Famous Doubles Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Doubles poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous doubles poems. These examples illustrate what a famous doubles poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Pope, Alexander
...erit then,
When we but praise Our selves in Other Men.
Parties in Wit attend on those of State,
And publick Faction doubles private Hate.
Pride, Malice, Folly, against Dryden rose,
In various Shapes of Parsons, Criticks, Beaus;
But Sense surviv'd, when merry Jests were past;
For rising Merit will buoy up at last.
Might he return, and bless once more our Eyes,
New Blackmores and new Milbourns must arise;
Nay shou'd great Homer lift his awful Head,
Zoilus again woul...Read more of this...
by
Marvell, Andrew
...ith more careful eye
Counted the hours, and every star did spy,
The help does from the artless steersman strain,
And doubles back unto the safer main.
What though a while they grumble discontent,
Saving himself, he does their loss prevent.
'Tis not a freedom, that where all command;
Nor tyranny, where one does them withstand:
But who of both the bounder knows to lay
Him as their father must the state obey.
Thou, and thine house (like Noah's eight) did ...Read more of this...
by
Finch, Anne Kingsmill
...su'd,
And at what time the Aguish Fit renew'd.
The waining Wretch, each day become more faint,
In like proportion doubles his Complaint;
Now swooning Sweats he begs him to allay,
Now give his Lungs more liberty to play,
And take from empty'd Veins these scorching Heats away:
Or if he saw the Danger did increase,
To warn him fair, and let him part in Peace.
My Life for yours, no Hazard in your Case
The Quack replies; your Voice, your Pulse, your Face,
Good Sign...Read more of this...
by
Thomas, Dylan
...hese seas their colour in a shape,
Shaped my clayfellow, and the heaven's ark
In time at flood filled with his coloured doubles;
O who is glory in the shapeless maps,
Now make the world of me as I have made
A merry manshape of your walking circle....Read more of this...
by
Shakespeare, William
...r wretch, to overshoot his troubles
How he outruns with winds, and with what care
He cranks and crosses with a thousand doubles:
The many musits through the which he goes
Are like a labyrinth to amaze his foes.
"Sometime he runs among a flock of sheep,
To make the cunning hounds mistake their smell,
And sometime where earth-delving conies keep,
To stop the loud pursuers in their yell,
And sometime sorteth with a herd of deer;
Danger deviseth shifts; wit waits on fear:
"...Read more of this...
by
Dyke, Henry Van
...om her sheltered haven
Our peaceful ship glides slow,
Noiseless in flight as a raven,
Gray as a hoodie crow.
She doubles and turns in her bearing,
Like a twisting plover she goes;
The way of her westward faring
Only the captain knows.
In a lonely bay concealing
She lingers for days, and slips
At dusk from her covert, stealing
Thro' channels feared by the ships.
Brave are the men, and steady,
Who guide her over the deep,--
British mariners, ready
To face the...Read more of this...
by
Yeats, William Butler
...way rock and thorn,
To that stern colour and that delicate line
That are our secret discipline
Wherein the gazing heart doubles her might.
Soldier, scholar, horseman, he,
And yet he had the intensity
To have published all to be a world's delight.
X
What other could so well have counselled us
In all lovely intricacies of a house
As he that practised or that understood
All work in metal or in wood,
In moulded plaster or in carven stone?
Soldier, scholar, horseman, he...Read more of this...
by
Plath, Sylvia
...
By chrysanthemums the size
Of Holofernes' head, dipped in the same
Magenta as this fubsy sofa.
In the mirror their doubles back them up.
Listen: your tenant mice
Are rattling the cracker packets. Fine flour
Muffles their bird feet: they whistle for joy.
And you doze on, nose to the wall.
This mizzle fits me like a sad jacket.
How did we make it up to your attic?
You handed me gin in a glass bud vase.
We slept like stones. Lady, what am I doing...Read more of this...
by
Sandburg, Carl
...LEAVES of poplars pick Japanese prints against the west.
Moon sand on the canal doubles the changing pictures.
The moon’s good-by ends pictures.
The west is empty. All else is empty. No moon-talk at all now.
Only dark listening to dark....Read more of this...
by
Thomas, Dylan
...I
Half of the fellow father as he doubles
His sea-sucked Adam in the hollow hulk,
Half of the fellow mother as she dabbles
To-morrow's diver in her horny milk,
Bisected shadows on the thunder's bone
Bolt for the salt unborn.
The fellow half was frozen as it bubbled
Corrosive spring out of the iceberg's crop,
The fellow seed and shadow as it babbled
The swing of milk was tufted in the pa...Read more of this...
by
Paterson, Andrew Barton
...un.
We got to the course with our troubles,
A crestfallen couple were we;
And we heard the " books" calling the doubles --
A roar like the surf of the sea.
And over the tumult and louder
Rang "Any price Pardon, I lay!"
Says Jimmy, "The children of Judah
Are out on the warpath today."
Three miles in three heats: -- Ah, my sonny,
The horses in those days were stout,
They had to run well to win money;
I don't see such horses about.
Your six-furlong...Read more of this...
by
Strode, William
...Come, come, I faint: thy heavy stay
Doubles each houre of the day:
The winged hast of nimble love
Makes aged Time not seeme to move:
Did not the light,
And then the night
Instruct my sight
I should believe the Sunne forgot his flight.
Show not the drooping marygold
Whose leaves like grieving amber fold:
My longing nothing can explain
But soule and body rent in twain:
Did I not moane,
And...Read more of this...
by
Koch, Kenneth
...e, or one purple—this is a painting
By someone after Matisse. One waits at the tracks until they pass,
These hidden doubles or, sometimes, likenesses. One identical twin
May hide the other. And there may be even more in there! The obstetrician
Gazes at the Valley of the Var. We used to live there, my wife and I, but
One life hid another life. And now she is gone and I am here.
A vivacious mother hides a gawky daughter. The daughter hides
Her own vi...Read more of this...
by
Ferlinghetti, Lawrence
...ing
where seaplanes might turn
where warplanes might burn
He wheels about burning
in the red sun
climbs and glides
and doubles back upon himself
now over ocean
now over land
high over pinwheels suck in sand
where a rollercoaster used to stand
soaring eagle setting sun
All that is left of our wilderness...Read more of this...
by
Kipling, Rudyard
...t, they was brothers to us; they was beggars we'd met an' knew;
Yes, barrin' an inch in the chest an' the arm, they was doubles o' me an' you;
For they weren't no special chrysanthemums -- soldier an' sailor too!
To take your chance in the thick of a rush, with firing all about,
Is nothing so bad when you've cover to 'and, an' leave an' likin' to shout;
But to stand an' be still to the Birken'ead drill is a damn tough bullet to chew,
An' they done it, the Jollies -- 'Er Maje...Read more of this...
by
Petrarch, Francesco
...its sweet sound, is heard;Your REgal state, which I encounter next,Doubles my valour in that high emprize:But TAcit ends the word; your praise to tellIs fitting load for better backs than mine.Thus all who call you, by the name itself,Are taught at once to LAUd and to REvere,O worthy of all rever...Read more of this...
by
Atwood, Margaret
...ess
flows out of it like blood, at
the melting point of granite
when the bones know
they are hollow & the word
splits & doubles & speaks
the truth & the body
itself becomes a mouth.
This is a metaphor.
*
How do you learn to spell?
Blood, sky & the sun,
your own name first,
your first naming, your first name,
your first word....Read more of this...
by
Marvell, Andrew
...o with more careful Eye
Counted the Hours, and ev'ry Star did spy,
The Helm does from the artless Steersman strain,
And doubles back unto the safer Main.
What though a while they grumble discontent,
Saving himself he does their loss prevent.
'Tis not a Freedome, that where All command;
Nor Tyranny, where One does them withstand:
But who of both the Bounders knows to lay
Him as their Father must the State obey.
Thou, and thine House, like Noah's Eight did rest,
Lef...Read more of this...
by
Chaucer, Geoffrey
...and wail, while that I live,
With all the woe that prison may me give,
And eke with pain that love me gives also,
That doubles all my torment and my woe."
Therewith the fire of jealousy upstart
Within his breast, and hent* him by the heart *seized
So woodly*, that he like was to behold *madly
The box-tree, or the ashes dead and cold.
Then said; "O cruel goddess, that govern
This world with binding of your word etern* *eternal
And writen in the table of adamant
Your ...Read more of this...
by
Herbert, George
...y;
But surely not their hearts, as I well try:
Was ever grief like mine?
Ah! how they scourge me! yet my tenderness
Doubles each lash: and yet their bitterness
Winds up my grief to a mysteriousness.
Was ever grief like mine?
They buffet me, and box me as they list,
Who grasp the earth and heaven with my fist,
And never yet, whom I would punish, miss'd:
Was ever grief like mine?
Behold, they spit on me in scornful wise,
Who by my spittle gave the blind man eyes...Read more of this...
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