Famous Fix Up Poems by Famous Poets

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

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The Song of Los

by William Blake
 AFRICA 

I will sing you a song of Los. the Eternal Prophet: 
He sung it to four harps at the tables of Eternity. 
In heart-formed Africa. 
Urizen faded! Ariston shudderd! 
And thus the Song began 

Adam stood in the garden of Eden: 
And Noah on the mountains of Ararat; 
They saw Urizen give his Laws to the Nations 
By...Read more of this...

The Doubters Prayer

by Anne Bronte
 Eternal Power, of earth and air!
Unseen, yet seen in all around,
Remote, but dwelling everywhere,
Though silent, heard in every sound. 
If e'er thine ear in mercy bent,
When wretched mortals cried to Thee,
And if, indeed, Thy Son was sent,
To save lost sinners such as me: 

Then hear me now, while, kneeling here,
I lift to thee my heart and eye,
And all my...Read more of this...

From 'Later Life'

by Christina Rossetti
 VI
We lack, yet cannot fix upon the lack: 
Not this, nor that; yet somewhat, certainly. 
We see the things we do not yearn to see 
Around us: and what see we glancing back? 
Lost hopes that leave our hearts upon the rack, 
Hopes that were never ours yet seem’d to be, 
For which we steer’d on life’s salt stormy...Read more of this...

Modern Love XXXVIII: Give to Imagination

by George Meredith
 Give to imagination some pure light 
In human form to fix it, or you shame 
The devils with that hideous human game: 
Imagination urging appetite! 
Thus fallen have earth's greatest Gogmagogs, 
Who dazzle us, whom we can not revere: 
Imagination is the charioteer 
That, in default of better, drives the hogs. 
So, therefore, my dear Lady, let me love!...Read more of this...

Father

by Edgar Albert Guest
 My father knows the proper way 
The nation should be run;
He tells us children every day
Just what should now be done.
He knows the way to fix the trusts,
He has a simple plan;
But if the furnace needs repairs,
We have to hire a man.
My father, in a day or two
Could land big thieves in jail;
There's nothing that he cannot do,
He knows...Read more of this...

Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came

by Robert Browning
My first thought was, he lied in every word,
That hoary cripple, with malicious eye
Askance to watch the working of his lie
On mine, and mouth scarce able to afford
Suppression of the glee, that pursed and scored
Its edge, at one more victim gained thereby.

What else should he be set for, with his staff?
What, save to waylay with his lies, ensnare
All travellers who...Read more of this...

166. Epitaph for William Nicol High School Edinburgh

by Robert Burns
 YE maggots, feed on Nicol’s brain,
 For few sic feasts you’ve gotten;
And fix your claws in Nicol’s heart,
 For deil a bit o’t’s rotten....Read more of this...

I Speak Not

by George (Lord) Byron
 I speak not, I trace not, I breathe not thy name;
There is grief in the sound, there is guilt in the fame;
But the tear that now burns on my cheek may impart
The deep thoughts that dwell in that silence of heart.
Too brief for our passion, too long for our peace,
Were those hours - can their joy or their bitterness...Read more of this...

The Deacons Masterpiece Or The Wonderful One-Hoss Shay: A Logical Story

by Oliver Wendell Holmes
 Have you heard of the wonderful one-hoss shay, 
That was built in such a logical way
It ran a hundred years to a day,
And then, of a sudden, it -- ah, but stay,
I'll tell you what happened without delay,
Scaring the parson into fits,
Frightening people out of their wits, --
Have you ever heard of that, I say?

Seventeen hundred and fifty-five.
Georgius Secundus...Read more of this...

Il Penseroso

by John Milton
 Hence, vain deluding Joys,
............The brood of Folly without father bred!
How little you bested
............Or fill the fixed mind with all your toys!
Dwell in some idle brain,
............And fancies fond with gaudy shapes possess,
As thick and numberless
............As the gay motes that people the sun-beams,
Or likest hovering dreams,
............The fickle pensioners of Morpheus' train.
But, hail! thou Goddess sage and holy!
Hail, divinest Melancholy!
Whose saintly visage...Read more of this...

A Cabin Tale

by Paul Laurence Dunbar
Whut you say, dah? huh, uh! chile,
You 's enough to dribe me wile.
Want a sto'y; jes' hyeah dat!
Whah' 'll I git a sto'y at?
Di'n' I tell you th'ee las' night?
Go 'way, honey, you ain't right.
I got somep'n' else to do,
'Cides jes' tellin' tales to you.
Tell you jes' one? Lem me see
Whut dat one's a-gwine to be.[Pg 154]
When you...Read more of this...

The Invitation

by Thomas Godfrey
 DAMON.

Haste! Sylvia! haste, my charming Maid!
Let's leave these fashionable toys;
Let's seek the shelter of some shade,
And revel in ne'er fading joys.
See spring in liv'ry gay appears,
And winter's chilly blasts are fled;
Each grove its leafy honours rears,
And meads their lovely verdure spread!


SYLVIA.

Yes Damon, glad I'll quit the town,
Its gaities now languid seem;
Then sweets to luxury unknown
We'll taste, and sip th'...Read more of this...

Sonnet LXXVIII

by Francesco Petrarch
SONNET LXXVIII. Poi che voi ed io più volte abbiam provato. TO A FRIEND, COUNSELLING HIM TO ABANDON EARTHLY PLEASURES.  Still has it been our bitter lot to proveHow hope, or e'er it reach fruition, flies!Up then to that high good, which never dies,Lift we the heart—to heaven's pure bliss above.Read more of this...

To a Contemporary Bunkshooter

by Carl Sandburg
 YOU come along. . . tearing your shirt. . . yelling about
Jesus.
Where do you get that stuff?
What do you know about Jesus?
Jesus had a way of talking soft and outside of a few
bankers and higher-ups among the con men of Jerusalem
everybody liked to have this Jesus around because
he never made any fake passes and everything
he said went and he...Read more of this...

So Now?

by Charles Bukowski
 the words have come and gone,
I sit ill.
the phone rings, the cats sleep.
Linda vacuums.
I am waiting to live,
waiting to die. 
I wish I could ring in some bravery.
it's a lousy fix
but the tree outside doesn't know:
I watch it moving with the wind
in the late afternoon sun. 
there's nothing to declare here,
just a waiting.
each faces it alone. 
Oh, I was...Read more of this...

A thought went up my mind to-day

by Emily Dickinson
A thought went up my mind to-day
That I have had before,
But did not finish,--some way back,
I could not fix the year,

Nor where it went, nor why it came
The second time to me,
Nor definitely what it was,
Have I the art to say.

But somewhere in my soul, I know
I've met the thing before;
It just reminded me--'t was all--
And came my way no...Read more of this...

Upon The Hill And Grove At Bill-borow

by Andrew Marvell
 To the Lord Fairfax.

See how the arched Earth does here
Rise in a perfect Hemisphere!
The stiffest Compass could not strike
A line more circular and like;
Nor softest Pensel draw a Brow.
So equal as this Hill does bow.
It seems as for a Model laid,
And that the World by it was made.

Here learn ye Mountains more unjust,
Which to abrupter greatness thrust,
That do with...Read more of this...

Phantasmagoria CANTO III ( Scarmoges )

by Lewis Carroll
 "AND did you really walk," said I,
"On such a wretched night?
I always fancied Ghosts could fly -
If not exactly in the sky,
Yet at a fairish height." 

"It's very well," said he, "for Kings
To soar above the earth:
But Phantoms often find that wings -
Like many other pleasant things -
Cost more than they are worth. 

"Spectres of course are rich, and...Read more of this...

To One Persuading A Lady To Marriage

by Katherine Philips
 Forbear, bold youth; all 's heaven here,
 And what you do aver
To others courtship may appear,
 'Tis sacrilege to her.
She is a public deity;
 And were 't not very odd
She should dispose herself to be
 A petty household god? 

First make the sun in private shine
 And bid the world adieu,
That so he may his beams confine
 In compliment...Read more of this...

Sonnet VI: Is It to Love

by Mary Darby Robinson
 Is it to love, to fix the tender gaze,
To hide the timid blush, and steal away;
To shun the busy world, and waste the day
In some rude mountain's solitary maze?
Is it to chant one name in ceaseless lays,
To hear no words that other tongues can say,
To watch the pale moon's melancholy ray,
To chide in fondness, and in folly praise?
Is it...Read more of this...

An Ode

by Matthew Prior
 The merchant, to secure his treasure, 
Conveys it in a borrowed name: 
Euphelia serves to grace my measure; 
But Cloe is my real flame.

My softest verse, my darling lyre 
Upon Euphelia's toilet lay; 
When Cloe noted her desire, 
That I should sing, that I should play.

My lyre I tune, my voice I raise; 
But with my numbers mix my...Read more of this...

River Roads

by Carl Sandburg
 LET the crows go by hawking their caw and caw.
They have been swimming in midnights of coal mines somewhere.
Let ’em hawk their caw and caw.

Let the woodpecker drum and drum on a hickory stump.
He has been swimming in red and blue pools somewhere hundreds of years
And the blue has gone to his wings and the red has gone to...Read more of this...

Number 3 on the Docket

by Amy Lowell
 The lawyer, are you?
Well! I ain't got nothin' to say.
Nothin'!
I told the perlice I hadn't nothin'.
They know'd real well 'twas me.
Ther warn't no supposin',
Ketchin' me in the woods as they did,
An' me in my house dress.
Folks don't walk miles an' miles
In the drifted snow,
With no hat nor wrap on 'em
Ef everythin's all right, I guess.
All right? Ha! Ha! Ha!
Nothin'...Read more of this...

Millenial Hymn to Lord Shiva

by Kathleen Raine
 Earth no longer
hymns the Creator,
the seven days of wonder,
the Garden is over —
all the stories are told,
the seven seals broken
all that begins
must have its ending,
our striving, desiring,
our living and dying,
for Time, the bringer
of abundant days
is Time the destroyer —
In the Iron Age
the Kali Yuga
To whom can we pray
at the end of an era
but the Lord Shiva,
the Liberator, the purifier?

Our...Read more of this...

Psalm of Those Who Go Forth Before Daylight

by Carl Sandburg
 THE POLICEMAN buys shoes slow and careful;
the teamster buys gloves slow and careful;
they take care of their feet and hands;
they live on their feet and hands.

The milkman never argues;
he works alone and no one speaks to him;
the city is asleep when he is on the job;
he puts a bottle on six hundred porches and calls it a day’s work;
he...Read more of this...

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