Famous Graced Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Canzone XII

by Francesco Petrarch
CANZONE XII. Una donna più bella assai che 'l sole. GLORY AND VIRTUE.  A lady, lovelier, brighter than the sun,Like him superior o'er all time and space,Of rare resistless grace,Me to her train in early life had won:She, from that hour, in act, and word and thought,—For still the world...Read more of this...

To Violets

by Robert Herrick
 Welcome, maids of honour,
You do bring
In the Spring;
And wait upon her.

She has virgins many,
Fresh and fair;
Yet you are
More sweet than any.

You're the maiden posies;
And so graced,
To be placed
'Fore damask roses.

--Yet, though thus respected,
By and by
Ye do lie,
Poor girls, neglected....Read more of this...

The Advice

by Thomas Chatterton
 Revolving in their destin'd sphere, 
The hours begin another year 
As rapidly to fly; 
Ah! think, Maria, (e'er in grey 
Those auburn tresses fade away
So youth and beauty die. 
Tho' now the captivating throng 
Adore with flattery and song, 
And all before you bow; 
Whilst unattentive to the strain, 
You hear the humble muse complain, 
Or wreathe your frowning...Read more of this...

To a Fish

by James Henry Leigh Hunt
 You strange, astonished-looking, angle-faced, 
Dreary-mouthed, gaping wretches of the sea, 
Gulping salt-water everlastingly, 
Cold-blooded, though with red your blood be graced, 
And mute, though dwellers in the roaring waste; 
And you, all shapes beside, that fishy be,-- 
Some round, some flat, some long, all devilry, 
Legless, unloving, infamously chaste:-- 

O scaly, slippery, wet, swift, staring wights, 
What is't ye...Read more of this...

Poem With Refrains

by Robert Pinsky
 The opening scene. The yellow, coal-fed fog
Uncurling over the tainted city river,
A young girl rowing and her anxious father
Scavenging for corpses. Funeral meats. The clever
Abandoned orphan. The great athletic killer
Sulking in his tent. As though all stories began
With someone dying.

 When her mother died,
My mother refused to attend the funeral--
In fact, she sulked in her tent all through the...Read more of this...

Such Such Is He Who Pleaseth Me

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
 FLY, dearest, fly! He is not nigh!

He who found thee one fair morn in Spring

In the wood where thou thy flight didst wing.
Fly, dearest, fly! He is not nigh!
Never rests the foot of evil spy.

Hark! flutes' sweet strains and love's refrains

Reach the loved one, borne there by the wind,

In the soft heart open doors they find.
Hark! flutes' sweet strains...Read more of this...

Sonnet LXVI

by Francesco Petrarch
SONNET LXVI. Quel, che d' odore e di color vincea. THE LAUREL, IN WHOM HE PLACED ALL HIS JOY HAS BEEN TAKEN FROM HIM TO ADORN HEAVEN.  That which in fragrance and in hue defiedThe odoriferous and lucid East,Fruits, flowers and herbs and leaves, and whence the WestOf all rare excellence obtain'd...Read more of this...

To One Consecrated

by George William Russell
 YOUR paths were all unknown to us:
We were so far away from you:
We mixed in thought your spirit thus—
With whiteness, stars of gold, and dew.


The Mighty Mother nourished you;
Her breath blew from her mystic bowers;
Their elfin glimmer floated through
The pureness of your shadowy hours.


The Mighty Mother made you wise,
Gave love that clears the hidden ways;
Her glooms were glory to...Read more of this...

Count Eberhard The Groaner Of Wurtembert. A War Song

by Friedrich von Schiller
 Now hearken, ye who take delight
In boasting of your worth!
To many a man, to many a knight,
Beloved in peace and brave in fight,
The Swabian land gives birth.

Of Charles and Edward, Louis, Guy,
And Frederick, ye may boast;
Charles, Edward, Louis, Frederick, Guy--
None with Sir Eberhard can vie--
Himself a mighty host!

And then young Ulerick, his son,
Ha! how he loved the fray!
Young Ulerick,...Read more of this...

The Fairy Temple; Or Oberons Chapel

by Robert Herrick
 THE FAIRY TEMPLE; OR, OBERON'S CHAPEL

DEDICATED TO MR JOHN MERRIFIELD,
COUNSELLOR AT LAW

RARE TEMPLES THOU HAST SEEN, I KNOW,
AND RICH FOR IN AND OUTWARD SHOW;
SURVEY THIS CHAPEL BUILT, ALONE,
WITHOUT OR LIME, OR WOOD, OR STONE.
THEN SAY, IF ONE THOU'ST SEEN MORE FINE
THAN THIS, THE FAIRIES' ONCE, NOW THINE.

THE TEMPLE

A way enchaced with glass and beads
There is, that to the Chapel...Read more of this...

Still Be A Child

by Victor Hugo
 ("O vous que votre âge défende") 
 
 {IX., February, 1840.} 


 In youthful spirits wild, 
 Smile, for all beams on thee; 
 Sport, sing, be still the child, 
 The flower, the honey-bee. 
 
 Bring not the future near, 
 For Joy too soon declines— 
 What is man's mission here? 
 Toil, where no sunlight...Read more of this...

Sonnet CXIV

by Francesco Petrarch
SONNET CXIV. O d' ardente virtute ornata e calda. HE CELEBRATES LAURA'S BEAUTY AND VIRTUE.  O mind, by ardent virtue graced and warm'd.To whom my pen so oft pours forth my heart;Mansion of noble probity, who artA tower of strength 'gainst all assault full arm'd.O rose effulgent, in whose foldings, charm'd,Read more of this...

For The Man Who Fails

by Paul Laurence Dunbar
The world is a snob, and the man who wins
Is the chap for its money's worth:
And the lust for success causes half of the sins
That are cursing this brave old earth.
For it 's fine to go up, and the world's applause
Is sweet to the mortal ear;
But the man who fails in a noble cause
Is a hero that 's no less...Read more of this...

The Cymbaleer's Bride

by Victor Hugo
 ("Monseigneur le Duc de Bretagne.") 
 
 {VI., October, 1825.} 


 My lord the Duke of Brittany 
 Has summoned his barons bold— 
 Their names make a fearful litany! 
 Among them you will not meet any 
 But men of giant mould. 
 
 Proud earls, who dwell in donjon keep, 
 And steel-clad knight and peer,...Read more of this...

Sonnet LXXVIII

by William Shakespeare
 So oft have I invoked thee for my Muse
And found such fair assistance in my verse
As every alien pen hath got my use
And under thee their poesy disperse.
Thine eyes that taught the dumb on high to sing
And heavy ignorance aloft to fly
Have added feathers to the learned's wing
And given grace a double majesty.
Yet be most proud of that which...Read more of this...

A Hymn To Venus And Cupid

by Robert Herrick
 Sea-born goddess, let me be
By thy son thus graced, and thee,
That whene'er I woo, I find
Virgins coy, but not unkind.
Let me, when I kiss a maid,
Taste her lips, so overlaid
With love's sirop, that I may
In your temple, when I pray,
Kiss the altar, and confess
There's in love no bitterness....Read more of this...

The Pangolin

by Marianne Moore
 Another armored animal--scale
 lapping scale with spruce-cone regularity until they
form the uninterrupted central
 tail-row! This near artichoke with head and legs and grit-equipped
 gizzard,
the night miniature artist engineer is,
 yes, Leonardo da Vinci's replica--
 impressive animal and toiler of whom we seldom hear.
 Armor seems extra. But for him,
 the closing ear-ridge--
 or bare ear lacking even this small
...Read more of this...

Dictated Before The Rhone Glacier

by Victor Hugo
 ("Souvent quand mon esprit riche.") 
 
 {VII., May 18, 1828.} 


 When my mind, on the ocean of poesy hurled, 
 Floats on in repose round this wonderful world, 
 Oft the sacred fire from heaven— 
 Mysterious sun, that gives light to the soul— 
 Strikes mine with its ray, and above the pole 
 Its upward...Read more of this...

A Forest Hymn

by William Cullen Bryant
THE GROVES were God's first temples. Ere man learned 
To hew the shaft and lay the architrave  
And spread the roof above them¡ªere he framed 
The lofty vault to gather and roll back 
The sound of anthems; in the darkling wood 5 
Amidst the cool and silence he knelt down  
And offered to the Mightiest solemn thanks 
And...Read more of this...

The Country Life:

by Robert Herrick
 TO THE HONOURED MR ENDYMION PORTER, GROOM OF
THE BED-CHAMBER TO HIS MAJESTY

Sweet country life, to such unknown,
Whose lives are others', not their own!
But serving courts and cities, be
Less happy, less enjoying thee.
Thou never plough'st the ocean's foam
To seek and bring rough pepper home:
Nor to the Eastern Ind dost rove
To bring from thence the scorched clove:
Nor, with the loss of...Read more of this...

Ode On Indolence

by John Keats
 One morn before me were three figures seen,
 I With bowed necks, and joined hands, side-faced;
And one behind the other stepp'd serene,
 In placid sandals, and in white robes graced;
They pass'd, like figures on a marble urn,
 When shifted round to see the other side;
 They came again; as when the urn once more
Is shifted round, the first seen...Read more of this...

The Three Bares

by Robert William Service
 Ma tried to wash her garden slacks but couldn't get 'em clean
And so she thought she'd soak 'em in a bucket o' benzine.
It worked all right. She wrung 'em out then wondered what she'd do
With all that bucket load of high explosive residue.
She knew that it was dangerous to scatter it around,
For Grandpa liked to throw his lighted matches...Read more of this...

The Flowers

by Friedrich von Schiller
 Ye offspring of the morning sun,
Ye flowers that deck the smiling plain,
Your lives, in joy and bliss begun,
In Nature's love unchanged remain.
With hues of bright and godlike splendor
Sweet Flora graced your forms so tender,
And clothed ye in a garb of light;
Spring's lovely children weep forever,
For living souls she gave ye never,
And ye must dwell in endless night?

The nightingale and...Read more of this...

The Faerie Queene Book VI Canto X

by Edmund Spenser
Calidore sees the Graces daunce,
To Colins melody:
The whiles his Pastorell is led,
[I]nto captiuity.
 

W Ho now does follow the foule Blatant Beast,
Whilest Calidore does follow that faire Mayd,
Vnmyndfull of his vow and high beheast,
Which by the Faery Queene was on him layd,
That he should neuer leaue, nor be delayd
From chacing him, till he had it attchieued?
But now entrapt of loue,...Read more of this...

The Three Glorious Days

by Victor Hugo
 ("Frères, vous avez vos journées.") 
 
 {I., July, 1830.} 


 Youth of France, sons of the bold, 
 Your oak-leaf victor-wreaths behold! 
 Our civic-laurels—honored dead! 
 So bright your triumphs in life's morn, 
 Your maiden-standards hacked and torn, 
 On Austerlitz might lustre shed. 
 
 All that your fathers did re-done— 
 A people's rights...Read more of this...

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