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Famous Lose Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Pope, Alexander
...ell.
Authors are partial to their Wit, 'tis true,
But are not Criticks to their Judgment too?

Yet if we look more closely, we shall find
Most have the Seeds of Judgment in their Mind;
Nature affords at least a glimm'ring Light;
The Lines, tho' touch'd but faintly, are drawn right.
But as the slightest Sketch, if justly trac'd,
Is by ill Colouring but the more disgrac'd,
So by false Learning is good Sense defac'd.
Some are bewilder'd in the Maze of Schools,
And so...Read more of this...



by Browning, Elizabeth Barrett
...with a passion put to use 
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith. 
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose 
With my lost saints, I love thee with the breath, 
Smiles, tears, of all my life! and, if God choose, 
I shall but love thee better after death. ...Read more of this...

by Kipling, Rudyard
...th worn-out tools; 

If you can make one heap of all your winnings 
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss, 
And lose, and start again at your beginnings, 
And never breathe a word about your loss: 
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew 
To serve your turn long after they are gone, 
And so hold on when there is nothing in you 
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!" 

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue, 
Or walk with Kings - nor l...Read more of this...

by Robinson, Edwin Arlington
...ss 
Of him you lean on while he leans on you. 

HAMILTON

This easy phrasing is a game of yours
That you may win to lose. I beg your pardon, 
But you that have the sight will not employ 
The will to see with it. If you did so, 
There might be fewer ditches dug for others 
In your perspective; and there might be fewer
Contemporary motes of prejudice 
Between you and the man who made the dust. 
Call him a genius or a gentleman, 
A prophet or a builder, or what n...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...est found, 
Heaven's last best gift, my ever new delight! 
Awake: The morning shines, and the fresh field 
Calls us; we lose the prime, to mark how spring 
Our tender plants, how blows the citron grove, 
What drops the myrrh, and what the balmy reed, 
How nature paints her colours, how the bee 
Sits on the bloom extracting liquid sweet. 
Such whispering waked her, but with startled eye 
On Adam, whom embracing, thus she spake. 
O sole in whom my thoughts find all repo...Read more of this...



by Milton, John
...al sense, 
In heart or head, possessing, soon inspired 
With act intelligential; but his sleep 
Disturbed not, waiting close the approach of morn. 
Now, when as sacred light began to dawn 
In Eden on the humid flowers, that breathed 
Their morning incense, when all things, that breathe, 
From the Earth's great altar send up silent praise 
To the Creator, and his nostrils fill 
With grateful smell, forth came the human pair, 
And joined their vocal worship to the quire 
Of...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...
Ya-honk! he says, and sounds it down to me like an invitation; 
(The pert may suppose it meaningless, but I listen close; 
I find its purpose and place up there toward the wintry sky.) 

The sharp-hoof’d moose of the north, the cat on the house-sill, the
 chickadee, the prairie-dog,
The litter of the grunting sow as they tug at her teats, 
The brood of the turkey-hen, and she with her half-spread wings; 
I see in them and myself the same old law. 

The pr...Read more of this...

by Chesterton, G K
...d begot,
That you should not die with Uther
And Arthur and Lancelot?

"But when you win you brag and blow,
And when you lose you rail,
Army of eastland yokels
Not strong enough to fail."

"I bring not boast or railing,"
Spake Alfred not in ire,
"I bring of Our Lady a lesson set,
This--that the sky grows darker yet
And the sea rises higher."

Then Colan of the Sacred Tree
Tossed his black mane on high,
And cried, as rigidly he rose,
"And if the sea and sky be foes,
We ...Read more of this...

by Byron, George (Lord)
...hat look or tone: 
No — nor the blood so near my own. 

That blood — he hath not heard — no more — 
I'll watch him closer than before. 
He is an Arab to my sight, [5] 
Or Christian crouching in the fight — 
But hark! — I hear Zuleika's voice; 
Like Houris' hymn it meets mine ear: 
She is the offspring of my choice; 
Oh! more than ev'n her mother dear, 
With all to hope, and nought to fear — 
My Peri! — ever welcome here! 
Sweet, as the desert fountain's wave, 
To lips...Read more of this...

by Wordsworth, William
...but they  Are poorest of the poor.  This scrap of land he from the heath  Enclosed when he was stronger;  But what avails the land to them,  Which they can till no longer?   Few months of life has he in store,  As he to you will-tell,  For still, the more he works, the more  His poor old ancles swell.  My gentle reader, I perceive...Read more of this...

by Bradstreet, Anne
...bertus half undone.
5.35 I saw all peace at home, terror to foes,
5.36 But ah, I saw at last those eyes to close,
5.37 And then, me thought, the world at noon grew dark
5.38 When it had lost that radiant Sun-like spark.
5.39 In midst of griefs, I saw some hopes revive
5.40 (For 'twas our hopes then kept our hearts alive);
5.41 I saw hopes dash't, our forwardness was shent,
5.42 And silenc'd we, by Act of Parliament.
5.43 I've se...Read more of this...

by Bridges, Robert Seymour
...perfect action hath the grace
Of indolence or thoughtless hardihood--
These are the best: yet be there workmen good
Who lose in earnestness control of face,
Or reckon means, and rapt in effort base
Reach to their end by steps well understood. 
Me whom thou sawest of late strive with the pains
Of one who spends his strength to rule his nerve,
--Even as a painter breathlessly who stains
His scarcely moving hand lest it should swerve--
Behold me, now that I have cast my chai...Read more of this...

by Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...rlin called it "The Siege perilous," 
Perilous for good and ill; "for there," he said, 
"No man could sit but he should lose himself:" 
And once by misadvertence Merlin sat 
In his own chair, and so was lost; but he, 
Galahad, when he heard of Merlin's doom, 
Cried, "If I lose myself, I save myself!" 

`Then on a summer night it came to pass, 
While the great banquet lay along the hall, 
That Galahad would sit down in Merlin's chair. 

`And all at once, as there we sat, w...Read more of this...

by Carroll, Lewis
...r,
 When the third repetition occurred.

It felt that, in spite of all possible pains,
 It had somehow contrived to lose count,
And the only thing now was to rack its poor brains
 By reckoning up the amount.

"Two added to one--if that could but be done,"
 It said, "with one's fingers and thumbs!"
Recollecting with tears how, in earlier years,
 It had taken no pains with its sums.

"The thing can be done," said the Butcher, "I think.
 The thing must be done, I...Read more of this...

by Wordsworth, William
...nbsp;His steed and he right well agree,  For of this pony there's a rumour,  That should he lose his eyes and ears,  And should he live a thousand years,  He never will be out of humour.   But then he is a horse that thinks!  And when he thinks his pace is slack;  Now, though he knows poor Johnny well,  Yet for his life he cannot tell  What he h...Read more of this...

by Chaucer, Geoffrey
...und* *moment
In any country of this Theseus,
And he were caught, it was accorded thus,
That with a sword he shoulde lose his head;
There was none other remedy nor rede*. *counsel
But took his leave, and homeward he him sped;
Let him beware, his necke lieth *to wed*. *in pledge*

How great a sorrow suff'reth now Arcite!
The death he feeleth through his hearte smite;
He weepeth, waileth, crieth piteously;
To slay himself he waiteth privily.
He said; "Alas the da...Read more of this...

by Byron, George (Lord)
...should half of earth and hell produce; 
'Tis even superfluous, since two honest, clean 
True testimonies are enough: we lose 
Our time, nay, our eternity, between 
The accusation and defence: if we 
Hear both, 'twill stretch our immortality.' 

LXIV 

Satan replied, 'To me the matter is 
Indifferent, in a personal point of view; 
I can have fifty better souls than this 
With far less trouble than we have gone through 
Already; and I merely argued his 
Late majesty of Brit...Read more of this...

by Miller, Alice Duer
...who would be free,
Who took our desperate chance, and fought and won
Under a colonist called Washington?

One does not lose one's birthright, it appears.
I had been English then for many years.

X 
We went down to Cambridge, 
Cambridge in the spring. 
In a brick court at twilight 
We heard the thrushes sing, 
And we went to evening service 
In the chapel of the King. 
The library of Trinity, 
The quadrangle of Clare, 
John bought a pipe from Bacon, 
And I acq...Read more of this...

by Plath, Sylvia
...From my alphabetical fingers, ordering parts,

Parts, bits, cogs, the shining multiples.
I am dying as I sit. I lose a dimension.
Trains roar in my ears, departures, departures!
The silver track of time empties into the distance,
The white sky empties of its promise, like a cup.
These are my feet, these mechanical echoes.
Tap, tap, tap, steel pegs. I am found wanting.

This is a disease I carry home, this is a death.
Again, this is a death....Read more of this...

by Akhmatova, Anna
...tova.html

 * I * 

We thought we were beggars, we thought we had nothing at all
But then when we started to lose one thing after another,
Each day became
A memorial day --
And then we made songs
Of great divine generosity
And of our former riches.


Unification

I'll leave your quiet yard and your white house -
Let life be empty and with light complete.
I'll sing the glory to you in my verse
Like not one woman has sung glory yet.
And th...Read more of this...

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