Famous Complete Poems by Famous Poets

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

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A Birthday

...ne as sempiternal as a star.

Let me go back to your last birthday. Then
I was already your one man of men
Appointed to complete you, and fulfil
From everlasting the eternal will.
We lay within the flood of crimson light
In my own balcony that August night,
And conjuring the aright and the averse
Created yet another universe.

We worked together; dance and rite and spell
Arousing heaven and constraining hell.
We lived together; every hour of rest
Was honied from your tiger-li...Read more of this...
by Crowley, Aleister


A Childs Christmas In Wales

...ould not fight, could always run. And Snakes-and-Families and Happy Ladders. And Easy Hobbi-Games for
Little Engineers, complete with instructions. Oh, easy for Leonardo! And a whistle to make the dogs bark to
wake up the old man next door to make him beat on the wall with his stick to shake our picture off the wall.
And a packet of cigarettes: you put one in your mouth and you stood at the corner of the street and you waited
for hours, in vain, for an old lady to scold you f...Read more of this...
by Thomas, Dylan

A poem on divine revelation

...ct the sons of Jacob's line, 
And bring the fulness of the Gentiles in. 
Thrice happy day when Gentiles are brought in 
Complete and full; when with its genial beams 
The day shall break on each benighted land 
Which yet in darkness and in vision lies: 
On Scythia and Tartary's bleak hills; 
On mount Imaus, and Hyrcanian cliffs 
Of Caucasus, and dark Iberian dales; 
Japan and China, and the sea-girt isles 
The ancient Ophir deem'd; for there rich gems 
And diamond pearl, and ...Read more of this...
by Brackenridge, Hugh Henry

A Song To David

...ich could itself inure 
 To fasting and to fear— 
Clean in his gestures, hands, and feet, 
To smite the lyre, the dance complete, 
 To play the sword and spear. 

 X 
Sublime—invention ever young, 
Of vast conception, tow'ring tongue, 
 To God th'eternal theme; 
Notes from yon exaltations caught, 
Unrival'd royalty of thought, 
 O'er meaner strains supreme. 

 XI 
Contemplative—on God to fix 
His musings, and above the six 
 The Sabbath-day he blest; 
'Twas then his thoughts ...Read more of this...
by Smart, Christopher

By The Fire-Side

...to boot.

LI.

I am named and known by that moment's feat;
There took my station and degree;
So grew my own small life complete,
As nature obtained her best of me---
One born to love you, sweet!

LII.

And to watch you sink by the fire-side now
Back again, as you mutely sit
Musing by fire-light, that great brow
And the spirit-small hand propping it,
Yonder, my heart knows how!

LIII.

So, earth has gained by one man the more,
And the gain of earth must be heaven's gain too;
...Read more of this...
by Browning, Robert


Eviradnus

...in mail arrayed, 
 Each one disposed with pillar at his back 
 And to another vis-à-vis. Nor lack 
 The fittings all complete; in each right hand 
 A lance is seen; the armored horses stand 
 With chamfrons laced, and harness buckled sure; 
 The cuissarts' studs are by their clamps secure; 
 The dirks stand out upon the saddle-bow; 
 Even unto the horses' feet do flow 
 Caparisons,—the leather all well clasped, 
 The gorget and the spurs with bronze tongues hasped, ...Read more of this...
by Hugo, Victor

Inferno (English)

...to seize and hoard. Of these 
 Hairless, are priests, and popes, and cardinals, 
 For greed makes empire in such hearts complete." 

 And I, "Among them that these vices eat 
 Are none that I have known on earth before?" 

 He answered, "Vainly wouldst thou seek; a life 
 So blind to bounties has obscured too far 
 The souls once theirs, for that which once they wore 
 Of mortal likeness in their shades to show. 
 Waste was their choice, and this abortive strife 
 And toil un...Read more of this...
by Alighieri, Dante

Laughter and Tears IX

...woman who had left their farming shacks in the nearby fields for this cool and solitary place. 

After a few moments of complete silence, I heard the following words uttered with sighs from weather-bitten lips, "Shed not tears, my beloved; love that opens our eyes and enslaves our hearts can give us the blessing of patience. Be consoled in our delay our delay, for we have taken an oath and entered Love's shrine; for our love will ever grow in adversity; for it is in Love's na...Read more of this...
by Gibran, Kahlil

Music

...the treasures of the mine,
Floods of the human voice divine
Along the arch in choral song are rolled.
So bends the bow complete:
And radiant rapture flows
Across the bridge, so full, so strong, so sweet,
That the uplifted spirit hardly knows
Whether the Music-Light that glows
Within the arch of tones and colours seven
Is sunset-peace of earth, or sunrise-joy of Heaven.


X

SEA AND SHORE

Music, I yield to thee;
As swimmer to the sea
I give my Spirit to the flood of song:
Be...Read more of this...
by Dyke, Henry Van

Paradise Lost: Book 05

...e our primitive great sire, to meet 
His God-like guest, walks forth, without more train 
Accompanied than with his own complete 
Perfections; in himself was all his state, 
More solemn than the tedious pomp that waits 
On princes, when their rich retinue long 
Of horses led, and grooms besmeared with gold, 
Dazzles the croud, and sets them all agape. 
Nearer his presence Adam, though not awed, 
Yet with submiss approach and reverence meek, 
As to a superiour nature bowing lo...Read more of this...
by Milton, John

Paradise Lost: Book 10

...n all things wise and just, 
Hindered not Satan to attempt the mind 
Of Man, with strength entire and free will armed, 
Complete to have discovered and repulsed 
Whatever wiles of foe or seeming friend. 
For still they knew, and ought to have still remembered, 
The high injunction, not to taste that fruit, 
Whoever tempted; which they not obeying, 
(Incurred what could they less?) the penalty; 
And, manifold in sin, deserved to fall. 
Up into Heaven from Paradise in haste 
Th...Read more of this...
by Milton, John

Passage to India

...aps shall be taken up, and hook’d and link’d
 together;
The whole Earth—this cold, impassive, voiceless Earth, shall be completely justified;

Trinitas divine shall be gloriously accomplish’d and compacted by the the Son of God,
 the
 poet, 
(He shall indeed pass the straits and conquer the mountains, 
He shall double the Cape of Good Hope to some purpose;) 
Nature and Man shall be disjoin’d and diffused no more,
The true Son of God shall absolutely fuse them. 

7
Year at who...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt

Song of Myself

...fellow drives the express-wagon—(I love him, though I do not know
 him;) 
The half-breed straps on his light boots to complete in the race; 
The western turkey-shooting draws old and young—some lean on their rifles,
 some sit on logs, 
Out from the crowd steps the marksman, takes his position, levels his piece;
The groups of newly-come immigrants cover the wharf or levee; 
As the woolly-pates hoe in the sugar-field, the overseer views them from his
 saddle; 
The bugl...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt

The Bride of Abydos

...to rise or fall, 
When all that we design to do 
Is done, 'twill then be time more meet 
To tell thee, when the tale's complete. 

XX. 

"'Tis true, they are a lawless brood, 
But rough in form, nor mild in mood; 
With them hath found — may find — a place: 
But open speech, and ready hand, 
Obedience to their chief's command; 
A soul for every enterprise, 
That never sees with terror's eyes; 
Friendship for each, and faith to all, 
And vengeance vow'd for those who fall, 
Ha...Read more of this...
by Byron, George (Lord)

The Deserted Garden

...the blossoms white:¡ª 
How should I know but that they might 
Lead lives as glad as mine? 

To make my hermit-home complete, 65 
I brought clear water from the spring 
Praised in its own low murmuring, 
And cresses glossy wet. 

And so, I thought, my likeness grew 
(Without the melancholy tale) 70 
To 'gentle hermit of the dale,' 
And Angelina too. 

For oft I read within my nook 
Such minstrel stories; till the breeze 
Made sounds poetic in the trees, 75 
A...Read more of this...
by Browning, Elizabeth Barrett

The Growth of Love

...could meet--
Being so happy--happily my death.
I care not if I love; to-day she saith
She loveth, and love's history is complete.
Nor care I if she love me; at her feet
My spirit bows entranced and worshippeth. 
I have no care for what was most my care,
But all around me see fresh beauty born,
And common sights grown lovelier than they were:
I dream of love, and in the light of morn
Tremble, beholding all things very fair
And strong with strength that puts my strength to scor...Read more of this...
by Bridges, Robert Seymour

The Hunting Of The Snark

...is 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 one." So remon{-} strance was impossible, and no steering could be done till the next varnishing day. During these bewildering intervals the ship usually sailed backwards. 

As this poem is to some extent connected with the lay of the Jabberwock, let me take this oppor...Read more of this...
by Carroll, Lewis

The Waste Land

...Augustine's Confessions: "to Carthage
then I came,
where a cauldron of unholy loves sang all about mine ears."
308. The complete text of the Buddha's Fire Sermon (which
corresponds
in importance to the Sermon on the Mount) from which these words are taken,
will be found translated in the late Henry Clarke Warren's Buddhism
in Translation (Harvard Oriental Series). Mr. Warren was one
of the great pioneers of Buddhist studies in the Occident.
309. From St. Augustine's Confessio...Read more of this...
by Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)

The White Cliffs

...Lady Ivry's ball the dreadful night 
Before his regiment goes off to fight;
And see him the next morning, in the park,
Complete in busbee, marching to embark.
I had read freely, even as a child,
Not only Meredith and Oscar Wilde
But many novels of an earlier day—
Ravenshoe, Can You Forgive Her?, Vivien Grey,
Ouida, The Duchess, Broughton's Red As a Rose,
Guy Livingstone, Whyte-Melville— Heaven knows
What others. Now, I thought, I was to see
Their habitat, though like the Mil...Read more of this...
by Miller, Alice Duer

White Flock

...ormer riches.


Unification

I'll leave your quiet yard and your white house -
Let life be empty and with light complete.
I'll sing the glory to you in my verse
Like not one woman has sung glory yet.
And that dear girlfriend you remember
In heaven you created for her sight,
I'm trading product 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 ele...Read more of this...
by Akhmatova, Anna

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