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Famous Ill Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Shakespeare, William
...FROM off a hill whose concave womb reworded
A plaintful story from a sistering vale,
My spirits to attend this double voice accorded,
And down I laid to list the sad-tuned tale;
Ere long espied a fickle maid full pale,
Tearing of papers, breaking rings a-twain,
Storming her world with sorrow's wind and rain.

Upon her head a platted hive of straw,
Which fortified he...Read more of this...



by Dickinson, Emily
...fferent tune—
Herself to her a music
As Bumble bee of June.

Today is far from Childhood—
But up and down the hills
I held her hand the tighter—
Which shortened all the miles—

And still her hum
The years among,
Deceives the Butterfly;
Still in her Eye
The Violets lie
Mouldered this many May.

I spilt the dew—
But took the morn—
I chose this single star
From out the wide night's numbers—
Sue—forevermore!

67

Success is counted sweetest
By tho...Read more of this...

by Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
...hat beneath it
Leaped like the roe, when he hears in the woodland the voice of the huntsman
Where is the thatch-roofed village, the home of Acadian farmers,--
Men whose lives glided on like rivers that water the woodlands,
Darkened by shadows of earth, but reflecting an image of heaven?
Waste are those pleasant farms, and the farmers forever departed!
Scattered like dust and leaves, when the mighty blasts of October
Seize them, and whirl them aloft, and sprinkle them far o'er...Read more of this...

by Alighieri, Dante
...ed, which yet 
 With living feet had no man left, I set 
 My forward steps aslant the steep, that so, 
 My right foot still the lower, I climbed. 

 Below 
 No more I gazed. Around, a slope of sand 
 Was sterile of all growth on either hand, 
 Or moving life, a spotted pard except, 
 That yawning rose, and stretched, and purred and leapt 
 So closely round my feet, that scarce I kept 
 The course I would. 
 That sleek and lovely thing, 
 The broadening light, the ...Read more of this...

by Byron, George (Lord)
...ope the way to crime; 
Then, when he most required commandment, then 
Had Lara's daring boyhood govern'd men. 
It skills not, boots not, step by step to trace 
His youth through all the mazes of its race; 
Short was the course his restlessness had run, 
But long enough to leave him half undone. 

III. 

And Lara left in youth his fatherland; 
But from the hour he waved his parting hand 
Each trace wax'd fainter of his course, till all 
Had nearly ceased his memory...Read more of this...



by St Vincent Millay, Edna
...Leaving at last of her least signs and traces
None whatsoever, nor whither she is vanished from these places.
"She will love well," I said,
"If love be of that heart inhabiter,
The flowers of the dead;
The red anemone that with no sound
Moves in the wind, and from another wound
That sprang, the heavily-sweet blue hyacinth,
That blossoms underground,
And sallow poppies, will be dear to her.
And will not Silence know
In the black shade of what obsidian steep
Stiffens th...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...perfumes—the shelves are crowded with
 perfumes; 
I breathe the fragrance myself, and know it and like it; 
The distillation would intoxicate me also, but I shall not let it. 

The atmosphere is not a perfume—it has no taste of the distillation—it
 is odorless; 
It is for my mouth forever—I am in love with it;
I will go to the bank by the wood, and become undisguised and naked; 
I am mad for it to be in contact with me. 

2
The smoke of my own breath; 
E...Read more of this...

by Chesterton, G K
...re they fought the unknown fight
And saw black trees on the battle-height,
Black thorn on Ethandune?
And I thought, "I will go with you,
As man with God has gone,
And wander with a wandering star,
The wandering heart of things that are,
The fiery cross of love and war
That like yourself, goes on."

O go you onward; where you are
Shall honour and laughter be,
Past purpled forest and pearled foam,
God's winged pavilion free to roam,
Your face, that is a wandering home,
A fl...Read more of this...

by Byron, George (Lord)
...e sibyls of the future; they have power— 
The tyranny of pleasure and of pain;
They make us what we were not—what they will,
And shake us with the vision that's gone by,
The dread of vanished shadows—Are they so?
Is not the past all shadow?—What are they?
Creations of the mind?—The mind can make
Substances, and people planets of its own
With beings brighter than have been, and give
A breath to forms which can outlive all flesh.
I would recall a vision which I dreamed
Perc...Read more of this...

by Bradstreet, Anne
...dangers every moment of a fall,
1.20 And when 'tis broke, then ends his life and all.
1.21 But if he held till it have run its last,
1.22 Then may he live till threescore years or past.
1.23 Next, youth came up in gorgeous attire
1.24 (As that fond age, doth most of all desire),
1.25 His Suit of Crimson, and his Scarf of Green.
1.26 In's countenance, his pride quickly was seen.
1.27 Garland of Roses, Pinks, and Gillyflowers
1.<...Read more of this...

by Bridges, Robert Seymour
...pictures seen leaving their marble cist
To go before the throne of grace unblamed. 
Nor surer am I water hath the skill
To quench my thirst, or that my strength is freed
In delicate ordination as I will,
Than that to be myself is all I need
For thee to be most mine: so I stand still,
And save to taste my joy no more take heed. 

3
The whole world now is but the minister
Of thee to me: I see no other scheme
But universal love, from timeless dream
Waking to thee his joy...Read more of this...

by Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...Lord. 
And there awhile it bode; and if a man 
Could touch or see it, he was healed at once, 
By faith, of all his ills. But then the times 
Grew to such evil that the holy cup 
Was caught away to Heaven, and disappeared.' 

To whom the monk: `From our old books I know 
That Joseph came of old to Glastonbury, 
And there the heathen Prince, Arviragus, 
Gave him an isle of marsh whereon to build; 
And there he built with wattles from the marsh 
A little lonely chur...Read more of this...

by Wordsworth, William
... Him whom you love, your idiot boy?   Beneath the moon that shines so bright,  Till she is tired, let Betty Foy  With girt and stirrup fiddle-faddle;  But wherefore set upon a saddle  Him whom she loves, her idiot boy?   There's scarce a soul that's out of bed;  Good Betty put him down again;  His lips with joy they burr at you,  But...Read more of this...

by Chaucer, Geoffrey
...wot, a large field to ear* *plough;
And weake be the oxen in my plough;
The remnant of my tale is long enow.
I will not *letten eke none of this rout*. *hinder any of
Let every fellow tell his tale about, this company*
And let see now who shall the supper win.
There *as I left*, I will again begin. *where I left off*

This Duke, of whom I make mentioun,
When he was come almost unto the town,
In all his weal, and in his moste pride,
He was ware, as he cast ...Read more of this...

by Scott, Sir Walter
...T.

The Chase.

     Harp of the North! that mouldering long hast hung
        On the witch-elm that shades Saint Fillan's spring
     And down the fitful breeze thy numbers flung,
        Till envious ivy did around thee cling,
     Muffling with verdant ringlet every string,—
        O Minstrel Harp, still must thine accents sleep?
     Mid rustling leaves and fountains murmuring,
        Still must thy sweeter sounds their silence keep,
     Nor bid a warrior s...Read more of this...

by Thomson, James
...ig Torrent burst:
Or seen the deep, fermenting, Tempest brew'd,
In the red, evening, Sky. -- Thus pass'd the Time,
Till, thro' the opening Chambers of the South, 
Look'd out the joyous Spring, look'd out, and smil'd.
THEE too, Inspirer of the toiling Swain!
Fair AUTUMN, yellow rob'd! I'll sing of thee,
Of thy last, temper'd, Days, and sunny Calms;
When all the golden Hours are on the Wing, 
Attending thy Retreat, and round thy Wain,
Slow-rolling, onward to the Souther...Read more of this...

by Shelley, Percy Bysshe
...shade it spread
Was so transparent that the scene came through
As clear as when a veil of light is drawn
O'er evening hills they glimmer; and I knew
That I had felt the freshness of that 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 ...Read more of this...

by Byron, George (Lord)
...' - Pope 

If Mr. Southey had not rushed in where he had no business, and where he never was before, and never will be again, the following poem would not have been written. It is not impossible that it may be as good as his own, seeing that it cannot, by any species of stupidity, natural or acquired, be worse. The gross flattery, the dull impudence, the renegado intolerance, and impious cant, of the poem by the author if 'Wat Tyler,' are something so stupendo...Read more of this...

by Miller, Alice Duer
...y pointed 'the white cliffs of Dover', 
Startled I found there were tears on my cheek. 
I have loved England, and still as a stranger, 
Here is my home and I still am alone. 
Now in her hour of trial and danger, 
Only the English are really her own. 

II 
It happened the first evening I was there. 
Some one was giving a ball in Belgrave Square.
At Belgrave Square, that most Victorian spot.—
Lives there a novel-reader who has not 
At some time wept for ...Read more of this...

by Akhmatova, Anna
...ow
And pigeon from my palms eats wheat..
The pages that I did not complete
Divinely light she is and calm,
Will finish Muse's suntanned arm.



x x x

Just like a cold noreaster
At first she'll sting,
And then a single salty tear
The heart will wring.

The evil heart will pity
Something and then regret.
But this light-headed sadness
It will not forget.

I only sow. To harvest.
Others will come. And yes!
The lovely gr...Read more of this...

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