Famous Bases Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Sonnet CXXV

by William Shakespeare
  Were 't aught to me I bore the canopy,
With my extern the outward honouring,
Or laid great bases for eternity,
Which prove more short than waste or ruining?
Have I not seen dwellers on form and favour
Lose all, and more, by paying too much rent,
For compound sweet forgoing simple savour,
Pitiful thrivers, in their gazing spent?
No, let me be obsequious in thy...Read more of this...

The Innovator

by Stephen Vincent Benet
 (A Pharaoh Speaks.) 

I said, "Why should a pyramid 
Stand always dully on its base? 
I'll change it! Let the top be hid, 
The bottom take the apex-place!" 
And as I bade they did. 

The people flocked in, scores on scores, 
To see it balance on its tip. 
They praised me with the praise that bores, 
My godlike mind...Read more of this...

Ninth Inning

by David Lehman
 He woke up in New York City on Valentine's Day,
Speeding. The body in the booth next to his was still warm,
Was gone. He had bought her a sweater, a box of chocolate
Said her life wasn't working he looked stricken she said
You're all bent out of shape, accusingly, and when he
She went from being an Ivy League professor of French
To...Read more of this...

The Princess: A Medley: Our Enemies have Falln

by Alfred Lord Tennyson
 Our enemies have fall'n, have fall'n: the seed,
The little seed they laugh'd at in the dark,
Has risen and cleft the soil, and grown a bulk
Of spanless girth, that lays on every side
A thousand arms and rushes to the Sun.
Our enemies have fall'n, have fall'n: they came;
The leaves were wet with women's tears: they heard
A noise of songs they would...Read more of this...

Summer Wind

by William Cullen Bryant
 It is a sultry day; the sun has drank 
The dew that lay upon the morning grass, 
There is no rustling in the lofty elm 
That canopies my dwelling, and its shade 
Scarce cools me. All is silent, save the faint 
And interrupted murmur of the bee, 
Settling on the sick flowers, and then again 
Instantly on the wing....Read more of this...

Large Bad Picture

by Elizabeth Bishop
 Remembering the Strait of Belle Isle or
some northerly harbor of Labrador,
before he became a schoolteacher
a great-uncle painted a big picture.

Receding for miles on either side
into a flushed, still sky
are overhanging pale blue cliffs
hundreds of feet high,

their bases fretted by little arches,
the entrances to caves
running in along the level of a bay
masked by perfect waves.

On the middle of that quiet...Read more of this...

The Spellin'-bee

by Paul Laurence Dunbar
I never shall furgit that night when father hitched up Dobbin,
An' all us youngsters clambered in an' down the road went bobbin'
To school where we was kep' at work in every kind o' weather,
But where that night a spellin'-bee was callin' us together.
'Twas one o' Heaven's banner nights, the stars was all a glitter,
The moon was shinin' like the hand...Read more of this...

Employ all thy efforts to be agreeable to drinkers,

by Omar Khayyam
Employ all thy efforts to be agreeable to drinkers,
and follow the good counsel of Khayyam. O friend!
demolish the bases of prayer and of fasting, drink wine,
steal if you will, but do good....Read more of this...

Sonnet 125: Weret aught to me I bore the canopy

by William Shakespeare
 Were't aught to me I bore the canopy,
With my extern the outward honouring,
Or laid great bases for eternity,
Which proves more short than waste or ruining?
Have I not seen dwellers on form and favour
Lose all, and more, by paying too much rent
For compound sweet forgoing simple savour,
Pitiful thrivers in their gazing spent?
No, let me be obsequious in thy heart,
And take...Read more of this...

In The Beginning

by Rainer Maria Rilke
 In the beginning was the three-pointed star,
One smile of light across the empty face,
One bough of bone across the rooting air,
The substance forked that marrowed the first sun,
And, burning ciphers on the round of space,
Heaven and hell mixed as they spun.

In the beginning was the pale signature,
Three-syllabled and starry as the smile,
And after came the imprints on the water,
Stamp...Read more of this...

Contrast

by Robinson Jeffers
 The world has many seas, Mediterranean, Atlantic, but 
 here is the shore of the one ocean.
And here the heavy future hangs like a cloud; the 
 enormous scene; the enormous games preparing
Weigh on the water and strain the rock; the stage is 
 here, the play is conceived; the players are 
 not found.

I saw on the Sierras,...Read more of this...

The Faerie Queene Book VI Canto X

by Edmund Spenser
Calidore sees the Graces daunce,
To Colins melody:
The whiles his Pastorell is led,
[I]nto captiuity.
 

W Ho now does follow the foule Blatant Beast,
Whilest Calidore does follow that faire Mayd,
Vnmyndfull of his vow and high beheast,
Which by the Faery Queene was on him layd,
That he should neuer leaue, nor be delayd
From chacing him, till he had it attchieued?
But now entrapt of loue,...Read more of this...

Like Mighty Foot Lights -- burned the Red

by Emily Dickinson
 Like Mighty Foot Lights -- burned the Red
At Bases of the Trees --
The far Theatricals of Day
Exhibiting -- to These --

'Twas Universe -- that did applaud --
While Chiefest -- of the Crowd --
Enabled by his Royal Dress --
Myself distinguished God --...Read more of this...

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