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Famous Heard Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Whitman, Walt
...ht of the stain, pains, dismay, feebleness
 it
 is bequeathing.

9
I listened to the Phantom by Ontario’s shore, 
I heard the voice arising, demanding bards; 
By them, all native and grand—by them alone can The States be fused into the compact
 organism of a Nation. 

To hold men together by paper and seal, or by compulsion, is no account; 
That only holds men together which aggregates all in a living principle, as the hold of
 the
 limbs of the body, or the fibres of...Read more of this...



by Dickinson, Emily
...ey all were seated,
A Service, like a Drum—
Kept beating—beating—till I thought
My Mind was going numb

And then I heard them lift a Box
And creak across my Soul
With those same Boots of Lead, again,
Then Space—began to toll,

As all the Heavens were a Bell,
And Being, but an Ear,
And I, and Silence, some strange Race
Wrecked, solitary, here—

And then a Plank in Reason, broke,
And I dropped down, and down—
And hit a World, at every plunge,
And Finished know...Read more of this...

by Keats, John
...in the air,
His Druid locks to shake and ooze with sweat,
His eyes to fever out, his voice to cease.
He stood, and heard not Thea's sobbing deep;
A little time, and then again he snatch'd
Utterance thus.---"But cannot I create?
Cannot I form? Cannot I fashion forth
Another world, another universe,
To overbear and crumble this to nought?
Where is another Chaos? Where?"---That word
Found way unto Olympus, and made quake
The rebel three.---Thea was startled up,
And ...Read more of this...

by Angelou, Maya
...to sing.

The caged bird sings
with fearful trill
of the things unknown
but longed for still
and his tune is heard
on the distant hill 
for the caged bird
sings of freedom

The free bird thinks of another breeze
and the trade winds soft through the sighing trees
and the fat worms waiting on a dawn-bright lawn
and he names the sky his own.

But a caged bird stands on the grave of dreams
his shadow shouts on a nightmare scream
his wings are clipped an...Read more of this...

by Alighieri, Dante
...re came with lifted head 
 And back-blown mane and caverned mouth and red, 
 A lion, roaring, all the air ashake 
 That heard his hunger. Upward flight to take 
 No heart was mine, for where the further way 
 Mine anxious eyes explored, a she-wolf lay, 
 That licked lean flanks, and waited. Such was she 
 In aspect ruthless that I quaked to see, 
 And where she lay among her bones had brought 
 So many to grief before, that all my thought 
 Aghast turned backward to t...Read more of this...



by Wordsworth, William
...sp;She blush'd with love and maiden shame;  And, like the murmur of a dream,    I heard her breathe my name.   Her Bosom heav'd—she stepp'd aside;  As conscious of my Look, she stepp'd—  Then suddenly with timorous eye    She fled to me and wept.   She half inclosed me with her arms,  She press'd me with a meek embrace; &nb...Read more of this...

by Frost, Robert
...you help yourself?”

“I called him Brother.
Why did I call him that?”

“It’s right enough.
That’s all you ever heard him called round here.
He seems to have lost off his Christian name.”

“Christian enough I should call that myself.
He took no notice, did he? Well, at least
I didn’t use it out of love of him,
The dear knows. I detest the thought of him
With his ten children under ten years old.
I hate his wretched little Racker Sect,
All’s ever I ...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...eyes either, nor take things from me: 
You shall listen to all sides, and filter them from yourself. 

3
I have heard what the talkers were talking, the talk of the beginning and the
 end;
But I do not talk of the beginning or the end. 

There was never any more inception than there is now, 
Nor any more youth or age than there is now; 
And will never be any more perfection than there is now, 
Nor any more heaven or hell than there is now.

Urge, and ...Read more of this...

by Chesterton, G K
...you have joy without a cause,
Yea, faith without a hope?"

Even as she spoke she was not,
Nor any word said he,
He only heard, still as he stood
Under the old night's nodding hood,
The sea-folk breaking down the wood
Like a high tide from sea.

He only heard the heathen men,
Whose eyes are blue and bleak,
Singing about some cruel thing
Done by a great and smiling king
In daylight on a deck.

He only heard the heathen men,
Whose eyes are blue and blind,
Singing what sh...Read more of this...

by Byron, George (Lord)
...rable thoughts
Was traced—and then it faded as it came,
And he stood calm and quiet, and he spoke
The fitting vows, but heard not his own words,
And all things reeled around him; he could see
Not that which was, nor that which should have been— 
But the old mansion, and the accustomed hall,
And the remembered chambers, and the place,
The day, the hour, the sunshine, and the shade,
All things pertaining to that place and hour,
And her who was his destiny, came back
And thrust ...Read more of this...

by Bridges, Robert Seymour
...e a perfect title for the ear. 
Thus may I think the adopting Muses chose
Their sons by name, knowing none would be heard
Or writ so oft in all the world as those,--
Dan Chaucer, mighty Shakespeare, then for third
The classic Milton, and to us arose
Shelley with liquid music in the world. 

5
The poets were good teachers, for they taught
Earth had this joy; but that 'twould ever be
That fortune should be perfected in me,
My heart of hope dared not engage the thought.<...Read more of this...

by Carroll, Lewis
...o as to rhyme with "groves." Again, the first "o" in "borogoves" is pronounced like the "o" in "borrow." I have heard people try to give it the sound of the"o" in "worry." Such is Human Perversity. This also seems a fitting occasion to notice the other hard works in that poem. Humpty-Dumpty's theory, of two meanings packed into one word like a port{-} manteau, seems to me the right explanation for all. 

For instance, take the two words "fuming" and "f...Read more of this...

by Wordsworth, William
...nbsp; And by the moonlight, Betty Foy  Has up upon the saddle set,  The like was never heard of yet,  Him whom she loves, her idiot boy.   And he must post without delay  Across the bridge that's in the dale,  And by the church, and o'er the down,  To bring a doctor from the town,  Or she will die, old Susan Gale.   There is no need ...Read more of this...

by Blake, William
...ime, that they would be 
misunderstood, & so be the cause of imposition.
Isaiah answer'd. I saw no God. nor heard any, in a finite
organical perception; but my senses discover'd the infinite in
every thing, and as I was then perswaded. & remain confirm'd;
that the voice of honest indignation is the voice of God, I cared
not for consequences but wrote.
Then I asked: does a firm perswasion that a thing is so, make
it so?
He replied. All poets believe tha...Read more of this...

by Poe, Edgar Allan
...d so gently you came rapping, 
And so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my chamber door, 
That I scarce was sure I heard you"¡ªhere I opened wide the door:¡ª 
Darkness there and nothing more. 

Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing, 25 
Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortals ever dared to dream before; 
But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token, 
And the only word there spoken was the whispered word, "Lenore?" ...Read more of this...

by Carroll, Lewis
...eye,
And he could neither fight nor fly. 

While she dissected, word by word,
His speech, half guessed at and half heard,
As might a cat a little bird. 

Then, having wholly overthrown
His views, and stripped them to the bone,
Proceeded to unfold her own. 

"Shall Man be Man? And shall he miss
Of other thoughts no thought but this,
Harmonious dews of sober bliss? 

"What boots it? Shall his fevered eye
Through towering nothingness descry
The grisly phantom hurry ...Read more of this...

by Shelley, Percy Bysshe
...dawn,
Bathed in the same cold dew my brow & hair
And sate as thus upon that slope of lawn
Under the self same bough, & heard as there
The birds, the fountains & the Ocean hold
Sweet talk in music through the enamoured air.
And then a Vision on my brain was rolled.

As in that trance of wondrous thought I lay
This was the tenour of my waking dream.
Methought I sate beside a public way
Thick strewn with summer dust, & a great stream
Of people there was hurrying to ...Read more of this...

by Byron, George (Lord)
...VI

Saint Peter sat by the celestial gate, 
And nodded o'er his keys; when, lo! there came 
A wondrous noise he had not heard of late — 
A rushing sound of wind, and stream, and flame; 
In short, a roar of things extremely great, 
Which would have made aught save a saint exclaim; 
But he, with first a start and then a wink, 
Said, 'There's another star gone out, I think!' 

XVII 

But ere he could return to his repose, 
A cherub flapp'd his right wing o'er his eyes — 
At whic...Read more of this...

by Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)
...er's tent is broken: the last fingers of leaf
Clutch and sink into the wet bank. The wind
Crosses the brown land, unheard. The nymphs are departed.
Sweet Thames, run softly, till I end my song.
The river bears no empty bottles, sandwich papers,
Silk handkerchiefs, cardboard boxes, cigarette ends
Or other testimony of summer nights. The nymphs are departed.
And their friends, the loitering heirs of city directors; 
Departed, have left no addresses.
...Read more of this...

by Akhmatova, Anna
...ous glory
Wash away to the final crumb.



x x x

The blue lacquer dims of heaven,
And the song is better heard.
It's the little trumpet made of dirt,
There's no reason for her to complain.
Why does she forgive me,
And whoever told her of my sins?
Or is that this voice that now repeats
The last poems that you wrote for me?



x x x

Instead of wisdom -- experience, bare,
That does not slake thirst, is not wet.
Youth's gone -- like a S...Read more of this...

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