Famous Formidable Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Formidable poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous formidable poems. These examples illustrate what a famous formidable poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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...r two
And sees old friends he somehow can't get near.
They meet him in the general store at night,
Pre-occupied with formidable mail,
Rifling a printed letter as he talks.
They seem afraid. He wouldn't have it so:
Though a great scholar, he's a democrat,
If not at heart, at least on principle.
Lately when coming up to Lancaster
His train being late he missed another train
And had four hours to wait at Woodsville Junction
After eleven o'clock at night. Too tired
To...Read more of this...
by
Frost, Robert
...s that's mine;
That I am festive, fit and free
To savour women, wit and wine;
That I may game of golf enjoy,
And have a formidable drive:
In short, that I'm a gay old boy
Though I be
Seventy-and-five.
My daughter thinks. because I'm old
(I'm not a crock, when all is said),
I mustn't let my feet get cold,
And should wear woollen socks in bed;
A worsted night-cap too, forsooth!
To humour her I won't contrive:
A man is in his second youth
When he is
Seventy-and-five.
At four...Read more of this...
by
Service, Robert William
...thing to declare
And surely holding hands was not a crime
Until they saw how, ranged across the gate,
All their most formidable friends were there.
Wearing his conscience like a crucifix,
Her father, rampant, nursed the Family Shame;
And, armed wlth their old-fashioned dinner-gong,
His aunt, who even when they both were six,
Had just to glance towards a childish game
To make them feel that they were doing wrong.
And both their mothers, simply weeping floods,
Her ...Read more of this...
by
Hope, Alec Derwent (A D)
...I don't know one damned butterfly from another
my ignorance of the stars is formidable,
also of dogs & ferns
except that around my house one destroys the other
When I reckon up my real ignorance, pal,
I mumble "many returns"—
next time it will be nature & Thoreau
this time is Baudelaire if one had the skill
and even those problems O
At the mysterious urging of the body or Poe
reeled I with chance, insubordinate & a killer
O forma...Read more of this...
by
Berryman, John
...Always, for ever—without noise, as though
From the black feet of some night-gibbeted corpse.
Alas! Who wept those formidable tears?
The Infinite!—Toward Heaven, of the good
Attainable, through the wild sea of night,
That hath not ebb nor flow, Canute went on,
And ever walking, came to a closed door,
That from beneath showed a mysterious light.
Then he looked down upon his winding-sheet,
For that was the great place, the sacred place,
That was a p...Read more of this...
by
Hugo, Victor
...nd. Understandable.
Thus, except the Lacedaemonians at Granicus;
and then at Issus; and in the final
battle, where the formidable army was swept away
that the Persians had massed at Arbela:
which had set out from Arbela for victory, and was swept away.
And out of the remarkable panhellenic campaign,
victorious, brilliant,
celebrated, glorious
as no other had ever been glorified,
the incomparable: we emerged;
a great new Greek world.
We; the Alexandrians, the Antiocheans,
t...Read more of this...
by
Cavafy, Constantine P
...for one short instant all supreme
Which time may not destroy,
Thou yet hast tasted, with quick-beating heart,
Sweet, formidable joy;
And that thy soul, beguiling thee to set
As in a dream,
Hath fused thy very being's inmost part
With the unanimous great founts of power
And that that day supreme, that single hour,
Hath made a god of thee.
...Read more of this...
by
Verhaeren, Emile
...y there is no road? No service station
at this check point, just one commercant hawking Fanta
in gangrene hues. C'est formidable! he gestures --- staring ahead
over a pyramid of foreign orange juice.
In the desert life is distilled to an angle of wind, camel droppings,
salted food. How long has this man been here, how long
can I stay contemplating a route home?
It's so easy to get lost and disappear, die of thirst and longing
as the Sultan's three wives did last year....Read more of this...
by
Rich, Susan
...From all his magazine of lies.
Yet could his practice ne'er impart
The wit to tell a lie with art.
Those lies alone are formidable
Where artful truth is mix'd with fable.
But Gage has bungled oft so vilely,
No soul would credit lies so silly,
Outwent all faith, and stretch'd beyond
Credulity's extremest end:
Whence plain it seems, though satan once
O'erlook'd with scorn each brainless dunce,
And blundering brutes in Eden shunning,
Chose out the serpent for his cunning;
Of lat...Read more of this...
by
Trumbull, John
...in leagues of strict alliance:
Has she not cringed, in spite of pride,
For like assistance, far and wide,
Till all this formidable league rose
Of Indians, British troops and *******?
And can you break these triple bands
By all your workmanship of hands?
"Sir," quoth Honorius, "we presume
You guess from past feats what's to come,
And from the mighty deeds of Gage
Foretell how fierce the war he'll wage.
You doubtless recollected here
The annals of his first great year:
While,...Read more of this...
by
Trumbull, John
...some there were
Who, not unmindful of the antique debt,
Came back the generous path of Lafayette;
And when of a most formidable foe
She checked each onset, arduous to stem --
Foiled and frustrated them --
On those red fields where blow with furious blow
Was countered, whether the gigantic fray
Rolled by the Meuse or at the Bois Sabot,
Accents of ours were in the fierce melee;
And on those furthest rims of hallowed ground
Where the forlorn, the gallant charge expire...Read more of this...
by
Seeger, Alan
...r—who has been characterized, without much exaggeration, as the inventor of American politics—began to be conspicuously formidable to the Federalists. These activities on the part of Burr resulted, as the reader will remember, in the Burr-Jefferson tie for the Presidency in 1800, and finally in the Burr-Hamilton duel at Weehawken in 1804.
BURR
Hamilton, if he rides you down, remember
That I was here to speak, and so to save
Your fabric from catastrophe. That’s good;
For...Read more of this...
by
Robinson, Edwin Arlington
...amantine rock,
Impenetrable, impaled with circling fire,
Yet unconsumed. Before the gates there sat
On either side a formidable Shape.
The one seemed woman to the waist, and fair,
But ended foul in many a scaly fold,
Voluminous and vast--a serpent armed
With mortal sting. About her middle round
A cry of Hell-hounds never-ceasing barked
With wide Cerberean mouths full loud, and rung
A hideous peal; yet, when they list, would creep,
If aught disturbed their noise, in...Read more of this...
by
Milton, John
...Spanish –Eros: acaso no sentiste nuncaPiedad de las estatuas?Se dirían crisálidas de piedraDe yo no sé qué formidable razaEn una eterna espera inenarrable.Los cráteres dormidos de sus bocasDan la ceniza negra del Silencio,Mana de las columnas de sus hombrosLa mortaja copiosa de la CalmaY fluye de sus órbitas la noche;Victimas del Futuro o del Misterio,En capullos terribles y magníficosEsperan a la Vida o a la Muerte.Eros: acaso no sentiste nuncaPiedad de las esta...Read more of this...
by
Agustini, Delmira
...k of Dawson Town,
But gone and reft of glory was the wrathful Major Brown;
For that ice-worm (so they told him) of such formidable size
Was - a stick of stained spaghetti with two red ink spots for eyes....Read more of this...
by
Service, Robert William
...enormous strength,
And protected by strong earthworks of very great length.
And added to these obstacles was the most formidable of all--
A broad deep ditch that ran along the wall,
Which the storming party not even guessed at before;
But this barrier the British soon did climb o'er.
But early the next morning two batteries of Artillery were pounding away,
And the fight went on for the whole day;
And the defenders of the building kept up rattling musketry fire,
And when n...Read more of this...
by
McGonagall, William Topaz
...regate in hungry flocks and rend their gory prey.
Woe to that flaunting army's pride, so vaunting yesterday!
That formidable host, alas! is coldly nerveless now
To drive the vulture from his gorge, or scare the carrion crow.
Were now that host again mine own, with banner broad unfurled,
With it I would advance and win the empire of the world.
Monarchs to it should yield their realms and veil their haughty brows;
My sister it should ever be, my lady and my...Read more of this...
by
Hugo, Victor
...laws,
And with thy stum ferment their fainting cause,
Fresh fumes of madness raise, and toil and sweat,
To make the formidable cripple great?
Yet should thy crimes succeed, should lawless power
Compass those ends thy greedy hopes devour,
Thy canting friends thy mortal foes would be,
Thy god and theirs will never long agree;
For thine, if thou hast any, must be one
That lets the world and human kind alone;
A jolly god that passes hours too well
To promise Heaven or...Read more of this...
by
Dryden, John
...ant to depart,[Pg 382]Exulting in his formidable arms,And proud of conquest o'er seraphic charms.When, turning round, I saw the Power advanceThat breaks the gloomy grave's eternal trance,And bids the disembodied spirit claimThe glorious guerdon of immortal Fame.Like...Read more of this...
by
Petrarch, Francesco
...crease,
'With seven heads and ten horns,' and all in front,
Like Saint John's foretold beast; but ours are born
Less formidable in the head than horn.
VIII
In the first year of freedom's second dawn
Died George the Third; although no tyrant, one
Who shielded tyrants, till each sense withdrawn
Left him nor mental nor external sun:
A better farmer ne'er brush'd dew from lawn,
A worse king never left a realm undone!
He died — but left his subjects still behind,
One...Read more of this...
by
Byron, George (Lord)
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