Famous Feature Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Feature poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous feature poems. These examples illustrate what a famous feature poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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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...
by
William Shakespeare
Since I left you, mine eye is in my mind,
And that which governs me to go about
Doth part his function, and is partly blind,
Seems seeing, but effectually is out;
For it no form delivers to the heart
Of bird, of flower, or shape which it doth latch;
Of his quick objects hath the mind no part,
Nor his own vision holds what it...Read more of this...
by
Thomas Hardy
Perhaps, long hence, when I have passed away,
Some other’s feature, accent, thought like mine,
Will carry you back to what I used to say,
And bring some memory of your love’s decline.
Then you may pause awhile and think, “Poor jade!”
And yield a sigh to me—as gift benign,
Not as the tittle of a debt unpaid
To one...Read more of this...
by
Gerard Manley Hopkins
The poet wishes well to the divine genius of Purcell
and praises him that, whereas other musicians have
given utterance to the moods of man's mind, he has,
beyond that, uttered in notes the very make and
species of man as created both in him and in all men
generally.
Have, fair fallen, O fair,...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
In Winter in my Room
I came upon a Worm --
Pink, lank and warm --
But as he was a worm
And worms presume
Not quite with him at home --
Secured him by a string
To something neighboring
And went along.
A Trifle afterward
A thing occurred
I'd not believe it if I heard
But state with creeping blood --
A snake with mottles rare
Surveyed my chamber floor
In feature as...Read more of this...
by
James Henry Leigh Hunt
Robin Hood is an outlaw bold
Under the greenwood tree;
Bird, nor stag, nor morning air
Is more at large than he.
They sent against him twenty men,
Who joined him laughing-eyed;
They sent against him thirty more,
And they remained beside.
All the stoutest of the train,
That grew in Gamelyn wood,
Whether they came with these or not,
Are now with Robin Hood.
And not a soul in Locksley...Read more of this...
by
Anne Bronte
Fair was the evening and brightly the sun
Was shining on desert and grove,
Sweet were the breezes and balmy the flowers
And cloudless the heavens above.
It was Arabia's distant land
And peaceful was the hour;
Two youthful figures lay reclined
Deep in a shady bower.
One was a boy of just fourteen
Bold beautiful and bright;
Soft raven curls hung clustering round
A brow of marble white.
The...Read more of this...
by
Mary Darby Robinson
A form, as any taper, fine ;
A head like half-pint bason ;
Where golden cords, and bands entwine,
As rich as fleece of JASON.
A pair of shoulders strong and wide,
Like country clown enlisting ;
Bare arms long dangling by the side,
And shoes of ragged listing !
Cravats like towels, thick and broad,
Long tippets made of bear-skin,
Muffs that a RUSSIAN might applaud,
And rouge to...Read more of this...
by
William Strode
I know no paynt of poetry
Can mend such colourd Imag'ry
In sullen inke: yet Fayrford, I
May relish thy fayre memory.
Such is the Ecchoes faynter sound,
Such is the light when sunne is drownd;
So did the fancy looke upon
The worke before it was begunne:
Yet when those shewes are out of sight
My weaker colours may delight.
Those Images so faythfully
Report true feature to the...Read more of this...
by
Thomas Hardy
THE years have gathered grayly
Since I danced upon this leaze
With one who kindled gayly
Love's fitful ecstasies!
But despite the term as teacher,
I remain what I was then
In each essential feature
Of the fantasies of men.
Yet I note the little chisel
Of ever-napping Time,
Defacing ghast and grizzel
The blazon of my prime.
When at night he thinks me sleeping,
I feel him boring sly
Within my bones,...Read more of this...
by
Robert Burns
DEAR SMITH, the slee’st, pawkie thief,
That e’er attempted stealth or rief!
Ye surely hae some warlock-brief
Owre human hearts;
For ne’er a bosom yet was prief
Against your arts.
For me, I swear by sun an’ moon,
An’ ev’ry star that blinks aboon,
Ye’ve cost me twenty pair o’ shoon,
Just gaun to see you;
An’ ev’ry ither pair that’s done,
Mair taen I’m wi’...Read more of this...
by
Edmund Spenser
One day, whiles that my daylie cares did sleepe,
My spirit, shaking off her earthly prison,
Began to enter into meditation deepe
Of things exceeding reach of common reason;
Such as this age, in which all good is geason,
And all that humble is and meane debaced,
Hath brought forth in her last declining season,
Griefe of good mindes, to see goodnesse disgraced.
On which when as...Read more of this...
by
Friedrich von Schiller
I see her still--by her fair train surrounded,
The fairest of them all, she took her place;
Afar I stood, by her bright charms confounded,
For, oh! they dazzled with their heavenly grace.
With awe my soul was filled--with bliss unbounded,
While gazing on her softly radiant face;
But soon, as if up-borne on wings of fire,
My fingers 'gan to sweep the sounding lyre.
The thoughts...Read more of this...
by
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Last summer, lazing by the sea,
I met a most entrancing creature,
Her black eyes quite bewildered me---
She had a Spanish cast of feature.
She often smoked a cigarette,
And did it in the cutest fashion.
Before a week passed by she set
My young heart in a raging passion.
I swore I loved her as my life,
I gave...Read more of this...
by
Gerard Manley Hopkins
To what serves mortal beauty '—dangerous; does set danc-
ing blood—the O-seal-that-so ' feature, flung prouder form
Than Purcell tune lets tread to? ' See: it does this: keeps warm
Men's wits to the things that are; ' what good means—where a glance
Master more may than gaze, ' gaze out of countenance.
Those lovely lads once, wet-fresh ' windfalls of war's storm,
How then...Read more of this...
by
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Venus, when her son was lost,
Cried him up and down the coast,
In hamlets, palaces, and parks,
And told the truant by his marks,
Golden curls, and quiver, and bow;—
This befell long ago.
Time and tide are strangely changed,
Men and manners much deranged;
None will now find Cupid latent
By this foolish antique patent.
He came late along the waste,
Shod like a traveller for haste,
With malice...Read more of this...
by
John Dryden
To the Pious Memory of the Accomplished Young Lady, Mrs Anne Killigrew,
Excellent in the Two Sister-arts of Poesy and Painting
Thou youngest Virgin Daughter of the skies,
Made in the last promotion of the blest;
Whose palms, new-plucked from Paradise,
In spreading branches more sublimely rise,
Rich with immortal green, above the rest:
Whether, adopted to some neighbouring star,
Thou roll'st above us in thy wand'ring...Read more of this...
by
Denise Levertov
Innocent decision: to enjoy.
And the pathos
of hopefulness, of his solicitude:
--he in mended serape,
she having plaited carefully
magenta ribbons into her hair,
the baby a round half-hidden shape
slung in her rebozo, and the young son steadfastly
gripping a fold of her skirt,
pale and severe under a handed-down sombrero --
all regarding
the stills with full attention, preparing
to pay ad go in--
to worlds of shadow-violence,...Read more of this...
by
William Topaz McGonagall
Jack Honest was only eight years of age when his father died,
And by the death of his father, Mrs Honest was sorely tried;
And Jack was his father's only joy and pride,
And for honesty Jack couldn't be equalled in the country-side.
So a short time before Jack's father died,
'Twas loud and bitterly for Jack he cried,
And bade him sit down...Read more of this...
by
Ben Jonson
Weep with me, all you that read
This little story;
And know, for whom a tear you shed
Death's self is sorry.
'Twas a child that so did thrive
In grace and feature,
As heaven and nature seemed to strive
Which owned the creature.
Years he numbered scarce thirteen
When fates turned cruel,
Yet three filled zodiacs had be been
The stage's jewel;
And did act what now we moan,
Old men...Read more of this...
by
Friedrich von Schiller
Tear forever the garland of Homer, and number the fathers
Of the immortal work, that through all time will survive!
Yet it has but one mother, and bears that mother's own feature,
'Tis thy features it bears,--Nature,--thy features eterne!...Read more of this...
by
Edmund Spenser
CALM was the day, and through the trembling air
Sweet-breathing Zephyrus did softly play¡ª
A gentle spirit, that lightly did delay
Hot Titan's beams, which then did glister fair;
When I, (whom sullen care, 5
Through discontent of my long fruitless stay
In princes' court, and expectation vain
Of idle hopes, which still do fly away
Like empty shadows, did...Read more of this...
by
Robert Burns
SAE flaxen were her ringlets,
Her eyebrows of a darker hue,
Bewitchingly o’er-arching
Twa laughing e’en o’ lovely blue;
Her smiling, sae wyling.
Wad make a wretch forget his woe;
What pleasure, what treasure,
Unto these rosy lips to grow!
Such was my Chloris’ bonie face,
When first that bonie face I saw;
And aye my Chloris’ dearest charm—
She says, she lo’es me...Read more of this...
by
Wystan Hugh (W H) Auden
She looked over his shoulderFor vines and olive trees,Marble well-governed citiesAnd ships upon untamed seas,But there on the shining metalHis hands had put insteadAn artificial wildernessAnd a sky like lead. A plain without a feature, bare and brown,No blade of grass, no sign of neighborhood,Nothing to eat and nowhere to sit down,Yet, congregated on its blankness, stoodAn unintelligible multitude,A...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
This Dust, and its Feature --
Accredited -- Today --
Will in a second Future --
Cease to identify --
This Mind, and its measure --
A too minute Area
For its enlarged inspection's
Comparison -- appear --
This World, and its species
A too concluded show
For its absorbed Attention's
Remotest scrutiny --...Read more of this...
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