Famous Discover Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Planetarium

by Adrienne Rich
 Thinking of Caroline Herschel (1750-1848), 
astronomer, sister of William; and others.

A woman in the shape of a monster
a monster in the shape of a woman
the skies are full of them

a woman 'in the snow
among the Clocks and instruments
or measuring the ground with poles'

in her 98 years to discover
8 comets

She whom the moon ruled
like us
levitating into the night sky
riding the...Read more of this...

Prayer

by Richard Crashaw
 LO here a little volume, but great Book
A nest of new-born sweets;
Whose native fires disdaining
To ly thus folded, and complaining
Of these ignoble sheets,
Affect more comly bands
(Fair one) from the kind hands
And confidently look
To find the rest
Of a rich binding in your Brest.
It is, in one choise handfull, heavenn; and all
Heavn’s Royall host; incamp’t thus small
To prove that true schooles...Read more of this...

Love is enough

by William Morris
 LOVE is enough: though the World be a-waning, 
And the woods have no voice but the voice of complaining, 
 Though the sky be too dark for dim eyes to discover 
The gold-cups and daisies fair blooming thereunder, 
Though the hills be held shadows, and the sea a dark wonder, 
 And this day draw a veil over all...Read more of this...

The Sea

by J R R Tolkien
 To the Sea, to the Sea! The white gulls are crying,
The wind is blowing, and the white foam is flying.
West, west away, the round sun is falling.
Grey ship, grey ship, do you hear them calling?
The voices of my people gone before me?
I will leave, I will leave the woods that bore me;
For our days are ending and our years...Read more of this...

The stoddards

by Eugene Field
 When I am in New York, I like to drop around at night,
To visit with my honest, genial friends, the Stoddards hight;
Their home in Fifteenth street is all so snug, and furnished so,
That, when I once get planted there, I don't know when to go;
A cosy cheerful refuge for the weary homesick guest,
Combining Yankee comforts with the freedom of...Read more of this...

Before you knew you owned it

by Alice Walker
 Expect nothing. Live frugally
On surprise.
become a stranger
To need of pity
Or, if compassion be freely
Given out
Take only enough
Stop short of urge to plead
Then purge away the need.

Wish for nothing larger
Than your own small heart
Or greater than a star;
Tame wild disappointment
With caress unmoved and cold
Make of it a parka
For your soul.

Discover the reason why
So tiny human midget
Exists at all
So scared unwise
But...Read more of this...

The Holidays

by Jane Taylor
 "Ah! don't you remember, 'tis almost December,
And soon will the holidays come;
Oh, 'twill be so funny, I've plenty of money,
I'll buy me a sword and a drum. " 

Thus said little Harry, unwilling to tarry,
Impatient from school to depart; 
But we shall discover, this holiday lover
Knew little what was in his heart. 

For when on returning, he gave up...Read more of this...

Statuary

by Nick Flynn
 Bees may be trusted, always, 
 to discover the best, nay, the only 

human, solution. Let me cite 

 an instance; an event, that, 

though occurring in nature, is still 
 in itself wholly abnormal. I refer 

to the manner in which the bees 

 will dispose of a mouse 
 or a slug 

 that may happen to...Read more of this...

Not to discover weakness is

by Emily Dickinson
 Not to discover weakness is
The Artifice of strength --
Impregnability inheres
As much through Consciousness

Of faith of others in itself
As Pyramidal Nerve
Behind the most unconscious clock
What skilful Pointers move --...Read more of this...

Taking up the fair Ideal

by Emily Dickinson
 Taking up the fair Ideal,
Just to cast her down
When a fracture -- we discover --
Or a splintered Crown --
Makes the Heavens portable --
And the Gods -- a lie --
Doubtless -- "Adam" -- scowled at Eden --
For his perjury!

Cherishing -- our pool Ideal --
Till in purer dress --
We behold her -- glorified --
Comforts -- search -- like this --
Till the...Read more of this...

A Paumanok Picture

by Walt Whitman
 TWO boats with nets lying off the sea-beach, quite still, 
Ten fishermen waiting—they discover a thick school of mossbonkers—they drop the
 join’d seine-ends in the water, 
The boats separate and row off, each on its rounding course to the beach, enclosing the
 mossbonkers, 
The net is drawn in by a windlass by those who stop ashore, 
Some of the...Read more of this...

The Lily In A Crystal

by Robert Herrick
 You have beheld a smiling rose
When virgins' hands have drawn
O'er it a cobweb-lawn:
And here, you see, this lily shows,
Tomb'd in a crystal stone,
More fair in this transparent case
Than when it grew alone,
And had but single grace.

You see how cream but naked is,
Nor dances in the eye
Without a strawberry;
Or some fine tincture, like to this,
Which draws the sight thereto,
More by...Read more of this...

The Complaint Of Ceres

by Friedrich von Schiller
 Does pleasant spring return once more?
Does earth her happy youth regain?
Sweet suns green hills are shining o'er;
Soft brooklets burst their icy chain:
Upon the blue translucent river
Laughs down an all-unclouded day,
The winged west winds gently quiver,
The buds are bursting from the spray;
While birds are blithe on every tree;
The Oread from the mountain-shore
Sighs, "Lo! thy flowers come back to thee--
Thy child,...Read more of this...

The Swimmer

by Adam Lindsay Gordon
 With short, sharp violent lights made vivid,
To the southward far as the sight can roam,
Only the swirl of the surges livid,
The seas that climb and the surfs that comb,
Only the crag and the cliff to nor'ward,
And rocks receding, and reefs flung forward,
And waifs wreck'd seaward and wasted shoreward
On shallows sheeted with flaming foam.

A grim grey coast and a seaboard...Read more of this...

Three Songs

by Anne Kingsmill Finch
 LOVE, thou art best of Human Joys, 
Our chiefest Happiness below;
All other Pleasures are but Toys,
Musick without Thee is but Noise, 
And Beauty but an empty Show. 
Heav'n, who knew best what Man wou'd move, 
And raise his Thoughts above the Brute;
Said, Let him Be, and let him Love;
That must alone his Soul improve, 
Howe'er Philosophers dispute. 


II

Quickly, Delia,...Read more of this...

Another Way Of Love

by Robert Browning
 I.

June was not over
Though past the fall,
And the best of her roses
Had yet to blow,
When a man I know
(But shall not discover,
Since ears are dull,
And time discloses)
Turned him and said with a man's true air,
Half sighing a smile in a yawn, as 'twere,---
``If I tire of your June, will she greatly care?''

II.

Well, dear, in-doors with you!
True! serene deadness
Tries a...Read more of this...

The Landrail

by John Clare
 How sweet and pleasant grows the way
Through summer time again
While Landrails call from day to day
Amid the grass and grain

We hear it in the weeding time
When knee deep waves the corn
We hear it in the summers prime
Through meadows night and morn

And now I hear it in the grass
That grows as sweet again
And let a minutes notice pass
And now tis...Read more of this...

Beloved Let Us Once More Praise The Rain

by Conrad Aiken
 Beloved, let us once more praise the rain. 
Let us discover some new alphabet, 
For this, the often praised; and be ourselves, 
The rain, the chickweed, and the burdock leaf, 
The green-white privet flower, the spotted stone, 
And all that welcomes the rain; the sparrow too,—
Who watches with a hard eye from seclusion, 
Beneath the elm-tree bough, till rain...Read more of this...

The Silent Shepherds

by Robinson Jeffers
 What's the best life for a man?
--Never to have been born, sings the choros, and the next best
Is to die young. I saw the Sybil at Cumae
Hung in her cage over the public street--
What do you want, Sybil? I want to die.
Apothanein Thelo. Apothanein Thelo. Apothanein Thelo.
You have got your wish. But I meant life, not death.
What's the best...Read more of this...

Though you survey O my enlightened friend,

by Omar Khayyam
Though you survey O my enlightened friend,
This world of vanity from end to end,
You will discover there no other good
Than wine and rosy cheeks, you may depend!...Read more of this...

The Lost Pilot

by James Tate
 for my father, 1922-1944

Your face did not rot
like the others--the co-pilot,
for example, I saw him

yesterday. His face is corn-
mush: his wife and daughter,
the poor ignorant people, stare

as if he will compose soon.
He was more wronged than Job.
But your face did not rot

like the others--it grew dark,
and hard like ebony;
the features progressed in their

distinction. If I could cajole
you to come...Read more of this...

Song From An Evenings Love

by John Dryden
 After the pangs of a desperate lover,
When day and night I have sighed all in vain,
Ah, what a pleasure it is to discover
In her eyes pity, who causes my pain!

When with unkindness our love at a stand is,
And both have punished ourselves with the pain,
Ah, what a pleasure the touch of her hand is!
Ah, what a pleasure to touch...Read more of this...

Florrie

by Robert William Service
 Because I was a wonton wild
 And welcomed many a lover,
Who is the father of my child
 I wish I could discover.
For though I know it is not right
 In tender arms to tarry,
A barmaid has to be polite
 To Tom and Dick and Harry.

My truest love was Poacher Jim:
 I wish my babe was his'n.
Yet I can't father...Read more of this...

90 North

by Randall Jarrell
 At home, in my flannel gown, like a bear to its floe,
I clambered to bed; up the globe's impossible sides
I sailed all night—till at last, with my black beard,
My furs and my dogs, I stood at the northern pole.

There in the childish night my companions lay frozen,
The stiff fur knocked at my starveling throat,
And I gave my great sigh:...Read more of this...

Suppose?

by Robert William Service
 It's mighty nice at shut of day
With weariness to hit the hey,
To close your eyes, tired through and through,
And just forget that "you are you."

It's mighty sweet to wake again
When sunshine floods the window pain;
I love in cosy couch to lie,
And re-discover "I am I."

It would be grand could we conceive
A heaven in which to believe,
And in a better...Read more of this...

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