Famous Decide Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Michael

by Robert William Service
 "There's something in your face, Michael, I've seen it all the day;
There's something quare that wasn't there when first ye wint away. . . ."

"It's just the Army life, mother, the drill, the left and right,
That puts the stiffinin' in yer spine and locks yer jaw up tight. . . ."

"There's something in your eyes, Michael, an' how they...Read more of this...

These held their Wick above the West --

by Emily Dickinson
 These held their Wick above the West --
Till when the Red declined --
Or how the Amber aided it --
Defied to be defined --

Then waned without disparagement
In a dissembling Hue
That would not let the Eye decide
Did it abide or no --...Read more of this...

Among School Children

by William Butler Yeats
 I

I walk through the long schoolroom questioning;
A kind old nun in a white hood replies;
The children learn to cipher and to sing,
To study reading-books and histories,
To cut and sew, be neat in everything
In the best modern way - the children's eyes
In momentary wonder stare upon
A sixty-year-old smiling public man.

 II

I dream of a Ledaean body, bent
Above a sinking fire....Read more of this...

Daffy Duck In Hollywood

by John Ashbery
 Something strange is creeping across me.
La Celestina has only to warble the first few bars
Of "I Thought about You" or something mellow from
Amadigi di Gaula for everything--a mint-condition can
Of Rumford's Baking Powder, a celluloid earring, Speedy
Gonzales, the latest from Helen Topping Miller's fertile
Escritoire, a sheaf of suggestive pix on greige, deckle-edged
Stock--to come clattering through the rainbow trellis
Where Pistachio Avenue...Read more of this...

The Black Cottage

by Robert Frost
 We chanced in passing by that afternoon 
To catch it in a sort of special picture 
Among tar-banded ancient cherry trees, 
Set well back from the road in rank lodged grass, 
The little cottage we were speaking of, 
A front with just a door between two windows, 
Fresh painted by the shower a velvet black. 
We paused, the minister...Read more of this...

Parable

by Richard Wilbur
 I read how Quixote in his random ride
Came to a crossing once, and lest he lose
The purity of chance, would not decide

Whither to fare, but wished his horse to choose.
For glory lay wherever turned the fable.
His head was light with pride, his horse's shoes

Were heavy, and he headed for the stable....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...

The Threat

by Denise Duhamel
 my mother pushed my sister out of the apartment door with an empty 
suitcase because she kept threatening to run away my sister was sick of me
getting the best of everything the bathrobe with the pink stripes instead of 
the red the soft middle piece of bread while she got the crust I was sick with 
asthma and she...Read more of this...

The Contrite Heart

by William Cowper
 (Isaiah, lvii.15)

The Lord will happiness divine
On contrite hearts bestow;
Then tell me, gracious God, is mine
A contrite heart or no?

I hear, but seem to hear in vain,
Insensible as steel;
If aught is felt, 'tis only pain,
To find I cannot feel.

I sometimes think myself inclined
To love Thee if I could;
But often feel another mind,
Averse to all that's good.

My best desires are faint...Read more of this...

Such Days

by Ehsan Sehgal
It is the world
And its owners and masters 
They have reserved
Such days of the year
As;
Labour day,
Woman's day,
Mother's day, 
Fathers day, 
Lover day, Valentine's day
And Just the few 
And such other days
For us people
The rest of the days
Of the year are for the owners
To enjoy their life
On our works
On our blood
On our struggle
It is the world
And its owners 
And masters decide
All...Read more of this...

This Life

by William Stafford
 With Kit, Age 7, at the Beach


We would climb the highest dune, 
from there to gaze and come down: 
the ocean was performing; 
we contributed our climb. 

Waves leapfrogged and came 
straight out of the storm. 
What should our gaze mean? 
Kit waited for me to decide. 

Standing on such a hill, 
what would you tell your child? 
That...Read more of this...

Sonnet XLVI: Plain-Pathd Experience

by Michael Drayton
 Plain-path'd Experience, th'unlearned's guide, 
Her simple followers evidently shows 
Sometimes what Schoolmen scarcely can decide, 
Nor yet wise Reason absolutely knows. 
In making trial of a murther wrought, 
If the vile actors of the heinous deed 
Near the dead body happily be brought, 
Oft it hath been prov'd the breathless corse will bleed.
She's coming near, that my poor heart...Read more of this...

Leaves

by Lisa Zaran
 I went looking for God 
but I found you instead. 
Bad luck or destiny, 
you decide. 

Buried in the muck, 
the soot of the city, 
sorrow for an appetite, 
devil on your left shoulder, 
angel on your right. 

You, with your thorny rhythms 
and tragic, midnight melodies. 

My heart never tried 
to commit suicide before. 

Originally published in Literati...Read more of this...

Fifteen, Maybe Sixteen Things to Worry About

by Judith Viorst
My pants could maybe fall down when I dive off the diving board.My nose could maybe keep growing and never quit.Miss Brearly could ask me to spell words like stomach and special. (Stumick and speshul?)I could play tag all day and always be "it."Jay Spievack, who's fourteen feet tall, could want to fight me.My mom and my dad--like Ted's--could want...Read more of this...

The Robins

by Mother Goose
A robin and a robin's son
Once went to town to buy a bun.
They couldn't decide on plum or plain,
And so they went back home again....Read more of this...

A Fantasy

by Louise Gluck
 I'll tell you something: every day
people are dying. And that's just the beginning.
Every day, in funeral homes, new widows are born,
new orphans. They sit with their hands folded,
trying to decide about this new life.

Then they're in the cemetery, some of them
for the first time. They're frightened of crying,
sometimes of not crying. Someone leans over,
tells them what to do next,...Read more of this...

In The Days When The World Was Wide

by Henry Lawson
 The world is narrow and ways are short, and our lives are dull and slow, 
For little is new where the crowds resort, and less where the wanderers go; 
Greater, or smaller, the same old things we see by the dull road-side -- 
And tired of all is the spirit that sings 
of the days when the world was...Read more of this...

Goliath Of Gath

by Phillis Wheatley
 SAMUEL, Chap. xvii.

YE martial pow'rs, and all ye tuneful nine,
Inspire my song, and aid my high design.
The dreadful scenes and toils of war I write,
The ardent warriors, and the fields of fight:
You best remember, and you best can sing
The acts of heroes to the vocal string:
Resume the lays with which your sacred lyre,
Did then the poet and the sage...Read more of this...

To Mr. Blanchard the Celebrated Aeronaut in America

by Philip Freneau
 Nil mortalibus ardui est
  Caelum ipsum petimus stultitia
   Horace

FROM Persian looms the silk he wove
No Weaver meant should trail above
The surface of the earth we tread,
To deck the matron or the maid.

But you ambitious, have design'd
With silk to soar above mankind:--
On silk you hang your splendid car
And mount towards the morning star.

How can you be so...Read more of this...

The Ballad Of A Bachelor

by Ellis Parker Butler
 Listen, ladies, while I sing
The ballad of John Henry King.

John Henry was a bachelor,
His age was thirty-three or four.

Two maids for his affection vied,
And each desired to be his bride,

And bravely did they strive to bring
Unto their feet John Henry King.

John Henry liked them both so well,
To save his life he could not tell

Which he most wished to be...Read more of this...

Kinky

by Denise Duhamel
 They decide to exchange heads.
Barbie squeezes the small opening under her chin 
over Ken's bulging neck socket. His wide jaw line jostles
atop his girlfriend's body, loosely,
like one of those novelty dogs
destined to gaze from the back windows of cars.
The two dolls chase each other around the orange Country Camper 
unsure what they'll do when they're within touching distance. 
Ken...Read more of this...

Contemplation Of The Sword

by Robinson Jeffers
 Reason will not decide at last; the sword will decide.
The sword: an obsolete instrument of bronze or steel, 
 formerly used to kill men, but here
In the sense of a symbol. The sword: that is: the storms 
 and counter-storms of general destruction; killing 
 of men,
Destruction of all goods and materials; massacre, more or 
 less intentional, of...Read more of this...

The Human

by Ehsan Sehgal
I thought I would pray to be a doctor
No, I changed my mind
I thought I would pray to be a lawyer
No, I changed my mind
I thought now I would pray to be an engineer
I felt confused and helpless
I thought again and again
About many professions, what I should be 
A business person or a politician? 
I couldn't decide any of that
All...Read more of this...

A Toast to the Men

by Edgar Albert Guest
 Here's to the men! Since Adam's time 
They've always been the same;
Whenever anything goes wrong,
The woman is to blame.
From early morn to late at night,
The men fault-finders are;
They blame us if they oversleep,
Or if they miss a car.
They blame us if, beneath the bed,
Their collar buttons roll;
They blame us if the fire is out
Or if there is no coal.
They...Read more of this...

Is Bliss then such Abyss

by Emily Dickinson
 Is Bliss then, such Abyss,
I must not put my foot amiss
For fear I spoil my shoe?

I'd rather suit my foot
Than save my Boot --
For yet to buy another Pair
Is possible,
At any store --

But Bliss, is sold just once.
The Patent lost
None buy it any more --
Say, Foot, decide the point --
The Lady cross, or not?
Verdict for Boot!...Read more of this...

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