Famous In The Main Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Sonnet 80: O how I faint when I of you do write

by William Shakespeare
 O, how I faint when I of you do write,
Knowing a better spirit doth use your name,
And in the praise thereof spends all his might
To make me tongue-tied speaking of your fame.
But since your worth, wide as the ocean is,
The humble as the proudest sail doth bear,
My saucy bark, inferior far to his,
On your broad main doth wilfully appear.
Your...Read more of this...

Rinaldo to Laura Maria

by Mary Darby Robinson
 THOU! whose sublime poetic art 
Can pierce the pulses of the heart, 
Can force the treasur'd tear to flow 
In prodigality of woe; 
Or lure each jocund bliss to birth 
Amid the sportive bow'rs of mirth: 
LAURA DIVINE! I call thee now 
To yonder promontory's brow 
That props the skies; while at its feet 
With fruitless ire the billows...Read more of this...

In Memoriam A. H. H.

by Alfred Lord Tennyson
Strong Son of God, immortal Love,
   Whom we, that have not seen thy face,
   By faith, and faith alone, embrace,
Believing where we cannot prove;
 
Thine are these orbs of light and shade;
   Thou madest Life in man and brute;
   Thou madest Death; and lo, thy foot
Is on the skull which thou hast...Read more of this...

The Man from Goondiwindi Q

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 I 

This is the sunburnt bushman who 
Came down from Goondiwindi, Q. 

II 

This is the Push from Waterloo 
That spotted the sunburnt bushman who 
Came down from Goondiwindi, Q. 

III 

These are the wealthy uncles -- two, 
Part of the Push from Waterloo 
That spotted the sunburnt bushman who 
Came down from Goondiwindi, Q. 

IV 

This is the...Read more of this...

The Land

by Rudyard Kipling
 When Julius Fabricius, Sub-Prefect of the Weald,
In the days of Diocletian owned our Lower River-field,
He called to him Hobdenius-a Briton of the Clay,
Saying: "What about that River-piece for layin'' in to hay?"

And the aged Hobden answered: "I remember as a lad
My father told your father that she wanted dreenin' bad.
An' the more that you neeglect her the less you'll...Read more of this...

Beeny Cliff

by Thomas Hardy
 I
O the opal and the sapphire of that wandering western sea, 
And the woman riding high above with bright hair flapping free-
The woman whom I loved so, and who loyally loved me.

I I
The pale mews plained below us, and the waves seemed far away
In a nether sky, engrossed in saying their ceaseless babbling say, 
As we laughed light-heartedly aloft...Read more of this...

London Bridge

by Edwin Arlington Robinson
 “Do I hear them? Yes, I hear the children singing—and what of it? 
Have you come with eyes afire to find me now and ask me that? 
If I were not their father and if you were not their mother, 
We might believe they made a noise…. What are you—driving at!” 

“Well, be glad that you can hear them,...Read more of this...

274. Song—Carle an' the King come

by Robert Burns
 Chorus.—Carle, an the King come,
 Carle, an the King come,
Thou shalt dance and I will sing,
 Carle, an the King come.


AN SOMEBODY were come again,
Then somebody maun cross the main,
And every man shall hae his ain,
 Carle, an the King come.
 Carle, an the King come, &c.


I trow we swapped for the worse,
We gae the boot and better horse;
And...Read more of this...

Regret

by Charlotte Bronte
 Long ago I wished to leave 
" The house where I was born; " 
Long ago I used to grieve, 
My home seemed so forlorn. 
In other years, its silent rooms 
Were filled with haunting fears; 
Now, their very memory comes 
O'ercharged with tender tears. 

Life and marriage I have known, 
Things once deemed so bright; 
Now, how utterly...Read more of this...

Prologue

by Anne Bradstreet
 1 To sing of Wars, of Captains, and of Kings,
2 Of Cities founded, Common-wealths begun,
3 For my mean Pen are too superior things;
4 Or how they all, or each their dates have run,
5 Let Poets and Historians set these forth.
6 My obscure lines shall not so dim their worth. 

7 But when my wond'ring eyes and envious heart
8 Great...Read more of this...

Sonnet LIX: As Love and I

by Michael Drayton
 As Love and I, late harbor'd in one inn, 
With proverbs thus each other entertain: 
"In Love there is no lack," thus I begin; 
"Fair words make fools," replieth he again; 
"Who spares to speak doth spare to speed," quoth I; 
"As well," saith he, "too forward as too slow"; 
"Fortune assists the boldest," I reply; 
"A hasty man,"...Read more of this...

What slender youth (QUIS MULTA GRACILIS)

by Horace
     What slender youth, besprinkled with perfume,
         Courts you on roses in some grotto's shade?
       Fair Pyrrha, say, for whom
         Your yellow hair you braid,
     So trim, so simple! Ah!...Read more of this...

Pods

by Carl Sandburg
 PEA pods cling to stems.
Neponset, the village,
Clings to the Burlington railway main line.
Terrible midnight limiteds roar through
Hauling sleepers to the Rockies and Sierras.
The earth is slightly shaken
And Neponset trembles slightly in its sleep....Read more of this...

Celebates

by Robert William Service
 They must not wed the Doctor said,
 For they were far from strong,
And children of their marriage bed
 Might not live overlong.
And yet each eve I saw them pass
 With rapt and eager air,
As fit a seeming lad and lass
 As ought to pair.

For twenty years I went away
 And scoured the China Sea,
Then homing came and found that...Read more of this...

Sea Shell

by Amy Lowell
 Sea Shell, Sea Shell,
Sing me a song, O Please!
A song of ships, and sailor men,
And parrots, and tropical trees,
Of islands lost in the Spanish Main
Which no man ever may find again,
Of fishes and corals under the waves,
And seahorses stabled in great green caves.
Sea Shell, Sea Shell,
Sing of the things you know so well....Read more of this...

O LUCKLESS bark! (O NAVIS, REFERENT)

by Horace

     O LUCKLESS bark! new waves will force you back
     To sea. O, haste to make the haven yours!
          E'en now, a helpless wrack,
            You drift, despoil'd of oars;
   ...Read more of this...

Signior Dildo

by John Wilmot
 You ladies of merry England
Who have been to kiss the Duchess's hand,
Pray, did you not lately observe in the show
A noble Italian called Signior *****?

This signior was one of the Duchess's train
And helped to conduct her over the main;
But now she cries out, 'To the Duke I will go,
I have no more need for Signior *****.'

At the Sign of...Read more of this...

Grace Darling

by William Topaz McGonagall
 As the night was beginning to close in one rough September day
In the year of 1838, a steamer passed through the Fairway
Between the Farne Islands and the coast, on her passage northwards;
But the wind was against her, and the steamer laboured hard. 

There she laboured in the heavy sea against both wind and tide,
Whilst a dense fog enveloped her...Read more of this...

My Mistress Commanding Me to Return Her Letters

by Thomas Carew
 SO grieves th' adventurous merchant, when he throws 
All the long toil'd-for treasure his ship stows 
Into the angry main, to save from wrack 
Himself and men, as I grieve to give back 
These letters : yet so powerful is your sway 
As if you bid me die, I must obey. 
Go then, blest papers, you shall kiss those...Read more of this...

Hellas

by Percy Bysshe Shelley
THE world's great age begins anew  
The golden years return  
The earth doth like a snake renew 
Her winter weeds outworn; 
Heaven smiles and faiths and empires gleam 5 
Like wrecks of a dissolving dream. 

A brighter Hellas rears its mountains 
From waves serener far; 
A new Peneus rolls his fountains 
Against the morning star; 10 
Where fairer...Read more of this...

Thangbrand the Priest

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
 Short of stature, large of limb,
Burly face and russet beard,
All the women stared at him,
When in Iceland he appeared.
"Look!" they said,
With nodding head,
"There goes Thangbrand, Olaf's Priest."

All the prayers he knew by rote,
He could preach like Chrysostome,
From the Fathers he could quote,
He had even been at Rome.
A learned clerk,
A man of mark,
Was this Thangbrand, Olaf's Priest.

He was quarrelsome and...Read more of this...

Main Street

by Joyce Kilmer
 (For S. M. L.)

I like to look at the blossomy track of the moon upon the sea,
But it isn't half so fine a sight as Main Street used to be
When it all was covered over with a couple of feet of snow,
And over the crisp and radiant road the ringing sleighs would go.
Now, Main Street bordered with autumn leaves,...Read more of this...

To the East and to the West

by Walt Whitman
 TO the East and to the West; 
To the man of the Seaside State, and of Pennsylvania, 
To the Kanadian of the North—to the Southerner I love; 
These, with perfect trust, to depict you as myself—the germs are in all men; 
I believe the main purport of These States is to found a superb friendship, exalté,
 previously unknown,
Because I...Read more of this...

O Were I Loved As I Desire To Be!

by Alfred Lord Tennyson
 O, were I loved as I desire to be!
What is there in the great sphere of the earth,
Or range of evil between death and birth,
That I should fear, - if I were loved by thee!
All the inner, all the outer world of pain,
Clear love would pierce and cleave, if thou wert mine;
As I have heard that somewhere in the...Read more of this...

The Song Of The Chattahoochee

by Sidney Lanier
 Out of the hills of Habersham,
Down the valleys of Hall,
I hurry amain to reach the plain,
Run the rapid and leap the fall,
Split at the rock and together again,
Accept my bed, or narrow or wide,
And flee from folly on every side
With a lover's pain to attain the plain
Far from the hills of Habersham,
Far from the valleys of Hall.

All down the...Read more of this...

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