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Famous Itself Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Whitman, Walt
...conqueror—yet treacherous lip-smiles everywhere, 
And Death and infidelity at every step.) 

2
A Nation announcing itself, 
I myself make the only growth by which I can be appreciated,
I reject none, accept all, then reproduce all in my own forms. 

A breed whose proof is in time and deeds; 
What we are, we are—nativity is answer enough to objections; 
We wield ourselves as a weapon is wielded, 
We are powerful and tremendous in ourselves,
We are executive in ourselv...Read more of this...



by Dickinson, Emily
...No Man instructed me—
But oftentimes, among my mind,
A Glee possesseth me,

That had I Ballet knowledge—
Would put itself abroad
In Pirouette to blanch a Troupe—
Or lay a Prima, mad,

And though I had no Gown of Gauze—
No Ringlet, to my Hair,
Nor hopped to Audiences—like Birds,
One Claw upon the Air,

Nor tossed my shape in Eider Balls,
Nor rolled on wheels of snow
Till I was out of sight, in sound,
The House encore me so—

Nor any know I know the Art
I me...Read more of this...

by Ginsberg, Allen
...oma 
 by our own souls' airplanes roaring over the 
 roof they've come to drop angelic bombs the 
 hospital illuminates itself imaginary walls col- 
 lapse O skinny legions run outside O starry 
 spangled shock of mercy the eternal war is 
 here O victory forget your underwear we're 
 free 
I'm with you in Rockland 
 in my dreams you walk dripping from a sea- 
 journey on the highway across America in tears 
 to the door of my cottage in the Western night 

 San Francisco 195...Read more of this...

by Wilde, Oscar
...h one clear flame, to stand erect
In natural honour, not to bend the knee
In profitless prostrations whose effect
Is by itself condemned, what alchemy
Can teach me this? what herb Medea brewed
Will bring the unexultant peace of essence not subdued?

The minor chord which ends the harmony,
And for its answering brother waits in vain
Sobbing for incompleted melody,
Dies a swan's death; but I the heir of pain,
A silent Memnon with blank lidless eyes,
Wait for the light and music...Read more of this...

by Keats, John
..., upon a forlorn moor,
When the chill rain begins at shut of eve,
In dull November, and their chancel vault,
The Heaven itself, is blinded throughout night.
Each one kept shroud, nor to his neighbour gave
Or word, or look, or action of despair.
Creus was one; his ponderous iron mace
Lay by him, and a shatter'd rib of rock
Told of his rage, ere he thus sank and pined.
Iapetus another; in his grasp,
A serpent's plashy neck; its barbed tongue
Squeez'd from the gorge,...Read more of this...



by Alighieri, Dante
...se, or shrilled with fright, 
 The tumult of the everlasting night, 
 As sand that dances in continual wind, 
 Turns on itself for ever. 
 And I, my head 
 Begirt with movements, and my ears bedinned 
 With outcries round me, to my leader said, 
 "Master, what hear I? Who so overborne 
 With woes are these?" 
 He answered, "These be they 
 That praiseless lived and blameless. Now the scorn 
 Of Height and Depth alike, abortions drear; 
 Cast with those abject angels w...Read more of this...

by Byron, George (Lord)
...by nature hard, 
But once perceived, his spirit seem'd to chide 
Such weakness, as unworthy of its pride, 
And steel'd itself, as scorning to redeem 
One doubt from others' half withheld esteem; 
In self-inflicted penance of a breast 
Which tenderness might once have wrung from rest; 
In vigilance of grief that would compel 
The soul to hate for having loved too well. 

XVIII. 

There was in him a vital scorn of all: 
As if the worst had fall'n which could befall, 
H...Read more of this...

by St Vincent Millay, Edna
...s funereal altered into dust
Minuter than the ashes of the dead,
And Psyche's lamp out of the earth up-thrust,
Dripping itself in marble wax on what was once the bed
Of Love, and his young body asleep, but now is dust instead.


There twists the bitter-sweet, the white wisteria Fastens its fingers in the strangling wall,
And the wide crannies quicken with bright weeds;
There dumbly like a worm all day the still white orchid feeds;
But never an echo of your daughters' laug...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...ng escaped from the anchorage, and driving free. 

O to work in mines, or forging iron!
Foundry casting—the foundry itself—the rude high roof—the ample and
 shadow’d space, 
The furnace—the hot liquid pour’d out and running. 

8
O to resume the joys of the soldier: 
To feel the presence of a brave general! to feel his sympathy! 
To behold his calmness! to be warm’d in the rays of his smile!
To go to battle! to hear the bugles play, and the drums beat! 
To hear the cra...Read more of this...

by Frost, Robert
...k! It moved
Just then, I thought. It’s stood erect like that,
There on the table, ever since I came,
Trying to turn itself backward or forward,
I’ve had my eye on it to make out which;
If forward, then it’s with a friend’s impatience—
You see I know—to get you on to things
It wants to see how you will take, if backward
It’s from regret for something you have passed
And failed to see the good of. Never mind,
Things must expect to come in front of us
A many times—I don’...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...
I have no mockings or arguments—I witness and wait. 

5
I believe in you, my Soul—the other I am must not abase itself to you; 
And you must not be abased to the other.

Loafe with me on the grass—loose the stop from your throat; 
Not words, not music or rhyme I want—not custom or lecture, not even the
 best; 
Only the lull I like, the hum of your valved voice. 

I mind how once we lay, such a transparent summer morning; 
How you settled your head ath...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...t no fresher and sweeter every day out of the roots of
 themselves,
 than it sprouts fresh and sweet continually out of itself.) 

Toward the fluid and attaching character exudes the sweat of the love of young and old; 
From it falls distill’d the charm that mocks beauty and attainments; 
Toward it heaves the shuddering longing ache of contact. 

9
Allons! whoever you are, come travel with me!
Traveling with me, you find what never tires. 

The earth never tires; ...Read more of this...

by Byron, George (Lord)
...ve
A breath to forms which can outlive all flesh.
I would recall a vision which I dreamed
Perchance in sleep—for in itself a thought,
A slumbering thought, is capable of years,
And curdles a long life into one hour.

II

I saw two beings in the hues of youth
Standing upon a hill, a gentle hill,
Green and of mild declivity, the last
As 'twere the cape of a long ridge of such,
Save that there was no sea to lave its base,
But a most living landscape, and the wave
Of wood...Read more of this...

by Wordsworth, William
...re's immortality,  A venerable thing! and so his song  Should make all nature lovelier, and itself  Be lov'd, like nature!—But 'twill not be so;  And youths and maidens most poetical  Who lose the deep'ning twilights of the spring  In ball-rooms and hot theatres, they still  Full of meek sympathy must heave their sighs  O'er Philomela's pity-pleading strains.&nb...Read more of this...

by Bridges, Robert Seymour
...hath ever heard,
Who hath seen joy, or who shall ever find
Joy's language? There is neither speech nor word
Nought but itself to teach it to mankind.
Scarce in our twenty thousand painful days
We may touch something: but there lives--beyond
The best of art, or nature's kindest phase--
The hope whereof our spirit is fain and fond: 
The cause of beauty given to man's desires
Writ in the expectancy of starry skies,
The faith which gloweth in our fleeting fires,
The aim of a...Read more of this...

by Carroll, Lewis
...s as a proof that I am incapable of such a deed: I will not (as I might) point to the strong moral purpose of this poem itself, to the arithmetical principles so cautiously inculcated in it, or to its noble teachings in Natural History--I will take the more prosaic course of simply explaining how it happened. 

The Bellman, who was almost morbidly sensitive about appearances, used to have the bowsprit unshipped once or twice a week to be revarnished, and it more than once...Read more of this...

by Scott, Sir Walter
...doom of fate;
     So still, as if no breeze might dare
     To lift one lock of hoary hair;
     So still, as life itself were fled
     In the last sound his harp had sped.
     V.

     Upon a rock with lichens wild,
     Beside him Ellen sat and smiled.—
     Smiled she to see the stately drake
     Lead forth his fleet upon the lake,
     While her vexed spaniel from the beach
     Bayed at the prize beyond his reach?
     Yet tell me, then, the maid who kn...Read more of this...

by Byron, George (Lord)
...ations of others, be they what they may? 

I say nothing of the cowardice of such a proceeding, its meanness speaks for itself; but I wish to touch upon the motive, which is neither more nor less than that Mr. S. has been laughed at a little in some recent publications, as he was of yore in the 'Anti-jacobin,' by his present patrons. Hence all this 'skimble-scamble stuff' about 'Satanic,' and so forth. However, it is worthy of him — 'qualis ab incepto.' 

...Read more of this...

by Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)
...ifficulties of the poem much better than
my notes can do; and I recommend it (apart from the great interest of the book
itself) to any who think such elucidation of the poem worth the trouble. To
another work of anthropology I am indebted in general, one which has influenced
our generation profoundly; I mean The Golden Bough; I have used especially the
two volumes Adonis, Attis, Osiris. Anyone who is acquainted with
these works will immediately recognise in the poem c...Read more of this...

by Plath, Sylvia
...thought I could deny the consequence--
But it was too late for that. It was too late, and the face
Went on shaping itself with love, as if I was ready.

SECOND VOICE:
It is a world of snow now. I am not at home.
How white these sheets are. The faces have no features.
They are bald and impossible, like the faces of my children,
Those little sick ones that elude my arms.
Other children do not touch me: they are terrible.
They have too many color...Read more of this...

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Book: Shattered Sighs