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Famous At Once Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry
...r balls are tied
To the orbed earth; sometimes they do extend
Their view right on; anon their gazes lend
To every place at once, and, nowhere fix'd,
The mind and sight distractedly commix'd.

Her hair, nor loose nor tied in formal plat,
Proclaim'd in her a careless hand of pride
For some, untuck'd, descended her sheaved hat,
Hanging her pale and pined cheek beside;
Some in her threaden fillet still did bide,
And true to bondage would not break from thence,
Though slackly brai...Read more of this...
by Shakespeare, William



...at monster think to delay,
but he swiftly snatched up the very first moment
a sleeping warrior and he eviscerated him at once,
biting into his bone-locks, drinking blood from veins,
swallowing him up in gluttonous gobbets—immediately
he had chewed up the unliving entirely, feet and hands. (ll. 736b-45a)

Nearer forth he stepped inside, grabbing in his claws
the mighty-minded warrior at his rest,
the fiend stretching out towards him with his hands.
Beowulf seized him...Read more of this...
by Anonymous,
...14

One Sister have I in our house,
And one, a hedge away.
There's only one recorded,
But both belong to me.

One came the road that I came—
And wore my last year's gown—
The other, as a bird her nest,
Builded our hearts among.

She did not sing as we did—
It was a different tune—
Herself to her a music
As Bumble bee of June.

Today is far ...Read more of this...
by Dickinson, Emily
...It is full winter now: the trees are bare,
Save where the cattle huddle from the cold
Beneath the pine, for it doth never wear
The autumn's gaudy livery whose gold
Her jealous brother pilfers, but is true
To the green doublet; bitter is the wind, as though it blew

From Saturn's cave; a few thin wisps of hay
Lie on the sharp black hedges, where the wain
Dr...Read more of this...
by Wilde, Oscar
...dst,
Felt faint, and would have sunk among the rest,
But that he met Enceladus's eye,
Whose mightiness, and awe of him, at once
Came like an inspiration; and he shouted,
"Titans, behold your God!" at which some groan'd;
Some started on their feet; some also shouted;
Some wept, some wail'd, all bow'd with reverence;
And Ops, uplifting her black folded veil,
Show'd her pale cheeks, and all her forehead wan,
Her eye-brows thin and jet, and hollow eyes.
There is a roaring in the ...Read more of this...
by Keats, John



...from warm earth, or they 
 The grave hath taken, in my mortal need 
 Have mercy thou!" 
 He answered, "Shade am I, 
 That once was man; beneath the Lombard sky, 
 In the late years of Julius born, and bred 
 In Mantua, till my youthful steps were led 
 To Rome, where yet the false gods lied to man; 
 And when the great Augustan age began, 
 I wrote the tale of Ilium burnt, and how 
 Anchises' son forth-pushed a venturous prow, 
 Seeking unknown seas. But in what mood art tho...Read more of this...
by Alighieri, Dante
...t sometimes from the savage Den,  And sometimes from the darksome Shade,  And sometimes starting up at once    In green and sunny Glade,   There came, and look'd him in the face,  An Angel beautiful and bright;  And that he knew, it was a Fiend,    This miserable Knight!   And that, unknowing what he did,  He leapt amid a murd'rous Band,  And s...Read more of this...
by Wordsworth, William
...1
O TO make the most jubilant poem! 
Even to set off these, and merge with these, the carols of Death. 
O full of music! full of manhood, womanhood, infancy! 
Full of common employments! full of grain and trees. 

O for the voices of animals! O for the swiftness and balance of fishes!
O for the dropping of rain-drops in a poem! 
O for the sunshine, and mot...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt
...t.

None obey’d the command to kneel; 
Some made a mad and helpless rush—some stood stark and straight; 
A few fell at once, shot in the temple or heart—the living and dead lay
 together; 
The maim’d and mangled dug in the dirt—the newcomers saw them there; 
Some, half-kill’d, attempted to crawl away;
These were despatch’d with bayonets, or batter’d with the blunts of
 muskets; 
A youth not seventeen years old seiz’d his assassin till two more came to
 release him;...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt
...harp and rags,
He seemed a beggar, such as lags
Looking for crusts and ale.

And the woman, with a woman's eyes
Of pity at once and ire,
Said, when that she had glared a span,
"There is a cake for any man
If he will watch the fire."

And Alfred, bowing heavily,
Sat down the fire to stir,
And even as the woman pitied him
So did he pity her.

Saying, "O great heart in the night,
O best cast forth for worst,
Twilight shall melt and morning stir,
And no kind thing shall come to h...Read more of this...
by Chesterton, G K
...1
They that in play can do the thing they would,
Having an instinct throned in reason's place,
--And every perfect action hath the grace
Of indolence or thoughtless hardihood--
These are the best: yet be there workmen good
Who lose in earnestness control of face,
Or reckon means, and rapt in effort base
Reach to their end by steps well understood. 
Me whom...Read more of this...
by Bridges, Robert Seymour
...Though he looked an incredible dunce:
He had just one idea--but, that one being "Snark,"
 The good Bellman engaged him at once.

He came as a Butcher: but gravely declared,
 When the ship had been sailing a week,
He could only kill Beavers. The Bellman looked scared,
 And was almost too frightened to speak:

But at length he explained, in a tremulous tone,
 There was only one Beaver on board;
And that was a tame one he had of his own,
 Whose death would be deeply deplored.

...Read more of this...
by Carroll, Lewis
...The Argument.


Rintrah roars & shakes his fires in the burdend air;
Hungry clouds swag on the deep

Once meek, and in a perilous path,
The just man kept his course along 
The vale of death.
Roses are planted where thorns grow.
And on the barren heath
Sing the honey bees.

Then the perilous path was planted:
And a river, and a spring
On every cliff and tom...Read more of this...
by Blake, William
...Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore—
    While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
“’Tis some visitor,” I muttered, “tapping at my chamber door—
            Only this and nothing more.”

  ...Read more of this...
by Poe, Edgar Allan
...The First Voice 


HE trilled a carol fresh and free,
He laughed aloud for very glee:
There came a breeze from off the sea: 

It passed athwart the glooming flat -
It fanned his forehead as he sat -
It lightly bore away his hat, 

All to the feet of one who stood
Like maid enchanted in a wood,
Frowning as darkly as she could. 

With huge umbrella, lank and...Read more of this...
by Carroll, Lewis
...Swift as a spirit hastening to his task 
Of glory & of good, the Sun sprang forth
Rejoicing in his splendour, & the mask
Of darkness fell from the awakened Earth.
The smokeless altars of the mountain snows
Flamed above crimson clouds, & at the birth
Of light, the Ocean's orison arose
To which the birds tempered their matin lay,
All flowers in field or fore...Read more of this...
by Shelley, Percy Bysshe
...e grew a task, 
At this epistolary 'Iron Mask.' 

LXXIX 

For sometimes he like Cerberus would seem — 
'Three gentlemen at once' (as sagely says 
Good Mrs. Malaprop); then you might deem 
That he was not even one; now many rays 
Were flashing round him; and now a thick steam 
Hid him from sight — like fogs on London days: 
Now Burke, now Tooke he grew to people's fancies, 
And certes often like Sir Philip Francis. 

LXXX 

I've an hypothesis — 'tis quite my own; 
I never let ...Read more of this...
by Byron, George (Lord)
...tired,
Endeavours to engage her in caresses
Which still are unreproved, if undesired.
Flushed and decided, he assaults at once;
Exploring hands encounter no defence; 
His vanity requires no response,
And makes a welcome of indifference.
(And I Tiresias have foresuffered all
Enacted on this same divan or bed;
I who have sat by Thebes below the wall
And walked among the lowest of the dead.)
Bestows one final patronising kiss,
And gropes his way, finding the stairs unlit . . .
...Read more of this...
by Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)
...WHEN you are old and gray and full of sleep 
And nodding by the fire, take down this book, 
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look 
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep; 

How many loved your moments of glad grace, 
And loved your beauty with love false or true; 
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you, 
And loved the sorrows of your...Read more of this...
by Yeats, William Butler
..., happy and young!
Aren't you tortured already
By the traumatized strings' dark song?
Those now only lightly moan
That once, taut, loudly rang
And aimlessly they are torn
By my dry, waxen hand.
Little is necessary to make happy
One who is tender and loving yet,
The young forehead is not touched yet
By jealousy, rage or regret.
He is quiet, does not ask to be tender,
Only stares and stares at me
And with blissful smile does he bear
My oblivion's dreadful insanity...Read more of this...
by Akhmatova, Anna

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Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry