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Famous Hard(A) Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by McGonagall, William Topaz
...Annie Marshall was a foundling, and lived in Downderry,
And was trained up by a coast-guardsman, kind-hearted and merry
And he loved Annie Marshall as dear as his life,
And he resolved to make her his own loving wife. 

The night was tempestuous, most terrific, and pitch dark,
When Matthew Pengelly rescued Annie Marshall from an ill-fated barque,
But h...Read more of this...



by Hugo, Victor
...
 ("L'Avarice et l'Envie.") 
 
 {LE CONSERVATEUR LITÉRAIRE, 1820.} 


 Envy and Avarice, one summer day, 
 Sauntering abroad 
 In quest of the abode 
 Of some poor wretch or fool who lived that way— 
 You—or myself, perhaps—I cannot say— 
 Along the road, scarce heeding where it tended, 
 Their way in sullen, sulky silence wended; 
 
 F...Read more of this...

by Pope, Alexander
...NOTHING so true as what you once let fall, 
"Most Women have no Characters at all." 
Matter too soft a lasting mark to bear, 
And best distinguish'd by black, brown, or fair. 

How many pictures of one Nymph we view, 
All how unlike each other, all how true! 
Arcadia's Countess, here, in ermin'd pride, 
Is, there, Pastora by a fountain side. 
H...Read more of this...

by Service, Robert William
...All day he lay upon the sand
When summer sun was bright,
And let the grains sift through his hand
With infantile delight;
Just like a child, so soft and fair,
Though he was twenty-five -
An innocent, my mother -care
Had kept so long alive.

Oh it is hard to bear a cross
For five-and-twenty years;
A daft son and a husband's loss
Are woes out-weighing te...Read more of this...

by Spenser, Edmund
...Ah why hath nature to so hard a hart,
giuen so goodly giftes of beauties grace?
whose pryde depraues each other better part,
and all those pretious ornaments deface.
Sith to all other beastes of bloody race,
a dreadfull countenaunce she giuen hath:
that with theyr terrour al the rest may chace,
and warne to shun the daunger of theyr wrath.
But my p...Read more of this...



by Lanier, Sidney
...Oft seems the Time a market-town
Where many merchant-spirits meet
Who up and down and up and down
Cry out along the street

Their needs, as wares; one THUS, one SO:
Till all the ways are full of sound:
-- But still come rain, and sun, and snow,
And still the world goes round.



I. Remonstrance.


"Opinion, let me alone: I am not thine.
Pri...Read more of this...

by Twain, Mark
...On the Erie Canal, it was,
All on a summer's day,
I sailed forth with my parents
Far away to Albany.

From out the clouds at noon that day
There came a dreadful storm,
That piled the billows high about,
And filled us with alarm.

A man came rushing from a house,
Saying, "Snub up your boat I pray,
Snub up your boat, snub up, alas,
Snub up while yet ...Read more of this...

by Bridges, Robert Seymour
...1
They that in play can do the thing they would,
Having an instinct throned in reason's place,
--And every perfect action hath the grace
Of indolence or thoughtless hardihood--
These are the best: yet be there workmen good
Who lose in earnestness control of face,
Or reckon means, and rapt in effort base
Reach to their end by steps well understood. 
Me ...Read more of this...

by Petrarch, Francesco
...THE TRIUMPH OF CHASTITY. Quando ad un giogo ed in Un tempo quivi.  When to one yoke at once I saw the heightOf gods and men subdued by Cupid's might,I took example from their cruel fate,Read more of this...

by Yeats, William Butler
...Dear fellow-artist, why so free
With every sort of company,
With every Jack and Jill?
Choose your companions from the best;
Who draws a bucket with the rest
Soon topples down the hill.

You may, that mirror for a school,
Be passionate, not bountiful
As common beauties may,
Who were not born to keep in trim
With old Ezekiel's cherubim
But those of Beauv...Read more of this...

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