Famous Falsely Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Lady Clare

by Alfred Lord Tennyson
IT was the time when lilies blow, 
And clouds are highest up in air, 
Lord Ronald brought a lily-white doe 
To give his cousin, Lady Clare. 

I trow they did not part in scorn- 
Lovers long-betroth'd were they: 
They too will wed the morrow morn: 
God's blessing on the day! 

'He does not love me for my birth, 
Nor for...Read more of this...

Sonnet CXLVIII

by William Shakespeare
 O me, what eyes hath Love put in my head,
Which have no correspondence with true sight!
Or, if they have, where is my judgment fled,
That censures falsely what they see aright?
If that be fair whereon my false eyes dote,
What means the world to say it is not so?
If it be not, then love doth well denote
Love's eye is not so...Read more of this...

One word is too often profaned

by Percy Bysshe Shelley
ONE word is too often profaned 
For me to profane it  
One feeling too falsely disdain'd 
For thee to disdain it. 
One hope is too like despair 5 
For prudence to smother  
And pity from thee more dear 
Than that from another. 

I can give not what men call love; 
But wilt thou accept not 10 
The worship...Read more of this...

The Maid Of The Mills Repentance

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
 YOUTH.

AWAY, thou swarthy witch! Go forth

From out my house, I tell thee!
Or else I needs must, in my wrath,

Expel thee!
What's this thou singest so falsely, forsooth,
Of love and a maiden's silent truth?

Who'll trust to such a story!

GIPSY.

I sing of a maid's repentant fears,

And long and bitter yearning;
Her levity's changed to truth and tears

All-burning.
She dreads no more the threats of...Read more of this...

The Harlem Dancer

by Claude McKay
 Applauding youths laughed with young prostitutes 
And watched her perfect, half-clothed body sway; 
Her voice was like the sound of blended flutes 
Blown by black players upon a picnic day. 
She sang and danced on gracefully and calm, 
The light gauze hanging loose about her form; 
To me she seemed a proudly-swaying palm 
Grown lovelier for passing through a...Read more of this...

Psalm 44

by Isaac Watts
 v.1-8,8,15-26 
C. M.
The church's complaint in persecution.

Lord, we have heard thy works of old,
Thy works of power and grace,
When to our ears our fathers told
The wonders of their days.

How thou didst build thy churches here,
And make thy gospel known;
Amongst them did thine arm appear,
Thy light and glory shone.

In God they boasted all the day,
And in a cheerful throng
Did thousands...Read more of this...

The King and the Shepherd

by Anne Kingsmill Finch
 Through ev'ry Age some Tyrant Passion reigns: 
Now Love prevails, and now Ambition gains 
Reason's lost Throne, and sov'reign Rule maintains. 
Tho' beyond Love's, Ambition's Empire goes; 
For who feels Love, Ambition also knows, 
And proudly still aspires to be possest 
Of Her, he thinks superior to the rest. 

As cou'd be prov'd, but that our plainer Task 
Do's...Read more of this...

Epode

by Ben Jonson
  XI. — EPODE.                                   And her black spite expel, Which to effect (since no breast is so sure,                  Or safe, but she'll procure Some way of entrance) we must plant a guard                  Of thoughts to watch, and ward At the eye and ear, the ports unto the mind,                 Give knowledge instantly, To wakeful reason, our affections' king :                  Who, in th' examining,...Read more of this...

For Tahira Mazhar Ali Khan , RIP (5th January 1925-23rd March 2015)

by Omer Tarin
Some souls pass away so quietly that not even the suspiration of their fleeting wings
is heard, or known, to us, among so many other activities, so many other things; 

so, this was one such soul, that breathed its last, effortlessly and without pain, 
melting away into the unknown, rising to the snowy Himalayan heights, shining forth beyond these dusty plains;...Read more of this...

Sepulchre

by George Herbert
 O blessed body! Whither are thou thrown? 
No lodging for thee, but a cold hard stone? 
So many hearts on earth, and yet not one
Receive thee? 
Sure there is room within our hearts' good store; 
For they can lodge transgressions by the score: 
Thousands of toys dwell there, yet out of door
They leave thee.
But that which shows them large,...Read more of this...

Sonnet 148: O me! what eyes hath love put in my head

by William Shakespeare
 O me! what eyes hath love put in my head,
Which have no correspondence with true sight!
Or, if they have, where is my judgment fled,
That censures falsely what they see aright?
If that be fair whereon my false eyes dote,
What means the world to say it is not so?
If it be not, then love doth well denote
Love's eye is not so...Read more of this...

The World

by Katherine Philips
 Wee falsely think it due unto our friends,
That we should grieve for their too early ends:
He that surveys the world with serious eys,
And stripps Her from her grosse and weak disguise,
Shall find 'tis injury to mourn their fate;
He only dy's untimely who dy's Late.
For if 'twere told to children in the womb,
To what a stage of mischief they must...Read more of this...

From This Hour the Pledge is Given

by Thomas Moore
 From this hour the pledge is given, 
From this hour my soul is thine: 
Come what will, from earth of heaven, 
Weal or woe, thy fate be mine. 
When the proud and great stood by thee, 
None dared thy rights to spurn; 
And if now they're false and fly thee, 
Shall I, too, falsely turn? 
No; -- whate'er the...Read more of this...

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