Famous Favoured Poems by Famous Poets

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

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A Song of the Pen

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 Not for the love of women toil we, we of the craft, 
Not for the people's praise; 
Only because our goddess made us her own and laughed, 
Claiming us all our days, 
Claiming our best endeavour -- body and heart and brain 
Given with no reserve -- 
Niggard is she towards us, granting us little gain: 
Still, we are...Read more of this...

I Love You

by Ehsan Sehgal
I always dreamed
It seemed
An invisible angelic soul
That came as spiritual lights
In my sad, tearful and darknights
Where I was prisoner
By an unwanted lover
Living in the fears
I prayed years and years
With my heart and tears
May God had listened me
And one day I discovered you
My heart deeply favoured you
I now see and feel
You, as my love and soul
My life and final goal
May you...Read more of this...

The Mole

by Robert William Service
 Said he: "I'll dive deep in the Past,
And write a book of direful days
When summer skies were overcast
With smoke of humble hearths ablaze;
When War was rampant in the land,
And poor folk cowered in the night,
While ruin gaped on every hand -
of ravishing and wrath I'll write."

Ten years he toiled to write his book,
Yet he was happy all the while;
The...Read more of this...

Ode for the Keats Centenary

by Duncan Campbell Scott
 The Muse is stern unto her favoured sons,
Giving to some the keys of all the joy
Of the green earth, but holding even that joy
Back from their life;
Bidding them feed on hope,
A plant of bitter growth,
Deep-rooted in the past;
Truth, 'tis a doubtful art
To make Hope sweeten
Time as it flows;
For no man knows
Until the very last,
Whether it be a sovereign herb...Read more of this...

A Wish

by Matthew Arnold
 I ask not that my bed of death
From bands of greedy heirs be free;
For these besiege the latest breath
Of fortune's favoured sons, not me.

I ask not each kind soul to keep
Tearless, when of my death he hears;
Let those who will, if any, weep!
There are worse plagues on earth than tears.

I ask but that my death may find
The freedom to...Read more of this...

On the Portrait of Two Beautiful Young People

by Gerard Manley Hopkins
 A Brother and Sister


O I admire and sorrow! The heart’s eye grieves 
Discovering you, dark tramplers, tyrant years. 
A juice rides rich through bluebells, in vine leaves, 
And beauty’s dearest veriest vein is tears. 

Happy the father, mother of these! Too fast:
Not that, but thus far, all with frailty, blest 
In one fair fall; but, for time’s aftercast, 
Creatures...Read more of this...

The Gift of God

by Edwin Arlington Robinson
 Blessed with a joy that only she
Of all alive shall ever know,
She wears a proud humility
For what it was that willed it so -
That her degree should be so great
Among the favoured of the Lord
That she may scarcely bear the weight
Of her bewildering reward.

As one apart, immune, alone,
Or featured for the shining ones,
And like to none that she has...Read more of this...

I Now O Friend Whom Noiselessly The Snows

by Robert Louis Stevenson
 I NOW, O friend, whom noiselessly the snows
Settle around, and whose small chamber grows
Dusk as the sloping window takes its load:

* * * * *

The kindly hill, as to complete our hap,
Has ta'en us in the shelter of her lap;
Well sheltered in our slender grove of trees
And ring of walls, we sit between her knees;
A disused quarry, paved with...Read more of this...

How Lucy Backslid

by Paul Laurence Dunbar
De times is mighty stirrin' 'mong de people up ouah way,
Dey 'sputin' an' dey argyin' an' fussin' night an' day;
An' all dis monst'ous trouble dat hit meks me tiahed to tell
Is 'bout dat Lucy Jackson dat was sich a mighty belle.
She was de preachah's favoured, an' he tol' de chu'ch one night
Dat she travelled thoo de cloud o' sin a-bearin'...Read more of this...

My Favoured Fare

by Robert William Service
 Some poets sing of scenery;
Some to fair maids make sonnets sweet.
A fig for love and greenery,
Be mine a song of things to eat.
Let brother bards divinely dream,
I'm just plain human, as you see;
And choose to carol such a theme
 As ham and eggs and tea.

Just two fried eggs or maybe three,
With lacy rims and sunside up,
Pink coral ham and...Read more of this...

Julie Claire

by Robert William Service
 Oh Julie Claire was very fair,
Yet generous as well,
And many a lad of metal had
A saucy tale to tell
Of sultry squeeze beneath the trees
Or hugging in the hay . . .
Of love her share had Julie Claire
When life was lush and gay.

And then the village wealth to pillage
Came the Teuton horde;
The haughty Huns with mighty guns
And clattering of sword.
And...Read more of this...

Modern Love XIX: No State Is Enviable

by George Meredith
 No state is enviable. To the luck alone 
Of some few favoured men I would put claim. 
I bleed, but her who wounds I will not blame. 
Have I not felt her heart as 'twere my own 
Beat thro' me? could I hurt her? heaven and hell! 
But I could hurt her cruelly! Can I let 
My Love's old...Read more of this...

A Word To The Calvinists

by Anne Bronte
 You may rejoice to think yourselves secure,
You may be grateful for the gift divine,
That grace unsought which made your black hearts pure
And fits your earthborn souls in Heaven to shine. 
But is it sweet to look around and view
Thousands excluded from that happiness,
Which they deserve at least as much as you,
Their faults not greater nor their virtues less? 

And...Read more of this...

Dream Song 18: A Strut for Roethke

by John Berryman
 Westward, hit a low note, for a roarer lost
across the Sound but north from Bremerton,
hit a way down note.
And never cadenza again of flowers, or cost.
Him who could really do that cleared his throat
& staggered on.

The bluebells, pool-shallows, saluted his over-needs,
while the clouds growled, heh-heh, & snapped, & crashed.

No stunt he'll ever unflinch once more will fail
(O lucky fellow,...Read more of this...

Morning Prayer

by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
 Let me to-day do something that shall take
A little sadness from the world’s vast store, 
And may I be so favoured as to make
Of joy’s too scanty sum a little more.
Let me not hurt, by any selfish deed
Or thoughtless word, the heart of foe or friend; 
Nor would I pass, unseeing, worthy need, 
Or sin by silence when I...Read more of this...

To E

by Amy Levy
 The mountains in fantastic lines
Sweep, blue-white, to the sky, which shines
Blue as blue gems; athwart the pines
The lake gleams blue.

We three were here, three years gone by;
Our Poet, with fine-frenzied eye,
You, stepped in learned lore, and I,
A poet too.

Our Poet brought us books and flowers,
He read us Faust; he talked for hours
Philosophy (sad Schopenhauer's),
Beneath the trees:

And do you mind...Read more of this...

A Word To The Elect

by Anne Bronte
 You may rejoice to think yourselves secure;
You may be grateful for the gift divine --
That grace unsought, which made your black hearts pure,
And fits your earth-born souls in Heaven to shine. 
But, is it sweet to look around, and view
Thousands excluded from that happiness,
Which they deserved, at least, as much as you, --
Their faults not greater, nor their virtues...Read more of this...

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