Get Your Premium Membership

Famous Determined Poems by Famous Poets

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

See also:

by Wilcox, Ella Wheeler
...m the hands
Of brutal Cheyenne and Comanche bands, 
On Washita's bleak banks. Nine hundred strong
It moved its slow determined way along, 
Past frontier homes left dark and desolate
By the wild Indians' fierce and unrelenting hate; 

VI.

Past forts where ranchmen, strong of heart and bold, 
Wept now like orphaned children as they told, 
With quivering muscles and with anguished breath, 
Of captured wives, whose fate was worse than death; 
Past naked bodies whose disf...Read more of this...



by Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...life,
Have all his pretty young ones educated,
And pass his days in peace among his own. 

Thus Enoch in his heart determined all:
Then moving homeward came on Annie pale,
Nursing the sickly babe, her latest-born.
Forward she started with a happy cry,
And laid the feeble infant in his arms;
Whom Enoch took, and handled all his limbs,
Appraised his weight and fondled fatherlike,
But had no heart to break his purposes
To Annie, till the morrow, when he spoke. 

The...Read more of this...

by Larkin, Philip
...their farm where I could be
'Really myself'. I'll show you, come to that,
The bracken where I never trembling sat,

Determined to go through with it; where she
Lay back, and 'all became a burning mist'.
And, in those offices, my doggerel
Was not set up in blunt ten-point, nor read
By a distinguished cousin of the mayor,

Who didn't call and tell my father There
Before us, had we the gift to see ahead -
'You look as though you wished the place in Hell,'
My friend said,...Read more of this...

by Byron, George (Lord)
...ke, 
From his large eye no flashing anger broke; 
Yet there was something fix'd in that low tone 
Which shew'd resolve, determined, though unknown. 
He seized his cloak — his head he slightly bow'd, 
And passing Ezzelin he left the crowd; 
And as he pass'd him, smiling met the frown 
With which that chieftain's brow would bear him down: 
It was nor smile of mirth, nor struggling pride 
That curbs to scorn the wrath it cannot hide; 
But that of one in his own heart secure ...Read more of this...

by Hayden, Robert
...kill their lawful masters 
and with his Roman rhetoric weave a hero's 
garland for Cinquez. I tell you that 
we are determined to return to Cuba 
with our slaves and there see justice done. 
Cinquez-- 
or let us say 'the Prince'--Cinquez shall die." 

The deep immortal human wish, 
the timeless will: 

Cinquez its deathless primaveral image, 
life that transfigures many lives. 

Voyage through death 
to life upon these shores....Read more of this...



by Milton, John
...on sceptre rule 
Us here, as with his golden those in Heaven. 
What sit we then projecting peace and war? 
War hath determined us and foiled with loss 
Irreparable; terms of peace yet none 
Vouchsafed or sought; for what peace will be given 
To us enslaved, but custody severe, 
And stripes and arbitrary punishment 
Inflicted? and what peace can we return, 
But, to our power, hostility and hate, 
Untamed reluctance, and revenge, though slow, 
Yet ever plotting how the Conq...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...ound with foes, thus answered bold. 
O alienate from God, O Spirit accursed, 
Forsaken of all good! I see thy fall 
Determined, and thy hapless crew involved 
In this perfidious fraud, contagion spread 
Both of thy crime and punishment: Henceforth 
No more be troubled how to quit the yoke 
Of God's Messiah; those indulgent laws 
Will not be now vouchsafed; other decrees 
Against thee are gone forth without recall; 
That golden scepter, which thou didst reject, 
Is now an ...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...r such virtue spent of old now failed 
More Angels to create, if they at least 
Are his created, or, to spite us more, 
Determined to advance into our room 
A creature formed of earth, and him endow, 
Exalted from so base original, 
With heavenly spoils, our spoils: What he decreed, 
He effected; Man he made, and for him built 
Magnificent this world, and earth his seat, 
Him lord pronounced; and, O indignity! 
Subjected to his service angel-wings, 
And flaming ministers to w...Read more of this...

by Bronte, Anne
...so implore me
To resume my reason's reign,

That I could not but remember
How her hopes were fixed on me,
And, with one determined effort,
Rose, and shook my spirit free.

When hope leaves my weary spirit --
All the power to hold it gone --
That loved voice so loudly prays me,
'For my sake, keep hoping on,'

That, at once my strength renewing,
Though Despair had crushed me down,
I can burst his bonds asunder,
And defy his deadliest frown.

When, from nights of restles...Read more of this...

by Bishop, Elizabeth
...lay 
in this strangest of theatres? 
What childishness is it that while there's a breath of life 
in our bodies, we are determined to rush 
to see the sun the other way around? 
The tiniest green hummingbird in the world? 
To stare at some inexplicable old stonework, 
inexplicable and impenetrable, 
at any view, 
instantly seen and always, always delightful? 
Oh, must we dream our dreams 
and have them, too? 
And have we room 
for one more folded sunset, still quite warm? 

B...Read more of this...

by Lowell, Amy
...worse might be.
But Heinrich would not be persuaded. Why
Should he not give her what he liked? And in
He went, determined certainly to buy
A thing so beautiful that it would win
Her wavering fancy. Altgelt's violin
He would outscore by such a handsome jewel
That Lotta could no longer be so cruel!
Pity Charlotta, torn in diverse ways.
If she went in with him, the shopman might
Recognize her, give her her name; in days
To come he could denounce her. In her ...Read more of this...

by Gibran, Kahlil
...d I have you remember in remembering me: 

That which seems most feeble and bewildered in you is the strongest and most determined. 

Is it not your breath that has erected and hardened the structure of your bones? 

And is it not a dream which none of you remember having dreamt that building your city and fashioned all there is in it? 

Could you but see the tides of that breath you would cease to see all else, 

And if you could hear the whispering of the dream you woul...Read more of this...

by Bridges, Robert Seymour
...ong residence
Groweth to fair instead of plain and sere:
But when I say thy name it hath no peer,
And I suppose fortune determined thence
Her dower, that such beauty's excellence
Should have a perfect title for the ear. 
Thus may I think the adopting Muses chose
Their sons by name, knowing none would be heard
Or writ so oft in all the world as those,--
Dan Chaucer, mighty Shakespeare, then for third
The classic Milton, and to us arose
Shelley with liquid music in the worl...Read more of this...

by Lowell, Amy
...ave that.
`Oil of Parma Violets' fits the other one pat."
Rap! Rap! Bang!
"What a hideous clatter!
Blaise seems determined to batter
That poor old turkey into bits,
And pound to jelly my excellent wits.
Come, come, Martin, you mustn't shirk.
`The night cometh soon' -- etc. Don't jerk
Me up like that. `Essence de la Valliere' --
That has a charmingly Bourbon air.
And, oh! Magnificent! Listen to this! --
`Vinaigre des Quatre Voleurs'. Nothing ami...Read more of this...

by Chaucer, Geoffrey
...eke to selle them their ware.

Now fell it, that the masters of that sort
Have *shapen them* to Rome for to wend, *determined, prepared*
Were it for chapmanhood* or for disport, *trading
None other message would they thither send,
But come themselves to Rome, this is the end:
And in such place as thought them a vantage
For their intent, they took their herbergage.* *lodging

Sojourned have these merchants in that town
A certain time as fell to their pleasance:
And so...Read more of this...

by Strand, Mark
...e horrified by their innocence,
their reluctance to give up.
They sat beside each other on the couch.
They were determined to accept the truth.
Whatever it was they would accept it.
The book would have to be written
and would have to be read.
They are the book and they are
nothing else....Read more of this...

by Miller, Alice Duer
...
Now for the first time after years of meeting,
Never exchanging more than formal greeting,
She spoke to me— that sharp determined way
People will speak when they have things to say.

XLVII 
ROSAMUND: Susan, go home with your offspring. Fly. 
Live in America. SUSAN: Rosamund, why? 
ROSAMUND: Why, my dear girl, haven't you seen
What English country life can mean 
With too small an income to keep the place 
Going? Already I think I trace 
A change in you, you no...Read more of this...

by Carver, Raymond
...lue, and blue-green,
as far as the eye could see.
Scarcely a ripple. Calm. I dressed and went
for a walk -- determined not to return
until I took in what Nature had to offer.
I passed close to some old, bent-over trees.
Crossed a field strewn with rocks
where snow had drifted. Kept going
until I reached the bluff.
Where I gazed at the sea, and the sky, and
the gulls wheeling over the white beach
far below. All lovely. All bathed in a pure
c...Read more of this...

by Tebb, Barry
...midforties winked at me constantly,

Dancing with practised ease with sixteen year olds

Who all seemed to know him and determined to show him.

Three hours passed in as many minutes and then the crowds

Disappeared to catch the last bus home. The young aren’t 

As black as they are painted, one I danced with reminded me

Of how Margaret would have been at sixteen

With straw gold hair Yeats would have immortalised.

People seemed to guess I was haunted by an inne...Read more of this...

by Swift, Jonathan
...ic roads
Commodious to their own abodes."
"Perhaps I may allow the Dean
Had too much satire in his vein,
And seemed determined not to starve it,
Because no age could more deserve it.
Yet malice never was his aim;
He lashed the vice, but spared the name;
No individual could resent
Where thousands equally were meant.
His satire points at no defect
But what all mortals may correct;
For he abhorred that senseless tribe
Who call it humour when they gibe.
He spared ...Read more of this...

Dont forget to view our wonderful member Determined poems.


Book: Reflection on the Important Things