let us (since Life can little more supply 
Than just to look about us and to die) 
Expatiate(2) free o'er all this scene of Man; 
A mighty maze! but not without a plan; 
A Wild, where weeds and flow'rs promiscuous shoot, 
Or Garden, tempting with fo...Read more of this...
by Pope, Alexander
...Since yesterday had throw me and bolt,
Today has hurt my heart even more.
The autumn wildgeese have a long wing for escort
As I face them from this villa, drinking my wine.
The bones of great writers are your brushes, in the school of heaven,
And I am Lesser Hsieh growing up by your side.
We both are exalted to distant thought,
Aspiring to the sky and the ...Read more of this...
by Po, Li
...(a)
they seek to celebrate the word
not to bring their knives out on a poem
dissecting it to find a heart
whose beat lies naked on a table
not to score in triumph on a line
no sensitive would put a nostril to
but simply to receive it as an
offering glimpsing the sacred there

poem probes the poet's once-intention
but each time said budges its truth
afresh ...Read more of this...
by Gregory, Rg
...Of Man's first disobedience, and the fruit 
Of that forbidden tree whose mortal taste 
Brought death into the World, and all our woe, 
With loss of Eden, till one greater Man 
Restore us, and regain the blissful seat, 
Sing, Heavenly Muse, that, on the secret top 
Of Oreb, or of Sinai, didst inspire 
That shepherd who first taught the chosen seed 
In the b...Read more of this...
by Milton, John
...Hail, holy Light, offspring of Heaven firstborn, 
Or of the Eternal coeternal beam 
May I express thee unblam'd? since God is light, 
And never but in unapproached light 
Dwelt from eternity, dwelt then in thee 
Bright effluence of bright essence increate. 
Or hear"st thou rather pure ethereal stream, 
Whose fountain who shall tell? before the sun, 
Before...Read more of this...
by Milton, John
...O, for that warning voice, which he, who saw 
The Apocalypse, heard cry in Heaven aloud, 
Then when the Dragon, put to second rout, 
Came furious down to be revenged on men, 
Woe to the inhabitants on earth! that now, 
While time was, our first parents had been warned 
The coming of their secret foe, and 'scaped, 
Haply so 'scaped his mortal snare: For now...Read more of this...
by Milton, John
...All night the dreadless Angel, unpursued, 
Through Heaven's wide champain held his way; till Morn, 
Waked by the circling Hours, with rosy hand 
Unbarred the gates of light. There is a cave 
Within the mount of God, fast by his throne, 
Where light and darkness in perpetual round 
Lodge and dislodge by turns, which makes through Heaven 
Grateful vicissitud...Read more of this...
by Milton, John
...(AMSTERDAM, 1645)


And there you are again, now as you are. 
Observe yourself as you discern yourself 
In your discredited ascendency; 
Without your velvet or your feathers now, 
Commend your new condition to your fate,
And your conviction to the sieves of time. 
Meanwhile appraise yourself, Rembrandt van Ryn, 
Now as you are—formerly more or less 
Distin...Read more of this...
by Robinson, Edwin Arlington
...1 

Ye heavenly spirits, whose ashy cinders lie 
Under deep ruins, with huge walls opprest, 
But not your praise, the which shall never die 
Through your fair verses, ne in ashes rest; 
If so be shrilling voice of wight alive 
May reach from hence to depth of darkest hell, 
Then let those deep Abysses open rive, 
That ye may understand my shreiking yell. 
...Read more of this...
by Spenser, Edmund
...Were I (who to my cost already am 
One of those strange prodigious Creatures Man) 
A Spirit free, to choose for my own share, 
What Case of Flesh, and Blood, I pleas'd to weare, 
I'd be a Dog, a Monkey, or a Bear, 
Or any thing but that vain Animal, 
Who is so proud of being rational. 
The senses are too gross, and he'll contrive 
A Sixth, to contradict th...Read more of this...
by Wilmot, John
...“Whether all towns and all who live in them— 
So long as they be somewhere in this world 
That we in our complacency call ours— 
Are more or less the same, I leave to you. 
I should say less. Whether or not, meanwhile,
We’ve all two legs—and as for that, we haven’t— 
There were three kinds of men where I was born: 
The good, the not so good, and Tasker Nor...Read more of this...
by Robinson, Edwin Arlington
...I 

The World without Imagination 

1 Nota: man is the intelligence of his soil, 
2 The sovereign ghost. As such, the Socrates 
3 Of snails, musician of pears, principium 
4 And lex. Sed quaeritur: is this same wig 
5 Of things, this nincompated pedagogue, 
6 Preceptor to the sea? Crispin at sea 
7 Created, in his day, a touch of doubt. 
8 An eye...Read more of this...
by Stevens, Wallace
...Scene, on the Cliffs to the Eastward of the Town of
Brighthelmstone in Sussex. Time, a Morning in November, 1792.


Slow in the Wintry Morn, the struggling light
Throws a faint gleam upon the troubled waves;
Their foaming tops, as they approach the shore
And the broad surf that never ceasing breaks
On the innumerous pebbles, catch the beams
Of the pale Sun...Read more of this...
by Turner Smith, Charlotte
...Long ago in a poultry yard 
One dull November morn, 
Beneath a motherly soft wing 
A little goose was born. 

Who straightway peeped out of the shell 
To view the world beyond, 
Longing at once to sally forth 
And paddle in the pond. 

"Oh! be not rash," her father said, 
A mild Socratic bird; 
Her mother begged her not to stray 
With many a warning word. ...Read more of this...
by Alcott, Louisa May
...THE TRIUMPH OF FAME. PART I. Da poi che Morte trionfò nel volto.  When cruel Death his paly ensign spreadOver that face, which oft in triumph ledMy subject thoughts; and beauty's sovereign light,Read more of this...
by Petrarch, Francesco

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Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry