Famous Holds Poems by Famous Poets

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

See also:

How is it that of all the leafy tribe,

by Omar Khayyam
How is it that of all the leafy tribe,
Cypress and lily men as «free» describe?
This has a dozen tongues, yet holds her peace,
That has a hundred hands which take no bribe....Read more of this...

The Lost Friend

by Amy Levy
 The people take the thing of course,
They marvel not to see
This strange, unnatural divorce
Betwixt delight and me.


I know the face of sorrow, and I know
Her voice with all its varied cadences;
Which way she turns and treads; how at her ease
Things fit her dreary largess to bestow.

Where sorrow long abides, some be that grow
To hold her dear, but I am...Read more of this...

Rome Unvisited

by Oscar Wilde
 I.


The corn has turned from grey to red,
Since first my spirit wandered forth
From the drear cities of the north,
And to Italia's mountains fled.

And here I set my face towards home,
For all my pilgrimage is done,
Although, methinks, yon blood-red sun
Marshals the way to Holy Rome.

O Blessed Lady, who dost hold
Upon the seven hills thy reign!
O Mother without blot or stain,
Crowned...Read more of this...

Sonnets 09: Let You Not Say Of Me When I Am Old

by Edna St. Vincent Millay
 Let you not say of me when I am old,
In pretty worship of my withered hands
Forgetting who I am, and how the sands
Of such a life as mine run red and gold
Even to the ultimate sifting dust, "Behold,
Here walketh passionless age!"—for there expands
A curious superstition in these lands,
And by its leave some weightless tales are told.

In me no lenten...Read more of this...

The Hermit

by Aleister Crowley
 NOW the quietude of earth
Nestles deep my heart within;
Friendships new and strange have birth
Since I left the city’s din.


Here the tempest stays its guile,
Like a big kind brother plays,
Romps and pauses here awhile
From its immemorial ways.


Now the silver light of dawn,
Slipping through the leaves that fleck
My one window, hurries on,
Throws its arms around my neck.


Darkness to my doorway hies,
Lays...Read more of this...

O Thou, the quest of whom holds all in dizziness and

by Omar Khayyam
O Thou, the quest of whom holds all in dizziness and
distress, the dervish and the rich are equally void of
means of reaching Thee. Thy name is in the speech
of all, but all are deaf; Thou art present to the eyes of
all, but all are blind.
330...Read more of this...

Risk is the Hair that holds the Tun

by Emily Dickinson
 Risk is the Hair that holds the Tun
Seductive in the Air --
That Tun is hollow -- but the Tun --
With Hundred Weights -- to spare --

Too ponderous to suspect the snare
Espies that fickle chair
And seats itself to be let go
By that perfidious Hair --

The "foolish Tun" the Critics say --
While that delusive Hair
Persuasive as Perdition,
Decoys its Traveller....Read more of this...

The Spider holds a Silver Ball

by Emily Dickinson
 The Spider holds a Silver Ball
In unperceived Hands --
And dancing softly to Himself
His Yarn of Pearl -- unwinds --

He plies from Nought to Nought --
In unsubstantial Trade --
Supplants our Tapestries with His --
In half the period --

An Hour to rear supreme
His Continents of Light --
Then dangle from the Housewife's Broom --
His Boundaries -- forgot --...Read more of this...

Sonnet 85: My tongue-tied Muse in manners holds her still

by William Shakespeare
 My tongue-tied Muse in manners holds her still,
While comments of your praise, richly compiled,
Reserve their character with golden quill,
And precious phrase by all the Muses filed.
I think good thoughts, whilst other write good words,
And like unlettered clerk still cry "Amen"
To every hymn that able spirit affords
In polished form of well-refinèd pen.
Hearing you praised, I say "'Tis so, 'tis true,"
And...Read more of this...

Spontaneous Me

by Walt Whitman
 SPONTANEOUS me, Nature, 
The loving day, the mounting sun, the friend I am happy with, 
The arm of my friend hanging idly over my shoulder, 
The hill-side whiten’d with blossoms of the mountain ash, 
The same, late in autumn—the hues of red, yellow, drab, purple, and light and dark
 green,
The rich coverlid of the grass—animals and birds—the private untrimm’d
...Read more of this...

Ode To Joy

by Friedrich von Schiller
Joy, thou shining spark of God,
Daughter of Elysium,
With fiery rapture, goddess,
We approach thy shrine!
Your magic reunites those
Whom stern custom has parted;*
All men will become brothers*
Under your protective wing.

Let the man who has had the fortune
To be a helper to his friend,
And the man who has won a noble woman,
Join in our chorus of jubilation!
Yes, even if he holds but one...Read more of this...

If He were living -- dare I ask --

by Emily Dickinson
 If He were living -- dare I ask --
And how if He be dead --
And so around the Words I went --
Of meeting them -- afraid --

I hinted Changes -- Lapse of Time --
The Surfaces of Years --
I touched with Caution -- lest they crack --
And show me to my fears --

Reverted to adjoining Lives --
Adroitly turning out
Wherever I...Read more of this...

The Poor Children

by Victor Hugo
 Take heed of this small child of earth; 
He is great; he hath in him God most high. 
Children before their fleshly birth 
Are lights alive in the blue sky. 

In our light bitter world of wrong 
They come; God gives us them awhile. 
His speech is in their stammering tongue, 
And his forgiveness in their smile. 

Their sweet...Read more of this...

Sudden Fine Weather

by James Henry Leigh Hunt
 Reader! what soul that laoves a verse can see 
The spring return, nor glow like you and me? 
Hear the quick birds, and see the landscape fill, 
Nor long to utter his melodious will? 

This more than ever leaps into the veins, 
When spring has been delay'd by winds and rains, 
And coming with a burst, comes like a...Read more of this...

What We Need Is Here

by Wendell Berry
 Geese appear high over us,
pass, and the sky closes. Abandon,
as in love or sleep, holds
them to their way, clear
in the ancient faith: what we need
is here. And we pray, not
for new earth or heaven, but to be
quiet in heart, and in eye,
clear. What we need is here....Read more of this...

The Black Berry -- wears a Thorn in his side --

by Emily Dickinson
 The Black Berry -- wears a Thorn in his side --
But no Man heard Him cry --
He offers His Berry, just the same
To Partridge -- and to Boy --

He sometimes holds upon the Fence --
Or struggles to a Tree --
Or clasps a Rock, with both His Hands --
But not for Sympathy --

We -- tell a Hurt -- to cool...Read more of this...

Men say the Koran holds all heavenly lore,

by Omar Khayyam
Men say the Koran holds all heavenly lore,
But on its pages seldom care to pore;
The lucid lines engraven on the bowl,—
That is the text they dwell on evermore....Read more of this...

Sonnets from the Portuguese i

by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
I THOUGHT once how Theocritus had sung 
Of the sweet years the dear and wish'd-for years  
Who each one in a gracious hand appears 
To bear a gift for mortals old or young: 
And as I mused it in his antique tongue 5 
I saw in gradual vision through my tears 
The sweet sad years the melancholy years¡ª 
Those...Read more of this...

An Empty Crib

by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
 Beside a crib that holds a baby’s stocking,
A tattered picture book, a broken toy,
A sleeping mother dreams that she is rocking
Her fair-haired cherub boy.

Upon the cradle’s side her light touch keeping,
She gently rocks it, crooning low a song;
And smiles to think her little one is sleeping,
So peacefully and long.

Step light, breathe low, break not her rapturous dreaming,
Wake not the...Read more of this...

New York at Night

by Amy Lowell
 A near horizon whose sharp jags
Cut brutally into a sky
Of leaden heaviness, and crags
Of houses lift their masonry
Ugly and foul, and chimneys lie
And snort, outlined against the gray
Of lowhung cloud. I hear the sigh
The goaded city gives, not day
Nor night can ease her heart, her anguished labours stay.
Below, straight streets, monotonous,
From north and south, from east and west,
Stretch glittering;...Read more of this...

The Remorse Of The Dead

by Charles Baudelaire
 O SHADOWY Beauty mine, when thou shalt sleep 
In the deep heart of a black marble tomb; 
When thou for mansion and for bower shalt keep 
Only one rainy cave of hollow gloom; 

And when the stone upon thy trembling breast, 
And on thy straight sweet body's supple grace, 
Crushes thy will and keeps thy heart at rest, 
And...Read more of this...

A Saucer holds a Cup

by Emily Dickinson
 A Saucer holds a Cup
In sordid human Life
But in a Squirrel's estimate
A Saucer hold a Loaf.

A Table of a Tree
Demands the little King
And every Breeze that run along
His Dining Room do swing.

His Cutlery -- he keeps
Within his Russer Lips --
To see it flashing when he dines
Do Birmingham eclipse --

Convicted -- could we be
Of our Minutiae
The smallest Citizen that flies
Is...Read more of this...

Photograph of My Father in His Twenty-Second Year

by Raymond Carver
 October. Here in this dank, unfamiliar kitchen 
I study my father's embarrassed young man's face. 
Sheepish grin, he holds in one hand a string 
of spiny yellow perch, in the other 
a bottle of Carlsbad Beer. 

In jeans and denim shirt, he leans 
against the front fender of a 1934 Ford. 
He would like to pose bluff and hearty...Read more of this...

Dream Song 3: A Stimulant for an Old Beast

by John Berryman
 Acacia, burnt myrrh, velvet, pricky stings.
-”I'm not so young but not so very old,
said screwed-up lovely 23.
A final sense of being right out in the cold,
unkissed.
(-”My psychiatrist can lick your psychiatrist.) Women get under 
 things.

All these old criminals sooner or later
have had it. I've been reading old journals.
Gottwald & Co., out of business now.
Thick chests quit. Double agent,...Read more of this...

Hope Holds to Christ

by Gerard Manley Hopkins
 . . . . . . . .
Hope holds to Christ the mind’s own mirror out 
To take His lovely likeness more and more. 
It will not well, so she would bring about 
An ever brighter burnish than before 
And turns to wash it from her welling eyes
And breathes the blots off all with sighs on sighs. 
Her glass...Read more of this...

Dont forget to view our wonderful member Holds poems.

Get a Premium Membership
Turn off ads, get more exposure for your poetry, and get more features with a Premium Membership.
Book: Diverse Voices: The Poetry of Human Rights and the Pursuit of Peace