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Famous Events Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Carroll, Lewis
...e"--"It is next time!"
The happy voices cry.

Thus grew the tale of Wonderland:
Thus slowly, one by one,
Its quaint events were hammered out--
And now the tale is done,
And home we steer, a merry crew,
Beneath the setting sun.

Alice! a childish story take,
And with a gentle hand
Lay it where Childhood's dreams are twined
In Memory's mystic band,
Like pilgrim's withered wreath of flowers
Plucked in a far-off land....Read more of this...



by Whitman, Walt
...neck with incomparable love, 
Plunging his seminal muscle into its merits and demerits, 
Making its cities, beginnings, events, diversities, wars, vocal in him, 
Making its rivers, lakes, bays, embouchure in him, 
Mississippi with yearly freshets and changing chutes—Columbia, Niagara, Hudson,
 spending
 themselves lovingly in him,
If the Atlantic coast stretch, or the Pacific coast stretch, he stretching with them north
 or
 south, 
Spanning between them, east and west, and t...Read more of this...

by Parker, Dorothy
...n my reverence, 
"I loved them until they loved me." 

Pictures pass me in long review,-- 
Marching columns of dead events. 
I was tender, and, often, true; 
Ever a prey to coincidence. 
Always knew I the consequence; 
Always saw what the end would be. 
We're as Nature has made us -- hence 
I loved them until they loved me....Read more of this...

by Sexton, Anne
...the pigeon house
and although the prince took an axe and broke
it open she was gone. Back to her cinders.
These events repeated themselves for three days.
However on the third day the prince
covered the palace steps with cobbler's wax
and Cinderella's gold shoe stuck upon it.
Now he would find whom the shoe fit
and find his strange dancing girl for keeps.
He went to their house and the two sisters
were delighted because they had lovely feet.
The eldest...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...less maiden pass
Uninjured in this wild surrounding waste.
Of night or loneliness it recks me not;
I fear the dread events that dog them both,
Lest some ill-greeting touch attempt the person
Of our unowned sister.
 ELD. BRO. I do not, brother,
Infer as if I thought my sister's state
Secure without all doubt or controversy;
Yet, where an equal poise of hope and fear
Does arbitrate the event, my nature is
That I incline to hope rather than fear,
And gladly banis...Read more of this...



by Thoreau, Henry David
...conscience worth keeping; 
Laughing not weeping; 
A conscience wise and steady, 
And forever ready; 
Not changing with events, 
Dealing in compliments; 
A conscience exercised about 
Large things, where one may doubt. 
I love a soul not all of wood, 
Predestinated to be good, 
But true to the backbone 
Unto itself alone, 
And false to none; 
Born to its own affairs, 
Its own joys and own cares; 
By whom the work which God begun 
Is finished, and not undone; 
Taken up whe...Read more of this...

by Wilcox, Ella Wheeler
...ce bloody wars, to rage from sea to sea, 

XIII.

Or pave the way to peace. There is no past, 
So deathless are events-results so vast.
And he who strives to make one act or hour
Stand separate and alone, needs first the power
To look upon the breaking wave and say, 
'These drops were bosomed by a cloud to-day, 
And those from far mid-ocean's crest were sent.'
So future, present, past, in one wide sea are blent.


BOOK SECOND.

I.

Oh, for the powe...Read more of this...

by Amichai, Yehuda
...My return late at night, what has been written
In the rain of yesteryear. It makes no difference

Now. See your events as my events.
Everything will be as before: Abraham will again
Be Abram. Sarah will be Sarai.


trans. Benjamin & Barbara Harshav...Read more of this...

by Hugo, Victor
...aded none. 
 Corbus ranked thus; its precincts seemed to hold 
 The reflex of its mighty kings of old; 
 Their great events had witness in these walls, 
 Their marriages were here and funerals, 
 And mostly here it was that they were born; 
 And here crowned Barons ruled with pride and scorn; 
 Cradle of Scythian majesty this place. 
 Now each new master of this ancient race 
 A duty owed to ancestors which he 
 Was bound to carry on. The law's decree 
 It was that...Read more of this...

by Keats, John
...n read
A wondrous lesson in thy silent face:
Knowledge enormous makes a God of me.
Names, deeds, gray legends, dire events, rebellions,
Majesties, sovran voices, agonies,
Creations and destroyings, all at once
Pour into the wide hollows of my brain,
And deify me, as if some blithe wine
Or bright elixir peerless I had drunk,
And so become immortal."---Thus the God,
While his enkindled eyes, with level glance
Beneath his white soft temples, steadfast kept
Trembling with...Read more of this...

by Byron, George (Lord)
...'d his fall. 
The sullen calm that long his bosom kept, 
The storm that once had spent itself and slept, 
Roused by events that seem'd foredoom'd to urge 
His gloomy fortunes to their utmost verge, 
Burst forth, and made him all he once had been, 
And is again; he only changed the scene. 
Light care had he for life, and less for fame, 
But not less fitted for the desperate game: 
He deem'd himself mark'd out for others' hate, 
And mock'd at ruin, so they shared his fa...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...ein all things created first he weighed, 
The pendulous round earth with balanced air 
In counterpoise, now ponders all events, 
Battles and realms: In these he put two weights, 
The sequel each of parting and of fight: 
The latter quick up flew, and kicked the beam, 
Which Gabriel spying, thus bespake the Fiend. 
Satan, I know thy strength, and thou knowest mine; 
Neither our own, but given: What folly then 
To boast what arms can do? since thine no more 
Than Heaven per...Read more of this...

by Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)
...least one definite “false note.”
—Let us take the air, in a tobacco trance,
Admire the monuments,
Discuss the late events,
Correct our watches by the public clocks.
Then sit for half an hour and drink our bocks.

II

Now that lilacs are in bloom
She has a bowl of lilacs in her room
And twists one in his fingers while she talks.
“Ah, my friend, you do not know, you do not know
What life is, you who hold it in your hands”;
(Slowly twisting the lilac stalks)
“Yo...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...see the tracks of ancient and modern expeditions. 

I see the nameless masonries, venerable messages of the unknown events, heroes, records of
 the
 earth. 

I see the places of the sagas;
I see pine-trees and fir-trees torn by northern blasts; 
I see granite boulders and cliffs—I see green meadows and lakes; 
I see the burial-cairns of Scandinavian warriors; 
I see them raised high with stones, by the marge of restless oceans, that the dead men’s
 spirits,
 when they...Read more of this...

by Whittier, John Greenleaf
...metes and bounds should stand 
Upon the soul's debatable land, 
And between choice and Providence 
Divide the circle of events; 
But He who knows our frame is just, 
Merciful and compassionate, 
And full of sweet assurances 
And hope for all the language is, 
That He remembereth we are dust! 

At last the great logs, crumbling low, 
Sent out a dull and duller glow, 
The bull's-eye watch that hung in view, 
Ticking its weary circuit through, 
Pointed with mutely warning sign 
...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...ney, or depressions or exaltations; 
Battles, the horrors of fratricidal war, the fever of doubtful news, the fitful
 events; 
These come to me days and nights, and go from me again,
But they are not the Me myself. 

Apart from the pulling and hauling stands what I am; 
Stands amused, complacent, compassionating, idle, unitary; 
Looks down, is erect, or bends an arm on an impalpable certain rest, 
Looking with side-curved head, curious what will come next;
Both ...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...ill show that nothing can happen more beautiful
 than death; 
And I will thread a thread through my poems that time and events are compact, 
And that all the things of the universe are perfect miracles, each as profound
 as any. 

I will not make poems with reference to parts; 
But I will make leaves, poems, poemets, songs, says, thoughts with reference to
 ensemble:
And I will not sing with reference to a day, but with reference to all days; 
And I will not make a poem, ...Read more of this...

by Nin, Anais
...f me which is you. I feel compassion for your childlike pride, for your trembling unsureness, your dramatization of events, your enhancing of the loves given to you. I surrender my sincerity because if I love you it means we share the same fantasies, the same madnesses"...Read more of this...

by Scott, Sir Walter
...ich must not be
     Unless in dread extremity,
     The Taghairm called; by which, afar,
     Our sires foresaw the events of war.
     Duncraggan's milk-white bull they slew,'—

     Malise.

     'Ah! well the gallant brute I knew!
     The choicest of the prey we had
     When swept our merrymen Gallangad.
     His hide was snow, his horns were dark,
     His red eye glowed like fiery spark;
     So fierce, so tameless, and so fleet,
     Sore did he cumber ...Read more of this...

by Miller, Alice Duer
...that stem intractable sense 
Of that which no man can stomach and still be free, 
Writing: 'When in the course of human events. . .'
Writing it out so all the world could see 
Whence come the powers of all just governments. 
The tree of Liberty grew and changed and spread, 
But the seed was English. 
 I am American bred,
I have seen much to hate here— much to forgive,
But in a world where England is finished and dead,
I do not wish to live....Read more of this...

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