Famous Codes Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Bohemia

by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
 Bohemia, o'er thy unatlassed borders 
How many cross, with half-reluctant feet, 
And unformed fears of dangers and disorders, 
To find delights, more wholesome and more sweet 
Than ever yet were known to the "elite."

Herein can dwell no pretence and no seeming; 
No stilted pride thrives in this atmosphere, 
Which stimulates a tendency to dreaming. 
The shores of the ideal...Read more of this...

Artificer

by Czeslaw Milosz
 Burning, he walks in the stream of flickering letters, clarinets,
machines throbbing quicker than the heart, lopped-off heads, silk
canvases, and he stops under the sky

and raises toward it his joined clenched fists.

Believers fall on their bellies, they suppose it is a monstrance that
shines,

but those are knuckles, sharp knuckles shine that way, my friends.

He cuts the glowing, yellow buildings in two,...Read more of this...

Falstaffs Lament Over Prince Hal Become Henry V

by Herman Melville
 One that I cherished,
Yea, loved as a son - 
Up early, up late with,
My promising one:
No use in good nurture,
None, lads, none!

Here on this settle
He wore the true crown,
King of good fellows,
And Fat Jack was one - 
Now, Beadle of England
In formal array - 
Best fellow alive
On a throne flung away!

Companions and cronies
Keep fast and lament; - 
Come, drawer,...Read more of this...

Mont Blanc

by Percy Bysshe Shelley
 (Lines written in the Vale of Chamouni)

1

The everlasting universe of things
Flows through the mind, and rolls its rapid waves,
Now dark - now glittering - now reflecting gloom -
Now lending splendor, where from secret springs
The source of human thought its tribute brings
Of waters, - with a sound but half its own,
Such as a feeble brook will oft assume
In the wild...Read more of this...

A Little History

by David Lehman
 Some people find out they are Jews.
They can't believe it.
Thy had always hated Jews.
As children they had roamed in gangs on winter nights in the old
 neighborhood, looking for Jews.
They were not Jewish, they were Irish.
They brandished broken bottles, tough guys with blood on their
 lips, looking for Jews.
They intercepted Jewish boys walking alone and beat them up.
Sometimes they...Read more of this...

Mont Blanc: Lines Written in the Vale of Chamouni

by Percy Bysshe Shelley
 I
The everlasting universe of things 
Flows through the mind, and rolls its rapid waves,
Now dark--now glittering--now reflecting gloom--
Now lending splendour, where from secret springs
The source of human thought its tribute brings
Of waters--with a sound but half its own,
Such as a feeble brook will oft assume,
In the wild woods, among the mountains lone,
Where waterfalls around it leap for ever,
Where woods...Read more of this...

To her derided Home

by Emily Dickinson
 To her derided Home
A Weed of Summer came --
She did not know her station low
Nor Ignominy's Name --
Bestowed a summer long
Upon a frameless flower --
Then swept as lightly from disdain
As Lady from her Bower --

Of Bliss the Codes are few --
As Jesus cites of Him --
"Come unto me" the moiety
That wafts the Seraphim --...Read more of this...

The Jingo and the Minstrel

by Vachel Lindsay
 AN ARGUMENT FOR THE MAINTENANCE OF PEACE AND GOODWILL WITH THE JAPANESE PEOPLE

Glossary for the uninstructed and the hasty: Jimmu Tenno, ancestor of all the Japanese Emperors; Nikko, Japan's loveliest shrine; Iyeyasu, her greatest statesman; Bushido, her code of knighthood; The Forty-seven Ronins, her classic heroes; Nogi, her latest hero; Fuji, her most beautiful mountain.


"Now do you know of...Read more of this...

Marginalia

by Barry Tebb
 Here is a silence I had not hoped for

This side of paradise, I am an old believer

In nature’s bounty as God’s grace

To us poor mortals, fretting and fuming

At frustrated lust or the scent of fame 

Coming too late to make a difference

Blue with white vertebrae of cloud forms

Riming the spectrum of green dark of poplars

Lined like soldiers, paler the...Read more of this...

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