Famous Keenest Poems by Famous Poets

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

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To My Enemy

by Lucy Maud Montgomery
 Let those who will of friendship sing,
And to its guerdon grateful be,
But I a lyric garland bring
To crown thee, O, mine enemy! 

Thanks, endless thanks, to thee I owe
For that my lifelong journey through
Thine honest hate has done for me
What love perchance had failed to do. 

I had not scaled such weary heights
But that I held thy scorn in...Read more of this...

Johnny Boer

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 Men fight all shapes and sizes as the racing horses run, 
And no man knows his courage till he stands before a gun. 
At mixed-up fighting, hand to hand, and clawing men about 
They reckon Fuzzy-Wuzzy is the hottest fighter out. 
But Fuzzy gives himself away -- his style is out of date, 
He charges like a driven grouse...Read more of this...

When the Fishing Boats Go Out

by Lucy Maud Montgomery
 When the lucent skies of morning flush with dawning rose once more,
And waves of golden glory break adown the sunrise shore,
And o'er the arch of heaven pied films of vapor float.
There's joyance and there's freedom when the fishing boats go out. 

The wind is blowing freshly up from far, uncharted caves,
And sending sparkling kisses o'er the brows of virgin...Read more of this...

A Waif

by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
 My soul is like a poor caged bird to-night,
Beating its wings against the prison bars,
Longing to reach the outer world of light,
And, all untrammelled, soar among the stars.
Wild, mighty thoughts struggle within my soul
For utterance. Great waves of passion roll
Through all my being. As the lightnings play
Through thunder clouds, so beams of blinding light
Flash for a moment on my...Read more of this...

Celia Beeding To the Surgeon

by Thomas Carew
 Fond man, that canst believe her blood
Will from those purple channels flow;
Or that the pure untainted flood
Can any foul distemper know;
Or that thy weak steel can incise
The crystal case wherein it lies:

Know, her quick blood, proud of his seat,
Runs dancing through her azure veins;
Whose harmony no cold nor heat
Disturbs, whose hue no tincture stains:
And the hard rock wherein it...Read more of this...

My Aviary

by Oliver Wendell Holmes
 THROUGH my north window, in the wintry weather,--
My airy oriel on the river shore,--
I watch the sea-fowl as they flock together
Where late the boatman flashed his dripping oar.

The gull, high floating, like a sloop unladen,
Lets the loose water waft him as it will;
The duck, round-breasted as a rustic maiden,
Paddles and plunges, busy, busy still.

I see the solemn gulls in...Read more of this...

The Maid of Neidpath

by Sir Walter Scott
 O lovers’ eyes are sharp to see, 
And lovers’ ears in hearing; 
And love, in life’s extremity, 
Can lend an hour of cheering. 
Disease had been in Mary’s bower 
And slow decay from mourning, 
Though now she sits on Neidpath’s tower 
To watch her Love’s returning. 

All sunk and dim her eyes so bright, 
Her form decay’d by pining,...Read more of this...

Song

by Anne Bronte
 We know where deepest lies the snow,
And where the frost-winds keenest blow,
O'er every mountain's brow,
We long have known and learnt to bear
The wandering outlaw's toil and care,
But where we late were hunted, there
Our foes are hunted now. 
We have their princely homes, and they
To our wild haunts are chased away,
Dark woods, and desert caves.
And we can range from hill...Read more of this...

Self-Congratulation

by Anne Bronte
 Ellen, you were thoughtless once
Of beauty or of grace,
Simple and homely in attire,
Careless of form and face;
Then whence this change? and wherefore now
So often smooth your hair?
And wherefore deck your youthful form 
With such unwearied care? 
Tell us -­ and cease to tire our ears
With that familiar strain -­
Why will you play those simple tunes
So often, o'er again?
'Indeed, dear...Read more of this...

Pater Filio

by Robert Seymour Bridges
 Sense with keenest edge unusèd, 
Yet unsteel'd by scathing fire; 
Lovely feet as yet unbruisèd 
On the ways of dark desire; 
Sweetest hope that lookest smiling
O'er the wilderness defiling! 

Why such beauty, to be blighted 
By the swarm of foul destruction? 
Why such innocence delighted, 
When sin stalks to thy seduction? 
All the litanies e'er chaunted 
Shall not keep...Read more of this...

The To-Be-Forgotten

by Thomas Hardy
 I
I heard a small sad sound,
And stood awhile among the tombs around:
"Wherefore, old friends," said I, "are you distrest,
Now, screened from life's unrest?"

II
--"O not at being here;
But that our future second death is near;
When, with the living, memory of us numbs,
And blank oblivion comes!

III
"These, our sped ancestry,
Lie here embraced by deeper death than we;
Nor shape nor thought of theirs...Read more of this...

A Legend of Service

by Henry Van Dyke
 It pleased the Lord of Angels (praise His name!)
To hear, one day, report from those who came
With pitying sorrow, or exultant joy,
To tell of earthly tasks in His employ:
For some were sorry when they saw how slow
The stream of heavenly love on earth must flow;
And some were glad because their eyes had seen,
Along its banks, fresh flowers and living...Read more of this...

There is a word

by Emily Dickinson
 There is a word
Which bears a sword
Can pierce an armed man --
It hurls its barbed syllables
And is mute again --
But where it fell
The saved will tell
On patriotic day,
Some epauletted Brother
Gave his breath away.

Wherever runs the breathless sun --
Wherever roams the day --
There is its noiseless onset --
There is its victory!
Behold the keenest marksman!
The most accomplished shot!
Time's sublimest target
Is a...Read more of this...

Sonnet LXVII: On Passing over a Dreary Tract

by Charlotte Turner Smith
 Swift fleet the billowy clouds along the sky,
Earth seems to shudder at the storm aghast;
While only beings as forlorn as I,
Court the chill horrors of the howling blast.
Even round yon crumbling walls, in search of food,
The ravenous Owl foregoes his evening flight,
And in his cave, within the deepest wood,
The Fox eludes the tempest of the night.
But to my heart...Read more of this...

Botany Bay Eclogues 03 - Humphrey And William

by Robert Southey
 (Time, Noon.)


HUMPHREY:

See'st thou not William that the scorching Sun
By this time half his daily race has run?
The savage thrusts his light canoe to shore
And hurries homeward with his fishy store.
Suppose we leave awhile this stubborn soil
To eat our dinner and to rest from toil!


WILLIAM:

Agreed. Yon tree whose purple gum bestows
A ready medicine for the sick-man's woes,
Forms with its shadowy...Read more of this...

Lines to Him Who Will Understand Them

by Mary Darby Robinson
 THOU art no more my bosom's FRIEND; 
Here must the sweet delusion end, 
That charm'd my senses many a year, 
Thro' smiling summers, winters drear.­ 
O, FRIENDSHIP! am I doom'd to find 
Thou art a phantom of the mind? 
A glitt'ring shade, an empty name, 
An air-born vision's vap'rish flame? 
And yet, the dear DECEIT so long 
Has wak'd...Read more of this...

The Grave-digger

by Emile Verhaeren
In the garden yonder of yews and death,
There sojourneth
A man who toils, and has toiled for aye.
Digging the dried-up ground all day.


Some willows, surviving their own dead selves.
Weep there around him as he delves.
And a few poor flowers, disconsolate
Because the tempest and wind and wet
Vex them with ceaseless scourge and fret.


The ground is nothing but pits and cones,
Deep graves in...Read more of this...

The Rope-maker

by Emile Verhaeren
In his village grey
At foot of the dykes, that encompass him
With weary weaving of curves and lines
Toward the sea outstretching dim,
The rope-maker, visionary white.
Stepping backwards along the way,
Prudently 'twixt his hands combines
The distant threads, in their twisting play.
That come to him from the infinite.


When day is gone.
Through ardent, weary evenings, yon
The whirr of a wheel can yet be heard;
Something by...Read more of this...

Run to Death

by Amy Levy
 A True Incident of Pre-Revolutionary French History.


Now the lovely autumn morning breathes its freshness in earth's face,
In the crowned castle courtyard the blithe horn proclaims the chase;
And the ladies on the terrace smile adieux with rosy lips
To the huntsmen disappearing down the cedar-shaded groves,
Wafting delicate aromas from their scented finger tips,
And the gallants wave in answer, with their gold-embroidered...Read more of this...

Mountain Life

by Henrik Ibsen
 IN summer dusk the valley lies 
With far-flung shadow veil; 
A cloud-sea laps the precipice 
Before the evening gale: 
The welter of the cloud-waves grey 
Cuts off from keenest sight 
The glacier, looking out by day 
O'er all the district, far away, 
And crowned with golden light. 

But o'er the smouldering cloud-wrack's flow, 
Where gold and amber kiss, 
Stands...Read more of this...

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