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Famous Calculation Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry
...r brains 
And writhing of their bowels and so forth, 
In that bewildering entanglement 
Of horrible eventualities 
Past calculation to the end of time! 
Can I mistake for some clear word of God 
(Which were my ample warrant for it all) 


His puff of hazy instinct, idle talk, 
"The State, that's I," quack-nonsense about crowns, 
And (when one beats the man to his last hold) 
A vague idea of setting things to rights, 
Policing people efficaciously, 
More to their profit, most ...Read more of this...
by Browning, Robert



...housand Christmas trees I didn’t know I had!
Worth three cents more to give away than sell,
As may be shown by a simple calculation.
Too bad I couldn’t lay one in a letter.
I can’t help wishing I could send you one,
In wishing you herewith a Merry Christmas....Read more of this...
by Frost, Robert
...and his long-sufferance,
Till half-another year had slipt away. 

By this the lazy gossips of the port,
Abhorrent of a calculation crost,
Began to chafe as at a personal wrong.
Some thought that Philip did but trifle with her;
Some that she but held off to draw him on;
And others laugh'd at her and Philip too,
As simple folks that knew not their own minds;
And one, in whom all evil fancies clung
Like serpent eggs together, laughingly
Would hint a worse in either. Her own son...Read more of this...
by Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...a start, 
five nine two because it never ends. 
It can't be grasped, six five three five , at a glance, 
eight nine, by calculation, 
seven nine, through imagination, 
or even three two three eight in jest, or by comparison 
four six to anything 
two six four three in the world. 
The longest snake on earth ends at thirty-odd feet.
Same goes for fairy tale snakes, though they make it a little longer.
The caravan of digits that is pi
does not stop at the edge of the page,
but r...Read more of this...
by Szymborska, Wislawa
...res and threads of silk:
But courtship and wooing, whatever their form, are
 informed
By extreme caution, prudence, and calculation, 
For the female spider, lazier and fiercer than the male
 suitor,
May make a meal of him if she does not feel in the same
 mood, or if her appetite
Consumes her far more than the revelation of love's
 consummation.
Here among spiders, as in the higher forms of nature,
The male runs a terrifying risk when he goes seeking for 
 the bounty of beaut...Read more of this...
by Schwartz, Delmore



...upon a plummet-measured face.

No! Greater than Pythagoras, for the men
That with a mallet or a chisel" modelled these
Calculations that look but casual flesh, put down
All Asiatic vague immensities,
And not the banks of oars that swam upon
The many-headed foam at Salamis.
Europe put off that foam when Phidias
Gave women dreams and dreams their looking-glass.

One image crossed the many-headed, sat
Under the tropic shade, grew round and slow,
No Hamlet thin from eating flies...Read more of this...
by Yeats, William Butler

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Book: Reflection on the Important Things