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Famous Done Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry
...undirected materials, 
America brings builders, and brings its own styles. 

The immortal poets of Asia and Europe have done their work, and pass’d to other
 spheres, 
A work remains, the work of surpassing all they have done. 

America, curious toward foreign characters, stands by its own at all hazards,
Stands removed, spacious, composite, sound—initiates the true use of precedents, 
Does not repel them, or the past, or what they have produced under their forms, 
Takes the ...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt



...he sea. He swore oaths to me. (ll. 456-72)

“It is sorrowful to me to speak my own heart
to any man what Grendel has done to me,
a shame in Heorot through his hateful ideas
and a fearful malice. My hall-troop has waned,
the warrior’s company. Misfortune has swept them away
into the terror of Grendel. Only God can easily
put an end to this maddened scather of deeds! (ll. 473-79)

“All too often, drunk with beer, my loyal thanes
boasted over their ale-horns that they...Read more of this...
by Anonymous,
...ld Nights—Wild Nights!
Were I with thee
Wild nights should be
Our luxury!

Futile—the Winds—
To a heart in port—
Done with the Compass—
Done with the Chart!

Rowing in Eden—
Ah, the Sea!
Might I but moor—Tonight—
In Thee!

253

You see I cannot see—your lifetime—
I must guess—
How many times it ache for me—today—Confess—
How many times for my far sake
The brave eyes film—
But I guess guessing hurts—
Mine—get so dim!

Too vague—the face—
My own—so pat...Read more of this...
by Dickinson, Emily
...ire,
And singe away the swollen clouds of Jove,
Stifling that puny essence in its tent.
O let him feel the evil he hath done;
For though I scorn Oceanus's lore,
Much pain have I for more than loss of realms:
The days of peace and slumbrous calm are fled;
Those days, all innocent of scathing war,
When all the fair Existences of heaven
Carne open-eyed to guess what we would speak:---
That was before our brows were taught to frown,
Before our lips knew else but solemn sounds;
Th...Read more of this...
by Keats, John
...this outer girth of Hell 
 Pass any to the blessed spheres exalt, 
 Through other's merits or their own the fault. 
 Condoned?" And he, my covert speech that read, 
 - For surance sought I of my faith, - replied, 
 "Through the shrunk hells there came a Great One, crowned 
 And garmented with conquest. Of the dead, 
 He rescued from us him who earliest died, 
 Abel, and our first parent. Here He found, 
 Abraham, obedient to the Voice he heard; 
 And Moses, first who wrote th...Read more of this...
by Alighieri, Dante



...
For claiming to be King of the Jungle.
For this fight, I’ve wrestled with alligators,
I’ve tussled with a whale.
I done handcuffed lightning
And throw thunder in jail.
You know I’m bad.
just last week, I murdered a rock,
Injured a stone, Hospitalized a brick.
I’m so mean, I make medicine sick.
I’m so fast, man,
I can run through a hurricane and don't get wet.
When George Foreman meets me,
He’ll pay his debt.
I can drown the drink of water, and kill a dead tree....Read more of this...
by Ali, Muhammad
...n, comparison, memory, and the like; 
The real life of my senses and flesh, transcending my senses and flesh; 
My body, done with materials—my sight, done with my material eyes;
Proved to me this day, beyond cavil, that it is not my material eyes which finally see, 
Nor my material body which finally loves, walks, laughs, shouts, embraces, procreates. 

11
O the farmer’s joys! 
Ohioan’s, Illinoisian’s, Wisconsinese’, Kanadian’s, Iowan’s,
 Kansian’s, Missourian’s, Oregonese’ j...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt
...the doors! 
Unscrew the doors themselves from their jambs! 

Whoever degrades another degrades me; 
And whatever is done or said returns at last to me. 

Through me the afflatus surging and surging—through me the current and
 index.

I speak the pass-word primeval—I give the sign of democracy; 
By God! I will accept nothing which all cannot have their counterpart of on the
 same terms. 

Through me many long dumb voices; 
Voices of the interminable generations o...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt
...ht; 
I did not know I held so much goodness. 

All seems beautiful to me; 
I can repeat over to men and women, You have done such good to me, I would do the same to
 you.


I will recruit for myself and you as I go;
I will scatter myself among men and women as I go; 
I will toss the new gladness and roughness among them; 
Whoever denies me, it shall not trouble me; 
Whoever accepts me, he or she shall be blessed, and shall bless me. 

6
Now if a thousand perfect men were to a...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt
...I been scared and battered.
My hopes the wind done scattered.
 Snow has friz me,
 Sun has baked me,

Looks like between 'em they done
 Tried to make me

Stop laughin', stop lovin', stop livin'--
 But I don't care!
 I'm still here!...Read more of this...
by Hughes, Langston
...ike a high tide from sea.

He only heard the heathen men,
Whose eyes are blue and bleak,
Singing about some cruel thing
Done by a great and smiling king
In daylight on a deck.

He only heard the heathen men,
Whose eyes are blue and blind,
Singing what shameful things are done
Between the sunlit sea and the sun
When the land is left behind.




BOOK II THE GATHERING OF THE CHIEFS


Up across windy wastes and up
Went Alfred over the shaws,
Shaken of the joy of giants,
The joy w...Read more of this...
by Chesterton, G K
...sat, and gazing on her domes and towers
Call'd up her famous children one by one:
And three who all the rest had far outdone,
Mild Giotto first, who stole the morning hours,
I saw, and god-like Buonarroti's powers,
And Dante, gravest poet, her much-wrong'd son. 

Is all this glory, I said, another's praise?
Are these heroic triumphs things of old,
And do I dead upon the living gaze?
Or rather doth the mind, that can behold
The wondrous beauty of the works and days,
Create the...Read more of this...
by Bridges, Robert Seymour
...the words "and the Man at the Helm shall speak to no one." So remon{-} strance was impossible, and no steering could be done till the next varnishing day. During these bewildering intervals the ship usually sailed backwards. 

As this poem is to some extent connected with the lay of the Jabberwock, let me take this opportunity of answering a question that has often been asked me, how to pronounce "slithy toves." The "i" in "slithy" is long, as in "writhe"; and "toves" is pron...Read more of this...
by Carroll, Lewis
...hink you of the time of night;  There's not a mother, no not one,  But when she hears what you have done,  Oh! Betty she'll be in a fright.   But Betty's bent on her intent,  For her good neighbour, Susan Gale,  Old Susan, she who dwells alone,  Is sick, and makes a piteous moan,  As if her very life would fail.   There's not a house within a mile,  No hand to hel...Read more of this...
by Wordsworth, William
...nd volumes of equal value with Swedenborg's.
and from those of Dante or Shakespear, an infinite number.
But when he has done this, let him not say that he knows
better than his master, for he only holds a candle in sunshine.


A Memorable Fancy

Once I saw a Devil in a flame of fire. who arose before an
Angel that sat on a cloud. and the Devil utterd these words.
The worship of God is. Honouring his gifts in other men
each according to his genius. and loving the [PL 23] great...Read more of this...
by Blake, William
...pon his unresisting head,
Like half a hundredweight of lead. 

"The Good and Great must ever shun
That reckless and abandoned one
Who stoops to perpetrate a pun. 

"The man that smokes - that reads the TIMES -
That goes to Christmas Pantomimes -
Is capable of ANY crimes!" 

He felt it was his turn to speak,
And, with a shamed and crimson cheek,
Moaned "This is harder than Bezique!" 

But when she asked him "Wherefore so?"
He felt his very whiskers glow,
And frankly owned "I d...Read more of this...
by Carroll, Lewis
...vail the beams that quench the Sun
Or that his banded eyes could pierce the sphere
Of all that is, has been, or will be done.--
So ill was the car guided, but it past
With solemn speed majestically on . . .
The crowd gave way, & I arose aghast,
Or seemed to rise, so mighty was the trance,
And saw like clouds upon the thunder blast
The million with fierce song and maniac dance
Raging around; such seemed the jubilee
As when to greet some conqueror's advance
Imperial Rome poured...Read more of this...
by Shelley, Percy Bysshe
...ugh of most of the writers to whom he is supposed to allude, to assert, that they, in their individual capacities, have done more good, in the charities of life, to their fellow-creatures, in any one year, than Mr. Southey has done harm to himself by his absurdities in his whole life; and this is saying a great deal. But I have a few questions to ask. 

1stly, Is Mr. Southey the author of 'Wat Tyler'? 

2ndly, Was he not refused a remedy at law by the highest judge of his bel...Read more of this...
by Byron, George (Lord)
...City, 
Under the brown fog of a winter dawn,
A crowd flowed over London Bridge, so many,
I had not thought death had undone so many.
Sighs, short and infrequent, were exhaled,
And each man fixed his eyes before his feet.
Flowed up the hill and down King William Street,
To where Saint Mary Woolnoth kept the hours
With a dead sound on the final stroke of nine.
There I saw one I knew, and stopped him, crying "Stetson!
"You who were with me in the ships at Mylae! 
"That corpse y...Read more of this...
by Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)
...
Courageous, harsh and in control.
The calm before the storm is fearful to my soul.
You ask me what it is that I have done of late
With given unto me forever love and fate.
I have betrayed you. And this to repeat --
Oh, if you could one moment tire of it!
The killer's sleep is haunted, dead man said,
Death's angel thus awaits me at deathbed.
Forgive me now. Lord teaches to forgive.
In burning agony my flesh does live,
And already the spirit gently sleeps,
A garden ...Read more of this...
by Akhmatova, Anna

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Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry