Famous Difference Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Difference poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous difference poems. These examples illustrate what a famous difference poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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...back of your head.
"There isn't a turkey or goose or swan,
Or a duck that quacks, or a hen that clucks,
Can make a difference on a run
When a grasshopper plague has once begun;
'If you'd finance us,' I says, 'I'd buy
Ten thousand emus and have a try;
The job,' I says, 'is too big for ducks!
"'You must fetch a duck when you come to stay;
A great big duck -- a Muscovy toff --
Ready and fit,' I says, 'for the fray;
And if the grasshoppers come our way
You turn you...Read more of this...
by
Paterson, Andrew Barton
...ff'd,
Shook off my sober guards and civil fears;
Appear to him, as he to me appears,
All melting; though our drops this difference bore,
His poison'd me, and mine did him restore.
'In him a plenitude of subtle matter,
Applied to cautels, all strange forms receives,
Of burning blushes, or of weeping water,
Or swooning paleness; and he takes and leaves,
In either's aptness, as it best deceives,
To blush at speeches rank to weep at woes,
Or to turn white and swoon at tragic sho...Read more of this...
by
Shakespeare, William
...villain than the rest.
Thus sir, you see what human nature craves,
Most men are cowards, all men should be knaves;
The difference lies, as far as I can see.
Not in the thing itself, but the degree;
And all the subject matter of debate
Is only, who's a knave of the first rate
All this with indignation have I hurled
At the pretending part of the proud world,
Who, swollen with selfish vanity, devise,
False freedoms, holy cheats, and formal lies,
Over their fellow slaves to tyr...Read more of this...
by
Wilmot, John
...pondered with him,
While he made out a case for So-and-so,
Or slaughtered What’s-his-name in his old way,
With a new difference. Nothing in Avon lately
Was, or was ever again to be for us,
Like him that we remembered; and all the while
We saw that fire at work within his eyes
And had no glimpse of what was burning there.
So for a year it went; and so it went
For half another year—when, all at once,
At someone’s tinkling afternoon at home
I saw that in the eyes of A...Read more of this...
by
Robinson, Edwin Arlington
...ed things.
"Ay, but since really you lack faith," you cry,
"You run the same risk really on all sides,
"In cool indifference as bold unbelief.
"As well be Strauss as swing 'twixt Paul and him.
"It's not worth having, such imperfect faith,
"No more available to do faith's work
"Than unbelief like mine. Whole faith, or none!"
Softly, my friend! I must dispute that point
Once own the use of faith, I'll find you faith.
We're back on Christian ground. You call for fa...Read more of this...
by
Browning, Robert
...uty has, in life's pure spring,
The German Emp'ror and the Polish King.
VI.
THE TWO NEIGHBORS.
The difference this betwixt the evil pair,
Faithless to God—for laws without a care—
One was the claw, the other one the will
Controlling. Yet to mass they both went still,
And on the rosary told their beads each day.
But none the less the world believed that they
Unto the powers of hell their souls had sold.
Even in whispers men each other ...Read more of this...
by
Hugo, Victor
...Drinking my tea
Without sugar-
No difference.
The sparrow shits
upside down
--ah! my brain & eggs
Mayan head in a
Pacific driftwood bole
--Someday I'll live in N.Y.
Looking over my shoulder
my behind was covered
with cherry blossoms.
Winter Haiku
I didn't know the names
of the flowers--now
my garden is gone.
I slapped the mosquito
and missed.
What made me do that?
Reading haiku
I am...Read more of this...
by
Ginsberg, Allen
...can't sleep with the window shut and a
woman who can't sleep with the window open.
Moreover, just as I am unsure of the difference between
flora and fauna and flotsam and jetsam,
I am quite sure that marriage is the alliance of two people
one of whom never remembers birthdays and the other
never forgetsam,
And he refuses to believe there is a leak in the water pipe or
the gas pipe and she is convinced she is about to asphyxiate
or drown,
And she says Quick get up and get my h...Read more of this...
by
Nash, Ogden
...es were there
As nobler moved than others, and questioned, "Who,
Master, are those that in their aspect bear
Such difference from the rest?"
"All
these," he said,
"Were named so glorious in thy earth above
That Heaven allows their larger claim to be
Select, as thus ye see them."
While
he spake
A voice rose near us: "Hail!" it cried, "for he
Returns, who was departed."
Scarce
it ceased
When four great spirits approached. They did not show
Sadness n...Read more of this...
by
Alighieri, Dante
...ey, Carol, Irma, Marjorie,
Signified nothing. Rose could have a meaning,
But hadn't as it went. (She knew a Rose.)
This difference from other names it was
Made people notice it—and notice her.
(They either noticed it, or got it wrong.)
Her problem was to find out what it asked
In dress or manner of the girl who bore it.
If she could form some notion of her mother—
What she bad thought was lovely, and what good.
This was her mother's childhood home;
The house one story high in...Read more of this...
by
Frost, Robert
...her to kill any of them be-
cause she was too young.
Instead of making her furry sound, she adapted rapidly
to the difference between animals and fish, and was soon
making a silver sound.
She caught one of the fish with her hand and looked at it
for a while. We took the fish out of her hand and put it back
into the pan. After a while she was putting the fish back by
herself.
Then she grew tired of this. She tipped the pan over and
a dozen fish flopped out onto t...Read more of this...
by
Brautigan, Richard
...tions, societies, authors old and new,
My dinner, dress, associates, looks, compliments, dues,
The real or fancied indifference of some man or woman I love,
The sickness of one of my folks, or of myself, or ill-doing, or loss or lack of
money, or depressions or exaltations;
Battles, the horrors of fratricidal war, the fever of doubtful news, the fitful
events;
These come to me days and nights, and go from me again,
But they are not the Me myself.
Apart from ...Read more of this...
by
Whitman, Walt
...
And the sea rolls, and all the world is warmed?"
And when his answer chafed them, the rough crowd,
Hearing he had a difference with their priests,
Seized him, and bound and plunged him into a cell
Of great piled stones; and lying bounden there
In darkness through innumerable hours
He heard the hollow-ringing heavens sweep
Over him till by miracle--what else?--
Heavy as it was, a great stone slipt and fell,
Such as no wind could move: and through the gap
Glimmered ...Read more of this...
by
Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...roke slowly, wanting to
make it last. Her eyes looked directly into mine.
"What's your name?" I asked.
"What the hell difference does it make?" she asked.
I laughed and went on ahead. Afterwards she dressed and I drove her back to the bar but
she was difficult to forget. I wasn't working and I slept until 2 p.m. then got up and
read the paper. I was in the bathtub when she came in with a large leaf- an elephant ear.
"I knew you'd be in the bathtub," she said, "so I brough...Read more of this...
by
Bukowski, Charles
...ned the death,
No, not the soldier's: yet I hold her, king,
True woman: you clash them all in one,
That have as many differences as we.
The violet varies from the lily as far
As oak from elm: one loves the soldier, one
The silken priest of peace, one this, one that,
And some unworthily; their sinless faith,
A maiden moon that sparkles on a sty,
Glorifying clown and satyr; whence they need
More breadth of culture: is not Ida right?
They worth it? truer to the law wi...Read more of this...
by
Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...s and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference....Read more of this...
by
Frost, Robert
...mind
but heavenly leaping or to guard a grave;
but we live like our names and you would have
to be colonial to know the difference,
to know the pain of history words contain,
to love those trees with an inferior love,
and to believe: "Those casuarinas bend
like cypresses, their hair hangs down in rain
like sailors' wives. They're classic trees, and we,
if we live like the names our masters please,
by careful mimicry might become men."
7 The Flight Anchors in
Castries Harbo...Read more of this...
by
Walcott, Derek
...for such I deem you, though
Our different parties make us fight so shy,
I ne'er mistake you for a personal foe;
Our difference is political, and I
Trust that, whatever may occur below,
You know my great respect for you; and this
Makes me regret whate'er you do amiss —
LXIII
'Why, my dear Lucifer, would you abuse
My call for witnesses? I did not mean
That you should half of earth and hell produce;
'Tis even superfluous, since two honest, clean
True testimonies a...Read more of this...
by
Byron, George (Lord)
...little
or no account!
The vulgar and the refined—what you call sin, and what you call goodness—to
think how
wide a difference!
To think the difference will still continue to others, yet we lie beyond the difference.
To think how much pleasure there is!
Have you pleasure from looking at the sky? have you pleasure from poems?
Do you enjoy yourself in the city? or engaged in business? or planning a nomination and
election? or with your wife and family?
Or with your mo...Read more of this...
by
Whitman, Walt
...c
And when you get stranded and things don't go the way you planned it
Dreaming of riches in the position of making a difference
Politicians is hypocrites
They don't want to listen
If I'm insane it's the fame
I ain't about to change
It ain't nothing like the game
It's just me against the world ...Read more of this...
by
Shakur, Tupac
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