Famous Flourishes Poems by Famous Poets

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

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All that this world contains are but images and flourishes

by Omar Khayyam
All that this world contains are but images and flourishes
of fiction. Ill-advised is he who does not comprehend
his place in the number of these images. Repose,
thou, friend, drink a cup of wine, give thyself up to joy
and thus be delivered from all these vain figures, from
these impossible reflections [which come to assail thy
mind].
343...Read more of this...

On Being Human

by C S Lewis
 Angelic minds, they say, by simple intelligence 
Behold the Forms of nature. They discern 
Unerringly the Archtypes, all the verities 
Which mortals lack or indirectly learn. 
Transparent in primordial truth, unvarying, 
Pure Earthness and right Stonehood from their clear, 
High eminence are seen; unveiled, the seminal 
Huge Principles appear.

The Tree-ness of the tree they know-the meaning of 
Arboreal life,...Read more of this...

The fly-away horse

by Eugene Field
 Oh, a wonderful horse is the Fly-Away Horse -
Perhaps you have seen him before;
Perhaps, while you slept, his shadow has swept

Through the moonlight that floats on the floor.
For it's only at night, when the stars twinkle bright,
That the Fly-Away Horse, with a neigh
And a pull at his rein and a toss of his mane,
Is up on his heels and...Read more of this...

In Love For Long

by Edwin Muir
 I've been in love for long
With what I cannot tell
And will contrive a song
For the intangible
That has no mould or shape,
From which there's no escape.

It is not even a name,
Yet is all constancy;
Tried or untried, the same,
It cannot part from me;
A breath, yet as still
As the established hill.

It is not any thing,
And yet all being is;
Being, being, being,
Its burden...Read more of this...

Korean Mums

by James Schuyler
 beside me in this garden
are huge and daisy-like
(why not? are not
oxeye daisies a chrysanthemum?),
shrubby and thick-stalked,
the leaves pointing up
the stems from which
the flowers burst in
sunbursts. I love
this garden in all its moods,
even under its winter coat
of salt hay, or now,
in October, more than
half gone over: here
a rose, there a clump
of aconite. This morning
one of the dogs killed
a barn owl....Read more of this...

The Leaders Of The Crowd

by William Butler Yeats
 They must to keep their certainty accuse
All that are different of a base intent;
Pull down established honour; hawk for news
Whatever their loose fantasy invent
And murmur it with bated breath, as though
The abounding gutter had been Helicon
Or calumny a song. How can they know
Truth flourishes where the student's lamp has shone,
And there alone, that have no Solitude?
So the crowd come...Read more of this...

Much Like Me

by Marina Tsvetaeva
 Much like me, you make your way forward,
Walking with downturned eyes.
Well, I too kept mine lowered.
Passer-by, stop here, please.

Read, when you've picked your nosegay
Of henbane and poppy flowers,
That I was once called Marina,
And discover how old I was.

Don't think that there's any grave here,
Or that I'll come and throw you out ...
I myself was too much given
To laughing when...Read more of this...

Laughter and Tears IX

by Kahlil Gibran
 As the Sun withdrew his rays from the garden, and the moon threw cushioned beams upon the flowers, I sat under the trees pondering upon the phenomena of the atmosphere, looking through the branches at the strewn stars which glittered like chips of silver upon a blue carpet; and I could hear from a distance the agitated murmur of...Read more of this...

Boadicea

by Alfred Lord Tennyson
 While about the shore of Mona those Neronian legionaries
Burnt and broke the grove and altar of the Druid and Druidess,
Far in the East Boadicea, standing loftily charioted,
Mad and maddening all that heard her in her fierce volubility,
Girt by half the tribes of Britain, near the colony Camulodune,
Yell'd and shriek'd between her daughters o'er a wild confederacy. 

`They that scorn...Read more of this...

Sestina II

by Francesco Petrarch
[Pg 34] SESTINA II Giovane donna sott' un verde lauro. THOUGH DESPAIRING OF PITY, HE VOWS TO LOVE HER UNTO DEATH.  A youthful lady 'neath a laurel greenWas seated, fairer, colder than the snowOn which no sun has shone for many years:Her sweet speech, her bright face, and flowing...Read more of this...

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