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Famous Been Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Whitman, Walt
...any children! 
These clamors wild, to a race of pride I give.) 

O lands! would you be freer than all that has ever been before?
If you would be freer than all that has been before, come listen to me. 

Fear grace—Fear elegance, civilization, delicatesse, 
Fear the mellow sweet, the sucking of honey-juice; 
Beware the advancing mortal ripening of nature, 
Beware what precedes the decay of the ruggedness of states and men.

Ages, precedents, have long been accumula...Read more of this...



by Dickinson, Emily
...ressed—
And then, 'twas brief and low—
I could not bear to live—aloud—
The Racket shamed me so—

And if it had not been so far—
And any one I knew
Were going—I had often thought
How noteless—I could die—

536

The Heart asks Pleasure—first—
And then—Excuse from Pain—
And then—those little Adonynes
That deaden suffering—

And then—to go to sleep—
And then—if it should be
The will of its Inquisitor
The privilege to die—

601

A still—Volcano—Life—
That ...Read more of this...

by Keats, John
...sorrow thou canst feel; for I am sad
When thou dost shed a tear: explain thy griefs
To one who in this lonely isle hath been
The watcher of thy sleep and hours of life,
From the young day when first thy infant hand
Pluck'd witless the weak flowers, till thine arm
Could bend that bow heroic to all times.
Show thy heart's secret to an ancient Power
Who hath forsaken old and sacred thrones
For prophecies of thee, and for the sake
Of loveliness new born."---Apollo then,
W...Read more of this...

by Alighieri, Dante
...h without were none 
 But deep that stream beyond their wading spread, 
 And closed those gates beyond their breach had been, 
 Had they sought entry with us. 
 Of
 coolest green 
 Stretched the wide lawns we midmost found, for there, 
 Intolerant of itself, was Hell made fair 
 To accord with its containing. 
 Grave,
 austere, 
 Quiet-voiced and slow, of seldom words were they 
 That walked that verdure. 
 To a
 place aside 
 Open, and light, and high, we passed,...Read more of this...

by Wordsworth, William
...;Oh! smile on me, my little lamb!  For I thy own dear mother am.  My love for thee has well been tried:  I've sought thy father far and wide.  I know the poisons of the shade,  I know the earth-nuts fit for food;  Then, pretty dear, be not afraid;  We'll find thy father in the wood.  Now laugh and be gay, to the woods away!  And there, my babe; we'll l...Read more of this...



by Whitman, Walt
...e flitting faces—the expressions, eyes, feet, costumes! O I cannot tell how welcome
 they
 are to me. 

6
O to have been brought up on bays, lagoons, creeks, or along the coast! 
O to continue and be employ’d there all my life!
O the briny and damp smell—the shore—the salt weeds exposed at low water, 
The work of fishermen—the work of the eel-fisher and clam-fisher. 

O it is I! 
I come with my clam-rake and spade! I come with my eel-spear; 
Is the tide out? I join th...Read more of this...

by Frost, Robert
...All’s ever I heard of it, which isn’t much.
But that’s not saying—Look, Fred Cole, it’s twelve,
Isn’t it, now? He’s been here half an hour.
He says he left the village store at nine.
Three hours to do four miles—a mile an hour
Or not much better. Why, it doesn’t seem
As if a man could move that slow and move.
Try to think what he did with all that time.
And three miles more to go!”
“Don’t let him go.
Stick to him, Helen. Make him answer you.Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...immortal, but I know.)

Every kind for itself and its own—for me mine, male and female; 
For me those that have been boys, and that love women; 
For me the man that is proud, and feels how it stings to be slighted; 
For me the sweet-heart and the old maid—for me mothers, and the mothers of
 mothers; 
For me lips that have smiled, eyes that have shed tears;
For me children, and the begetters of children. 

Undrape! you are not guilty to me, nor stale, nor di...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...s and ascending steps! you arches! 
You gray stones of interminable pavements! you trodden crossings!
From all that has been near you, I believe you have imparted to yourselves, and now would
 impart the
 same secretly to me; 
From the living and the dead I think you have peopled your impassive surfaces, and the
 spirits
 thereof would be evident and amicable with me. 

4
The earth expanding right hand and left hand, 
The picture alive, every part in its best light, 
The ...Read more of this...

by Hughes, Langston
...I been scared and battered.
My hopes the wind done scattered.
 Snow has friz me,
 Sun has baked me,

Looks like between 'em they done
 Tried to make me

Stop laughin', stop lovin', stop livin'--
 But I don't care!
 I'm still here!...Read more of this...

by Chesterton, G K
...lords lay dying,
And axes on axes plying,
Flung him, and drove him flying
Like a pirate to the shore.

Wise he had been before defeat,
And wise before success;
Wise in both hours and ignorant,
Knowing neither more nor less.

As he went down to the river-hut
He knew a night-shade scent,
Owls did as evil cherubs rise,
With little wings and lantern eyes,
As though he sank through the under-skies;
But down and down he went.

As he went down to the river-hut
He went a...Read more of this...

by Byron, George (Lord)
...they?
Creations of the mind?—The mind can make
Substances, and people planets of its own
With beings brighter than have been, and give
A breath to forms which can outlive all flesh.
I would recall a vision which I dreamed
Perchance in sleep—for in itself a thought,
A slumbering thought, is capable of years,
And curdles a long life into one hour.

II

I saw two beings in the hues of youth
Standing upon a hill, a gentle hill,
Green and of mild declivity, the last
As 'tw...Read more of this...

by Bridges, Robert Seymour
...d race is run,
Roars thro' her nostrils like a hurricane. 

28
A thousand times hath in my heart's behoof
My tongue been set his passion to impart;
A thousand times hath my too coward heart
My mouth reclosed and fix'd it to the roof;
Then with such cunning hath it held aloof,
A thousand times kept silence with such art
That words could do no more: yet on thy part
Hath silence given a thousand times reproof. 
I should be bolder, seeing I commend
Love, that my dilatory ...Read more of this...

by Carroll, Lewis
...e would only refer to his Naval Code, and read out in pathetic tones Admiralty Instructions which none of them had ever been able to understand--so it generally ended in its being fastened on, anyhow, across the rudder. The helmsman* used to stand by with tears in his eyes; he knew it was all wrong, but alas! Rule 42 of the Code, "No one shall speak to the Man at the Helm," had been completed by the Bellman himself with the words "and the Man at the Helm shall speak to no...Read more of this...

by Wordsworth, William
...bsp;Perhaps he's climbed into an oak,  Where he will stay till he is dead;  Or sadly he has been misled,  And joined the wandering gypsey-folk."   "Or him that wicked pony's carried  To the dark cave, the goblins' hall,  Or in the castle he's pursuing,  Among the ghosts, his own undoing;  Or playing with the waterfall,"   At poor old ...Read more of this...

by Blake, William
...nergy.
Good is Heaven. Evil is Hell.

PLATE 4
The voice of the Devil


All Bibles or sacred codes. have been the causes of the
following Errors.

That Man has two real existing principles Viz: a Body & a
Soul.
That Energy. calld Evil. is alone from the Body. & that
Reason. calld Good. is alone from the Soul.
That God will torment Man in Eternity for following his
Energies.

But the following Contraries to these are True

Man...Read more of this...

by Shelley, Percy Bysshe
...rear,
Nor then avail the beams that quench the Sun
Or that his banded eyes could pierce the sphere
Of all that is, has been, or will be done.--
So ill was the car guided, but it past
With solemn speed majestically on . . .
The crowd gave way, & I arose aghast,
Or seemed to rise, so mighty was the trance,
And saw like clouds upon the thunder blast
The million with fierce song and maniac dance
Raging around; such seemed the jubilee
As when to greet some conquer...Read more of this...

by Byron, George (Lord)
...YLER' 

'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 never was before, and never will be again, the following poem would not have been written. It is not impossible that it may be as go...Read more of this...

by Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)
...ice set,
He said, I swear, I can't bear to look at you.
And no more can't I, I said, and think of poor Albert,
He's been in the army four years, he wants a good time,
And if you don't give it him, there's others will, I said.
Oh is there, she said. Something o' that, I said. 
Then I'll know who to thank, she said, and give me a straight look.
HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME
If you don't like it you can get on with it, I said.
Others can pick and choose if you...Read more of this...

by Akhmatova, Anna
...oduct that is very rare -
I sell your tenderness and loving light.



Song about Song

So many stones have been thrown at me
That I don't fear them any longer
Like elegant tower the westerner stands free
Among tall towers, the taller.
I'm grateful to their builders -- so be gone
Their sadness and their worry, go away,
Early from here I can see the dawn
And here triumphant lives the sun's last ray.
And frequently into my room's window
The winds fr...Read more of this...

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Book: Shattered Sighs