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Famous Designed Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Wilmot, John
...e devil played booty, sure, with thee
To bring a blot on infamy.

But why am I, of all mankind,
To so severe a fate designed?
Ungrateful! Why this treachery
To humble fond, believing me,
Who gave you privilege above
The nice allowances of love?
Did ever I refuse to bear
The meanest part your lust could spare?
When your lewd **** came spewing home
Drenched with the seed of half the town,
My dram of sperm was supped up after
For the digestive surfeit water.
Full gorged ...Read more of this...



by Wilmot, John
...lust of power, to whom he's such a slave,
And for the which alone he dares be brave;
To which his various projects are designed,
Which makes him generous, affable, and kind.
For which he takes such pains to be thought wise,
And screws his actions, in a forced disguise;
Leads a most tedious life in misery,
Under laborious, mean hypocrisy.
Look to the bottom of his vast design,
Wherein man's wisdom, power, and glory join:
The good he acts. the ill he does endure.Read more of this...

by Emerson, Ralph Waldo
...r the just, but not beyond;
Not glad, as the low-loving herd,
Of self in others still preferred,
But they have heartily designed
The benefit of broad mankind.
And they serve men austerely,
After their own genius, clearly,
Without a false humility;
For this is love's nobility,
Not to scatter bread and gold,
Goods and raiment bought and sold,
But to hold fast his simple sense,
And speak the speech of innocence,
And with hand, and body, and blood,
To make his bosom-counsel g...Read more of this...

by Marvell, Andrew
...rom behind, and yet before him rushed, 
Though undiscerned among the tumult blind, 
Who think those high decrees by man designed. 
'Twas heaven would not that his power should cease, 
But walk still middle betwixt war and peace: 
Choosing each stone, and poising every weight, 
Trying the measures of the breadth and height; 
Here pulling down, and there erecting new, 
Founding a firm state by proportions true. 

When Gideon so did from the war retreat, 
Yet by the conq...Read more of this...

by Rich, Adrienne
...tisan
the freeways burned, but not with hatred

Even the miles of barbed-wire
stretched around crouching temporary huts
designed to keep the unwanted
at a safe distance, out of sight
even the boards that had to absorb
year upon year, so many human sounds

so many depths of vomit, tears
slow-soaking blood
had not offered themselves for this
The trees didn't volunteer to be cut into boards
nor the thorns for tearing flesh
Look around at all of it

and ask whose signature 
is st...Read more of this...



by Murray, Judith Sargent
...
With anxious care each mental pleasure shun.
Weak is the leveled, enervated mind,
And but while here to vegetate designed.
The torpid spirit mingling with its clod
Can scarcely boast its origin from God.
Stupidly dull—they move progressing on—
They eat, and drink, and all their work is done,
While others, emulous of sweet applause,
Industrious seek for each event a cause,
Tracing the hidden springs whence knowledge flows,
Which nature all in beauteous o...Read more of this...

by Gray, Thomas
...roan
With pangs unfelt before, unpitied and alone.

When first thy Sire to send on earth
Virtue, his darling child, designed,
To thee he gave the heav'nly Birth,
And bade to form her infant mind.
Stern rugged Nurse! thy rigid lore
With patience many a year she bore:
What sorrow was, thou bad'st her know,
And from her own she learned to melt at others' woe.

Scared at thy frown terrific, fly
Self-pleasing Folly's idle brood,
Wild Laughter, Noise, and thoughtless Jo...Read more of this...

by Marvell, Andrew
...aight on Hyde's disgrace resolves. 

At his first step, he Castlemaine does find, 
Bennet, and Coventry, as 't were designed; 
And they, not knowing, the same thing propose 
Which his hid mind did in its depths enclose. 
Through their feigned speech their secret hearts he knew: 
To her own husband, Castlemaine untrue; 
False to his master Bristol, Arlington; 
And Coventry, falser than anyone, 
Who to the brother, brother would betray, 
Nor therefore trusts himself to ...Read more of this...

by Yeats, William Butler
...
But take our greatness with our violence?

What if the glory of escutcheoned doors,
And buildings that a haughtier age designed,
The pacing to and fro on polished floors
Amid great chambers and long galleries, lined
With famous portraits of our ancestors;
What if those things the greatest of mankind
Consider most to magnify, or to bless,
But take our greatness with our bitterness?


 II. My House

An ancient bridge, and a more ancient tower,
A farmhouse that is sheltered...Read more of this...

by Browning, Robert
...foresee that glory of Giotto
And Florence together, the first am I!

* 1 A sculptor, died 1278.
* 2 Died 1455. Designed the bronze gates of the Baptistry at Florence.
* 3 A painter, died 1498.
* 4 The son of Fr Lippo Lippi. Wronged, because some of his
* pictures have been attributed to others.
* 5 Died 1366. One of Giotto's pupils and assistants.
* 6 Rough cast.
* 7 Painter, sculptor, and goldsmith.
* 8 Distemper---mixture of water an...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...ven, surcharged with potent multitude, 
Might hap to move new broils. Be this, or aught 
Than this more secret, now designed, I haste 
To know; and, this once known, shall soon return, 
And bring ye to the place where thou and Death 
Shall dwell at ease, and up and down unseen 
Wing silently the buxom air, embalmed 
With odours. There ye shall be fed and filled 
Immeasurably; all things shall be your prey." 
 He ceased; for both seemed highly pleased, and Death 
G...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...ll. 
Easy it may be seen that I intend 
Mercy colleague with justice, sending thee 
Man's friend, his Mediator, his designed 
Both ransom and Redeemer voluntary, 
And destined Man himself to judge Man fallen. 
So spake the Father; and, unfolding bright 
Toward the right hand his glory, on the Son 
Blazed forth unclouded Deity: He full 
Resplendent all his Father manifest 
Expressed, and thus divinely answered mild. 
Father Eternal, thine is to decree; 
Mine, both ...Read more of this...

by Lehman, David
...arette after twenty-four hours
of abstinence tastes so good it makes me want
to include it in my catalogue of pleasures
designed to hide the ugliness or sweep it away
the way the violent overflow of rain over cliffs
cleans the sewers and drains of Ithaca
whose waterfalls head my list, followed by
crudites of carrots and beets, roots and all,
with rained-on radishes, too beautiful to eat,
and the pure pleasure of talking, talking and not knowing
where the talk will lead, but w...Read more of this...

by Schwartz, Delmore
...Is the spider a monster in miniature?
His web is a cruel stair, to be sure,
Designed artfully, cunningly placed,
A delicate trap, carefully spun
To bind the fly (innocent or unaware)
In a net as strong as a chain or a gun.

There are far more spiders than the man in the street
 supposes
And the philosopher-king imagines, let alone knows!
There are six hundred kinds of spiders and each one
Differs in kind and in unkindness.
I...Read more of this...

by Lowell, Amy
...ot intend
To carry it about you constantly.
With her fine taste you cannot disagree,
The locket is most beautifully designed."
He opened it and there the curls were, twined.
Charlotta's heart dropped beats like knitting-stitches.
She burned a moment, flaming; then she froze.
Her face was jerked by little, nervous twitches,
She heard her husband asking: "What are those?"
Put out her hand quickly to interpose,
But stopped, the gesture half-complete, astounde...Read more of this...

by Chaucer, Geoffrey
...their full tithes. Mr
Wright remarks that "the sermons of the friars in the fourteenth
century were most frequently designed to impress the ahsolute
duty of paying full tithes and offerings".

2. There might astert them no pecunial pain: they got off with
no mere pecuniary punishment. (Transcriber's note: "Astert"
means "escape". An alternative reading of this line is "there
might astert him no pecunial pain" i.e. no fine ever escaped him
(the arch...Read more of this...

by Dryden, John
..., 
Loetamur, which in Polish is Rejoice, 
The day, month, year, to the great act are joined, 
And a new canting holiday designed. 
Five days he sate for every cast and look, 
Four more days than God to finish Adam took. 
But who can tell what essence angels are 
Or how long Heaven was making Lucifer? 
Oh, could the style that copied every grace 
And ploughed such furrows for an eunuch face, 
Could it have formed his ever-changing will, 
The various piece had tired the...Read more of this...

by Chaucer, Geoffrey
...Merchant's Tale there is
internal proof that it was told after the jolly Dame's. Several
manuscripts contain verses designed to serve as a connexion;
but they are evidently not Chaucer's, and it is unnecessary to
give them here. Of this Prologue, which may fairly be regarded
as a distinct autobiographical tale, Tyrwhitt says: "The
extraordinary length of it, as well as the vein of pleasantry that
runs through it, is very suitable to the character of the speaker.
T...Read more of this...

by Hugo, Victor
...but a moment here 
 'Mid papers tinted by my mind 
 You took some embryo verses near— 
 Half formed, but fully well designed 
 To open out. Your hearts desire 
 Was but to throw them on the fire, 
 Then watch the tinder, for the sight 
 Of shining sparks that twinkle bright 
 As little boats that sail at night, 
 Or like the window lights that spring 
 From out the dark at evening. 
 
 'Twas all, and you were well content. 
 Fine loss was this for anger's vent— ...Read more of this...

by Swift, Jonathan
...o judge of those;
Nor can I tell what critics thought 'em,
But this I know, all people bought 'em;
As with a moral view designed
To cure the vices of mankind:
And, if he often missed his aim,
The world must own it, to their shame:
The praise is his, and theirs the blame."

"Sir, I have heard another story:
He was a most confounded Tory,
And grew, or he is much belied,
Extremely dull before he died."

"Can we the Drapier then forget?
Is not our nation in his debt?
'Twa...Read more of this...

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