Famous Attempting Poems by Famous Poets

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

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A Hillside Thaw

...ut a breath of storm
To make a leaf, if there had been one, stir.
One lizard at the end of every ray.
The thought of my attempting such a stray!...Read more of this...
by Frost, Robert


As Summer into Autumn slips

...he presence to concede
Of one however lovely, not
The one that we have loved --

So we evade the charge of Years
On one attempting shy
The Circumvention of the Shaft
Of Life's Declivity....Read more of this...
by Dickinson, Emily

Fit the Fifth ( Hunting of the Snark )

...The Butcher would gladly have talked till next day, 
But he felt that the lesson must end, 
And he wept with delight in attempting to say 
He considered the Beaver his friend. 

While the Beaver confessed, with affectionate looks 
More eloquent even than tears, 
It had learned in ten minutes far more than all books 
Would have taught it in seventy years. 

They returned hand-in-hand, and the Bellman, unmanned 
(For a moment) with noble emotion, 
Said "This amply repays all th...Read more of this...
by Carroll, Lewis

Nirvana

...young man 
looked straight 
foreward.
he heard the other
passengers
speaking 
of other things,
or they were
reading
or
attempting to
sleep.
they had not 
noticed 
the
magic.
the young man
put his head to
one side,
closed his
eyes,
pretended to
sleep.
there was nothing
else to do-
just to listen to the
sound of the
engine,
the sound of the 
tires 
in the
snow....Read more of this...
by Lanier, Sidney

Paradise Lost: Book 02

...dlong to partake with us, shall curse 
Their frail original, and faded bliss-- 
Faded so soon! Advise if this be worth 
Attempting, or to sit in darkness here 
Hatching vain empires." Thus beelzebub 
Pleaded his devilish counsel--first devised 
By Satan, and in part proposed: for whence, 
But from the author of all ill, could spring 
So deep a malice, to confound the race 
Of mankind in one root, and Earth with Hell 
To mingle and involve, done all to spite 
The great Creator...Read more of this...
by Milton, John


Salmon

...ing up into
the mind, and the world
unfastens itself
from the deep ocean of the given. . .Justice, aspen
leaves, mother attempting
suicide, the white night-flying moth
the ants dismantled bit by bit and carried in
right through the crack
in my wall. . . .How helpless
the still pool is,
upstream,
awaiting the gold blade
of their hurry. Once, indoors, a child,
I watched, at noon, through slatted wooden blinds,
a man and woman, naked, eyes closed,
climb onto each other,
on the t...Read more of this...
by Graham, Jorie

Sappho - A Monodrama

...im escaped with
life. Artemisia lost her life in the dangerous experiment: and Sappho is
said thus to have perished, in attempting to cure her passion for Phaon.


SAPPHO

(Scene the promontory of Leucadia.)

This is the spot:--'tis here Tradition says
That hopeless Love from this high towering rock
Leaps headlong to Oblivion or to Death.
Oh 'tis a giddy height! my dizzy head
Swims at the precipice--'tis death to fall!

Lie still, thou coward heart! this is no time
To shake w...Read more of this...
by Southey, Robert

The Emigrants: Book II

...t delicious month
Should, from disturb'd and artificial sleep,
Awaken me to never-ending toil,
To terror and to tears!--Attempting still,
With feeble hands and cold desponding heart,
To save my children from the o'erwhelming wrongs,
That have for ten long years been heap'd on me!--
The fearful spectres of chicane and fraud
Have, Proteus like, still chang'd their hideous forms
(As the Law lent its plausible disguise),
Pursuing my faint steps; and I have seen
Friendship's sweet...Read more of this...
by Turner Smith, Charlotte

The Hunting Of The Snark

...
The Butcher would gladly have talked till next day,
 But he felt that the Lesson must end,
And he wept with delight in attempting to say
 He considered the Beaver his friend.

While the Beaver confessed, with affectionate looks
 More eloquent even than tears,
It had learned in ten minutes far more than all books
 Would have taught it in seventy years.

They returned hand-in-hand, and the Bellman, unmanned
 (For a moment) with noble emotion,
Said "This amply repays all the we...Read more of this...
by Carroll, Lewis

The Joyous Malingerer

...dishes than he wipes.
She finds his absence preferable to his aid,
And thus all mealtime chores doth he evade.

He can, attempting to replace a fuse,
Black out the coast from Boston to Newport News,
Or, hanging pictures, be the rookie wizard
Who fills the parlor with a plaster blizzard.
He'll not again be called to competition
With decorator or with electrician.

At last it dawns upon his patient spouse
He's better at his desk than round the house....Read more of this...
by Nash, Ogden

The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

...try. placing it under its mental deity.
Till a system was formed, which some took advantage of &
enslav'd the vulgar by attempting to realize or abstract the
mental deities from their objects: thus began Priesthood.
Choosing forms of worship from poetic tales.
And at length they pronounced that the Gods had orderd such 
things.
Thus men forgot that All deities reside in the human breast.


PLATE 12
A Memorable Fancy. 

The Prophets Isaiah and Ezekiel dined with me, and I aske...Read more of this...
by Blake, William

The Story of Uriah

...d.
The season was September,
 And it killed him out of hand.

Jack Barrett went to Quetta
 And there gave up the ghost,
Attempting two men's duty
 In that very healthy post;
And Mrs. Barrett mourned for him
 Five lively months at most.

Jack Barrett's bones at Quetta
 Enjoy profound repose;
But I shouldn't be astonished
 If now his spirit knows
The reason of his transfer
 From the Himalayan snows.

And, when the Last Great Bugle Call
 Adown the Hurnai throbs,
And the last gri...Read more of this...
by Kipling, Rudyard

The Theory

...fills
your expectation? 

 No, it's no mistake, it's you; those interconnecting puddles
of flesh pulling at your bones, attempting that world-weary fall
toward the great waters of the world. 

 How you manage against gravity is one of the greater
triumphs of nature. 

 Do you think, said the big one, there's a woman who
would like to marry me? 

 Yes, had such a woman done everything in the world except
marry you, she might think it worthy before dying to complete
her catalog...Read more of this...
by Edson, Russell

White Hands

...erary club.
Yesterday she washed her hands forty seven times during her waking hours and in her sleep moaned restlessly attempting to clean imaginary soiled spots off her hands.
Now the head physician touches his chin with a crooked forefinger....Read more of this...
by Sandburg, Carl

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