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Famous Distract Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Brontë, Emily
...mortal! mortal! let them die;
Let time and tears destroy,
That we may overflow the sky
With universal joy! 

Let grief distract the sufferer's breast,
And night obscure his way;
They hasten him to endless rest,
And everlasting day. 

To thee the world is like a tomb,
A desert's naked shore;
To us, in unimagined bloom,
It brightens more and more! 

And could we lift the veil, and give
One brief glimpse to thine eye,
Thou wouldst rejoice for those that live,
Because they l...Read more of this...



by Shakespeare, William
...hey do extend
Their view right on; anon their gazes lend
To every place at once, and, nowhere fix'd,
The mind and sight distractedly commix'd.

Her hair, nor loose nor tied in formal plat,
Proclaim'd in her a careless hand of pride
For some, untuck'd, descended her sheaved hat,
Hanging her pale and pined cheek beside;
Some in her threaden fillet still did bide,
And true to bondage would not break from thence,
Though slackly braided in loose negligence.

A thousand fav...Read more of this...

by Scannell, Vernon
...r had been, or would be; 
A quiet brown place, a place to drink 
And let thought simmer like good stock, 
No mirrors to distract, no fat 
And calculating face of clock, 
A good calm place to sip and think. 
If anybody noticed that 
He was even there they'd see 
A fairly tall and slender man, 
Fair-haired, blue-eyed, and handsome in 
A manner strictly masculine. 
They would not know, or want to know, 
More than what they saw of him, 
Nor would they wish to bug the bone...Read more of this...

by Keats, John
...>
Hush! no exclaim--yet, justly mightst thou call
Curses upon his head.--I was half glad,
But my poor mistress went distract and mad,
When the boar tusk'd him: so away she flew
To Jove's high throne, and by her plainings drew
Immortal tear-drops down the thunderer's beard;
Whereon, it was decreed he should be rear'd
Each summer time to life. Lo! this is he,
That same Adonis, safe in the privacy
Of this still region all his winter-sleep.
Aye, sleep; for when our lo...Read more of this...

by Service, Robert William
...it.
Suffice its silver trance my sight,
That's all I want to know about it.
A fig for science - 'how' and 'why'
Distract me in my happy dreaming:
Through line and form and colour I
Am all content with outward seeming. . . ."

The Greatest Writer of to-day
(I would have loved to call him Willie),
looked wry at me and went his way -
I think he thought me rather silly.
Maybe I am, but I insist
My point of view will take some beating:
Don't mock this o...Read more of this...



by Simic, Charles
...n X.
A man about to be hanged cracking a joke.

 2. The Poem

It is a piece of meat
Carried by a burglar
To distract a watchdog....Read more of this...

by Pinsky, Robert
...race from her neighbors.
She tells the child she's going to kill herself.
She broods, she rages. Hoping to distract her,

The child cuts capers, he sings, he does imitations
Of different people in the building, he jokes,
He feels if he keeps her alive until the father

Gets home from work, they'll be okay till morning.
It's laughter versus the bedroom and the pills.
What is he in his efforts but a courtier?

Impossible to tell his whole delusion.
In t...Read more of this...

by Seeger, Alan
...ounding shore. 
How sweet, to such a place, on such a night, 
From halls with beauty and festival a-glare, 
To come distract and, stretched on the cool turf, 
Yield to some fond, improbable delight, 
While the moon, reddening, sinks, and all the air 
Sighs with the muffled tumult of the surf!...Read more of this...

by Tagore, Rabindranath
...That I want thee, only thee---let my heart repeat without end. 
All desires that distract me, day and night, 
are false and empty to the core. 

As the night keeps hidden in its gloom the petition for light, 
even thus in the depth of my unconsciousness rings the cry 
---`I want thee, only thee'. 

As the storm still seeks its end in peace 
when it strikes against peace with all its might, 
even thus my rebellion strikes against ...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...
Now rolling boils in his tumultuous breast, 
And like a devilish engine back recoils 
Upon himself; horrour and doubt distract 
His troubled thoughts, and from the bottom stir 
The Hell within him; for within him Hell 
He brings, and round about him, nor from Hell 
One step, no more than from himself, can fly 
By change of place: Now conscience wakes despair, 
That slumbered; wakes the bitter memory 
Of what he was, what is, and what must be 
Worse; of worse deeds worse suf...Read more of this...

by Byron, George (Lord)
...And though the eye may sparkle still, 'tis where the ice appears.

Though wit may flash from fluent lips, and mirth distract the breast,
Through midnight hours that yield no more their former hope of rest,
'Tis but as ivy-leaves around the ruined turret wreath— 
All green and wildly fresh without, but worn and grey beneath.

Oh, could I feel as I have felt, or be what I have been,
Or weep as I could once have wept, o'er many a vanished scene;
As springs in deserts fou...Read more of this...

by Williams, C K
...
All morning a crew of workmen have been tearing the old decrepit roof
off our building,
and all morning, trying to distract myself, I've been wandering out to 
watch them
as they hack away the leaden layers of asbestos paper and disassemble 
the disintegrating drains.
After half a night of listening to the news, wondering how to know a 
hundred miles downwind
if and when to make a run for it and where, then a coming bolt awake 
at seven
when the roofers we've been wa...Read more of this...

by Jong, Erica
...

Write us a letter!
Send us a parcel of food!
Comfort us with proverbs or candied fruit,
with talk of one God.
Distract us with theories of art
no one can prove.

Here at the end of the world
our heads are empty,
& the wind walks through them
like ghosts
through a haunted house....Read more of this...

by von Goethe, Johann Wolfgang
...>

And so 'tis with many a wonder,

(Why A B make Ab in fact,)
Over which we gape and blunder,

And our head and brains distract.

 1821.*...Read more of this...

by Graham, Jorie
...before -- 
the mind still gripped hard by the hands
that would hold the skull even stiller if they could,
that nothing distract, that nothing but the possible be let to filter
through,
the possible and then the finely filamented hope, the filigree,
without the distractions of wonder -- 
oh tiny golden spore just filtering-in to touch the good idea,
which taking-form begins to twist,
coursing for bottom-footing, palpating for edge-hold, limit,
now finally about to
rise, about...Read more of this...

by Finch, Anne Kingsmill
...My soul at this no Apprehension feels, 
But trembles at thy Swords, thy Racks, thy Wheels; 
Thy scorching Fevers, which distract the Sense, 
And snatch us raving, unprepar'd from hence; 
At thy contagious Darts, that wound the Heads 
Of weeping Friends, who wait at dying Beds. 
Spare these, and let thy Time be when it will; 
My Bus'ness is to Dye, and Thine to Kill. 
Gently thy fatal Sceptre on me lay, 
And take to thy cold Arms, insensibly, thy Prey....Read more of this...

by Philips, Katherine
...eath is not in our power to gain,
And is both wish'd and fear'd in vain
Let's be as angry as wee will,
Grief sooner may distract then kill,
And the unhappy often prove
Death is as coy a thing as Love.
Those whose own sword their death did give,
Afraid were or asham'd to Live;
And by an act so desperate,
Did poorly run away from fate;
'Tis braver much t'out-ride the storm,
Endure its rages and shun his harm;
Affliction nobly undergone,
More Greatness shews than having none...Read more of this...

by Plath, Sylvia
...quander owl-hours on bracken bedding,
Flesh unshriven.

Against virgin prayer
This sorceress sets mirrors enough
To distract beauty's thought;
Lovesick at first fond song,
Each vain girl's driven

To believe beyond heart's flare
No fire is, nor in any book proof
Sun hoists soul up after lids fall shut;
So she wills all to the black king.
The worst sloven

Vies with best queen over
Right to blaze as satan's wife;
Housed in earth, those million brides shriek out.
So...Read more of this...

by Byron, George (Lord)
...nd though the eye may sparkle still 'tis where the ice appears. 

Though wit may flash from fluent lips and mirth distract the breast  
Through midnight hours that yield no more their former hope of rest  
'Tis but as ivy-leaves around the ruin'd turret wreathe 15 
All green and wildly fresh without but worn and gray beneath. 

Oh could I feel as I have felt or be what I have been  
Or weep as I could once have wept o'er many a vanish'd scene ¡ª 
As springs i...Read more of this...

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