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Famous Assuming Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Burns, Robert
...I markèd nought uncommon.


I watch’d the symptoms o’ the Great,
The gentle pride, the lordly state,
 The arrogant assuming;
The fient a pride, nae pride had he,
Nor sauce, nor state, that I could see,
 Mair than an honest ploughman.


Then from his Lordship I shall learn,
Henceforth to meet with unconcern
 One rank as weel’s another;
Nae honest, worthy man need care
To meet with noble youthful Daer,
 For he but meets a brother.


 Note 1. At the house of Pro...Read More



by Shapiro, Karl
...the fatted souls of animals,
Wile at my eyes bright dots of butterflies
Turned off and on like distant neon signs.

Assuming that this garden still exists,
One ancient lady patrols the zinnias
(She looks like George Washington crossing the Delaware),
The janitor wanders to the iron rail,
The traffic mounts bombastically out there,
And across the street in a pitch-black bar
With midnight mirrors, the professional
Takes her first whiskey of the afternoon--

Ah! It is like a...Read More

by Shelley, Percy Bysshe
...But undulating woods, and silent well,
And leaping rivulet, and evening gloom
Now deepening the dark shades, for speech assuming,
Held commune with him, as if he and it
Were all that was; only--when his regard
Was raised by intense pensiveness--two eyes,
Two starry eyes, hung in the gloom of thought, 
And seemed with their serene and azure smiles
To beckon him.

Obedient to the light
That shone within his soul, he went, pursuing
The windings of the dell. The rivulet,
...Read More

by Bishop, Elizabeth
...ave missed?" Oh promptly he
appears and takes his earthly nature
 instantly, instantly falls
 victim of long intrigue,
 assuming memory and mortal
 mortal fatigue.

More slowly falling into sight
and showering into stippled faces,
darkening, condensing all his light;
in spite of all the dreaming
squandered upon him with that look,
suffers our uses and abuses,
sinks through the drift of bodies,
sinks through the drift of vlasses
to evening to the beggar in the park
who, we...Read More

by Hugo, Victor
...CUSTOM OF LUSACE. 
 
 When died a noble Marquis of Lusace 
 'Twas custom for the heir who filled his place 
 Before assuming princely pomp and power 
 To sup one night in Corbus' olden tower. 
 From this weird meal he passed to the degree 
 Of Prince and Margrave; nor could ever he 
 Be thought brave knight, or she—if woman claim 
 The rank—be reckoned of unblemished fame 
 Till they had breathed the air of ages gone, 
 The funeral odors, in the nest alone 
 Of it...Read More



by Graves, Robert
...n images.

Trusting his images, he assumes their relevance;
Mistrusting my images, I question their relevance.

Assuming their relevance, he assumes the fact;
Questioning their relevance, I question their fact.

When the fact fails him, he questions his senses;
when the fact fails me, I approve my senses.

He continues quick and dull in his clear images;
I continue slow and sharp in my broken images.

He in a new confusion of his understanding;
I in a new ...Read More

by Scannell, Vernon
...nce
And one you"re bound to know, though probably
In other realms than that of literature,
Though I speak of poems now, assuming
That you are interested, otherwise,
Of course, you wouldn"t be reading this.
It is strange to come across a poem
In an old magazine, perhaps, and fail
At first to see that it"s your own.
Sometimes you think, grateful and surprised,
"That"s really not too bad", or gloomily:
"Many have done as well and far, far better".
Or, in despair, "My...Read More

by Milton, John
...named. 
Whereto thus Adam, fatherly displeased. 
O execrable son! so to aspire 
Above his brethren; to himself assuming 
Authority usurped, from God not given: 
He gave us only over beast, fish, fowl, 
Dominion absolute; that right we hold 
By his donation; but man over men 
He made not lord; such title to himself 
Reserving, human left from human free. 
But this usurper his encroachment proud 
Stays not on Man; to God his tower intends 
Siege and defiance: Wretc...Read More

by Edgar, Marriott
...he scrap he were led off a captive, 
With iron balls chained to his feet.

They took him in triumph to Tilda, 
Who, assuming an arrogant mien,
Snatched the Crown off his head and indignantly said
"Take your 'at off in front of your Queen!"

So Stephen were put in a dungeon, 
While Tilda ascended the throne
And reigned undisturbed for best part of a year,
Till she looked on the job as her own.

But Stephen weren't beat by a long chalk 
His plans for escape he soon made...Read More

by Lewis, C S
...Atlantis, the shrouded barge 
Turning away with wounded Arthur, or Ilium burning. 
Now I see that, all along, I was assuming a posterity 
Of gentle hearts: someone, however distant in the depths of time, 
Who could pick up our signal, who could understand a story. There won't be. 

Between the new Hembidae and us who are dying, already 
There rises a barrier across which no voice can ever carry,
For devils are unmaking language. We must let that alone forever....Read More

by Dickinson, Emily
...r's Baccalaureate
A combination is
Of Crickets -- Crows -- and Retrospects
And a dissembling Breeze

That hints without assuming --
An Innuendo sear
That makes the Heart put up its Fun
And turn Philosopher....Read More

by Frost, Robert
...cry like that,
Not if she’s there.”

“What do you make of it?”

“There’s only one thing possible to make,
That is, assuming—that she has gone out.
Of course she hasn’t though.” They both sat down
Helpless. “There’s nothing we can do till morning.”

“Fred, I shan’t let you think of going out.”

“Hold on.” The double bell began to chirp.
They started up. Fred took the telephone.
“Hello, Meserve. You’re there, then!—And your wife?

Go...Read More

by Whitman, Walt
...low and steady ages plodding—the unoccupied surface ripening—the rich ores forming
 beneath; 
At last the New arriving, assuming, taking possession, 
A swarming and busy race settling and organizing every where;
Ships coming in from the whole round world, and going out to the whole world, 
To India and China and Australia, and the thousand island paradises of the Pacific; 
Populous cities—the latest inventions—the steamers on the rivers—the railroads—with
 many a thrifty farm...Read More

by Robinson, Mary Darby
...rning Star, appear'd,
Swift gliding o'er the mountain's crest,
While her blue eyes her soul confess'd,
No borrow'd rays assuming.

'Twas her's, the vagrant lamb to lead,
To watch the wild goat playing:
To join the Shepherd's tuneful reed,
And, when the sultry Sun rose high,
To tend the Herds, deep-lowing nigh,
Where the swift brook was straying.

One sturdy Boy, a younker bold,
Ere they were doom'd to sever,
Maintain'd poor JACOB, sick and old;
But now, where yon tall...Read More

by Hood, Thomas
...r,
Suddenly turned, and up its slender thread
Ran with a nimble terror.

The very stains and fractures on the wall,
Assuming features solemn and terrific,
Hinted some tragedy of that old hall,
Locked up in hieroglyphic.

Some tale that might, perchance, have solved the doubt,
Wherefore, among those flags so dull and livid,
The banner of the bloody hand shone out
So ominously vivid.

Some key to that inscrutable appeal
Which made the very frame of Nature quiver,
An...Read More

by Levertov, Denise
...death
finds them, they may
discover it again, in other
lines

in other
happenings. And for
wanting to know it,
for

assuming there is
such a secret, yes,
for that
most of all....Read More

by Trumbull, John
...see
The grey coquette's affected glee,
Her ambuscading tricks of art
To catch the beau's unthinking heart,
To check th' assuming fopling's vows,
The bridling frown of wrinkled brows;
Those haughty airs of face and mind,
Departed beauty leaves behind.


Nor let your sullen temper show
Spleen louring on the envious brow,
The jealous glance of rival rage,
The sourness and the rust of age.
With graceful ease, avoid to wear
The gloom of disappointed care:
And oh, avoid the...Read More

by Thomas, Dylan
...timed to charge his heart,
He blew like powder to the light
And held a little sabbath with the sun,
But when the stars, assuming shape,
Drew in his eyes the straws of sleep
He drowned his father's magics in a dream.

All issue armoured, of the grave,
The redhaired cancer still alive,
The cataracted eyes that filmed their cloth;
Some dead undid their bushy jaws,
And bags of blood let out their flies;
He had by heart the Christ-cross-row of death.

Sleep navigates the t...Read More

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