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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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Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry
...rs so many years have known
189 Am now destroy'd and slaughter'd by mine own.
190 But could the field alone this strife decide,
191 One battle, two, or three I might abide,
192 But these may be beginnings of more woe--
193 Who knows, the worst, the best may overthrow!
194 Religion, Gospel, here lies at the stake,
195 Pray now, dear child, for sacred Zion's sake,
196 Oh, pity me in this sad perturbation,
197 My plundered Towns, my houses' devastation,
198 My ravisht virgins, a...Read more of this...
by Bradstreet, Anne



...e 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, which might mean
saying a few words, sometimes
throwing dirt in the open grave.

And after that, everyone goes back to the house,
which is suddenly full of visitors....Read more of this...
by Gluck, Louise
...n her lap
Honey of generation had betrayed,
And that must sleep, shriek, struggle to escape
As recollection or the drug decide,
Would think her Son, did she but see that shape
With sixty or more winters on its head,
A compensation for the pang of his birth,
Or the uncertainty of his setting forth?

 VI

Plato thought nature but a spume that plays
Upon a ghostly paradigm of things;
Solider Aristotle played the taws
Upon the bottom of a king of kings;
World-famous golden-thighe...Read more of this...
by Yeats, William Butler
...d broad 
About me on the church-door opposite. 


You will not wait for that experience though, 
I fancy, howsoever you decide, 
To discontinue--not detesting, not 
Defaming, but at least--despising me! 

Over his wine so smiled and talked his hour 
Sylvester Blougram, styled in partibus 
Episcopus, nec non --(the deuce knows what 
It's changed to by our novel hierarchy) 
With Gigadibs the literary man, 
Who played with spoons, explored his plate's design, 
And ranged the oli...Read more of this...
by Browning, Robert
...park

Is a hypothesis for God

When I hear a distant buzz

I cannot tell if it is

A bee or saw.

That is what we must

Decide, patterned being

Or random chance, God

Or nothing, your choice

And mine.





9



The caf? by the lake was closed

But when I asked they opened.

Was it God or chance made hearts

Beat like a butterfly’s wing

In January cold?



Good and bad are choice not chance

At sixteen I decided to be a poet,

Writing another’s love poems,

Earning my first...Read more of this...
by Tebb, Barry



...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 children and women;
Destruct...Read more of this...
by Jeffers, Robinson
...ion more than the safekeeping of it. This mulch for
Play keeps them interested and busy while the big,
Vaguer stuff can decide what it wants--what maps, what
Model cities, how much waste space. Life, our
Life anyway, is between. We don't mind 
Or notice any more that the sky is green, a parrot
One, but have our earnest where it chances on us, 
Disingenuous, intrigued, inviting more,
Always invoking the echo, a summer's day....Read more of this...
by Ashbery, John
...e and very fair, 
 He took her hand, which fell all unaware. 
 
 "She sleeps," said Zeno, "now let chance or fate 
 Decide for us which has the marquisate, 
 And which the girl." 
 
 Upon their faces now 
 A hungry tiger's look began to show. 
 "My brother, let us speak like men of sense," 
 Said Joss; "while Mahaud dreams in innocence, 
 We grasp all here—and hold the foolish thing— 
 Our Friend below to us success will bring. 
 He keeps his word; 'tis thanks to...Read more of this...
by Hugo, Victor
...all already have forgotten you.

If you think it long and mad,
the wind of banners
that passes through my life,
and you decide
to leave me at the shore
of the heart where I have roots,
remember
that on that day,
at that hour,
I shall lift my arms
and my roots will set off
to seek another land.

But
if each day,
each hour,
you feel that you are destined for me
with implacable sweetness,
if each day a flower
climbs up to your lips to seek me,
ah my love, ah my own,
in me all th...Read more of this...
by Neruda, Pablo
...se now adventuring how to win it back. 
The dice betwixt them must the fate divide 
(As chance doth still in multitudes decide). 
But here the Court does its advantage know, 
For the cheat Turner for them both must throw. 
As some from boxes, he so from the chair 
Can strike the die and still with them goes share. 

Here, Painter, rest a little, and survey 
With what small arts the public game they play. 
For so too Rubens, with affairs of state, 
His labouring pencil oft wou...Read more of this...
by Marvell, Andrew
...ke them quake with fear.
She’s ninety-nine years old
But, in athletics, she’s been blessed.
The trouble is she can’t decide
Which sport she plays the best.
She’s such an ace at archery.
She’s queen of the canoe.
She’s tough to top at taekwondo
And table tennis too.
She dominates the diving board.
She tromps the trampoline.
At lifting weights and wrestling
She’s the best you’ve ever seen.
She speeds across the swimming pool
To slake the summer heat.
On BMX and m...Read more of this...
by Nesbitt, Kenn
...to such highth 
Of Godlike power? for likest Gods they seemed, 
Stood they or moved, in stature, motion, arms, 
Fit to decide the empire of great Heaven. 
Now waved their fiery swords, and in the air 
Made horrid circles; two broad suns their shields 
Blazed opposite, while Expectation stood 
In horrour: From each hand with speed retired, 
Where erst was thickest fight, the angelick throng, 
And left large field, unsafe within the wind 
Of such commotion; such as, to set for...Read more of this...
by Milton, John
...ous to re-admit the suppliant;
In confidence whereof I once again
Defie thee to the trial of mortal fight,
By combat to decide whose god is God,
Thine or whom I with Israel's Sons adore.

Har: Fair honour that thou dost thy God, in trusting
He will accept thee to defend his cause,
A Murtherer, a Revolter, and a Robber. 

Sam: Tongue-doubtie Giant, how dost thou prove me these?

Har: Is not thy Nation subject to our Lords?
Thir Magistrates confest it, when they took thee
As a ...Read more of this...
by Milton, John
...Urgency: Rome where Francesco
Was at work during the Sack: his inventions
Amazed the soldiers who burst in on him;
They decided to spare his life, but he left soon after;
Vienna where the painting is today, where
I saw it with Pierre in the summer of 1959; New York
Where I am now, which is a logarithm
Of other cities. Our landscape
Is alive with filiations, shuttlings;
Business is carried on by look, gesture,
Hearsay. It is another life to the city,
The backing of the looking...Read more of this...
by Ashbery, John
...ad and your flower soul?

Poor dead flower? when did you forget you were a flower? when did you look at your skin and decide you were an impotent dirty old locomotive? the ghost of a locomotive? the specter and shade of a once powerful mad American locomotive?

You were never no locomotive, Sunflower, you were a sunflower!

And you Locomotive, you are a locomotive, forget me not!

So I grabbed up the skeleton thick sunflower and stuck it at my side like a scepter,

...Read more of this...
by Ginsberg, Allen
...y liked them both so well,
To save his life he could not tell

Which he most wished to be his bride,
Nor was he able to decide.

Fair Kate was jolly, bright, and gay,
And sunny as a summer day;

Marie was kind, sedate, and sweet,
With gentle ways and manners neat.

Each was so dear that John confessed
He could not tell which he liked best.

He studied them for quite a year,
And still found no solution near,

And might have studied two years more
Had he not, walking on the sho...Read more of this...
by Butler, Ellis Parker
...rms his little prince to bring, 
 Together with the lion's bleeding hide. 
 
 Which here was right or wrong? Who can decide? 
 Have beasts or men most claim to live? God wots! 
 He is the unit, we the cipher-dots. 
 Ranged in the order a great hunt should have, 
 They soon between the trunks espy the cave. 
 "Yes, that is it! the very mouth of the den!" 
 The trees all round it muttered, warning men; 
 Still they kept step and neared it. Look you now, 
 Company's p...Read more of this...
by Hugo, Victor
...eason make thee at a stay, 
Thou leapst o'er all eternal truths in thy Pindaric way! 
Athens, no doubt, did righteously decide, 
When Phocion and when Socrates were tried; 
As righteously they did those dooms repent; 
Still they were wise, whatever way they went. 
Crowds err not, though to both extremes they run; 
To kill the father and recall the son. 
Some think the fools were most, as times went then, 
But now the world's o'erstocked with prudent men. 
The common cry is ev...Read more of this...
by Dryden, John
...o; and so I swore. 
Come, this is all; she will not: waive your claim: 
If not, the foughten field, what else, at once 
Decides it, 'sdeath! against my father's will.' 

I lagged in answer loth to render up 
My precontract, and loth by brainless war 
To cleave the rift of difference deeper yet; 
Till one of those two brothers, half aside 
And fingering at the hair about his lip, 
To prick us on to combat 'Like to like! 
The woman's garment hid the woman's heart.' 
A taunt tha...Read more of this...
by Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...ette cease ----
Belinda now, whom Thirst of Fame invites,
Burns to encounter two adventrous Knights,
At Ombre singly to decide their Doom;
And swells her Breast with Conquests yet to come.
Strait the three Bands prepare in Arms to join,
Each Band the number of the Sacred Nine. 
Soon as she spreads her Hand, th' Aerial Guard
Descend, and sit on each important Card,
First Ariel perch'd upon a Matadore,
Then each, according to the Rank they bore;
For Sylphs, yet mindful of their...Read more of this...
by Pope, Alexander

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Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry