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Famous Distinguish Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Yeats, William Butler
...n the star that marks the hidden pole;
Fix every wandering thought upon
That quarter where all thought is done:
Who can distinguish darkness from the soul

My Self. The consecretes blade upon my knees
Is Sato's ancient blade, still as it was,
Still razor-keen, still like a looking-glass
Unspotted by the centuries;
That flowering, silken, old embroidery, torn
From some court-lady's dress and round
The wodden scabbard bound and wound
Can, tattered, still protect, faded ador...Read more of this...



by Dryden, John
...nds disguise:
Achitophel had form'd it, with intent
To sound the depths, and fathom where it went,
The people's hearts; distinguish friends from foes;
And try their strength, before they came to blows.
Yet all was colour'd with a smooth pretence
Of specious love, and duty to their prince.
Religion, and redress of grievances,
Two names, that always cheat and always please,
Are often urg'd; and good King David's life
Endanger'd by a brother and a wife.
Thus, in a pa...Read more of this...

by Schwartz, Delmore
...for place to be displaced
On the exact track of safety or the rack of accident.

Looked out at the night, unable to distinguish
Lights in the towns of passage from the yellow lights
Numb on the ceiling. And the bird flew parallel and still
As the train shot forth the straight line of its whistle,
Forward on the taut tracks, piercing empty, familiar --

The bored center of this vision and condition looked and
 looked
Down through the slick pages of the magazine (seekin...Read more of this...

by Rilke, Rainer Maria
...e a mystic fountain,
Issuing ever pure and cold
From the hollows of the mountain.


We are men by anguish taught
To distinguish false from true;
Higher wisdom we have not;
But a joy within guides you....Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...und.
Run to your shrouds within these brakes and trees;
Our number may affright. Some virgin sure
(For so I can distinguish by mine art)
Benighted in these woods! Now to my charms,
And to my wily trains: I shall ere long
Be well stocked with as fair a herd as grazed
About my mother Circe. Thus I hurl
My dazzling spells into the spongy air,
Of power to cheat the eye with blear illusion,
And give it false presentments, lest the place
And my quaint habits breed aston...Read more of this...



by Cavafy, Constantine P
...magine, greek poems.

Phernazis is impatient. Misfortune!
Just when he was positive that with "Darius"
he would distinguish himself, and shut the mouths
of his critics, the envious ones, for good.
What a delay, what a delay to his plans.

And if it were only a delay, it would still be all right.
But it yet remains to be seen if we have any security
at Amisus. It is not a strongly fortified city.
The Romans are the most horrible enemies.
Can we ...Read more of this...

by Rilke, Rainer Maria
...r> -Yes, but the liviing make
the mistake of drawing too sharp a distinction.
Angels (they say) are often unable to distinguish
between moving among the living or the dead.
The eternal torrent whirls all ages along with it,
through both realms forever, and their voices are lost in
its thunderous roar.

In the end the early departed have no longer
need of us. One is gently weaned from things
of this world as a child outgrows the need
of its mother's breast....Read more of this...

by Pope, Alexander
...n, yet keep the sense,
And love th' offender, yet detest th' offence?
How the dear object from the crime remove,
Or how distinguish penitence from love?
Unequal task! a passion to resign,
For hearts so touch'd, so pierc'd, so lost as mine.
Ere such a soul regains its peaceful state,
How often must it love, how often hate!
How often hope, despair, resent, regret,
Conceal, disdain--do all things but forget.
But let Heav'n seize it, all at once 'tis fir'd;
Not touch'd, b...Read more of this...

by Pope, Alexander
...what you once let fall, 
"Most Women have no Characters at all." 
Matter too soft a lasting mark to bear, 
And best distinguish'd by black, brown, or fair. 

How many pictures of one Nymph we view, 
All how unlike each other, all how true! 
Arcadia's Countess, here, in ermin'd pride, 
Is, there, Pastora by a fountain side. 
Here Fannia, leering on her own good man, 
And there, a naked Leda with a Swan. 
Let then the Fair one beautifully cry, 
In Magdalen's loo...Read more of this...

by Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
...t like voices from afar off
Call to us to pause and listen,
Speak in tones so plain and childlike,
Scarcely can the ear distinguish
Whether they are sung or spoken;-
Listen to this Indian Legend,
To this Song of Hiawatha!
Ye whose hearts are fresh and simple,
Who have faith in God and Nature,
Who believe that in all ages
Every human heart is human,
That in even savage bosoms
There are longings, yearnings, strivings
For the good they comprehend not,
That the feeble hands and h...Read more of this...

by Browning, Robert
...in, gathered councils, wielding far
 Peace or war.

II

Now—the country does not even boast a tree,
 As you see,
To distinguish slopes of verdure, certain rills
 From the hills
Intersect and give a name to, (else they run
 Into one)
Where the domed and daring palace shot its spires
 Up like fires
O'er the hundred-gated circuit of a wall
 Bounding all,
Made of marble, men might march on nor be prest,
 Twelve abreast.

III

And such plenty and perfection, see, of grass
...Read more of this...

by Trumbull, John
...'d, murmur'd, groan'd and jeer'd;
Honorius now could scarce be heard.
Our Muse, amid th' increasing roar,
Could not distinguish one word more;
Though she sate by, in firm record
To take in short hand every word,
As ancient Muses wont; to whom
Old bards for depositions come;
Who must have writ them; for how else
Could they each speech verbatim tell 's?
And though some readers of romances
Are apt to strain their tortured fancies,
And doubt (when lovers all alone
Their sad s...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...not for thy advice or threats I fly 
These wicked tents devoted, lest the wrath 
Impendent, raging into sudden flame, 
Distinguish not: For soon expect to feel 
His thunder on thy head, devouring fire. 
Then who created thee lamenting learn, 
When who can uncreate thee thou shalt know. 
So spake the Seraph Abdiel, faithful found 
Among the faithless, faithful only he; 
Among innumerable false, unmoved, 
Unshaken, unseduced, unterrified, 
His loyalty he kept, his love...Read more of this...

by Gibran, Kahlil
...d it is yours to bring forth sweet music from it or confused sounds. 

And now you ask in your heart, "How shall we distinguish that which is good in pleasure from that which is not good?" 

Go to your fields and your gardens, and you shall learn that it is the pleasure of the bee to gather honey of the flower, 

But it is also the pleasure of the flower to yield its honey to the bee. 

For to the bee a flower is a fountain of life, 

And to the flower a bee is a mess...Read more of this...

by Akhmatova, Anna
...self at the feet of butchers
For you, my son and my horror.
Everything has become muddled forever -
I can no longer distinguish
Who is an animal, who a person, and how long
The wait can be for an execution.
There are now only dusty flowers,
The chinking of the thurible,
Tracks from somewhere into nowhere
And, staring me in the face
And threatening me with swift annihilation,
An enormous star.
[1939]

VI

Weeks fly lightly by. Even so,
I cannot understand what ...Read more of this...

by Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
...what they did and said, 
Till the dead alone seem living, 
And the living alone seem dead. 

And at last we hardly distinguish 
Between the ghosts and the guests; 
And a mist and shadow of sadness 
Steals over our merriest jests....Read more of this...

by Byron, George (Lord)
...Changed every instant — to what, none could say. 

LXXVI 

The more intently the ghosts gazed, the less 
Could they distinguish whose the features were; 
The Devil himself seem'd puzzled even to guess; 
They varied like a dream — now here, now there; 
And several people swore from out the press 
They knew him perfectly; and one could swear 
He was his father: upon which another 
Was sure he was his mother's cousin's brother: 

LXXVII 

Another, that he was a duke, or a kn...Read more of this...

by Herrick, Robert
...Weigh me the fire; or canst thou find
A way to measure out the wind?
Distinguish all those floods that are
Mixed in that wat'ry theater,
And taste thou them as saltless there,
As in their channel first they were.
Tell me the people that do keep
Within the kingdoms of the deep;
Or fetch me back that cloud again,
Beshivered into seeds of rain.
Tell me the motes, dust, sands, and spears
Of corn, when summer shak...Read more of this...

by Wilmot, John
...ed--What?
Something, the general attribute of all,
Severed from thee, its sole original,
Into thy boundless self must undistinguished fall.
Yet Something did thy mighty power command,
And from thy fruitful emptiness's hand,
Snatched men, beasts, birds, fire, air, and land.
Matter, the wickedest offspring of thy race,
By Form assisted, flew from thy embrace,
And rebel Light obscured thy reverend dusky face.
With Form and Matter, Time and Place did join,
Body, thy f...Read more of this...

by Levertov, Denise
...inclined to quiet laughter?
Did they use bone and ivory,
jade and silver, for ornament?
Had they an epic poem?
Did they distinguish between speech and singing?

Sir, their light hearts turned to stone.
It is not remembered whether in gardens
stone gardens illumined pleasant ways.
Perhaps they gathered once to delight in blossom,
but after their children were killed
there were no more buds.
Sir, laughter is bitter to the burned mouth.
A dream ago, perhaps. ...Read more of this...

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