Famous Desirable Poems by Famous Poets

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

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A Ballad of Burdens

...Thou shalt tell all thy days and hours, and tell
Thy times and ways and words of love, and say
How one was dear and one desirable,
And sweet was life to hear and sweet to smell,
But now with lights reverse the old hours retire
And the last hour is shod with fire from hell;
This is the end of every man's desire. 

The burden of four seasons. Rain in spring,
White rain and wind among the tender trees;
A summer of green sorrows gathering,
Rank autumn in a mist of miseries,
With ...Read more of this...
by Swinburne, Algernon Charles


A Dream Of Whitman Paraphrased Recognized And Made More Vivid By Renoir

...ollars.
He is rich, handsome and empty standing behind the linen curtains
Beholding them.
Which girl does he think most desirable, most beautiful?
They are all equally beautiful and desirable from the gold distance.
For if poverty darkens discrimination and makes
perception too vivid,
The gold of wealth is also a form of blindness.
For has not a Frenchman said, Although this is America...

What he has said is not entirely relevant,
That a naked woman is a proof of the existen...Read more of this...
by Schwartz, Delmore

Beowulf (Modern English)

...of houses.
Be mindful of fame. Reveal your mighty courage.
Keep watch for the wrathful! There will be no want of the desirable
for you if you surpass that daring deed with your life.” (ll. 652-61)

 

X.

Then Hrothgar departed with his retinue of warriors,
the hedge of the Scyldings, out of the hall.
The first in war wished to seek Wealhtheow,
his queen as his consort. The glorious king had appointed
such a hall-guardian against Grendel—as men would soon learn—...Read more of this...
by Anonymous,

Emblems of Love

..., had done; yea, with itself
Would strive, and for the strife would into sex
Be cloven, double burning, made thereby
Desirable to itself. Contrivèd joy
Is sex in life; and by no other thing
Than by a perfect sundering, could life
Change the dark stream of unappointed joy
To perfect praise of itself, the glee that loves
And worships its own Being. This is ours!
Yet only for that we have been so long
Sundered desire: thence is our life all praise.—
But we, well knowi...Read more of this...
by Abercrombie, Lascelles

Four Quartets 1: Burnt Norton

...a.

 The detail of the pattern is movement,
As in the figure of the ten stairs.
Desire itself is movement
Not in itself desirable;
Love is itself unmoving,
Only the cause and end of movement,
Timeless, and undesiring
Except in the aspect of time
Caught in the form of limitation
Between un-being and being.
Sudden in a shaft of sunlight
Even while the dust moves
There rises the hidden laughter
Of children in the foliage
Quick now, here, now, always—
Ridiculous the waste sad tim...Read more of this...
by Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)


Hymn 19

...The song of Simeon; or, Death made desirable.

Luke 2:27ff 

Lord, at thy temple we appear,
As happy Simeon came,
And hope to meet our Savior here;
O make our joys the same!

With what divine and vast delight
The good old man was filled,
When fondly in his withered arms
He clasped the holy child!

"Now I can leave this world," he cried,
"Behold, thy servant dies;
I've seen thy great salvation...Read more of this...
by Watts, Isaac

Inferno (English)

...orse 
 Her craving. And the beasts with which she breed 
 The noisome numerous beasts her lusts require, 
 Bare all the desirable lands in which she feeds; 
 Nor shall lewd feasts and lewder matings tire 
 Until she woos, in evil hour for her, 
 The wolfhound that shall rend her. His desire 
 Is not for rapine, as the promptings stir 
 Of her base heart; but wisdoms, and devoirs 
 Of manhood, and love's rule, his thoughts prefer. 
 The Italian lowlands he shall reach and save...Read more of this...
by Alighieri, Dante

Mercian Hymns I

...el at
Tamworth, the summer hermitage in Holy Cross: guardian of the Welsh
Bridge and the Iron Bridge: contractor to the desirable new estates:
saltmaster: money-changer: commissioner for oaths: martyrologist: the
friend of Charlemagne.

'I liked that,' said Offa, 'sing it again.'...Read more of this...
by Hill, Geoffrey

Moonrise

...mountain;

A cusp still clasped him, a fluke yet fanged him, entangled him, not quite utterly.
This was the prized, the desirable sight, unsought, presented so easily,
Parted me leaf and leaf, divided me, eyelid and eyelid of slumber....Read more of this...
by Hopkins, Gerard Manley

Paradise Lost: Book 08

...ience of her worth, 
That would be wooed, and not unsought be won, 
Not obvious, not obtrusive, but, retired, 
The more desirable; or, to say all, 
Nature herself, though pure of sinful thought, 
Wrought in her so, that, seeing me, she turned: 
I followed her; she what was honour knew, 
And with obsequious majesty approved 
My pleaded reason. To the nuptial bower 
I led her blushing like the morn: All Heaven, 
And happy constellations, on that hour 
Shed their selectest influ...Read more of this...
by Milton, John

Samson Agonistes

...ather in my stead?
O wherefore did God grant me my request,
And as a blessing with such pomp adorn'd?
Why are his gifts desirable, to tempt
Our earnest Prayers, then giv'n with solemn hand
As Graces, draw a Scorpions tail behind? 
For this did the Angel twice descend? for this
Ordain'd thy nurture holy, as of a Plant;
Select, and Sacred, Glorious for a while,
The miracle of men: then in an hour
Ensnar'd, assaulted, overcome, led bound,
Thy Foes derision, Captive, Poor, and Bl...Read more of this...
by Milton, John

Sonnet 06

...Oh, you are more desirable to me 
Than all I staked in an impulsive hour, 
Making my youth the sport of chance, to be 
Blighted or torn in its most perfect flower; 
For I think less of what that chance may bring 
Than how, before returning into fire, 
To make my dearest memory of the thing 
That is but now my ultimate desire. 
And in old times I should have prayed to her 
Wh...Read more of this...
by Seeger, Alan

The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

...ll be willing to shew me my eternal
lot & we will contemplate together upon it and see whether your
lot or mine is most desirable
So he took me thro' a stable & thro' a church & down into
the church vault at the end of which was a mill: thro' the mill 
we went, and came to a cave. down the winding cavern we groped
our tedious way till a void boundless as a nether sky appeard
beneath us & we held by the roots of trees and hung over this
immensity; but I said, if you please we ...Read more of this...
by Blake, William

The One-Legged Man

...hedge, a corn-stalked field, 
And sound of barking dogs and farmyard fowls. 

And he’d come home again to find it more
Desirable than ever it was before. 
How right it seemed that he should reach the span 
Of comfortable years allowed to man! 
Splendid to eat and sleep and choose a wife, 
Safe with his wound, a citizen of life.
He hobbled blithely through the garden gate, 
And thought: ‘Thank God they had to amputate!’...Read more of this...
by Sassoon, Siegfried

The Road To Haworth Moor

...with money and success: one cottage joined on

To the next, the common land fenced off, the nearby chapel

Turned to a desirable residence, the tombstones garden ornaments,

The heart of Hall Ings Mill crumpled under mechanical hammers

And reeled before our eyes, dust rising to powder the wings

Of passing butterflies. We watched the white-glazed inner walls

Sink in shame to shattered heaps of stone and shards of nothingness.



I never thought it would be the experience i...Read more of this...
by Tebb, Barry

The Shield Of A Greeting

...e aftermath of fire
Bury the past bravely, retaining
Only those messages that are least decipherable
And therefore most desirable
To be sung by the bright-eyed few remaining
Voices of our frankly foolish choir....Read more of this...
by Lehman, David

Two Songs

...g, 
and longing for that young man
pierced me to the roots
bathing every vein, etc.
All day he appears to me
touchingly desirable,
a prize one could wreck one's peace for.
I'd call it love if love
didn't take so many years
but lust too is a jewel
a sweet flower and what
pure happiness to know
all our high-toned questions
breed in a lively animal.

2.
That "old last act"!
And yet sometimes
all seems post coitum triste
and I a mere bystander.
Somebody else is going off,
getting...Read more of this...
by Rich, Adrienne

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