Famous Exceeds Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Merlin I

by Ralph Waldo Emerson
 Thy trivial harp will never please
Or fill my craving ear;
Its chords should ring as blows the breeze,
Free, peremptory, clear.
No jingling serenader's art,
Nor tinkle of piano strings,
Can make the wild blood start
In its mystic springs.
The kingly bard
Must smite the chords rudely and hard,
As with hammer or with mace,
That they may render back
Artful thunder that conveys
Secrets of the solar track,
Sparks of...Read more of this...

Psalm 20

by Isaac Watts
 Prayer and hope of victory.
For a day of prayer in time of war.

Now may the God of power and grace
Attend his people's humble cry!
Jehovah hears when Isr'el prays,
And brings deliverance from on high.

The name of Jacob's God defends
Better than shields or brazen walls;
He from his sanctuary sends
Succor and strength, when Zion calls.

Well he remembers all our sighs,
His love exceeds...Read more of this...

A Song Of A Girl From Loyang

by Wang Wei
There's a girl from Loyang in the door across the street, 
She looks fifteen, she may be a little older. 
...While her master rides his rapid horse with jade bit an bridle, 
Her handmaid brings her cod-fish in a golden plate. 
On her painted pavilions, facing red towers, 
Cornices are pink and green with peach-bloom and with willow, 
Canopies of...Read more of this...

Blakes Victory

by Andrew Marvell
 On the Victory Obtained by Blake over the Spaniards in the Bay of Santa Cruz, in the Island of Tenerife, 1657

Now does Spain's fleet her spacious wings unfold, 
Leaves the New World and hastens for the old: 
But though the wind was fair, they slowly swum 
Freighted with acted guilt, and guilt to come: 
For this rich load, of...Read more of this...

On Gray Eyes

by William Strode
 Looke how the russet morne exceeds the night,
How sleekest Jett yields to the di'monds light,
So farr the glory of the gray-bright eye
Out-vyes the black in lovely majesty.
A morning mantl'd with a fleece of gray
Laughs from her brow and shewes a spotlesse day:
This di'mond-like doth not his lustre owe
To borrowed helpe, as black thinges cast a show,
It needs noe day...Read more of this...

The heavenly Sage, whose wit exceeds compare,

by Omar Khayyam
The heavenly Sage, whose wit exceeds compare,
Counteth each vein, and numbereth every hair;
Men you may cheat by hypocritic arts,
But how cheat Him to whom all hearts are bare?...Read more of this...

The Map

by Elizabeth Bishop
 Land lies in water; it is shadowed green.
Shadows, or are they shallows, at its edges
showing the line of long sea-weeded ledges
where weeds hang to the simple blue from green.
Or does the land lean down to lift the sea from under,
drawing it unperturbed around itself?
Along the fine tan sandy shelf
is the land tugging at the sea from under?

The shadow of...Read more of this...

Eternity

by James Lee Jobe
  for C. G. Macdonald, 1956-2006


Charlie, sunrise is a three-legged mongrel dog,

going deaf, already blind in one eye,

answering to the unlikely name, 'Lucky.'


The sky, at gray-blue dawn, is a football field painted 

by smiling artists. Each artist has 3 arms, 3 hands, 3 legs.

One leg drags behind, leaving a trail, leaving a mark.


The future resembles a cloudy dream 

where...Read more of this...

Psalm 90 part 2

by Isaac Watts
 v.8-12 
C. M.
Infirmities and mortality the effect of sin.

Lord, if thine eye surveys our faults,
And justice grows severe,
Thy dreadful wrath exceeds our thoughts,
And burns beyond our fear.

Thine anger turns our frame to dust;
By one offence to thee
Adam with all his sons have lost
Their immortality.

Life, like a vain amusement, flies,
A fable or a song;
By swift degrees our nature dies,
Nor can...Read more of this...

Hymn 20

by Isaac Watts
 Spiritual apparel.

Isa. 61:10. 

Awake, my heart; arise, my tongue,
Prepare a tuneful voice;
In God, the life of all my joys,
Aloud will I rejoice.

'Tis he adorned my naked soul,
And made salvation mine;
Upon a poor polluted worm
He makes his graces shine.

And lest the shadow of a spot
Should on my soul be found,
He took the robe the Savior wrought,
And cast it all around.

How...Read more of this...

Hymn 66

by Isaac Watts
 Christ the King at his table.

SS 1:2-5,12,13,17. 

Let him embrace my soul, and prove
Mine interest in his heav'nly love;
The voice that tells me, "Thou art mine,"
Exceeds the blessings of the vine.

On thee th' anointing Spirit came,
And spreads the savor of thy name;
That oil of gladness and of grace
Draws virgin souls to meet thy face.

Jesus, allure me by thy charms,
My...Read more of this...

Sonnet CL

by William Shakespeare
 O, from what power hast thou this powerful might
With insufficiency my heart to sway?
To make me give the lie to my true sight,
And swear that brightness doth not grace the day?
Whence hast thou this becoming of things ill,
That in the very refuse of thy deeds
There is such strength and warrantize of skill
That, in my mind, thy worst all best...Read more of this...

One Year After

by Claude McKay
 I 

Not once in all our days of poignant love, 
Did I a single instant give to thee 
My undivided being wholly free. 
Not all thy potent passion could remove 
The barrier that loomed between to prove 
The full supreme surrendering of me. 
Oh, I was beaten, helpless utterly 
Against the shadow-fact with which I strove. 
For when a...Read more of this...

Psalm 150

by Isaac Watts
 v.1,2,6 
C. M.
A song of praise.

In God's own house pronounce his praise,
His grace he there reveals;
To heav'n your joy and wonder raise,
For there his glory dwells.

Let all your sacred passions move,
While you rehearse his deeds;
But the great work of saving love
Your highest praise exceeds.

All that have motion, life, and breath,
Proclaim your Maker blest;
Yet, when my voice expires in death,
My...Read more of this...

To William Lord Mounteagle

by Ben Jonson
LX. — TO WILLIAM LORD MOUNTEAGLE.  Lo, what my country should have done (have raised    An obelisk, or column to thy name, Or, if she would but modestly have praised    Thy fact, in brass or marble writ the same) I, that am glad of thy great chance, here do !    And proud, my works shall out-last common deeds, Durst think...Read more of this...

Psalm 84

by Isaac Watts
 v.1-4,10, paraphrased 
C. M.
Delight in ordinances of worship; or, God present in his churches.

My soul, how lovely is the place
To which thy God resorts!
'Tis heav'n to see his smiling face,
Though in his earthly courts.

There the great Monarch of the skies
His saving power displays,
And light breaks in upon our eyes
With kind and quick'ning rays.

With his rich gifts the heav'nly Dove
Descends...Read more of this...

Sestina I

by Francesco Petrarch
SESTINA I. Mia benigna fortuna e 'l viver lieto. IN HIS MISERY HE DESIRES DEATH THE MORE HE REMEMBERS HIS PAST CONTENTMENT AND COMFORT.  My favouring fortune and my life of joy,My days so cloudless, and my tranquil nights,The tender sigh, the pleasing power of song,Which gently wont to sound in verse...Read more of this...

On The Victory Obtained By Blake Over the Spaniards In The Bay Of Scanctacruze In The Island Of teneriff.1657

by Andrew Marvell
 Now does Spains Fleet her spatious wings unfold,
Leaves the new World and hastens for the old:
But though the wind was fair, the slowly swoome
Frayted with acted Guilt, and Guilt to come:
For this rich load, of which so proud they are,
Was rais'd by Tyranny, and rais'd for war;
Every capatious Gallions womb was fill'd,
With what the Womb of wealthy Kingdomes yield,
The...Read more of this...

The Second Elegy

by Rainer Maria Rilke
Every angel is terrifying. And yet alas
I invoked you almost deadly birds of the soul
knowing about you. Where are the days of Tobias
when one of you veiling his radiance stood at the front door  
slightly disguised for the journey no longer appalling;
(a young man like the one who curiously peeked through the window).
But if the archangel now perilous from...Read more of this...

Psalm 84 part 2

by Isaac Watts
 God and his church; or, Grace and glory.

Great God, attend, while Zion sings
The joy that from thy presence springs:
To spend one day with thee on earth
Exceeds a thousand days of mirth.

Might I enjoy the meanest place
Within thy house, O God of grace,
Not tents of ease, nor thrones of power,
Should tempt my feet to leave thy door.

God is our sun,...Read more of this...

Psalm 103 part 2

by Isaac Watts
 v.8-18 
L. M.
God's gentle chastisement; or, His tender mercy to his people.

The Lord, how wondrous are his ways!
How firm his truth! how large his grace!
He takes his mercy for his throne,
And thence he makes his glories known.

Not half so high his power hath spread
The starry heav'ns above our head,
As his rich love exceeds our praise,
Exceeds the highest hopes we...Read more of this...

Tis good -- the looking back on Grief --

by Emily Dickinson
 'Tis good -- the looking back on Grief --
To re-endure a Day --
We thought the Mighty Funeral --
Of All Conceived Joy --

To recollect how Busy Grass
Did meddle -- one by one --
Till all the Grief with Summer -- waved
And none could see the stone.

And though the Woe you have Today
Be larger -- As the Sea
Exceeds its Unremembered Drop --
They're...Read more of this...

Sonnet XXIX

by Edmund Spenser
 See how the stubborne damzell doth depraue
my simple meaning with disdaynfull scorne:
and by the bay which I vnto her gaue,
accoumpts my selfe her captiue quite forlorne.
The bay (quoth she) is of the victours borne,
yielded them by the vanquisht as theyr meeds,
and they therewith doe poetes heads adorne,
to sing the glory of their famous deedes.
But sith she will the conquest...Read more of this...

Psalm 145

by Isaac Watts
 The greatness of God.

My God, my King, thy various praise
Shall fill the remnant of my days;
Thy grace employ my humble tongue
Till death and glory raise the song.

The wings of every hour shall bear
Some thankful tribute to thine ear;
And every setting sun shall see
New works of duty done for thee.

Thy truth and justice I'll proclaim;
Thy bounty flows an endless stream;
Thy...Read more of this...

Sonnet CXV

by Francesco Petrarch
SONNET CXV. Quando 'l voler, che con duo sproni ardenti. HER LOOKS BOTH COMFORT AND CHECK HIM.  When, with two ardent spurs and a hard rein,Passion, my daily life who rules and leads,From time to time the usual law exceedsThat calm, at least in part, my spirits may gain,It findeth her...Read more of this...

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