Famous Composition Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Composition poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous composition poems. These examples illustrate what a famous composition poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
SOUND, sweet song, from some far land,
Sighing softly close at hand,
Now of joy, and now of woe!
Stars are wont to glimmer so.
Sooner thus will good unfold;
Children young and children old
Gladly hear thy numbers flow.
1820.*
-----
* In the cases in which the date is marked thus
(*), it signifies the original date of publication--the year of
composition not being known. In...Read more of this...
by
William Shakespeare
The other two, slight air and purging fire,
Are both with thee, wherever I abide;
The first my thought, the other my desire,
These present-absent with swift motion slide.
For when these quicker elements are gone
In tender embassy of love to thee,
My life, being made of four, with two alone
Sinks down to death, oppressed with melancholy;
Until life's composition be recured
By those swift messengers...Read more of this...
by
John Donne
I have a friend who still believes in heaven.
Not a stupid person, yet with all she knows, she literally talks to God.
She thinks someone listens in heaven.
On earth she's unusually competent.
Brave too, able to face unpleasantness.
We found a caterpillar dying in the dirt, greedy ants crawling over it.
I'm always moved by disaster, always eager to oppose vitality
But timid also,...Read more of this...
by
William Shakespeare
The other two, slight air and purging fire,
Are both with thee, wherever I abide;
The first my thought, the other my desire,
These present-absent with swift motion slide.
For when these quicker elements are gone
In tender embassy of love to thee,
My life, being made of four, with two alone
Sinks down to death, oppress'd with melancholy;
Until life's composition be recured
By those swift messengers...Read more of this...
by
Charlotte Bronte
But two miles more, and then we rest !
Well, there is still an hour of day,
And long the brightness of the West
Will light us on our devious way;
Sit then, awhile, here in this wood
So total is the solitude,
We safely may delay.
These massive roots afford a seat,
Which seems for weary travellers made....Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
One said: Thy life is thine to make or mar,
To flicker feebly, or to soar, a star;
It lies with thee -- the choice is thine, is thine,
To hit the ties or drive thy auto-car.
I answered Her: The choice is mine -- ah, no!
We all were made or marred long, long ago.
The parts are written; hear the super...Read more of this...
by
Louise Gluck
I have a friend who still believes in heaven.
Not a stupid person, yet with all she knows, she literally talks to God.
She thinks someone listens in heaven.
On earth she's unusually competent.
Brave too, able to face unpleasantness.
We found a caterpillar dying in the dirt, greedy ants crawling over it.
I'm always moved by disaster, always eager to oppose vitality
But timid also,...Read more of this...
by
Thomas Chatterton
Revolving in their destin'd sphere,
The hours begin another year
As rapidly to fly;
Ah! think, Maria, (e'er in grey
Those auburn tresses fade away
So youth and beauty die.
Tho' now the captivating throng
Adore with flattery and song,
And all before you bow;
Whilst unattentive to the strain,
You hear the humble muse complain,
Or wreathe your frowning...Read more of this...
by
Robert Lowell
My Dolphin, you only guide me by surprise,
a captive as Racine, the man of craft,
drawn through his maze of iron composition
by the incomparable wandering voice of Ph?dre.
When I was troubled in mind, you made for my body
caught in its hangman's-knot of sinking lines,
the glassy bowing and scraping of my will. . . .
I have sat and listened to too...Read more of this...
by
Geoffrey Chaucer
THE PROLOGUE.
THE Cook of London, while the Reeve thus spake,
For joy he laugh'd and clapp'd him on the back:
"Aha!" quoth he, "for Christes passion,
This Miller had a sharp conclusion,
Upon this argument of herbergage.* *lodging
Well saide Solomon in his language,
Bring thou not every man into thine house,
For harbouring by night is perilous.
*Well ought a man avised for to be* *a...Read more of this...
by
Edmund Spenser
By that he ended had his ghostly sermon,
The fox was well induc'd to be a parson,
And of the priest eftsoons gan to inquire,
How to a benefice he might aspire.
"Marry, there" (said the priest) "is art indeed:
Much good deep learning one thereout may read;
For that the ground-work is, and end of all,
How to obtain a beneficial.
First, therefore, when ye have...Read more of this...
by
Jorie Graham
I have put on my great coat it is cold.
It is an outer garment.
Coarse, woolen.
Of unknown origin.
*
It has a fine inner lining but it is
as an exterior that you see it — a grace.
*
I have a coat I am wearing. It is a fine admixture.
The woman who threw the threads in the two directions
has made, skillfully,...Read more of this...
by
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
I feel no small reluctance in venturing to give to the public a
work of the character of that indicated by the title-page to the
present volume; for, difficult as it must always be to render satisfactorily
into one's own tongue the writings of the bards of other lands,
the responsibility assumed by the translator is immeasurably increased
when...Read more of this...
by
Jonathan Swift
Five hours, (and who can do it less in?)
By haughty Celia spent in dressing;
The goddess from her chamber issues,
Arrayed in lace, brocades, and tissues.
Strephon, who found the room was void
And Betty otherwise employed,
Stole in and took a strict survey
Of all the litter as it lay;
Whereof, to make the matter clear,
An inventory follows here.
And first a dirty smock appeared,
Beneath the...Read more of this...
by
Edwin Arlington Robinson
“We are false and evanescent, and aware of our deceit,
From the straw that is our vitals to the clay that is our feet.
You may serve us if you must, and you shall have your wage of ashes,—
Though arrears due thereafter may be hard for you to meet.
“You may swear that we are solid, you may say...Read more of this...
by
Billy Collins
I knew that James Whistler was part of the Paris scene,
but I was still surprised when I found the painting
of his mother at the Musée d'Orsay
among all the colored dots and mobile brushstrokes
of the French Impressionists.
And I was surprised to notice
after a few minutes of benign staring,
how that woman, stark in profile
and fixed forever in her chair,
began to resemble...Read more of this...
by
Stanley Kunitz
Before I am completely shriven
I shall reject my inch of heaven.
Cancel my eyes, and, standing, sink
Into my deepest self; there drink
Memory down. The banner of
My blood, unfurled, will not be love,
Only the pity and the pride
Of it, pinned to my open side.
When I have utterly refined
The composition of my mind,
Shaped language of my marrow till
Its forms are instant to...Read more of this...
by
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
[Goethe relates that a remarkable situation
he was in one bright moonlight night led to the composition of this
sweet song, which was "the dearer to him because he could not say
whence it came and whither it would."]
AT midnight hour I went, not willingly,
A little, little boy, yon churchyard past,
To Father Vicar's house; the stars on high
On all...Read more of this...
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