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Famous Composed Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Arnold, Matthew
...little breath—
The pure eternal course of life,
Not human combatings with death.

Thus feeling, gazing, let me grow
Composed, refreshed, ennobled, clear;
Then willing let my spirit go
To work or wait elsewhere or here!...Read more of this...



by Wordsworth, William
...Earth has not anything to show more fair:
Dull would he be of soul who could pass by
A sight so touching in its majesty:
This City now doth like a garment wear
The beauty of the morning; silent , bare,
Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie
Open unto the fields, and to the sky,
All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.
Never did the sun ...Read more of this...

by Collins, Billy
...n,
and with Yeats you lean against a broken pear tree,
the day hooded by low clouds.

But now you are here with me,
composed in the open field of this page,
no room or manicured garden to enclose us,
no Zeitgeist marching in the background,
no heavy ethos thrown over us like a cloak.

Instead, our meeting is so brief and accidental,
unnoticed by the monocled eye of History,
you could be the man I held the door for 
this morning at the bank or post office 
or the one w...Read more of this...

by Marvell, Andrew
...highest place contends, 
And each the hand that lays him will direct, 
And some fall back upon the architect; 
Yet all composed by his attractive song, 
Into the animated city throng. 

The Commonwealth does through their centres all 
Draw the circumference of the public wall; 
The crossest spirits here do take their part, 
Fastening the contignation which they thwart; 
And they, whose nature leads them to divide, 
Uphold this one, and that the other side; 
But the most ...Read more of this...

by Ginsberg, Allen
...New York,
a boy
in San Fransisco.

The moon over the roof,
worms in the garden.
I rent this house.


[Haiku composed in the backyard cottage at 1624
Milvia Street, Berkeley 1955, while reading R.H. 
Blyth's 4 volumes, "Haiku."]...Read more of this...



by Homer,
...[Note: This Homeric Hymn, composed in approximately the seventh century BCE, served for centuries thereafter as the canonical hymn of the Eleusinian Mysteries. The text below was translated from the Greek by Hugh G. Evelyn-White and first published by the Loeb Classical Library in 1914. This text has been scanned and proof-read by Edward A. Beach, Department of Philos...Read more of this...

by Wordsworth, William
...Five years have passed; five summers, with the length 
Of five long winters! and again I hear
These waters, rolling from their mountain-springs
With a soft inland murmur.  Once again
Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs,
That on a wild secluded scene impress
Thoughts of more deep seclusion; and connect
The landscape with the quiet of the sky....Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...g gods disguised in brutish forms 
Rather than human. Nor did Israel scape 
Th' infection, when their borrowed gold composed 
The calf in Oreb; and the rebel king 
Doubled that sin in Bethel and in Dan, 
Likening his Maker to the grazed ox-- 
Jehovah, who, in one night, when he passed 
From Egypt marching, equalled with one stroke 
Both her first-born and all her bleating gods. 
Belial came last; than whom a Spirit more lewd 
Fell not from Heaven, or more gross to lov...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...her side up rose 
Belial, in act more graceful and humane. 
A fairer person lost not Heaven; he seemed 
For dignity composed, and high exploit. 
But all was false and hollow; though his tongue 
Dropped manna, and could make the worse appear 
The better reason, to perplex and dash 
Maturest counsels: for his thoughts were low-- 
 To vice industrious, but to nobler deeds 
Timorous and slothful. Yet he pleased the ear, 
And with persuasive accent thus began:-- 
 "I s...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...
We may no longer stay: go, waken Eve; 
Her also I with gentle dreams have calmed 
Portending good, and all her spirits composed 
To meek submission: thou, at season fit, 
Let her with thee partake what thou hast heard; 
Chiefly what may concern her faith to know, 
The great deliverance by her seed to come 
(For by the Woman's seed) on all mankind: 
That ye may live, which will be many days, 
Both in one faith unanimous, though sad, 
With cause, for evils past; yet much more ...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...an fallen, shall be restored, I never more."
 To whom our Saviour sternly thus replied:—
"Deservedly thou griev'st, composed of lies
From the beginning, and in lies wilt end,
Who boast'st release from Hell, and leave to come
Into the Heaven of Heavens. Thou com'st, indeed, 
As a poor miserable captive thrall
Comes to the place where he before had sat
Among the prime in splendour, now deposed,
Ejected, emptied, gazed, unpitied, shunned,
A spectacle of ruin, or of scorn...Read more of this...

by Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)
...ins.

“You do not know how much they mean to me, my friends,
And how, how rare and strange it is, to find
In a life composed so much, so much of odds and ends,
[For indeed I do not love it ... you knew? you are not blind!
How keen you are!]
To find a friend who has these qualities,
Who has, and gives
Those qualities upon which friendship lives.
How much it means that I say this to you—
Without these friendships—life, what cauchemar!”

Among the windings of...Read more of this...

by Rilke, Rainer Maria
...here humility-not a fool's
but feminine: the look of one who serves.
The mouth quite ordinary large and straight
composed yet not willing to speak out
when necessary. The forehead still na?ve
most comfortable in shadows looking down.

This as a whole just hazily foreseen-
never in any joy of suffering
collected for a firm accomplishment;
and yet as though from far off with scattered Things
a serious true work were being planned....Read more of this...

by Auden, Wystan Hugh (W H)
...>Yet, dotted everywhere,Ironic points of lightFlash out wherever the JustExchange their messages:May I, composed like themOf Eros and of dust,Beleaguered by the sameNegation and despair,Show an affirming flame....Read more of this...

by Byron, George (Lord)
...robb'd the meaner worm: 
The only heart, the only eye 
Had bled or wept to see him die, 
Had seen those scatter'd limbs composed, 
And mourn'd above his turban-stone, [40] 
That heart hath burst — that eye was closed — 
Yea — closed before his own! 

XXVII. 

By Helle's stream there is a voice of wail! 
And woman's eye is wet — man's cheek is pale: 
Zuleika! last of Giaffir's race, 
Thy destined lord is come too late: 
He sees not — ne'er shall see — thy face! 
Can he not...Read more of this...

by Stevens, Wallace
...men like Crispin like them in intent, 
462 If not in will, to track the knaves of thought. 
463 But the quotidian composed as his, 
464 Of breakfast ribands, fruits laid in their leaves, 
465 The tomtit and the cassia and the rose, 
466 Although the rose was not the noble thorn 
467 Of crinoline spread, but of a pining sweet, 
468 Composed of evenings like cracked shutters flung 
469 Upon the rumpling bottomness, and nights 
470 In which those frail custodians wa...Read more of this...

by Lowell, Amy
...uite convinced her, every now and then
She kissed him, shivering as though doubting still.
But later when they were composed and when
She dared relax her probings, "Lottachen,"
He asked, "how is it your love has withstood
My inadvertence? I was made of wood."
She told him, and no doubt she meant it truly,
That he was sun, and grass, and wind, and sky
To her. And even if conscience were unruly
She salved it by neat sophistries, but why
Suppose her insincere, it was...Read more of this...

by Marvell, Andrew
...Clora, come view my soul, and tell
Whether I have contrived it well.
Now all its several lodgings lie
Composed into one gallery;
And the great arras-hangings, made
Of various faces, by are laid;
That, for all furniture, you'll find
Only your picture in my mind.

Here thou art painted in the dress
Of an inhuman murderess;
Examining upon our hearts
Thy fertile shop of cruel arts:
Engines more keen than ever yet
Adornèd tyrant's cabinet;
Of whic...Read more of this...

by Bridges, Robert Seymour
...t thro' any glass. 

48
Come gentle sleep, I woo thee: come and take
Not now the child into thine arms, from fright
Composed by drowsy tune and shaded light,
Whom ignorant of thee thou didst nurse and make;
Nor now the boy, who scorn'd thee for the sake
Of growing knowledge or mysterious night,
Tho' with fatigue thou didst his limbs invite,
And heavily weigh the eyes that would not wake; 
No, nor the man severe, who from his best
Failing, alert fled to thee, that his brea...Read more of this...

by Blake, William
...e infinite deep, in the most terrific shapes of animals
sprung from corruption. & the air was full of them, & seemd
composed of them; these are Devils. and are called Powers of the
air, I now asked my companion which was my eternal lot? he said,
between the black & white spiders 
But now, from between the black & white spiders a cloud and
fire burst and rolled thro the deep blackning all beneath, so
that the nether deep grew black as a sea & rolled with a terrible
noi...Read more of this...

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