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Famous Author Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Brackenridge, Hugh Henry
...the wilds rejoice. 


This is that light and revelation pure, 
Which Jacob saw and in prophetic view, 
Did hail its author from the skies, and bade 
The sceptre wait with sov'reignty and sway 
On Judah's hand till Shiloh came. That light 
Which Beor's son in clearer vision saw, 
Its beams sore piercing his malignant eye; 
But yet constrain'd by the eternal truth 
Confess'd its origin and hail'd its rise, 
Fresh as a star from Judah's sacred line. 
This, Amos' son ...Read more of this...



by Pope, Alexander
...well as those to Write.
Let such teach others who themselves excell,
And censure freely who have written well.
Authors are partial to their Wit, 'tis true,
But are not Criticks to their Judgment too?

Yet if we look more closely, we shall find
Most have the Seeds of Judgment in their Mind;
Nature affords at least a glimm'ring Light;
The Lines, tho' touch'd but faintly, are drawn right.
But as the slightest Sketch, if justly trac'd,
Is by ill Colouring but the mor...Read more of this...

by Sidney, Sir Philip
...right;
No louely Paris made thy Hellen his;
No force, no fraud robd thee of thy delight,
Nor Fortune of thy fortune author is,
But to my selfe my selfe did giue the blow,
While too much wit, forsooth, so troubled me
That I respects for both our sakes must show:
And yet could not, by rysing morne fore-see
How fair a day was near: O punisht eyes,
That I had bene more foolish, or more wise! 
XXXIV 

Come, let me write. And to what end? To ease
A burthen'd heart...Read more of this...

by Collins, Billy
...The name of the author is the first to go
followed obediently by the title, the plot,
the heartbreaking conclusion, the entire novel
which suddenly becomes one you have never read,
never even heard of,

as if, one by one, the memories you used to harbor
decided to retire to the southern hemisphere of the brain,
to a little fishing village where there are no phones.

Lon...Read more of this...

by Pinsky, Robert
...to be the tall rabbi,

The one who washed his hands of all those capers
Right at the outset. Or maybe he became
The author of these lines, a one-man renga

The one for whom it seems to be impossible
To tell a story straight. It was a routine
Procedure. When it was finished the physicians

Told Sandra and the kids it had succeeded,
But Elliot wouldn't wake up for maybe an hour,
They should go eat. The two of them loved to bicker

In a way that on his side went ...Read more of this...



by Alighieri, Dante
...guiding star! 
 Now may the love-led studious hours and long 
 In which I learnt how rich thy wonders are, 
 Master and Author mine of Light and Song, 
 Befriend me now, who knew thy voice, that few 
 Yet hearken. All the name my work hath won 
 Is thine of right, from whom I learned. To thee, 
 Abashed, I grant it. . . Why the mounting sun 
 No more I seek, ye scarce should ask, who see 
 The beast that turned me, nor faint hope have I 
 To force that pas...Read more of this...

by Frost, Robert
...ed to know what ailed the people,
She said, "Go read your own books and find out."
I may as well confess myself the author
Of several books against the world in general.
To take them as against a special state 
Or even nation's to restrict my meaning.
I'm what is called a sensibilitist,
Or otherwise an environmentalist.
I refuse to adapt myself a mite
To any change from hot to cold, from wet 
To dry, from poor to rich, or back again.
I make a virtue of my ...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...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? But their spite still serves 
His glory to augment. The bold design 
Pleased highly those infernal States, and joy 
Sparkled in all their eyes: with full assent 
They vote: wher...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...ous Maker shone, 
Truth, wisdom, sanctitude severe and pure, 
(Severe, but in true filial freedom placed,) 
Whence true authority in men; though both 
Not equal, as their sex not equal seemed; 
For contemplation he and valour formed; 
For softness she and sweet attractive grace; 
He for God only, she for God in him: 
His fair large front and eye sublime declared 
Absolute rule; and hyacinthine locks 
Round from his parted forelock manly hung 
Clustering, but not beneath his s...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...et able to make Gods of Men: 
'And why not Gods of Men; since good, the more 
'Communicated, more abundant grows, 
'The author not impaired, but honoured more? 
'Here, happy creature, fair angelick Eve! 
'Partake thou also; happy though thou art, 
'Happier thou mayest be, worthier canst not be: 
'Taste this, and be henceforth among the Gods 
'Thyself a Goddess, not to earth confined, 
'But sometimes in the air, as we, sometimes 
'Ascend to Heaven, by merit thine, and see 
'Wh...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...or beasts it seems: yet that one beast which first 
Hath tasted envies not, but brings with joy 
The good befallen him, author unsuspect, 
Friendly to man, far from deceit or guile. 
What fear I then? rather, what know to fear 
Under this ignorance of good and evil, 
Of God or death, of law or penalty? 
Here grows the cure of all, this fruit divine, 
Fair to the eye, inviting to the taste, 
Of virtue to make wise: What hinders then 
To reach, and feed at once both body an...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...
Sin opening; who thus now to Death began. 
O Son, why sit we here each other viewing 
Idly, while Satan, our great author, thrives 
In other worlds, and happier seat provides 
For us, his offspring dear? It cannot be 
But that success attends him; if mishap, 
Ere this he had returned, with fury driven 
By his avengers; since no place like this 
Can fit his punishment, or their revenge. 
Methinks I feel new strength within me rise, 
Wings growing, and dominion given m...Read more of this...

by Wilde, Oscar
...(Newdigate prize poem recited in the Sheldonian Theatre Oxford 
June
26th, 1878.

To my friend George Fleming author of 'The Nile Novel' and
'Mirage')


I.


A year ago I breathed the Italian air, -
And yet, methinks this northern Spring is fair,-
These fields made golden with the flower of March,
The throstle singing on the feathered larch,
The cawing rooks, the wood-doves fluttering by,
The little clouds that race across the sky;
And fair the violet's gentle d...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...lease his own judgment with what he had
begun. left it unfinisht. Seneca the Philosopher is by some thought
the Author of those Tragedies (at lest the best of them) that go
under that name. Gregory Nazianzen a Father of the Church,
thought it not unbeseeming the sanctity of his person to write a
Tragedy which he entitl'd, Christ suffering. This is mention'd to
vindicate Tragedy from the small esteem, or rather infamy, which
in the account of many it undergoes ...Read more of this...

by Whittier, John Greenleaf
...To the Memory of the Household It Describes

This Poem is Dedicated by the Author

"As the Spirit of Darkness be stronger in the dark, so Good Spirits, which be Angels of Light, are augmented not only by the Divine light of the Sun, but also by our common Wood Fire: and as the Celestial Fire drives away dark spirits, so also this our fire of Wood doth the same." 
Cor. Agrippa, Occult Philosophy, Book I, ch. v.


"An...Read more of this...

by Wordsworth, William
...escription: it is spoken in the character of the melancholy Man, and has therefore a dramatic propriety. The Author makes this remark, to rescue himself from the charge of having alluded with levity to a line in Milton: a charge than which none could be more painful to him, except perhaps that of having ridiculed his Bible.]   When he had better far have stretch'd his limbs  Beside a 'brook in mossy forest-dell  By s...Read more of this...

by Carroll, Lewis
...ng gaze!


PREFACE


If--and the thing is wildly possible--the charge of writing nonsense were ever brought against the author of this brief but instructive poem, it would be based, I feel convinced, on the line (in p.18) 

"Then the bowsprit got mixed with the rudder sometimes." 

In view of this painful possibility, I will not (as I might) appeal indignantly to my other writings as a proof that I am incapable of such a deed: I will not (as I might) point to the stro...Read more of this...

by Dryden, John
...confest, 
And to be shorn lay slumbering on her breast. 
But when this fatal counsel, found too late, 
Exposed its author to the public hate, 
When his just sovereign by no impious way 
Could be seduced to arbitrary sway, 
Forsaken of that hope, he shifts his sail, 
Drives down the current with the popular gale, 
And shows the fiend confessed without a veil. 
He preaches to the crowd that power is lent, 
But not conveyed to kingly government, 
That claims successive ...Read more of this...

by Yeats, William Butler
...d; and dead I choose to be.

Aherne. Sing me the changes of the moon once more;
True song, though speech: "mine author sung it me.'

Robartes. Twenty-and-eight the phases of the moon,
The full and the moon's dark and all the crescents,
Twenty-and-eight, and yet but six-and-twenty
The cradles that a man must needs be rocked in:
For there's no human life at the full or the dark.
From the first crescent to the half, the dream
But summons to adventure and the ...Read more of this...

by Byron, George (Lord)
...BY 
QUEVEDO REDIVIVUS 


SUGGESTED BY THE COMPOSITION SO ENTITLED BY THE AUTHOR OF 'WAT TYLER' 

'A Daniel come to judgment! yes a Daniel!
I thank thee, Jew for teaching me that word.' 

PREFACE 

It hath been wisely said, that 'One fool makes many;' and it hath been poetically observed —

'That fools rush in where angels fear to tread.' - Pope 

If Mr. Southey had not rushed in where he had no business, and where he ...Read more of this...

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