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Famous Make Sure Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Edson, Russell
...r. I'll have to remove the other one. But 
don't worry, it'll be an accident.
 Symmetry demands it. But make sure it's an accident, I 
don't want you cutting me up on purpose.
 Maybe I'll just slit your throat.
 But it has to be an accident . . ....Read more of this...



by Kipling, Rudyard
...' a little too soon),
I'll 'ave to think over it first --
     Me!

I will arise an' get 'ence --
I will trek South and make sure
If it's only my fancy or not
That the sunshine of England is pale,
And the breezes of England are stale,
An' there's something' gone small with the lot.
For I know of a sun an' a wind,
An' some plains and a mountain be'ind,
An' some graves by a barb-wire fence,
An' a Dutchman I've fought 'oo might give
Me a job where I ever inclined
To look in ...Read more of this...

by Collins, Billy
...Baudelaire considers you his brother,
and Fielding calls out to you every few paragraphs 
as if to make sure you have not closed the book,
and now I am summoning you up again,
attentive ghost, dark silent figure standing 
in the doorway of these words.

Pope welcomes you into the glow of his study,
takes down a leather-bound Ovid to show you.
Tennyson lifts the latch to a moated garden,
and with Yeats you lean against a broken pear tree,
the day h...Read more of this...

by Kipling, Rudyard
...e guide. . . .
Oh, our world is none the safer
 Now Great-Heart hath died!

Let those who would handle
 Make sure they can wield
His far-reaching sword
 And his close-guarding shield:
For those who must journey
 Henceforward alone
Have need of stout convoy
 Now Great-Heart is gone....Read more of this...

by Edgar, Marriott
...Where a stroke of the axe did the rest.

A feller they called Perkin Warbeck
Was the one who led Henry a dance, 
To make sure that nowt awkward should happen to him
He worked from an office in France.

He claimed to be one of the Princes
As were smothered to death in the Tower. 
His tale was that only his brother was killed
And that he had escaped the seas ower.

Henry knew the appeal of the Princes
Was a strong one for Perkin to make, 
And he reckoned he'd be...Read more of this...



by Dickinson, Emily
...d Windows hanging low,
Inviting to --
A Portico,
Where two could creep --
One -- hand the Tools --
The other peep --
To make sure All's Asleep --
Old fashioned eyes --
Not easy to surprise!

How orderly the Kitchen'd look, by night,
With just a Clock --
But they could gag the Tick --
And Mice won't bark --
And so the Walls -- don't tell --
None -- will --

A pair of Spectacles ajar just stir --
An Almanac's aware --
Was it the Mat -- winked,
Or a Nervous Star?
The Moon -- sli...Read more of this...

by Untermeyer, Louis
...Can that be you, la mouche? Wait till I lift
This palsied eye-lid and make sure... Ah, true.
Come in, dear fly, and pardon my delay
In thus existing; I can promise you
Next time you come you'll find no dying poet—
Without sufficient spleen to see me through,
The joke becomes too tedious a jest.
I am afraid my mind is dull to-day;
I have that—something—heavier on my chest
And then, you see, I've been exchanging thoughts...Read more of this...

by Edson, Russell
...e a little further, which may reveal now the 
stone, a pebble--it is a twig, it is nothing under the moon that 
you can make sure of.
 So Mr Brain opened his mouth to let a moonbeam into his head. 

 Why to be alone, and you invite the stars to tea. A cup of 
tea drinks a luminous guest. 

 In the winter could you sit quietly by the window, in the 
evening when you could have vinegar and pretend it to be 
wine, because you would do well to eat doughnuts and 
p...Read more of this...

by Bukowski, Charles
...glass
disappears for 2 hours, 3 hours,
then suddenly comes walking back in
unannounced
with the same cocktail glass
to make sure I haven't gotten hold of
something more precious than
Life itself.

my cheap green beer is killing
me. he shows heart (hurrah) and
gives me a little pill that stops my
gagging.
but nothing decent to
drink.

he'd bought a small 6 pack
for my arrival but that was gone in an
hour and 15
minutes.

"I'll buy you barrels of beer," he ...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...in bliss; thence on the earth 
Dominion exercise and in the air, 
Chiefly on Man, sole lord of all declared; 
Him first make sure your thrall, and lastly kill. 
My substitutes I send ye, and create 
Plenipotent on earth, of matchless might 
Issuing from me: on your joint vigour now 
My hold of this new kingdom all depends, 
Through Sin to Death exposed by my exploit. 
If your joint power prevail, the affairs of Hell 
No detriment need fear; go, and be strong! 
So sayi...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...to enjoy it quiet and secure 
Between two such enclosing enemies,
Roman and Parthian? Therefore one of these
Thou must make sure thy own: the Parthian first,
By my advice, as nearer, and of late
Found able by invasion to annoy
Thy country, and captive lead away her kings,
Antigonus and old Hyrcanus, bound,
Maugre the Roman. It shall be my task
To render thee the Parthian at dispose,
Choose which thou wilt, by conquest or by league. 
By him thou shalt regain, without ...Read more of this...

by Brautigan, Richard
...e salesman said. "I wouldn't want you to think

that we would ever sell a murky trout stream here. We al-

ways make sure they're running crystal clear before we even

think about moving them. "

 "Where did the stream come from?" I asked.

 "Colorado, " he said. "We moved it with loving care. We've

never damaged a trout stream yet. We treat them all as if

they were china. "

 "You're probably asked this all the time, but how's fish-

ing in ...Read more of this...

by Brautigan, Richard
...She put

the pan full of fish on the shore and the baby played with

the fish for an hour.

 We watched the baby to make sure she was just leaning

on them a little. We didn't want her to kill any of them be-

cause she was too young.

 Instead of making her furry sound, she adapted rapidly

to the difference between animals and fish, and was soon

making a silver sound.

 She caught one of the fish with her hand and looked at it

for a while. We took the ...Read more of this...

by Paterson, Andrew Barton
...t always came -- and I settled 'em, sure as fate; 
Left on the ribs and right on the jaw -- and, when the chance comes, make sure! 
And it's there a professional bloke like me gets home on an amateur: 
For it's my experience every day, and I make no doubt it's yours, 
That a third-class pro is an over-match for the best of the amateurs --" 
"Oh, take your swag to the travellers' hut," said Smith, "for you waste your breath; 
You've a first-class chance, if you lose the fight,...Read more of this...

by Browning, Robert
...`To be run, and continued, and ended---who knows?---or endure!
``The man taught enough, by life's dream, of the rest to make sure;
``By the pain-throb, triumphantly winning intensified bliss,
``And the next world's reward and repose, by the struggles in this.

XVIII.

``I believe it! 'Tis thou, God, that givest, 'tis I who receive:
``In the first is the last, in thy will is my power to believe.
``All's one gift: thou canst grant it moreover, as prompt to my prayer...Read more of this...

by Duhamel, Denise
...'s Asian. 
When we were first dating, I told him
"You were talking in your sleep last night
and I listened, just to make sure you didn't 
call out anyone else's name." My future-husband said
that he couldn't be held responsible for his subconscious, 
which worried me, which made me think his dreams
were full of blond vixens in rabbit-fur bikinis.
but he said no, he dreamt mostly about boulders 
and the ocean and volcanoes, dangerous weather 
he witnessed but could...Read more of this...

by McGonagall, William Topaz
...to yield. 

And he uttered a fearful cry
To his gay archers near by,
Ho! archers! draw your arrows to the head,
And make sure to kill them dead;
Forward, without dread, and make them fly,
Saint George for England, be our cry! 

Then the arrows from their bows swiftly did go,
And fell amongst them as thick as the flakes of snow;
Then Bruce he drew his trusty blade,
And in heroic language said,
Forward! my heroes, bold and true!
And break the archers' ranks through and thro...Read more of this...

by McGough, Roger
...So you think its Stephen?
Then I'd best make sure
Be on the safe side as it were.
Ah, theres been a mistake. The hair
you see, its black, now Stephens fair ...
Whats that? The explosion?
Of course, burnt black. Silly of me.
I should have known. Then lets get on.

The face, is that the face mask?
that mask of charred wood
blistered scarred could
that have been a ...Read more of this...

by Abercrombie, Lascelles
...be tame.' -- Have you the Indian speech? 

Thomas 
Not yet: it will be given me, I trust. 

Captain 
You'd best make sure of the gift. Another stranger, 
Who swore he knew of better gods than ours, 
Seemed to the king troubled with fleas, and slaves 
Were told to groom him smartly, which they did 
Thoroughly with steel combs, until at last 
They curried the living flesh from his bones 
And stript his face of gristle, till he was 
Skull and half skeleton and yet al...Read more of this...

by Piercy, Marge
...br>
Sometimes a woman in a uniform's on duty
black or whatever the prevailing bottom is
getting thirty cents an hour to make sure
no woman sneaks her full bladder under a door.
Most blatantly you shout that waste of resources
for the greatest good of the smallest number
where twenty pay toilets line up glinty clean
and at the end of the row one free toilet
oozes from under its crooked door,
while a row of weary women carrying packages and babies
wait and wait and wait to ...Read more of this...

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