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Famous Compared Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Suckling, Sir John
...led there, 
Such as are on a Catherine pear, 
(The side that's next the sun).

Her lips were red, and one was thin 
Compared to that was next her chin, - 
(Some bee had stung it newly); 
But, Dick, her eyes so guard her face, 
I durst no more upon them gaze 
Than on the sun in July.

Her mouth so small, when she does speak 
Thou'dst swear her teeth her words did break, 
That they might passage get; 
But she so handled still the matter, 
They came as good as ours, or b...Read more of this...



by Robinson, Edwin Arlington
...the same world 
With all the gentlemen that were in irons
For uncommendable extravagances 
That I should reckon slight compared with his 
Offence of being. Distance would have made him 
A moving fly-speck on the map of life,— 
But he would not be distant, though his flesh
And bone might have been climbing Fujiyama 
Or Chimborazo—with me there in London, 
Or sitting here. My doom it was to see him, 
Be where I might. That was ten years ago; 
And having waited seas...Read more of this...

by Shakespeare, William
...listening ear,
To hearken if his foes pursue him still:
Anon their loud alarums he doth hear;
And now his grief may be compared well
To one sore sick that hears the passing-bell.

"Then shalt thou see the dew-bedabbled wretch
Turn, and return, indenting with the way;
Each envious briar his weary legs doth scratch,
Each shadow makes him stop, each murmur stay:
For misery is trodden on by many,
And being low never reliev'd by any.

"Lie quietly, and hear a little more;...Read more of this...

by Eady, Cornelius
...nt
You shrug your shoulders
And agree, a girl without money
Is nothing, dust
To be pushed around by any old breeze.
Compared to this,
My father seems, briefly,
To be a fire escape.
This is the way the blues works
Its sorry wonders,
Makes trouble look like
A feather bed,
Makes the wrong man's kisses
A healing....Read more of this...

by Marvell, Andrew
...s slave, 
Taught the Dutch colours from its top to wave; 
Of former glories the reproachful thought 
With present shame compared, his mind destraught. 
Such from Euphrates' bank, a tigress fell 
After the robber for her whelps doth yell; 
But sees enraged the river flow between, 
Frustrate revenge and love, by loss more keen, 
At her own breast her useless claws does arm: 
She tears herself, since him she cannot harm. 

The guards, placed for the chain's and fleet's d...Read more of this...



by Collins, Billy
...
All I had wished to say
was that art was also short,
as a razor can teach with a slash or two,
that it only seems long compared to life,
but that night, I drove home alone
with nothing swinging in the cage of my heart
except the faint hope that I might
catch a glimpse of the thing
in the fan of my headlights,
maybe perched on a road sign or a street lamp,
poor unwritten bird, its wings folded,
staring down at me with tiny illuminated eyes....Read more of this...

by Moore, Marianne
...nnerved by the nightingale
and dazzled by the apple,
impelled by "the illusion of a fire
effectual to extinguish fire,"
compared with which
the shining of the earth
is but deformity -- a fire
"as high as deep as bright as broad
as long as life itself,"
he stumbles over marriage,
"a very trivial object indeed"
to have destroyed the attitude
in which he stood --
the ease of the philosopher
unfathered by a woman.
Unhelpful Hymen!
"a kind of overgrown cupid"
reduced to insign...Read more of this...

by Austen, Jane
...My dearest Frank, I wish you joy
Of Mary's safety with a Boy,
Whose birth has given little pain
Compared with that of Mary Jane.--
May he a growing Blessing prove,
And well deserve his Parents' Love!--
Endow'd with Art's and Nature's Good,
Thy Name possessing with thy Blood,
In him, in all his ways, may we
Another Francis WIlliam see!--
Thy infant days may he inherit,
THey warmth, nay insolence of spirit;--
We would not with one foult dispense
To w...Read more of this...

by Thomas, Edward
...as so fair
As I thought you: 
Not a word can I bear
Spoken against you. 

All that I ever did
For you seemed coarse
Compared with what I hid
Nor put in force. 

My eyes scarce dare meet you
Lest they should prove
I but respond to you
And do not love. 

We look and understand, 
We cannot speak
Except in trifles and
Words the most weak. 

For I at most accept
Your love, regretting
That is all: I have kept
Only a fretting 

That I could not return
All that you ga...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...the sun's lucent orb 
Through his glazed optick tube yet never saw. 
The place he found beyond expression bright, 
Compared with aught on earth, metal or stone; 
Not all parts like, but all alike informed 
With radiant light, as glowing iron with fire; 
If metal, part seemed gold, part silver clear; 
If stone, carbuncle most or chrysolite, 
Ruby or topaz, to the twelve that shone 
In Aaron's breast-plate, and a stone besides 
Imagined rather oft than elsewhere seen, 
Tha...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...ast and song! 
Such hast thou armed, the minstrelsy of Heaven, 
Servility with freedom to contend, 
As both their deeds compared this day shall prove. 
To whom in brief thus Abdiel stern replied. 
Apostate! still thou errest, nor end wilt find 
Of erring, from the path of truth remote: 
Unjustly thou depravest it with the name 
Of servitude, to serve whom God ordains, 
Or Nature: God and Nature bid the same, 
When he who rules is worthiest, and excels 
Them whom he go...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...f Heaven and Earth consisting; and compute 
Their magnitudes; this Earth, a spot, a grain, 
An atom, with the firmament compared 
And all her numbered stars, that seem to roll 
Spaces incomprehensible, (for such 
Their distance argues, and their swift return 
Diurnal,) merely to officiate light 
Round this opacous Earth, this punctual spot, 
One day and night; in all her vast survey 
Useless besides; reasoning I oft admire, 
How Nature wise and frugal could commit 
Such dispr...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...o Death; from hence a passage broad, 
Smooth, easy, inoffensive, down to Hell. 
So, if great things to small may be compared, 
Xerxes, the liberty of Greece to yoke, 
From Susa, his Memnonian palace high, 
Came to the sea: and, over Hellespont 
Bridging his way, Europe with Asia joined, 
And scourged with many a stroke the indignant waves. 
Now had they brought the work by wonderous art 
Pontifical, a ridge of pendant rock, 
Over the vexed abyss, following the track 
...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...er
What from within I feel myself, and hear
What from without comes often to my ears,
Ill sorting with my present state compared! 
When I was yet a child, no childish play
To me was pleasing; all my mind was set
Serious to learn and know, and thence to do,
What might be public good; myself I thought
Born to that end, born to promote all truth,
All righteous things. Therefore, above my years,
The Law of God I read, and found it sweet;
Made it my whole delight, and in it gr...Read more of this...

by Bible, The
...by the footsteps of the flock, and feed thy kids beside the
           shepherds' tents.

22:001:009 I have compared thee, O my love, to a company of horses in
           Pharaoh's chariots.

22:001:010 Thy cheeks are comely with rows of jewels, thy neck with
           chains of gold.

22:001:011 We will make thee borders of gold with studs of silver.

22:001:012 While the king sitteth at his table, my spikenard sendeth
           forth the s...Read more of this...

by Frost, Robert
...er, cold in June, you say?" 
"I don't suppose the water's changed at all. 
You and I know enough to know it's warm 
Compared with cold, and cold compared with warm. 
But all the fun's in how you say a thing." 
"You've lived here all your life?" 
"Ever since Hor 
Was no bigger than a----" What, I did not hear. 
He drew the oxen toward him with light touches 
Of his slim goad on nose and offside flank, 
Gave them their marching orders and was moving....Read more of this...

by Frost, Robert
...he middle.
It's a star-splitter if there ever was one,
And ought to do some good if splitting stars
'Sa thing to be compared with splitting wood.

We've looked and looked, but after all where are we?
Do we know any better where we are,
And how it stands between the night tonight
And a man with a smoky lantern chimney?
How different from the way it ever stood?...Read more of this...

by Levis, Larry
...into them,
And a spell over all things in that landscape,
Like . . .
 That was the trouble; it couldn't be
Compared to anything else, not even the sleep
Of some asylum at a wood's edge with the sound
Of a pond's spillway beside it. But as each cramp
Grew worse & lasted longer than the one before,
It was hard to keep myself aloof from the threadbare
World walking on that road. After all,
Even as they moved, the peasants, the herds of goats
And cattle, the ...Read more of this...

by Burns, Robert
...Gang aft a-gley,
An' lea'e us nought but grief an' pain
          For promised joy!

Still thou art blest, compared wi' me!
The present only toucheth thee:
But och! I backward cast my e'e
          On prospects drear!
An' forward, tho I canna see,
          I guess an' fear!
...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...of the glory
 of
 you. 

Whoever you are! claim your own at any hazard! 
These shows of the east and west are tame, compared to you;
These immense meadows—these interminable rivers—you are immense and interminable
 as
 they; 
These furies, elements, storms, motions of Nature, throes of apparent dissolution—you
 are
 he or she who is master or mistress over them, 
Master or mistress in your own right over Nature, elements, pain, passion, dissolution. 

The hopples fall...Read more of this...

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Book: Shattered Sighs