Famous Complete(A) Poems by Famous Poets

These are examples of famous Complete(A) 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(a) poems. These examples illustrate what a famous complete(a) poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).

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Sonnet XIII

by Francesco Petrarch
SONNET XIII. Quante fiate al mio dolce ricetto. HER FORM STILL HAUNTS HIM IN SOLITUDE.  How oft, all lonely, to my sweet retreatFrom man and from myself I strive to fly,Bathing with dewy eyes each much-loved seat,And swelling every blossom with a sigh!How oft, deep musing on my woes complete,Along...Read more of this...

The Good Man

by Gwendolyn Brooks
 The good man.
He is still enhancer, renouncer.
In the time of detachment,
in the time of the vivid heather and affectionate evil,
in the time of oral
grave grave legalities of hate - all real
walks our prime registered reproach and seal.
Our successful moral.
The good man.

Watches our bogus roses, our rank wreath, our
love's unreliable cement, the gray
jubilees of our demondom.
Coherent
Counsel! Good man.
Require of us...Read more of this...

Who Learns My Lesson Complete?

by Walt Whitman
 WHO learns my lesson complete? 
Boss, journeyman, apprentice—churchman and atheist, 
The stupid and the wise thinker—parents and offspring—merchant, clerk, porter
 and
 customer, 
Editor, author, artist, and schoolboy—Draw nigh and commence; 
It is no lesson—it lets down the bars to a good lesson,
And that to another, and every one to another still. 

The great laws take and effuse without argument;...Read more of this...

Love is Enough

by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
 Love is enough. Let us not ask for gold. 
Wealth breeds false aims, and pride and selfishness; 
In those serene, Arcadian days of old 
Men gave no thought to princely homes and dress. 
The gods who dwelt on fair Olympia's height 
Lived only for dear love and love's delight. 
Love is enough.

Love is enough. Why should we care for...Read more of this...

The Deserted Garden

by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
I MIND me in the days departed, 
How often underneath the sun 
With childish bounds I used to run 
To a garden long deserted. 

The beds and walks were vanish'd quite; 5 
And wheresoe'er had struck the spade, 
The greenest grasses Nature laid, 
To sanctify her right. 

I call'd the place my wilderness, 
For no one enter'd there but I....Read more of this...

A Babys Death

by Algernon Charles Swinburne
 A little soul scarce fledged for earth
Takes wing with heaven again for goal
Even while we hailed as fresh from birth
A little soul.

Our thoughts ring sad as bells that toll,
Not knowing beyond this blind world's girth
What things are writ in heaven's full scroll.

Our fruitfulness is there but dearth,
And all things held in time's control
Seem there, perchance, ill dreams, not worth
A...Read more of this...

The Battle of Sheriffmuir

by William Topaz McGonagall
 'Twas in the year 1715, and on the 10th of November,
Which the people of Scotland have cause to remember;
On that day the Earl of Mar left Perth bound for Sheriffmuir,
At the same time leaving behind a garrison under Colonel Balfour. 

Besides leaving a force of about three thousand men quartered in different parts of Fife,
To protect the people's property,...Read more of this...

A Star in a Stoneboat

by Robert Frost
 For Lincoln MacVeagh

Never tell me that not one star of all
That slip from heaven at night and softly fall
Has been picked up with stones to build a wall.

Some laborer found one faded and stone-cold,
And saving that its weight suggested gold
And tugged it from his first too certain hold,

He noticed nothing in it to remark.
He was not used to handling...Read more of this...

545. Song—Mally's meek Mally's sweet

by Robert Burns
 Chorus—Mally’s meek, Mally’s sweet,
 Mally’s modest and discreet;
Mally’s rare, Mally’s fair,
 Mally’s every way complete.


AS I was walking up the street,
 A barefit maid I chanc’d to meet;
But O the road was very hard
 For that fair maiden’s tender feet.
 Mally’s meek, &c.


It were mair meet that those fine feet
 Were weel laced up in silken shoon;
An’ ’twere more...Read more of this...

once like a spark

by Edward Estlin (E E) Cummings
(once like a spark)

if strangers meet
life begins-
not poor not rich
(only aware)
kind neither
nor cruel
(only complete)
i not not you
not possible;
only truthful
-truthfully once
if strangers(who
deep our most are
selves)touch:
forever

(and so to dark)

...Read more of this...

The Bunk-House Orchestra

by Badger Clark
  Wrangle up your mouth-harps, drag your banjo out,
  Tune your old guitarra till she twangs right stout,
  For the snow is on the mountains and the wind is on the plain,
  But we'll cut the chimney's moanin' with a livelier refrain.

    _Shinin' 'dobe fireplace, shadows on the wall--_
    _(See...Read more of this...

The Lights of Cobb and Co

by Henry Lawson
 Fire lighted; on the table a meal for sleepy men; 

A lantern in the stable; a jingle now and then; 

The mail-coach looming darkly by light on moon and star; 

The growl of sleepy voices; a candle in the bar; 

A stumble in the passage of folk with wits abroad; 

A swear-word from a bedroom---the shout of "All aboard!"...Read more of this...

The Hard Times In Elfland

by Sidney Lanier
 A Story of Christmas Eve.

Strange that the termagant winds should scold
The Christmas Eve so bitterly!
But Wife, and Harry the four-year-old,
Big Charley, Nimblewits, and I,

Blithe as the wind was bitter, drew
More frontward of the mighty fire,
Where wise Newfoundland Fan foreknew
The heaven that Christian dogs desire --

Stretched o'er the rug, serene and grave,
Huge nose on heavy paws reclined,
With never a drowning...Read more of this...

On This Day I Complete My Thirty-Sixth Year

by George (Lord) Byron
 Missolonghi, Jan. 22, 1824

'Tis time this heart should be unmoved,
Since others it hath ceased to move:
Yet, though I cannot be beloved,
Still let me love!

My days are in the yellow leaf;
The flowers and fruits of love are gone;
The worm, the canker, and the grief,
Are mine alone!

The fire that on my bosom preys
Is lone as some volcanic isle;
No torch is kindled...Read more of this...

The Circus Animals Desertion

by William Butler Yeats
 I

I sought a theme and sought for it in vain,
I sought it daily for six weeks or so.
Maybe at last, being but a broken man,
I must be satisfied with my heart, although
Winter and summer till old age began
My circus animals were all on show,
Those stilted boys, that burnished chariot,
Lion and woman and the Lord knows what.

 II

What can I...Read more of this...

Canzone V

by Francesco Petrarch
[Pg 287] CANZONE V. Solea dalla fontana di mia vita. MEMORY IS HIS ONLY SOLACE AND SUPPORT.  I who was wont from life's best fountain farSo long to wander, searching land and sea,Pursuing not my pleasure, but my star,And alway, as Love knows who strengthen'd me,Ready in bitter...Read more of this...

Sonnet LXVIII

by Francesco Petrarch
SONNET LXVIII. Fuggendo la prigione ov' Amor m' ebbe. HE LONGS TO RETURN TO THE CAPTIVITY OF LOVE.  Fleeing the prison which had long detain'd,Where Love dealt with me as to him seem'd well,Ladies, the time were long indeed to tell,How much my heart its new-found freedom pain'd.I felt within I...Read more of this...

A heart which does not contain in itself complete abstinence

by Omar Khayyam
A heart which does not contain in itself complete abstinence
[from things here below] is to be pitied, for it is
at all times the prey of regret. It is only the heart free
from care that can be joyous; all that exists beyond this
is but a subject of torment....Read more of this...

Jubilate Agno (excerpt)

by Christopher Smart
 For I will consider my Cat Jeoffry. 
For he is the servant of the Living God duly and daily serving him.
For at the first glance of the glory of God in the East he worships in his way.
For this is done by wreathing his body seven times round with elegant quickness.
For then he leaps up to catch the musk,...Read more of this...

To A Young Lady

by John Trumbull
 In vain, fair Maid, you ask in vain,
My pen should try th' advent'rous strain,
And following truth's unalter'd law,
Attempt your character to draw.
I own indeed, that generous mind
That weeps the woes of human kind,
That heart by friendship's charms inspired,
That soul with sprightly fancy fired,
The air of life, the vivid eye,
The flowing wit, the keen reply--
To paint these beauties as they...Read more of this...

Complete Destruction

by William Carlos (WCW) Williams
 It was an icy day.
We buried the cat,
then took her box
and set fire to it
in the back yard.
Those fleas that escaped
earth and fire
died by the cold....Read more of this...

Virgule

by Thomas Lux
 What I love about this little leaning mark
is how it divides
without divisiveness. The left
or bottom side prying that choice up or out,
the right or top side pressing down upon
its choice: either/or,
his/her. Sometimes called a slash (too harsh), a slant
(a little dizzy, but the Dickinson association
nice: "Tell all the Truth but tell it slant--"), solidus (sounding
too much like a Roman...Read more of this...

O Wheel of Heaven! Thou art complete in Thy ingratitude

by Omar Khayyam
O Wheel of Heaven! Thou art complete in Thy ingratitude.
Thou keepest me constantly bare [naked]
like a fish. The weaver's loom weaves clothes for human
beings; more charitable is it than Thou, O Wheel of
Heaven!...Read more of this...

I Now O Friend Whom Noiselessly The Snows

by Robert Louis Stevenson
 I NOW, O friend, whom noiselessly the snows
Settle around, and whose small chamber grows
Dusk as the sloping window takes its load:

* * * * *

The kindly hill, as to complete our hap,
Has ta'en us in the shelter of her lap;
Well sheltered in our slender grove of trees
And ring of walls, we sit between her knees;
A disused quarry, paved with...Read more of this...

Road-Song of the Bandar-Log

by Rudyard Kipling
 (From The Jungle Book)
Here we go in a flung festoon,
Half-way up to the jealous moon!
Don't you envy our pranceful bands?
Don't you wish you had extra hands?
Would n't you like if your tails were -- so -- 
Curved in the shape of a Cupid's bow?
 Now you're angry, but -- never mind,
 Brother, thy tail hangs down behind!


Here we sit...Read more of this...

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