Famous For Sure Poems by Famous Poets

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

See also:

A Sure Test

by Mother Goose
If you are to be a gentleman,
    As I suppose you'll be,
You'll neither laugh nor smile,
    For a tickling of the knee....Read more of this...

Sure of Thy grace, for sins why need I fear?

by Omar Khayyam
Sure of Thy grace, for sins why need I fear?
How can the pilgrim faint whilst Thou art near?
On the last day Thy grace will wash me white,
And make my «black record» to disappear....Read more of this...

A Tribute to Mr Murphy and the Blue Ribbon Army

by William Topaz McGonagall
 All hail to Mr Murphy, he is a hero brave,
That has crossed the mighty Atlantic wave,
For what purpose let me pause and think-
I answer, to warn the people not to taste strong drink. 

And, I'm sure, if they take his advice, they never will rue
The day they joined the Blue Ribbon Army in the year 1882;
And I hope to...Read more of this...

Sonnet 11

by Alan Seeger
 Apart sweet women (for whom Heaven be blessed), 
Comrades, you cannot think how thin and blue 
Look the leftovers of mankind that rest, 
Now that the cream has been skimmed off in you. 
War has its horrors, but has this of good -- 
That its sure processes sort out and bind 
Brave hearts in one intrepid brotherhood 
And leave...Read more of this...

The Lamp burns sure -- within

by Emily Dickinson
 The Lamp burns sure -- within --
Tho' Serfs -- supply the Oil --
It matters not the busy Wick --
At her phosphoric toil!

The Slave -- forgets -- to fill --
The Lamp -- burns golden -- on --
Unconscious that the oil is out --
As that the Slave -- is gone....Read more of this...

Do not be ashamed

by Wendell Berry
 You will be walking some night
in the comfortable dark of your yard
and suddenly a great light will shine
round about you, and behind you
will be a wall you never saw before.
It will be clear to you suddenly
that you were about to escape,
and that you are guilty: you misread
the complex instructions, you are not
a member, you lost your card
or never had...Read more of this...

To Alchemists

by Ben Jonson
VI. ? TO ALCHEMISTS.      If all you boast of your great art be true ; Sure, willing poverty lives most in you.     Adriaen Jansz van Ostade.    Alchemist. 1661. [detail]
     Adriaen Jansz van Ostade.    Alchemist. 1661. [detail]...Read more of this...

The Shining Light

by William Cowper
 My former hopes are fled,
My terror now begins;
I feel, alas! that I am dead
In trespasses and sins.

Ah, whither shall I fly?
I hear the thunder roar;
The Law proclaims Destruction nigh,
And Vengeance at the door.

When I review my ways,
I dread impending doom:
But sure a friendly whisper says,
"Flee from the wrath to come."

I see, or think I see,
A glimmering from afar;
A beam...Read more of this...

Of the Mean and Sure Estate

by Sir Thomas Wyatt
 My mother's maids, when they did sew and spin,
They sang sometime a song of the field mouse,
That, for because her livelood was but thin,

Would needs go seek her townish sister's house.
She thought herself endurèd too much pain;
The stormy blasts her cave so sore did souse

That when the furrows swimmèd with the rain,
She must lie cold and wet in sorry...Read more of this...

Church Going

by Philip Larkin
Once i am sure there's nothing going on
I step inside letting the door thud shut.
Another church: matting seats and stone 
and little books; sprawlings of flowers cut
For Sunday brownish now; some brass and stuff
Up at the holy end; the small neat organ;
And a tense musty unignorable silence 
Brewed God knows how long. Hatless I take off
My cylce-clips in awkward revrence...Read more of this...

You love me -- you are sure

by Emily Dickinson
 You love me -- you are sure --
I shall not fear mistake --
I shall not cheated wake --
Some grinning morn --
To find the Sunrise left --
And Orchards -- unbereft --
And Dollie -- gone!

I need not start -- you're sure --
That night will never be --
When frightened -- home to Thee I run --
To find the windows dark --
And no...Read more of this...

An Epicure

by Robert William Service
 Should you preserve white mice in honey
Don't use imported ones from China,
For though they cost you less in money
You'll find the Japanese ones finer.
But if Chinese, stuff them with spice,
Which certainly improves their savour,
And though the Canton mice are nice,
The Pekinese have finer flavour.

If you should pickle bracken shoots
The way the wily Japanese do,
Be sure to pluck then young...Read more of this...

A Womans Reason

by Gelett Burgess
 I'm Sure every Word that you say is Absurd; 
I Say it's All Gummidge and Twaddle; 
You may Argue away till the 19th of May, 
But I don't like the Sound of the Moddle!...Read more of this...

Sonnet XXIV

by Francesco Petrarch
SONNET XXIV. Quest' anima gentil che si diparte. ON LAURA DANGEROUSLY ILL.  That graceful soul, in mercy call'd awayBefore her time to bid the world farewell,If welcomed as she ought in the realms of day,In heaven's most blessèd regions sure shall dwell.There between Mars and Venus if she stay,Her sight...Read more of this...

Along the field as we came by

by A E Housman
 ALONG the field as we came by 
A year ago, my love and I, 
The aspen over stile and stone 
Was talking to itself alone. 
‘Oh who are these that kiss and pass?
A country lover and his lass; 
Two lovers looking to be wed; 
And time shall put them both to bed, 
But she shall lie with earth above,...Read more of this...

An Horatian Ode Upon Cromwells Return from Ireland

by Andrew Marvell
 The forward youth that would appear 
Must now forsake his Muses dear, 
Nor in the shadows sing 
His numbers languishing. 
'Tis time to leave the books in dust, 
And oil th' unused armour's rust, 
Removing from the wall 
The corslet of the hall. 
So restless Cromwell could not cease 
In the inglorious arts of peace, 
But through advent'rous war...Read more of this...

The Beautiful American Word Sure

by Delmore Schwartz
 The beautiful American word, Sure,
As I have come into a room, and touch
The lamp's button, and the light blooms with such
Certainty where the darkness loomed before,

As I care for what I do not know, and care
Knowing for little she might not have been,
And for how little she would be unseen,
The intercourse of lives miraculous and dear.

Where the light is,...Read more of this...

Speakin' O' Christmas

by Paul Laurence Dunbar
Breezes blowin' middlin' brisk,
Snow-flakes thro' the air a-whisk,
Fallin' kind o' soft an' light,
Not enough to make things white,
But jest sorter siftin' down
So 's to cover up the brown
Of the dark world's rugged ways
'N' make things look like holidays.
Not smoothed over, but jest specked,
Sorter strainin' fur effect,
An' not quite a-gittin' through
What it started in to do.
Mercy sakes! it does seem *****
Christmas...Read more of this...

Monolog From A Mattress

by Louis Untermeyer
Can that be you, la mouche? Wait till I lift
This palsied eye-lid and make sure... Ah, true.
Come in, dear fly, and pardon my delay
In thus existing; I can promise you
Next time you come you'll find no dying poet—
Without sufficient spleen to see me through,
The joke becomes too tedious a jest.
I am afraid my mind is dull to-day;
I have that—something—heavier on...Read more of this...

Ode To Modern Art

by David Lehman
 Come on in and stay a while
I'll photograph you emerging from the revolving door
like Frank O'Hara dating the muse of modern art
Talking about the big Pollock show is better
than going to it on a dismal Saturday afternoon
when my luncheon partner is either the author or the subject
of The Education of Henry Adams at a hard-to-get-
a-table-at restaurant on Cornelia Street
just...Read more of this...

A Servant to Servants

by Robert Frost
 I didn't make you know how glad I was 
To have you come and camp here on our land. 
I promised myself to get down some day 
And see the way you lived, but I don't know! 
With a houseful of hungry men to feed 
I guess you'd find.... It seems to me 
I can't express my feelings any...Read more of this...

If You Had A Friend

by Robert William Service
 If you had a friend strong, simple, true,
Who knew your faults and who understood;
Who believed in the very best of you,
And who cared for you as a father would;
Who would stick by you to the very end,
Who would smile however the world might frown:
I'm sure you would try to please your friend,
You never would think to throw him down.

And...Read more of this...

The Night Cometh

by Annie Louisa Walker
 Work! for the night is coming;
Work! through the morning hours;
Work! while the dew is sparkling;
Work! 'mid the springing flowers;
Work! while the day grows brighter,
Under the glowing sun;
Work! for the night is coming,--
Night, when man's work is done.

Work! for the night is coming;
Work! through the sunny noon;
Fill the bright hours with labour,
Rest cometh sure and soon.
Give to each flying minute
Something...Read more of this...

The Ordinary Man

by Robert William Service
 If you and I should chance to meet,
I guess you wouldn't care;
I'm sure you'd pass me in the street
As if I wasn't there;
You'd never look me in the face,
My modest mug to scan,
Because I'm just a commonplace
 And Ordinary Man.

But then, it may be, you are too
A guy of every day,
Who does the job he's told to do
And takes...Read more of this...

243. Elegy on the Year 1788

by Robert Burns
 FOR lords or kings I dinna mourn,
E’en let them die-for that they’re born:
But oh! prodigious to reflec’!
A Towmont, sirs, is gane to wreck!
O Eighty-eight, in thy sma’ space,
What dire events hae taken place!
Of what enjoyments thou hast reft us!
In what a pickle thou has left us!


 The Spanish empire’s tint a head,
And my auld teethless, Bawtie’s dead:
The tulyie’s teugh...Read more of this...

Dont forget to view our wonderful member For Sure poems.

Get a Premium Membership
Turn off ads, get more exposure for your poetry, and get more features with a Premium Membership.
Book: Diverse Voices: The Poetry of Human Rights and the Pursuit of Peace