Famous Copy Poems by Famous Poets

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

See also:

To My Wife - With A Copy Of My Poems

by Oscar Wilde
 I can write no stately proem
As a prelude to my lay;
From a poet to a poem
I would dare to say.

For if of these fallen petals
One to you seem fair,
Love will waft it till it settles
On your hair.

And when wind and winter harden
All the loveless land,
It will whisper of the garden,
You will understand....Read more of this...

Musketaquid

by Ralph Waldo Emerson
 Because I was content with these poor fields,
Low open meads, slender and sluggish streams,
And found a home in haunts which others scorned,
The partial wood-gods overpaid my love,
And granted me the freedom of their state,
And in their secret senate have prevailed
With the dear dangerous lords that rule our life,
Made moon and planets parties to their bond,
And pitying through my solitary...Read more of this...

Hymn To Death

by William Cullen Bryant
 Oh! could I hope the wise and pure in heart
Might hear my song without a frown, nor deem
My voice unworthy of the theme it tries,--
I would take up the hymn to Death, and say
To the grim power, The world hath slandered thee
And mocked thee. On thy dim and shadowy brow
They place an iron crown, and call thee king
Of terrors,...Read more of this...

Sonnet 84: Who is it that says most which can say more

by William Shakespeare
 Who is it that says most, which can say more,
Than this rich praise -- that you alone are you,
In whose confine immurèd is the store
Which should example where your equal grew?
Lean penury within that pen doth dwell
That to his subject lends not some small glory;
But he that writes of you, if he can tell
That you are you, so dignifies...Read more of this...

A Love Letter

by Paul Laurence Dunbar
Oh, I des received a letter f'om de sweetest little gal;
Oh, my; oh, my.
She's my lovely little sweetheart an' her name is Sal:
Oh, my; oh, my.
She writes me dat she loves me an' she loves me true,
She wonders ef I'll tell huh dat I loves huh, too;
An' my heaht's so full o' music dat I do' know what to do;
Oh,...Read more of this...

Palladiums

by Carl Sandburg
 IN the newspaper office—who are the spooks?
Who wears the mythic coat invisible?

Who pussyfoots from desk to desk
 with a speaking forefinger?
Who gumshoes amid the copy paper
 with a whispering thumb?

Speak softly—the sacred cows may hear.
Speak easy—the sacred cows must be fed....Read more of this...

Belated Conscience

by Robert William Service
 To buy for school a copy-book
 I asked my Dad for two-pence;
He gave it with a gentle look,
 Although he had but few pence.
'Twas then I proved myself a crook
 And came a moral cropper,
I bought a penny copy-book
 And blued the other copper.

I spent it on a sausage roll
 Gulped down with guilt suggestion,
To the damnation of my...Read more of this...

The Violet Pressed in a Copy of Shakespeare

by Duncan Campbell Scott
 Here in the inmost of the master's heart
This violet crisp with early dew
Has come to leave her beauty and to part
With all her vivid hue.

And while in hollow glades and dells of musk,
Her fellows will reflower in bands,
Clasping the deeps of shade and emerald dusk,
With sweet inviolate hands,

She will lie here, a ghost of their delight,
Their lucent stems all...Read more of this...

Double Red Daisies

by Robert Graves
 Double red daisies, they’re my flowers,
Which nobody else may grow. 
In a big quarrelsome house like ours 
They try it sometimes—but no, 
I root them up because they’re my flowers,
Which nobody else may grow.

Claire has a tea-rose, but she didn’t plant it; 
Ben has an iris, but I don’t want it. 
Daisies, double red daisies for me, 
The beautifulest...Read more of this...

The Grey Rock

by William Butler Yeats
 Poets with whom I learned my trade.
Companions of the Cheshire Cheese,
Here's an old story I've remade,
Imagining 'twould better please
Your cars than stories now in fashion,
Though you may think I waste my breath
Pretending that there can be passion
That has more life in it than death,
And though at bottling of your wine
Old wholesome Goban had no say;
The moral's yours because it's...Read more of this...

A Supplement of an Imperfect Copy of Verses of Mr. William

by Sir John Suckling
 One of her hands one of her cheeks lay under,
Cosening the pillow of a lawful kiss,
Which therefore swell'd, and seem'd to part asunder,
As angry to be robb'd of such a bliss!
The one look'd pale and for revenge did long,
While t'other blush'd, 'cause it had done the wrong.

Out of the bed the other fair hand was
On a green satin quilt,...Read more of this...

A Pindaric Ode

by Ben Jonson
 THE TURN
Brave infant of Saguntum, clear
Thy coming forth in that great year,
When the prodigious Hannibal did crown
His rage with razing your immortal town.
Thou looking then about,
Ere thou wert half got out,
Wise child, didst hastily return,
And mad'st thy mother's womb thine urn.
How summ'd a circle didst thou leave mankind
Of deepest lore, could we the centre find!

THE COUNTER-TURN

Did wiser nature draw...Read more of this...

With A Copy Of A House Of Pomegranates

by Oscar Wilde
 Go, little book,
To him who, on a lute with horns of pearl,
Sang of the white feet of the Golden Girl:
And bid him look
Into thy pages: it may hap that he
May find that golden maidens dance through thee....Read more of this...

With a Copy of Shakespeares Sonnets on Leaving College

by Alan Seeger
 As one of some fat tillage dispossessed, 
Weighing the yield of these four faded years, 
If any ask what fruit seems loveliest, 
What lasting gold among the garnered ears, -- 
Ah, then I'll say what hours I had of thine, 
Therein I reaped Time's richest revenue, 
Read in thy text the sense of David's line, 
Through thee achieved the...Read more of this...

Musketaquid

by Ralph Waldo Emerson
 Because I was content with these poor fields, 
Low, open meads, slender and sluggish streams, 
And found a home in haunts which others scorned, 
The partial wood-gods overpaid my love, 
And granted me the freedom of their state, 
And in their secret senate have prevailed 
With the dear, dangerous lords that rule our life, 
Made moon and planets parties...Read more of this...

280. The Kirk of Scotland's Alarm: A Ballad

by Robert Burns
 ORTHODOX! orthodox, who believe in John Knox,
 Let me sound an alarm to your conscience:
A heretic blast has been blown in the West,
 That what is no sense must be nonsense,
Orthodox! That what is no sense must be nonsense.


Doctor Mac! Doctor Mac, you should streek on a rack,
 To strike evil-doers wi’ terror:
To join Faith and Sense, upon any...Read more of this...

Sonnet 11: As fast as thou shalt wane so fast thou growst

by William Shakespeare
 As fast as thou shalt wane, so fast thou grow'st
In one of thine, from that which thou departest,
And that fresh blood which youngly thou bestow'st,
Thou mayst call thine when thou from youth convertest.
Herein lives wisdom, beauty, and increase;
Without this folly, age, and cold decay,
If all were minded so, the times should cease,
And threescore year would make the world away.
Let...Read more of this...

To Stella Who Collected and Transcribed His Poems

by Jonathan Swift
 As, when a lofty pile is raised,
We never hear the workmen praised,
Who bring the lime, or place the stones;
But all admire Inigo Jones:
So, if this pile of scattered rhymes
Should be approved in aftertimes;
If it both pleases and endures,
The merit and the praise are yours.
Thou, Stella, wert no longer young,
When first for thee my harp was strung,
Without one word of...Read more of this...

Marginalia

by Billy Collins
 Sometimes the notes are ferocious,
skirmishes against the author
raging along the borders of every page
in tiny black script.
If I could just get my hands on you,
Kierkegaard, or Conor Cruise O'Brien,
they seem to say,
I would bolt the door and beat some logic into your head.

Other comments are more offhand, dismissive -
"Nonsense." "Please!" "HA!!" -
that kind of thing.
I remember once looking up...Read more of this...

Yes

by Denise Duhamel
 According to Culture Shock:
A Guide to Customs and Etiquette 
of Filipinos, when my husband says yes,
he could also mean one of the following:
a.) I don't know.
b.) If you say so.
c.) If it will please you.
d.) I hope I have said yes unenthusiastically enough
for you to realize I mean no.
You can imagine the confusion 
surrounding our movie dates, the laundry,
who...Read more of this...

Sonnet XI

by William Shakespeare
 As fast as thou shalt wane, so fast thou growest
In one of thine, from that which thou departest;
And that fresh blood which youngly thou bestowest
Thou mayst call thine when thou from youth convertest.
Herein lives wisdom, beauty and increase:
Without this, folly, age and cold decay:
If all were minded so, the times should cease
And threescore year would make the world away.
Let...Read more of this...

A voice singing lullaby

by Lam Quang My
You sitting by the window
Copy poems with great care.
As I pass accidentally
Watch you dazed as in a dream.

So skilled your calligraphic hand 
Floats pen on paper surface.
An unknown sense of poetry
Shines within your blinking eyes.

Window takes the colour green
Your shirt is a canary shade.
Little bird is flying by
And sings with sweetest voice.

Weather mourns autumnally.
Yellowed leaves of trees.
Regret of summer still...Read more of this...

Sonnet 42 - My future will not copy fair my past

by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
 'My future will not copy fair my past'—
I wrote that once; and thinking at my side
My ministering life-angel justified
The word by his appealing look upcast
To the white throne of God, I turned at last,
And there, instead, saw thee, not unallied
To angels in thy soul! Then I, long tried
By natural ills, received the comfort fast,
While budding, at thy sight, my...Read more of this...

To Charlotte Cushman

by Sidney Lanier
 Look where a three-point star shall weave his beam
Into the slumb'rous tissue of some stream,
Till his bright self o'er his bright copy seem
Fulfillment dropping on a come-true dream;
So in this night of art thy soul doth show
Her excellent double in the steadfast flow
Of wishing love that through men's hearts doth go:
At once thou shin'st above and shin'st below.
E'en when...Read more of this...

Rapunzel

by Anne Sexton
 A woman 
who loves a woman 
is forever young. 
The mentor 
and the student 
feed off each other. 
Many a girl 
had an old aunt 
who locked her in the study 
to keep the boys away. 
They would play rummy 
or lie on the couch 
and touch and touch. 
Old breast against young breast... 
Let your dress fall down...Read more of this...

Dont forget to view our wonderful member Copy poems.

Get a Premium Membership
Turn off ads, get more exposure for your poetry, and get more features with a Premium Membership.
Book: Diverse Voices: The Poetry of Human Rights and the Pursuit of Peace