Famous Furnish Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Robert Browning
 I.

Stand still, true poet that you are!
I know you; let me try and draw you.
Some night you'll fail us: when afar
You rise, remember one man saw you,
Knew you, and named a star!

II.

My star, God's glow-worm! Why extend
That loving hand of his which leads you
Yet locks you safe from end to end
Of this dark world, unless he needs you,
just saves...Read more of this...

Enigma

by Thomas Moore
 Come riddle-me-ree, come riddle-me-ree,
And tell me, what my name may be.
I am nearly one hundred and thirty years old,
And therefore no chicken, as you may suppose; --
Though a dwarf in my youth (as my nurses have told),
I have, ev'ry year since, been outgrowing my clothes;
Till, at last, such a corpulent giant I stand,
That if folks were to furnish me...Read more of this...

Peter Anderson And Co

by Henry Lawson
 He had offices in Sydney, not so many years ago, 
And his shingle bore the legend `Peter Anderson and Co.', 
But his real name was Careless, as the fellows understood -- 
And his relatives decided that he wasn't any good. 
'Twas their gentle tongues that blasted any `character' he had -- 
He was fond of beer and leisure --...Read more of this...

January 1939

by Dylan Thomas
 Because the pleasure-bird whistles after the hot wires,
Shall the blind horse sing sweeter?
Convenient bird and beast lie lodged to suffer
The supper and knives of a mood.
In the sniffed and poured snow on the tip of the tongue of the year
That clouts the spittle like bubbles with broken rooms,
An enamoured man alone by the twigs of his eyes, two fires,
Camped...Read more of this...

Slants at Buffalo New York

by Carl Sandburg
 A FOREFINGER of stone, dreamed by a sculptor, points to the sky.
It says: This way! this way!

Four lions snore in stone at the corner of the shaft.
They too are the dream of a sculptor.
They too say: This way! this way!

The street cars swing at a curve.
The middle-class passengers witness low life.
The car windows frame low life all day in...Read more of this...

On Stellas Birth-Day 1719

by Jonathan Swift
 Stella this Day is thirty four,
(We shan't dispute a Year or more)
However Stella, be not troubled,
Although thy Size and Years are doubled,
Since first I saw Thee at Sixteen
The brightest Virgin on the Green,
So little is thy Form declin'd
Made up so largely in thy Mind.
Oh, woud it please the Gods to split
Thy Beauty, Size, and Years, and Wit,
No Age could...Read more of this...

The Comforters

by Rudyard Kipling
 Until thy feet have trod the Road
 Advise not wayside folk,
 Nor till thy back has borne the Load
 Break in upon the broke.

 Chase not with undesired largesse
 Of sympathy the heart
 Which, knowing her own bitterness,
 Presumes to dwell apart.

 Employ not that glad hand to raise
 The God-forgotten head
 To Heaven and all the neighbours' gaze--
...Read more of this...

A Dedication

by Adam Lindsay Gordon
 They are rhymes rudely strung with intent less 
Of sound than of words,
In lands where bright blossoms are scentless,
And songless bright birds;
Where, with fire and fierce drought on her tresses,
Insatiable Summer oppresses
Sere woodlands and sad wildernesses,
And faint flocks and herds. 
Where in drieariest days, when all dews end,
And all winds are warm,
Wild Winter's large floodgates are loosen'd,
And floods, freed...Read more of this...

The Man Who Was Away

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 The widow sought the lawyer's room with children three in tow, 
She told the lawyer man her tale in tones of deepest woe. 
She said, "My husband took to drink for pains in his inside, 
And never drew a sober breath from then until he died. 

"He never drew a sober breath, he died without a will, 
And I...Read more of this...

This Compost

by Walt Whitman
 1
SOMETHING startles me where I thought I was safest; 
I withdraw from the still woods I loved; 
I will not go now on the pastures to walk; 
I will not strip the clothes from my body to meet my lover the sea; 
I will not touch my flesh to the earth, as to other flesh, to renew me.

O how...Read more of this...

A Familiar Letter

by Oliver Wendell Holmes
 YES, write, if you want to, there's nothing like trying;
Who knows what a treasure your casket may hold?
I'll show you that rhyming's as easy as lying,
If you'll listen to me while the art I unfold.

Here's a book full of words; one can choose as he fancies,
As a painter his tint, as a workman his tool;
Just think! all the poems...Read more of this...

Why Washington Retreated

by Ellis Parker Butler
 1775

Said Congress to George Washington:
 “To set this country free,
You’ll have to whip the Britishers
 And chase them o’er the sea.”
“Oh, very well,” said Washington,
 “I’ll do the best I can.
I’ll slam and bang those Britishers
 And whip them to a man.”

1777

Said Congress to George Washington:
 “The people all complain;
Why don’t you fight? You but retreat
 And then retreat...Read more of this...

Yesterday and Today XII

by Kahlil Gibran
 The gold-hoarder walked in his palace park and with him walked his troubles. And over his head hovered worries as a vulture hovers over a carcass, until he reached a beautiful lake surrounded by magnificent marble statuary. 

He sat there pondering the water which poured from the mouths of the statues like thoughts flowing freely from a lover's imagination,...Read more of this...

A Valentines Song

by Robert Louis Stevenson
 MOTLEY I count the only wear
That suits, in this mixed world, the truly wise,
Who boldly smile upon despair
And shake their bells in Grandam Grundy's eyes.
Singers should sing with such a goodly cheer
That the bare listening should make strong like wine,
At this unruly time of year,
The Feast of Valentine.

We do not now parade our "oughts"
And "shoulds" and motives and beliefs...Read more of this...

The Italian In England

by Robert Browning
 That second time they hunted me
From hill to plain, from shore to sea,
And Austria, hounding far and wide
Her blood-hounds through the countryside,
Breathed hot and instant on my trace,— 
I made six days a hiding-place
Of that dry green old aqueduct
Where I and Charles, when boys, have plucked
The fire-flies from the roof above,
Bright creeping throuoh the moss they love.
—How long it...Read more of this...

A Man may make a Remark --

by Emily Dickinson
 A Man may make a Remark --
In itself -- a quiet thing
That may furnish the Fuse unto a Spark
In dormant nature -- lain --

Let us deport -- with skill --
Let us discourse -- with care --
Powder exists in Charcoal --
Before it exists in Fire....Read more of this...

Children of the Moon

by W. E. B. Du Bois
I am dead;
Yet somehow, somewhere,
In Time's weird contradiction, I
May tell of that dread deed, wherewith
I brought to Children of the Moon
Freedom and vast salvation.
I was a woman born,
And trod the streaming street,
That ebbs and flows from Harlem's hills,
Through caves and cañons limned in light,
Down to the twisting sea.
That night of nights,
I stood alone and at the End,
Until the sudden highway...Read more of this...

Verses from the Shepherds Hymn

by Richard Crashaw
 WE saw Thee in Thy balmy nest,
 Young dawn of our eternal day;
We saw Thine eyes break from the East,
 And chase the trembling shades away:
We saw Thee, and we blest the sight,
We saw Thee by Thine own sweet light.

Poor world, said I, what wilt thou do
 To entertain this starry stranger?
Is this the best thou canst bestow--
 A...Read more of this...

On Mr. Miltons Paradise Lost

by Andrew Marvell
 When I beheld the Poet blind, yet bold,
In slender Book his vast Design unfold,
Messiah Crown'd, Gods Reconcil'd Decree,
Rebelling Angels, the Forbidden Tree,
Heav'n, Hell, Earth, Chaos, All; the Argument
Held me a while misdoubting his Intent,
That he would ruine (for I saw him strong)
The sacred Truths to Fable and old Song,
(So Sampson groap'd the Temples Posts in spight)
The World o'rewhelming to...Read more of this...

Stellas Birthday March 13 1719

by Jonathan Swift
 Stella this day is thirty-four, 
(We shan't dispute a year or more:)
However, Stella, be not troubled,
Although thy size and years are doubled,
Since first I saw thee at sixteen,
The brightest virgin on the green;
So little is thy form declin'd;
Made up so largely in thy mind.

Oh, would it please the gods to split
Thy beauty, size, and years, and wit;
No age could...Read more of this...

When life has fled, and we rest in the tomb,

by Omar Khayyam
When life has fled, and we rest in the tomb,
They'll place a pair of bricks to mark our tomb;
And, a while after, mould our dust to bricks,
To furnish forth some other person's tomb!...Read more of this...

In the Holy Nativity of our Lord

by Richard Crashaw
 CHORUS
Come we shepherds whose blest sight
Hath met love's noon in nature's night;
Come lift we up our loftier song
And wake the sun that lies too long.

To all our world of well-stol'n joy
He slept, and dreamt of no such thing,
While we found out heav'n's fairer eye,
And kiss'd the cradle of our King.
Tell him he rises now too late
To show us aught...Read more of this...

Kathleen

by Robert William Service
 It was the steamer Alice May that sailed the Yukon foam.
And touched in every river camp from Dawson down to Nome.
It was her builder, owner, pilot, Captain Silas Geer,
Who took her through the angry ice, the last boat of the year;
Who patched her cracks with gunny sacks and wound her pipes with wire,
And cut the spruce upon the banks...Read more of this...

The Hermit

by Aleister Crowley
 AN ATTACK ON BARBERCRAFT

[Dedicated to George Cecil Jones]


At last an end of all I hoped and feared!
Muttered the hermit through his elfin beard.

Then what art thou? the evil whisper whirred.
I doubt me soerly if the hermit heard.

To all God's questions never a word he said,
But simply shook his venerable head.

God sent all plagues; he laughed and heeded not,
Till people...Read more of this...

I Want To Die In My Own Bed

by Yehuda Amichai
 All night the army came up from Gilgal
To get to the killing field, and that's all.
In the ground, warf and woof, lay the dead.
I want to die in My own bed.
Like slits in a tank, their eyes were uncanny,
I'm always the few and they are the many.
I must answer. They can interrogate My head.
But I want to die in...Read more of this...

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