Famous Contents Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Contents poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous contents poems. These examples illustrate what a famous contents poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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...characters,
Laundering the silken figures in the brine
That season'd woe had pelleted in tears,
And often reading what contents it bears;
As often shrieking undistinguish'd woe,
In clamours of all size, both high and low.
Sometimes her levell'd eyes their carriage ride,
As they did battery to the spheres intend;
Sometime diverted their poor balls are tied
To the orbed earth; sometimes they do extend
Their view right on; anon their gazes lend
To every place at once, and, now...Read more of this...
by
Shakespeare, William
...wat'ry waste,
Where slaves once more their native land behold,
No fiends torment, no Christians thirst for gold.
To be, contents his natural desire,
He asks no angel's wing, no seraph's fire;
But thinks, admitted to that equal sky,
His faithful dog shall bear him company.IV.
Go, wiser thou! and, in thy scale of sense
Weigh thy opinion against Providence;
Call imperfection what thou fanciest such,
Say, here he gives too little, there too much:
Destroy all creatures for thy ...Read more of this...
by
Pope, Alexander
...st thou found such and such-like arguments,
Or art thou else to comfort me forsworne?
Well, how-so thou interpret the contents,
I am resolu'd thy errour to maintaine,
Rather then by more truth to get more paine.
LXVIII
Stella, the onely planet of my light,
Light of my life, and life of my desire,
Chiefe good whereto my hope doth only aspire,
World of my wealth, and heau'n of my delight;
Why dost thou spend the treasures of thy sprite
With voice more fit to wed ...Read more of this...
by
Sidney, Sir Philip
...son, Cook, is plain to view.
I wish to make an Irish stew."
"What meat is in that stew to go?"
"My sister'll be the contents!"
"Oh"
"You'll lend the pan to me, Cook?"
"No!"
Moral: Never stew your sister....Read more of this...
by
Carroll, Lewis
...e
Freedom as none can taste it, nor dost waste
Thy loveliness in dismal elements;
But, finding in our green earth sweet contents,
There livest blissfully. Ah, if to thee
It feels Elysian, how rich to me,
An exil'd mortal, sounds its pleasant name!
Within my breast there lives a choking flame--
O let me cool it among the zephyr-boughs!
A homeward fever parches up my tongue--
O let me slake it at the running springs!
Upon my ear a noisy nothing rings--
O let me once more hear t...Read more of this...
by
Keats, John
...han me, more, still forever more!"
Thus, each in her own fashion, as they wandered,
Upon the coffer's precious contents pondered,
When suddenly, to their surprise,
The God Desire stood before their eyes.
Desire, that courteous deity who grants
All wishes, prayers, and wants;
Said he to the two sisters: "Beauteous ladies,
As I'm a gentleman, my task and trade is
To be the slave of your behest—
Choose therefore at your own sweet will and pleasur...Read more of this...
by
Hugo, Victor
...try waste,
Where slaves once more their native land behold,
No fiends torment, no Christians thirst for gold!
To Be, contents his natural desire,
He asks no Angel's wing, no Seraph's(8) fire;
But thinks, admitted to that equal sky,
His faithful dog shall bear him company.
IV. Go, wiser thou! and in thy scale of sense
Weigh thy Opinion against Providence;
Call Imperfection what thou fancy'st such,
Say, here he gives too little, there too much;
Destroy all creatures ...Read more of this...
by
Pope, Alexander
...wat'ry waste,
Where slaves once more their native land behold,
No fiends torment, no Christians thirst for gold.
To be, contents his natural desire,
He asks no angel's wing, no seraph's fire;
But thinks, admitted to that equal sky....Read more of this...
by
Pope, Alexander
...s full of panting egrets.
I'm saying that strictly for effect.
In time I will heal, I know this, or I believe this.
The contents and furnishings of my secret room will be labeled
and organized so thoroughly it will be a little frightening.
What I thought was infinite will turn out to be just a couple
of odds and ends, a tiny miscellany, miniature stuff, fragments
of novelties, of no great moment. But it will also be enough,
maybe even more than enough, to suggest an immense r...Read more of this...
by
Taylor, Edward
...y shell,
"Small by degrees and beautifully less,"
As the large mother with a powerful spell [5]
Forced each in turn its contents to express, [6]
But ah! "imperfect is expression,"
Some poet said, I don't care who,
If you want to know you must go elsewhere,
One fact I can tell, if you're willing to hear,
He never attended a Parliament Session,
For I'm certain that if he had ever been there,
Full quickly would he have changed his ideas,
With the hissings, the hootings, the groa...Read more of this...
by
Carroll, Lewis
...marble nor the gilded monuments
Of princes shall outlive this powerful rhyme;
But you shall shine more bright in these contents
Than unswept stone, besmear'd with sluttish time.
When wasteful war shall statues overturn,
And broils root out the work of masonry,
Nor Mars his sword nor war's quick fire shall burn
The living record of your memory.
'Gainst death and all-oblivious enmity
Shall you pace forth; your praise shall still find room,
Even in the eyes of all posterity
Tha...Read more of this...
by
Shakespeare, William
...a quick result.
To whom thus Belial, in like gamesome mood.
Leader! the terms we sent were terms of weight,
Of hard contents, and full of force urged home;
Such as we might perceive amused them all,
And stumbled many: Who receives them right,
Had need from head to foot well understand;
Not understood, this gift they have besides,
They show us when our foes walk not upright.
So they among themselves in pleasant vein
Stood scoffing, hightened in their thoughts beyond...Read more of this...
by
Milton, John
...uld be the first piece in an important collection.
We would nail him up in a packing crate with a big label
on it.
Contents:
Trout Fishing in America Shorty
Occupation:
Wine
Address:
C/O Nelson Algren
Chicago
And there would be stickers all over the crate, saying:
"GLASS/HANDLE WITH CARE/SPECIAL HANDLING/GLASS
/DON'T SPILL/THIS SIDE UP/HANDLE THIS WINO LIKE HE
WAS AN ANGEL"
And Trout Fishing in America Shorty, grumbling, puking
and cursing in his cra...Read more of this...
by
Brautigan, Richard
...my eyes,
That they turn from gazing after and down the road,
And forthwith cipher and show me a cent,
Exactly the contents of one, and exactly the contents of two, and which is
ahead?
4
Trippers and askers surround me;
People I meet—the effect upon me of my early life, or the ward and city I
live in, or the nation,
The latest dates, discoveries, inventions, societies, authors old and new,
My dinner, dress, associates, looks, compliments, dues,
The real o...Read more of this...
by
Whitman, Walt
...tulips and narcissus.
The blue sky pales to lemon, and great tongues
of gold blind the shop-windows,
putting out their contents in a flood of flame.
Night and Sleep
The day takes her ease in slippered yellow. Electric
signs gleam out
along the shop fronts, following each other. They grow,
and grow,
and blow into patterns of fire-flowers as the sky fades. Trades
scream
in spots of light at the unruffled night. Twinkle, jab,
snap, that means
a new play; and over the way: ...Read more of this...
by
Lowell, Amy
...ips say:
"May not I one night of rapture share?
From the warm couch am I chased away?
Do I waken only to despair?
It contents not thee
To have driven me
An untimely shroud of death to wear?
"But from out my coffin's prison-bounds
By a wond'rous fate I'm forced to rove,
While the blessings and the chaunting sounds
That your priests delight in, useless prove.
Water, salt, are vain
Fervent youth to chain,
Ah, e'en Earth can never cool down love!
"When that infant vow...Read more of this...
by
von Goethe, Johann Wolfgang
...A nail.
A nickel.
A snail.
A pickle.
A twisted-up
slinky.
A ring for
my pinky.
A blackened
banana.
A love note
from Hannah.
My doodles
of rockets.
The lint from
my pockets.
A fork-like
utensil.
But sorry…
no pencil.
--Kenn Nesbitt
Copyright © Kenn Nesbitt 2009. All Rights Reserved....Read more of this...
by
Nesbitt, Kenn
...sibly say either name before the other, can it be doubted that, rather than die, he would have gasped out "Rilchiam!"
CONTENTS
Fit the First. The Landing
Fit the Second. The Bellman's Speech
Fit the Third. The Baker's Tale
Fit the Fourth. The Hunting
Fit the Fifth. The Beaver's Lesson
Fit the Sixth. The Barrister's Dream
Fit the Seventh. The Banker's Fate
Fit the Eighth. The Vanishing
Fit the First.
THE LANDING
"Just the place for a Snark!" the Bellman cried,
As he l...Read more of this...
by
Carroll, Lewis
...t
insolence sprouting from systematic reasoning:
Thus Swedenborg boasts that what he writes is new; tho' it
is only the Contents or Index of already publish'd books
A man carried a monkey about for a shew, & because he was a
little wiser than the monkey, grew vain, and conciev'd himself as
much wiser than seven men. It is so with Swedenborg; he shews the
folly of churches & exposes hypocrites, till he imagines that all
are religious. & himself the single [PL 22] One on earth ...Read more of this...
by
Blake, William
...suasion on the part of devils, saints,
Or angels, now could stop the torrent; so
He read the first three lines of the contents;
But at the fourth, the whole spiritual show
Had vanish'd, with variety of scents,
Ambrosial and sulphureous, as they sprang,
Like lightning, off from his 'melodious twang.' (3)
CIII
Those grand heroics acted as a spell:
The angels stopp'd their ears and plied their pinions;
The devils ran howling, deafen'd, down to hell;
The ghosts fled, ...Read more of this...
by
Byron, George (Lord)
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