Famous Expansive Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Winter: My Secret

by Christina Rossetti
 I tell my secret? No indeed, not I:
Perhaps some day, who knows?
But not today; it froze, and blows, and snows,
And you're too curious: fie!
You want to hear it? well:
Only, my secret's mine, and I won't tell.

Or, after all, perhaps there's none:
Suppose there is no secret after all,
But only just my fun.
Today's a nipping day, a biting day;
In which one...Read more of this...

Threnody

by Ralph Waldo Emerson
 The south-wind brings
Life, sunshine, and desire,
And on every mount and meadow
Breathes aromatic fire,
But over the dead he has no power,
The lost, the lost he cannot restore,
And, looking over the hills, I mourn
The darling who shall not return.

I see my empty house,
I see my trees repair their boughs,
And he, —the wondrous child,
Whose silver warble wild
Outvalued every pulsing sound
Within the air's...Read more of this...

Marriage

by Marianne Moore
 This institution,
perhaps one should say enterprise
out of respect for which
one says one need not change one's mind
about a thing one has believed in,
requiring public promises
of one's intention
to fulfill a private obligation:
I wonder what Adam and Eve
think of it by this time,
this firegilt steel
alive with goldenness;
how bright it shows --
"of circular traditions and impostures,
committing many spoils,"
requiring all one's criminal ingenuity
to...Read more of this...

Speakin' At De Cou't-house

by Paul Laurence Dunbar
Dey been speakin' at de cou't-house,
An' laws-a-massy me,
'T was de beatness kin' o' doin's
Dat evah I did see.
Of cose I had to be dah
In de middle o' de crowd,
An' I hallohed wid de othahs,
Wen de speakah riz and bowed.
I was kind o' disapp'inted
At de smallness of de man,
Case I 'd allus pictered great folks
On a mo' expansive plan;
But I t'ought...Read more of this...

Master Hugues Of Saxe-Gotha

by Robert Browning
 An imaginary composer.]

I.

Hist, but a word, fair and soft!
Forth and be judged, Master Hugues!
Answer the question I've put you so oft:
What do you mean by your mountainous fugues?
See, we're alone in the loft,---

II.

I, the poor organist here,
Hugues, the composer of note,
Dead though, and done with, this many a year:
Let's have a colloquy, something to quote,
Make the world prick up...Read more of this...

The Rival

by James Whitcomb Riley
 If the moon smiled, she would resemble you.
You leave the same impression
Of something beautiful, but annihilating.
Both of you are great light borrowers.
Her O-mouth grieves at the world; yours is unaffected,

And your first gift is making stone out of everything.
I wake to a mausoleum; you are here,
Ticking your fingers on the marble table, looking for cigarettes,
Spiteful as a woman, but...Read more of this...

An Idyll of Dandaloo

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 On Western plains, where shade is not, 
'Neath summer skies of cloudless blue, 
Where all is dry and all is hot, 
There stands the town of Dandaloo -- 
A township where life's total sum 
Is sleep, diversified with rum. 
Its grass-grown streets with dust are deep; 
'Twere vain endeavour to express 
The dreamless silence of its sleep, 
Its wide,...Read more of this...

The Rival

by Sylvia Plath
If the moon smiled, she would resemble you.
You leave the same impression
Of something beautiful, but annihilating.
Both of you are great light borrowers.
Her O-mouth grieves at the world; yours is unaffected, 
And your first gift is making stone out of everything.
I wake to a mausoleum; you are here,
Ticking your fingers on the marble table, looking for cigarettes,
Spiteful as a woman, but...Read more of this...

There was a young lady of Firle

by Edward Lear
There was a young lady of Firle,Whose hair was addicted to curl;It curled up a tree, and all over the sea,That expansive young lady of Firle. ...Read more of this...

The Funeral of the German Emperor

by William Topaz McGonagall
 Ye sons of Germany, your noble Emperor William now is dead.
Who oft great armies to battle hath led;
He was a man beloved by his subjects all,
Because he never tried them to enthral. 

The people of Germany have cause now to mourn,
The loss of their hero, who to them will ne'er return;
But his soul I hope to Heaven has fled...Read more of this...

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