Famous Chosen Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Chosen poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous chosen poems. These examples illustrate what a famous chosen poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Algernon Charles Swinburne
CHILD, when they say that others
Have been or are like you,
Babes fit to be your brothers,
Sweet human drops of dew,
Bright fruit of mortal mothers,
What should one say or do?
We know the thought is treason,
We feel the dream absurd;
A claim rebuked of reason,
That withers at a word:
For never shone the season
That bore so blithe a bird.
Some smiles may seem as...Read more of this...
by
William Lisle Bowles
YE holy tow'rs, that crown the azure deep,
Still may ye shade the wave-worn rock sublime,
Though, hurrying silent by, relentless Time
Assail you, and the winter Whirlwind's sweep!
For far from blazing Grandeur's crowded halls,
Here Charity hath fix'd her chosen seat,
Oft listening tearful when the wild winds beat,
With hollow bodings, round your ancient walls;
And...Read more of this...
by
Omar Khayyam
It is the rim of the wine-jar which we have chosen for
our place of prayer; it is in making use of wine that we
are rendered worthy of the name of man; it is in the
tavern that we get back the time lost in the mosque....Read more of this...
by
Francesco Petrarch
SONNET VI. Datemi pace, o duri miei pensieri. HE COMPARES HIMSELF TO A BESIEGED CITY, AND ACCUSES HIS OWN HEART OF TREASON. O tyrant thoughts, vouchsafe me some repose!Sufficeth not that Love, and Death, and Fate,Make war all round me to my very gate,But I must in me armèd hosts enclose?Read more of this...
by
William Butler Yeats
The lot of love is chosen. I learnt that much
Struggling for an image on the track
Of the whirling Zodiac.
Scarce did he my body touch,
Scarce sank he from the west
Or found a subtetranean rest
On the maternal midnight of my breast
Before I had marked him on his northern way,
And seemed to stand although in bed I lay.
I struggled with the horror...Read more of this...
by
Francesco Petrarch
SONNET LXXXIV. Morte ha spento quel Sol ch' abbagliar suolmi. WEARY OF LIFE, NOW THAT SHE IS NO LONGER WITH HIM, HE DEVOTES HIMSELF TO GOD. Death has the bright sun quench'd which wont to burn;Her pure and constant eyes his dark realms hold:[Pg 314]She now is dust, who dealt...Read more of this...
by
Kenneth Patchen
Tiny green birds skate over the surface of the room.
A naked girl prepares a basin with steaming water,
And in the corner away from the hearth, the red wheels
Of an up-ended chariot slowly turn.
After a long moment, the door to the other world opens
And the golden figure of a man appears. He stands
Ruddy as a salmon beside the niche where...Read more of this...
by
William Ernest Henley
WHAT have I done for you,
England, my England?
What is there I would not do,
England, my own?
With your glorious eyes austere,
As the Lord were walking near,
Whispering terrible things and dear
As the Song on your bugles blown,
England--
Round the world on your bugles blown!
Where shall the watchful sun,
England, my England,
Match the master-work you've done,
England, my...Read more of this...
by
Victor Hugo
("Un bouffon manquait à cette fête.")
{LES BURGRAVES, Part II.}
The EMPEROR FREDERICK BARBAROSSA, believed to be dead, appearing
as a beggar among the Rhenish nobility at a castle, suddenly reveals
himself.
HATTO. This goodly masque but lacked a fool!
First gypsy; next a beggar;—good! Thy name?
BARBAROSSA. Frederick...Read more of this...
by
Omar Khayyam
O Thou who in the universe art the object chosen
of my heart! Thou who art more dear than the soul
which gives me life, than the eyes which give me light!
O Idol, though in life there be no thing more precious
than this life, Thou art indeed a hundred times more
precious than that life....Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
Old Man Death's a lousy heel who will not play the game:
Let Graveyard yawn and doom down crash, he'll sneer and turn away.
But when the sky with rapture rings and joy is like a flame,
Then Old Man Death grins evilly, and swings around to slay.
Jack Duval was my chosen pal in the ranks of the Reckless Men.
Thick as thieves...Read more of this...
by
Elinor Wylie
The Hielan' lassies are a' for spinnin',
The Lowlan' lassies for prinkin' and pinnin';
My daddie w'u'd chide me, an' so w'u'd my minnie
If I s'u'd bring hame sic a prinkin' leddie.
Now haud your tongue, ye haverin' coward,
For whilst I'm young I'll go flounced an' flowered,
In lutestring striped like the strings o' a fiddle,
Wi' gowden...Read more of this...
by
Rudyard Kipling
Er-Heb beyond the Hills of Ao-Safai
Bears witness to the truth, and Ao-Safai
Hath told the men of Gorukh. Thence the tale
Comes westward o'er the peaks to India.
The story of Bisesa, Armod's child, --
A maiden plighted to the Chief in War,
The Man of Sixty Spears, who held the Pass
That leads to Thibet, but to-day is gone
To seek his comfort of the...Read more of this...
by
W S Merwin
At the last minute a word is waiting
not heard that way before and not to be
repeated or ever be remembered
one that always had been a household word
used in speaking of the ordinary
everyday recurrences of living
not newly chosen or long considered
or a matter for comment afterward
who would ever have thought it was the one
saying itself from the beginning through
all its...Read more of this...
by
Isaac Watts
Will God for ever east us off?
His wrath for ever smoke
Against the people of' his love,
His little chosen flock?
Think of the tribes so dearly bought
With their Redeemer's blood;
Nor let thy Zion be forgot,
Where once thy glory stood.
Lift up thy feet and march in haste,
Aloud our ruin calls;
See what a wide and fearful waste
Is made within thy walls.
Where once thy...Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
The God of Scribes looked down and saw
The bitter band of seven,
Who had outraged his holy law
And lost their hope of Heaven:
Came Villon, petty thief and pimp,
And obscene Baudelaire,
And Byron with his letcher limp,
And Poe with starry stare.
And Wilde who lived his hell on earth,
And Burns, the baudy bard,
And Francis Thompson, from his birth
Malevolently starred. . . .
As like...Read more of this...
by
Andrew Barton Paterson
And I worked my way to the end, and I
Was the head of the "Flying Gang".
'Twas a chosen band that was kept at hand
In case of an urgent need;
Was it south or north, we were started forth
And away at our utmost speed.
If word reached town that a bridge was down,
The imperious summons...Read more of this...
by
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
HERE in silence the lover fondly mused on his loved one;
Gladly he spake to me thus: "Be thou my witness, thou stone!
Yet thou must not be vainglorious, thou hast many companions;
Unto each rock on the plain, where I, the happy one, dwell,
Unto each tree of the wood that I cling to, as onward I ramble,
'Be thou a sign of...Read more of this...
by
Philip Levine
On March 1, 1958, four deserters from the French Army of North Africa,
August Rein, Henri Bruette, Jack Dauville, & Thomas Delain, robbed a
government pay station at Orleansville. Because of the subsequent
confession of Dauville the other three were captured or shot. Dauville
was given his freedom and returned to the land of his birth, the U.S.A.
AUGUST REIN:...Read more of this...
by
Edgar Bowers
Long days, short nights, this Southern summer
Fixes the mind within its timeless place.
Athwart pale limbs the brazen hummer
Hangs and is gone, warm sound its quickened space.
Butterfly weed and cardinal flower,
Orange and red, with indigo the band,
Perfect themselves unto the hour.
And blood suffused within the sunlit hand,
Within the...Read more of this...
by
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
HAND in hand! and lip to lip!
Oh, be faithful, maiden dear!
Fare thee well! thy lover's ship
Past full many a rock must steers
But should he the haven see,
When the storm has ceased to break,
And be happy, reft of thee,--
May the Gods fierce vengeance take!
Boldly dared is well nigh won!
Half my task is solved aright;
Ev'ry star's to me a sun,
Only cowards deem...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
Fitter to see Him, I may be
For the long Hindrance -- Grace -- to Me --
With Summers, and with Winters, grow,
Some passing Year -- A trait bestow
To make Me fairest of the Earth --
The Waiting -- then -- will seem so worth
I shall impute with half a pain
The blame that I was chosen -- then --
Time to anticipate His...Read more of this...
by
Rudyard Kipling
"Farewell, Romance!" the Cave-men said;
"With bone well carved he went away,
Flint arms the ignoble arrowhead,
And jasper tips the spear to-day.
Changed are the Gods of Hunt and Dance,
And he with these. Farewell, Romance!"
"Farewell, Romance!" the Lake-folk sighed;
"We lift the weight of flatling years;
The caverns of the mountain-side
Hold him who scorns our hutted piers.
Lost hills whereby we...Read more of this...
by
Emile Verhaeren
In the house chosen by our love as its birth-place, with its cherished furniture peopling the shadows and the nooks, where we live together, having as sole witnesses the roses that watch us through the windows,
Certain days stand out of so great a consolation, certain hours of summer so lovely in their silence, that sometimes I stop time that swings...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
"They have not chosen me," he said,
"But I have chosen them!"
Brave -- Broken hearted statement --
Uttered in Bethlehem!
I could not have told it,
But since Jesus dared --
Sovereign! Know a Daisy
They dishonor shared!...Read more of this...
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