Famous Erring Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Farewell To The Muse

by George (Lord) Byron
 Thou Power! who hast ruled me through Infancy's days,
Young offspring of Fancy, 'tis time we should part;
Then rise on the gale this the last of my lays,
The coldest effusion which springs from my heart.

This bosom, responsive to rapture no more,
Shall hush thy wild notes, nor implore thee to sing;
The feelings of childhood, which taught thee to soar,
Are wafted far...Read more of this...

Athertons Gambit

by Edwin Arlington Robinson
 The Master played the bishop’s pawn, 
For jest, while Atherton looked on; 
The master played this way and that, 
And Atherton, amazed thereat, 
Said “Now I have a thing in view
That will enlighten one or two, 
And make a difference or so 
In what it is they do not know.” 

The morning stars together sang 
And forth a mighty...Read more of this...

Sonnet XXII

by Francesco Petrarch
SONNET XXII. Come va 'l mondo! or mi diletta e piace. HE BLESSES LAURA FOR HER VIRTUE.  How goes the world! now please me and delightWhat most displeased me: now I see and feelMy trials were vouchsafed me for my weal,That peace eternal should brief war requite.O hopes and wishes, ever...Read more of this...

Lost

by Robert William Service
 "Black is the sky, but the land is white--
 (O the wind, the snow and the storm!)--
 Father, where is our boy to-night?
 Pray to God he is safe and warm."

 "Mother, mother, why should you fear?
 Safe is he, and the Arctic moon
 Over his cabin shines so clear--
 Rest and sleep, 'twill be morning soon."

"It's getting dark...Read more of this...

144. A Winter Night

by Robert Burns
 WHEN biting Boreas, fell and dour,
Sharp shivers thro’ the leafless bow’r;
When Phoebus gies a short-liv’d glow’r,
 Far south the lift,
Dim-dark’ning thro’ the flaky show’r,
 Or whirling drift:


Ae night the storm the steeples rocked,
Poor Labour sweet in sleep was locked,
While burns, wi’ snawy wreaths up-choked,
 Wild-eddying swirl;
Or, thro’ the mining outlet bocked,
 Down headlong hurl:


List’ning the doors an’ winnocks rattle,
I...Read more of this...

The Four Zoas (excerpt)

by William Blake
 1.1 "What is the price of Experience? do men buy it for a song? 
1.2 Or wisdom for a dance in the street? No, it is bought with the price
1.3 Of all that a man hath, his house, his wife, his children.
1.4 Wisdom is sold in the desolate market where none come to buy,
1.5 And in the wither'd field...Read more of this...

Thought was born blind, but Thought knows what is seeing

by Fernando Pessoa
Thought was born blind, but Thought knows what is seeing.

Its careful touch, deciphering forms from shapes,

Still suggests form as aught whose proper being

Mere finding touch with erring darkness drapes.

Yet whence, except from guessed sight, does touch teach

That touch is but a close and empty sense?

How does mere touch, self-uncontented, reach

For some truer sense's whole intelligence?

The thing once touched, if touch...Read more of this...

The Spell Of The Yukon

by Robert William Service
 I wanted the gold, and I sought it,
 I scrabbled and mucked like a slave.
Was it famine or scurvy -- I fought it;
 I hurled my youth into a grave.
I wanted the gold, and I got it --
 Came out with a fortune last fall, --
Yet somehow life's not what I thought it,
 And somehow the gold isn't all.

No!...Read more of this...

Celestial Love

by Ralph Waldo Emerson
 Higher far,
Upward, into the pure realm,
Over sun or star,
Over the flickering Dæmon film,
Thou must mount for love,—
Into vision which all form
In one only form dissolves;
In a region where the wheel,
On which all beings ride,
Visibly revolves;
Where the starred eternal worm
Girds the world with bound and term;
Where unlike things are like,
When good and ill,
And joy and moan,
Melt into one.
There Past, Present,...Read more of this...

The Four Zoas (excerpt)

by William Blake
 'What is the price of Experience? do men buy it for a song? 
Or wisdom for a dance in the street? No, it is bought with the price
Of all that a man hath, his house, his wife, his children.
Wisdom is sold in the desolate market where none come to buy,
And in the wither'd field where the farmer plows for...Read more of this...

When The `Army Prays For Watty

by Henry Lawson
 When the kindly hours of darkness, save for light of moon and star, 
Hide the picture on the signboard over Doughty's Horse Bazaar; 
When the last rose-tint is fading on the distant mulga scrub, 
Then the Army prays for Watty at the entrance of his pub. 

Now, I often sit at Watty's when the night is very near, 
With...Read more of this...

Realisation

by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
 Hers was a lonely, shadowed lot; 
Or so the unperceiving thought, 
Who looked no deeper than her face, 
Devoid of chiselled lines of grace –
No farther than her humble grate, 
And wondered how she bore her fate.

Yet she was neither lone nor sad; 
So much of love her spirit had, 
She found an ever-flowing spring
Of happiness in everything.

So near...Read more of this...

202. On the Death of Robert Dundas Esq. of Arniston

by Robert Burns
 LONE on the bleaky hills the straying flocks
Shun the fierce storms among the sheltering rocks;
Down from the rivulets, red with dashing rains,
The gathering floods burst o’er the distant plains;
Beneath the blast the leafless forests groan;
The hollow caves return a hollow moan.
Ye hills, ye plains, ye forests, and ye caves,
Ye howling winds, and wintry swelling waves!
Unheard, unseen, by human ear...Read more of this...

Ridden Down

by Ellis Parker Butler
 When I taught Ida how to ride a
 Bicycle that night,
I ran beside her, just to guide her
 Erring wheel aright;
And many times there in the street
She rode upon my weary feet.

But now can Ida mount and ride a
 Wheel with graceful ease,
And I, untiring in admiring,
 Fall upon my knees
To worship her,—and, for her part,
She rides upon my...Read more of this...

Son-Days

by Henry Vaughan
 1 

Bright shadows of true Rest! some shoots of bliss, 
Heaven once a week; 
The next world's gladness prepossest in this; 
A day to seek; 
Eternity in time; the steps by which 
We Climb above all ages; Lamps that light 
Man through his heap of dark days; and the rich, 
And full redemption of the whole week's flight. 

2...Read more of this...

From Pauline

by Robert Browning
 O God, where does this tend—these struggling aims? 
What would I have? What is this ‘sleep’, which seems 
To bound all? can there be a ‘waking’ point 
Of crowning life? The soul would never rule— 
It would be first in all things—it would have 
Its utmost pleasure filled,—but that complete 
Commanding for commanding sickens it. 
The last point I...Read more of this...

The Rape of the Lock: Canto 1

by Alexander Pope
 Nolueram, Belinda, tuos violare capillos;
Sedjuvat, hoc precibus me tribuisse tuis.
(Martial, Epigrams 12.84)
What dire offence from am'rous causes springs, 
What mighty contests rise from trivial things,
I sing--This verse to Caryl, Muse! is due:
This, ev'n Belinda may vouchsafe to view:
Slight is the subject, but not so the praise,
If she inspire, and he approve my lays.
Say what strange motive, Goddess! could compel
A...Read more of this...

Delight in Disorder

by Robert Herrick
 A sweet disorder in the dress
Kindles in clothes a wantonness:
A lawn about the shoulders thrown
Into a fine distraction--
An erring lace, which here and there
Enthrals the crimson stomacher--
A cuff neglectful, and thereby
Ribbands to flow confusedly--
A winning wave, deserving note,
In the tempestuous petticoat--
A careless shoe-string, in whose tie
I see a wild civility--
Do more bewitch me than when art
Is too precise in...Read more of this...

Sweet Innisfallen

by Thomas Moore
 Sweet Innisfallen, fare thee well, 
May calm and sunshine long be thine! 
How fair thou art let others tell -- 
To feel how fair shall long be mine. 

Sweet Innisfallen, long shall dwell 
In memory's dream that sunny smile, 
Which o'er thee on that evening fell, 
When first I saw thy fairy isle. 

'Twas light, indeed, too blest for...Read more of this...

Heccar and Gaira

by Thomas Chatterton
 Where the rough Caigra rolls the surgy wave, 
Urging his thunders thro' the echoing cave; 
Where the sharp rocks, in distant horror seen, 
Drive the white currents thro' the spreading green; 
Where the loud tiger, pawing in his rage, 
Bids the black archers of the wilds engage; 
Stretch'd on the sand, two panting warriors lay, 
In all the burning...Read more of this...

Where Is David the Next King of Israel?

by Vachel Lindsay
 Where is David? . . . O God's people, 
Saul has passed, the good and great. 
Mourn for Saul the first-anointed — 
Head and shoulders o'er the state. 

He was found among the Prophets: 
Judge and monarch, merged in one. 
But the wars of Saul are ended 
And the works of Saul are done. 

Where is David, ruddy shepherd,...Read more of this...

Blindness

by George William Russell
 OUR true hearts are forever lonely:
A wistfulness is in our thought:
Our lights are like the dawns which only
Seem bright to us and yet are not.


Something you see in me I wis not:
Another heart in you I guess:
A stranger’s lips—but thine I kiss not,
Erring in all my tenderness.


I sometimes think a mighty lover
Takes every burning kiss we give:
His lights are...Read more of this...

Ode to Despair

by Mary Darby Robinson
 TERRIFIC FIEND! thou Monster fell, 
Condemn'd in haunts profane to dwell, 
Why quit thy solitary Home, 
O'er wide Creation's paths to roam? 
Pale Tyrant of the timid Heart, 
Whose visionary spells can bind 
The strongest passions of the mind, 
Freezing Life's current with thy baneful Art. 

Nature recoils when thou art near, 
For round thy form all plagues are...Read more of this...

A Message to America

by Alan Seeger
 You have the grit and the guts, I know; 
You are ready to answer blow for blow 
You are virile, combative, stubborn, hard, 
But your honor ends with your own back-yard; 
Each man intent on his private goal, 
You have no feeling for the whole; 
What singly none would tolerate 
You let unpunished hit the state, 
Unmindful that each...Read more of this...

The Strange Lady

by William Cullen Bryant
 The summer morn is bright and fresh, the birds are darting by, 
As if they loved to breast the breeze that sweeps the cool dear sky; 
Young Albert, in the forest's edge, has heard a rustling sound 
An arrow slightly strikes his hand and falls upon the ground. 

A lovely woman from the wood comes suddenly in sight; 
Her...Read more of this...

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