Famous Fittest Poems by Famous Poets

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

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...Phoebus make haste, the day's too long, be gone, 
The silent night's the fittest time for moan; 
But stay this once, unto my suit give ear, 
And tell my griefs in either hemisphere. 
(And if the whirling of thy wheels don't drown'd) 
The woeful accents of my doleful sound, 
If in thy swift carrier thou canst make stay, 
I crave this boon, this errand by the way, 
Commend me to the man more loved than life, 
Show him the sorrows o...Read more of this...
by Bradstreet, Anne


As I Sat Alone by Blue Ontario's Shores

...ness, perceives the corpse slowly borne from the house, 
Perceives that it waits a little while in the door—that it was fittest for its days, 
That its life has descended to the stalwart and well-shaped heir who approaches,
And that he shall be fittest for his days. 

Any period, one nation must lead, 
One land must be the promise and reliance of the future. 

These States are the amplest poem, 
Here is not merely a nation, but a teeming nation of nations,
Here the doings of ...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt

Canzone XII

...oke me, "Friend, you seeHow fair I am, and mayAsk, for your years, whatever fittest be.""Lady," I said, "so long my love on theeHas fix'd, that now I feel myself on fire,What, in this state, to shun, and what desire."She, thereon, with a voice so wond'rous sweetAnd earnest look replied,By turns with hop...Read more of this...
by Petrarch, Francesco

Elegy II: The Anagram

...om dildoes, bedstaves, and her velvet glass
Would be as loath to touch as Joseph was:
One like none, and liked of none, fittest were,
For, things in fashion every man will wear....Read more of this...
by Donne, John

For this -- accepted Breath

...e royal syllable --
Get Saints -- with new -- unsteady tongue --
To say what trance below
Most like their glory show --
Fittest the Crown!...Read more of this...
by Dickinson, Emily


Four Quartets 3: The Dry Salvages

...self the emotionless
Years of living among the breakage
Of what was believed in as the most reliable—
And therefore the fittest for renunciation.

There is the final addition, the failing
Pride or resentment at failing powers,
The unattached devotion which might pass for devotionless,
In a drifting boat with a slow leakage,
The silent listening to the undeniable
Clamour of the bell of the last annunciation.

Where is the end of them, the fishermen sailing
Into the wind's tail...Read more of this...
by Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)

Good Friday

...rather let
My several sins their sorrows get; 
That as each beast his cure doth know, 
Each sin may so.

Since blood is fittest, Lord to write
Thy sorrows in, and bloody fight; 
My heart hath store, write there, where in 
One box doth lie both ink and sin: 

That when sin spies so many foes, 
Thy whips, thy nails, thy wounds, thy woes
All come to lodge there, sin may say, 
'No room for me', and fly away.

Sin being gone, oh fill the place, 
And keep possession with thy grace;...Read more of this...
by Herbert, George

Paradise Lost: Book 09

...beast of all the field. 
Him after long debate, irresolute 
Of thoughts revolved, his final sentence chose 
Fit vessel, fittest imp of fraud, in whom 
To enter, and his dark suggestions hide 
From sharpest sight: for, in the wily snake 
Whatever sleights, none would suspicious mark, 
As from his wit and native subtlety 
Proceeding; which, in other beasts observed, 
Doubt might beget of diabolick power 
Active within, beyond the sense of brute. 
Thus he resolved, but first fro...Read more of this...
by Milton, John

Paradise Regained: The Fourth Book

...in life contemplative 
Or active, tended on by glory or fame,
What dost thou in this world? The Wilderness
For thee is fittest place: I found thee there,
And thither will return thee. Yet remember
What I foretell thee; soon thou shalt have cause
To wish thou never hadst rejected, thus
Nicely or cautiously, my offered aid,
Which would have set thee in short time with ease
On David's throne, or throne of all the world,
Now at full age, fulness of time, thy season, 
When prophe...Read more of this...
by Milton, John

Phantasmagoria Canto I (The Trystyng )

...had to go,
And I was first, of course, you know,
I couldn't well decline." 

"No doubt," said I, "they settled who
Was fittest to be sent
Yet still to choose a brat like you,
To haunt a man of forty-two,
Was no great compliment!" 

"I'm not so young, Sir," he replied,
"As you might think. The fact is,
In caverns by the water-side,
And other places that I've tried,
I've had a lot of practice: 

"But I have never taken yet
A strict domestic part,
And in my flurry I forget
The ...Read more of this...
by Carroll, Lewis

Pioneers! O Pioneers!

...ioneers!


14
 O to die advancing on!
Are there some of us to droop and die? has the hour come? 
Then upon the march we fittest die, soon and sure the gap is fill’d, Pioneers! O
 pioneers! 

15
 All the pulses of the world, 
Falling in, they beat for us, with the western movement beat; 
Holding single or together, steady moving, to the front, all for us, Pioneers! O
 pioneers!

16
 Life’s involv’d and varied pageants, 
All the forms and shows, all the workmen at their work, 
...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt

Religio Laici

...made my own opinions clear:
Yet neither praise expect, nor censure fear:
And this unpolish'd, rugged verse, I chose;
As fittest for discourse, and nearest prose:
For, while from sacred truth I do not swerve,
Tom Sternhold's, or Tom Shadwell's rhymes will serve....Read more of this...
by Dryden, John

Sainte-Nitouche

...what was his to live lives yet: 
Truth, quarter truth, death cannot reach; 
Nor is it always what we know 
That we are fittest here to teach.

The fight goes on when fields are still, 
The triumph clings when arms are down; 
The jewels of all coronets 
Are pebbles of the unseen crown; 

The specious weight of loud reproof
Sinks where a still conviction floats; 
And on God’s ocean after storm 
Time’s wreckage is half pilot-boats; 

And what wet faces wash to sight 
Thereafter...Read more of this...
by Robinson, Edwin Arlington

Sonnet XLVIII: Cupid I Hate Thee

...elf prefer, 
And when corn's sown or grown into the ear, 
Practise thy quiver and turn crow-keeper.
Or, being blind, as fittest for the trade, 
Go hire thyself some bungling harper's boy; 
They that are blind are often minstrels made; 
So may'st thou live, to thy fair mother's joy, 
That whilst with Mars she holdeth her old way, 
Thou, her blind son, may'st sit by them and play....Read more of this...
by Drayton, Michael

The Beasts Confession

...on:
His practice was, in ev'ry station,
To serve the King, and please the nation.
Though hard to find in ev'ry case
The fittest man to fill a place:
His promises he ne'er forgot,
But took memorials on the spot:
His enemies, for want of charity,
Said he affected popularity:
'Tis true, the people understood,
That all he did was for their good;
Their kind affections he has tried;
No love is lost on either side.
He came to Court with fortune clear,
Which now he runs out ev'ry yea...Read more of this...
by Swift, Jonathan

The Plea of the Simla Dancers

...office drudge,
 That you usurp our smoothest dancing floor?
Must babus do their work on polished teak?
 Are ball-rooms fittest for the ink you spill?
Was there no other cheaper house to seek?
 You might have left them all at Strawberry Hill.

We never harmed you! Innocent our guise,
 Dainty our shining feet, our voices low;
And we revolved to divers melodies,
 And we were happy but a year ago.
To-night, the moon that watched our lightsome wiles --
 That beamed upon us throug...Read more of this...
by Kipling, Rudyard

Verses

...Observe this Piece, which to our Sight does bring 
The fittest Posture for the Swedish King; 
(Encompass'd, as we think, with Armies round, 
Tho' not express'd within this narrow Bound) 
Who, whilst his warlike and extended Hand 
Directs the foremost Ranks to Charge or Stand, 
Reverts his Face, lest That, so Fair and Young, 
Should call in doubt the Orders of his Tongue: 
Whilst the excited, and embolden'd Rear ...Read more of this...
by Finch, Anne Kingsmill

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