Famous Distills Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Oberon to the Queen of the Fairies

by Mary Darby Robinson
 My OBERON, with ev'ry sprite
"That gilds the vapours of the night,
"Shall dance and weave the verdant ring
"With joy that mortals thus can sing; 
"And when thou sigh'st MARIA'S name, 
"And mourn'st to feel a hopeless flame, 
"Eager they'll catch the tender note
"Just parting from thy tuneful throat, 
"And bear it to the careless ear 
"Of her who scorn'd a...Read more of this...

Work chapter VII

by Kahlil Gibran
 Then a ploughman said, "Speak to us of Work." 

And he answered, saying: 

You work that you may keep pace with the earth and the soul of the earth. 

For to be idle is to become a stranger unto the seasons, and to step out of life's procession, that marches in majesty and proud submission towards the infinite. 

When...Read more of this...

The Summer Rain

by Henry David Thoreau
 My books I'd fain cast off, I cannot read, 
'Twixt every page my thoughts go stray at large 
Down in the meadow, where is richer feed, 
And will not mind to hit their proper targe. 
Plutarch was good, and so was Homer too, 
Our Shakespeare's life were rich to live again, 
What Plutarch read, that was not good nor...Read more of this...

A prayer to the Wind

by Thomas Carew
 Go thou gentle whispering wind,
Bear this sigh; and if thou find
Where my cruel fair doth rest,
Cast it in her snowy breast,
So, enflam'd by my desire,
It may set her heart a-fire.
Those sweet kisses thou shalt gain,
Will reward thee for thy pain:
Boldly light upon her lip,
There suck odours, and thence skip
To her bosom; lastly fall
Down, and wander over all:
Range about those...Read more of this...

Sonnet 54: O how much more doth beauty beauteous seem

by William Shakespeare
 O, how much more doth beauty beauteous seem
By that sweet ornament which truth doth give!
The rose looks fair, but fairer we it deem
For that sweet odour which doth in it live.
The canker blooms have full as deep a dye
As the perfumèd tincture of the roses,
Hang on such thorns, and play as wantonly
When summer's breath their maskèd buds discloses;
But, for...Read more of this...

Eyes And Tears

by Andrew Marvell
 How wisely Nature did decree,
With the same Eyes to weep and see!
That, having view'd the object vain,
They might be ready to complain.

And since the Self-deluding Sight,
In a false Angle takes each hight;
These Tears which better measure all,
Like wat'ry Lines and Plummets fall.

Two Tears, which Sorrow long did weigh
Within the Scales of either Eye,
And then paid out in equal Poise,
Are...Read more of this...

A Hermit Thrush

by Amy Clampitt
 Nothing's certain. Crossing, on this longest day, 
the low-tide-uncovered isthmus, scrambling up 
the scree-slope of what at high tide
will be again an island,

to where, a decade since well-being staked 
the slender, unpremeditated claim that brings us 
back, year after year, lugging the 
makings of another picnic—

the cucumber sandwiches, the sea-air-sanctified
fig newtons—there's no knowing what the slamming 
seas, the gales...Read more of this...

Damon The Mower

by Andrew Marvell
 Heark how the Mower Damon Sung,
With love of Juliana stung!
While ev'ry thing did seem to paint
The Scene more fit for his complaint.
Like her fair Eyes the day was fair;
But scorching like his am'rous Care.
Sharp like his Sythe his Sorrow was,
And wither'd like his Hopes the Grass.

Oh what unusual Heats are here,
Which thus our Sun-burn'd Meadows sear!
The Grass-hopper its pipe...Read more of this...

Morning Song

by Sylvia Plath
Love set you going like a fat gold watch.
The midwife slapped your footsoles, and your bald cry
Took its place among the elements.

Our voices echo, magnifying your arrival. New statue.
In a drafty museum, your nakedness
Shadows our safety. We stand round blankly as walls.

I'm no more your mother
Than the cloud that distills a mirror to reflect its own slow
Effacement at the wind's...Read more of this...

Khan Zada's Song on the Hillside

by Adela Florence Cory Nicolson
   The fires that burn on all the hills
     Light up the landscape grey,
   The arid desert land distills
     The fervours of the day.

   The clear white moon sails through the skies
     And silvers all the night,
   I see the...Read more of this...

Indian Summer

by Henry Van Dyke
 A soft veil dims the tender skies,
And half conceals from pensive eyes
The bronzing tokens of the fall;
A calmness broods upon the hills,
And summer's parting dream distills
A charm of silence over all.

The stacks of corn, in brown array,
Stand waiting through the placid day,
Like tattered wigwams on the plain;
The tribes that find a shelter there
Are phantom peoples, forms of air,
And ghosts...Read more of this...

Divine Epigrams: To our Lord upon the Water Made Wine

by Richard Crashaw
 Thou water turn'st to wine, fair friend of life,
Thy foe, to cross the sweet arts of thy reign,
Distills from thence the tears of wrath and strife,
And so turns wine to water back again....Read more of this...

Sonet LIV

by William Shakespeare
 O, how much more doth beauty beauteous seem
By that sweet ornament which truth doth give!
The rose looks fair, but fairer we it deem
For that sweet odour which doth in it live.
The canker-blooms have full as deep a dye
As the perfumed tincture of the roses,
Hang on such thorns and play as wantonly
When summer's breath their masked buds discloses:
But, for their...Read more of this...

Idea LIII: To the River Ancor

by Michael Drayton
 Clear Ancor, on whose silver-sanded shore
My soul-shrin'd saint, my fair Idea lies,
O blessed brook, whose milk-white swans adore
Thy crystal stream, refined by her eyes,
Where sweet myrrh-breathing Zephyr in the spring
Gently distills his nectar-dropping showers,
Where nightingales in Arden sit and sing
Amongst the dainty dew-impearled flowers;
Say thus, fair brook, when thou shalt see thy queen:
Lo, here thy shepherd spent his wand'ring...Read more of this...

Sonnet (II)

by George Herbert
 Sure Lord, there is enough in thee to dry 
Oceans of Ink ; for, as the Deluge did 
Cover the Earth, so doth thy Majesty : 
Each Cloud distills thy praise, and doth forbid 
Poets to turn it to another use. 
Roses and Lillies speak thee ; and to make 
A pair of Cheeks of them, is thy abuse....Read more of this...

A Song Of Life

by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
  In the rapture of life and of living,
I lift up my head and rejoice,
And I thank the great Giver for giving
The soul of my gladness a voice.
In the glow of the glorious weather,
In the sweet-scented, sensuous air,
My burdens seem light as a feather –
They are nothing to bear.

In the strength and the glory of power,
In the pride and...Read more of this...

This was a Poet -- It is That

by Emily Dickinson
 This was a Poet -- It is That
Distills amazing sense
From ordinary Meanings --
And Attar so immense

From the familiar species
That perished by the Door --
We wonder it was not Ourselves
Arrested it -- before --

Of Pictures, the Discloser --
The Poet -- it is He --
Entitles Us -- by Contrast --
To ceaseless Poverty --

Of portion -- so unconscious --
The Robbing -- could...Read more of this...

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