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Famous Masters Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry
...t
By Doctor's Bills to play the Doctor's Part,
Bold in the Practice of mistaken Rules,
Prescribe, apply, and call their Masters Fools.
Some on the Leaves of ancient Authors prey,
Nor Time nor Moths e'er spoil'd so much as they:
Some dryly plain, without Invention's Aid,
Write dull Receits how Poems may be made:
These leave the Sense, their Learning to display,
And theme explain the Meaning quite away

You then whose Judgment the right Course wou'd steer,
Know well each ANCIEN...Read more of this...
by Pope, Alexander



...proof of a poet shall be sternly deferr’d, till his country absorbs him as
 affectionately as he has absorb’d it.) 

He masters whose spirit masters—he tastes sweetest who results sweetest in the long
 run;
The blood of the brawn beloved of time is unconstraint; 
In the need of poems, philosophy, politics, manners, engineering, an appropriate native
 grand-opera, shipcraft, any craft, he or she is greatest who contributes the greatest
 original
 practical example. 

Already a...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt
...l within him obstinate pride
waxes and wakes while the warden slumbers,
the spirit’s sentry; sleep is too fast
which masters his might, and the murderer nears,
stealthily shooting the shafts from his bow!



XXV

“UNDER harness his heart then is hit indeed
by sharpest shafts; and no shelter avails
from foul behest of the hellish fiend. {25a}
Him seems too little what long he possessed.
Greedy and grim, no golden rings
he gives for his pride; the promised future...Read more of this...
by Anonymous,
...Classic draftsman Massa-
 chusets surreal jackanapes with continental wives, poverty 
 sketchbook gesso oil watercolor masters from American 
 provinces
Then highschool teachers, lonely Irish librarians, delicate biblio-
 philes, sex liberation troops nay armies, ladies of either sex
"I met him dozens of times he never remembered my name I loved 
 him anyway, true artist"
"Nervous breakdown after menopause, his poetry humor saved me 
 from suicide hospitals"
"Charmant, geniu...Read more of this...
by Ginsberg, Allen
...I went up and down the streets
Here and there by day and night,
Through all hours of the night caring for the poor who were sick.
Do you know why?
My wife hated me, my son went to the dogs.
And I turned to the people and poured out my love to them.
Sweet it was to see the crowds about the lawns on the day of my funeral,
And hear them murmur their lov...Read more of this...
by Masters, Edgar Lee



...unblemished fame 
 Till they had breathed the air of ages gone, 
 The funeral odors, in the nest alone 
 Of its dead masters. Ancient was the race; 
 To trace the upward stem of proud Lusace 
 Gives one a vertigo; descended they 
 From ancestor of Attila, men say; 
 Their race to him—through Pagans—they hark back; 
 Becoming Christians, race they thought to track 
 Through Lechus, Plato, Otho to combine 
 With Ursus, Stephen, in a lordly line. 
 Of all those master...Read more of this...
by Hugo, Victor
...ng the Pilgrims and prayer-makers,
Adventurers and booty seekers,
Free men and indentured servants,
Slave men and slave masters, all new-
To a new world, America!

With billowing sails the galleons came
Bringing men and dreams, women and dreams.
In little bands together,
Heart reaching out to heart,
Hand reaching out to hand,
They began to build our land.
Some were free hands
Seeking a greater freedom,
Some were indentured hands
Hoping to find their freedom,
Some were slave h...Read more of this...
by Hughes, Langston
...chrysanthemum
 on the books..
 SLEEP
 SI-YA-U
 SLEEP...


18 April

I've begun to forget
the names of those Renaissance masters.
I want to see
 the black bird-and-flower

 watercolors
 that slant-eyed Chinese painters

 drip
 from their long thin bamboo brushes.


NEWS FROM THE PARIS WIRELESS

 HALLO
 HALLO
 HALLO

 PARIS
 PARIS
 PARIS...

Voices race through the air
 like the fiery greyhounds.
The wireless in the Eiffel Tower calls out:
 HALLO
 HALLO
 HALLO

 PARIS
 PARIS
 P...Read more of this...
by Hikmet, Nazim
...n-cables of the ship. But my heart craved not pleasant food, and I fled secretly across the dark country and escaped my masters, that they should not take me unpurchased across the sea, there to win a price for me. And so I wandered and am come here: and I know not at all what land this is or what people are in it. But may all those who dwell on Olympus give you husbands and birth of children as parents desire, so you take pity on me, maidens, and show me this clearly that I ...Read more of this...
by Homer,
...nst thou daub a signpost, and that ill? 
'Twill suit our great debauch and little skill. 
Or hast thou marked how antic masters limn 
The aly-roof with snuff of candle dim, 
Sketching in shady smoke prodigious tools? 
'Twill serve this race of drunkards, pimps and fools. 
But if to match our crimes thy skill presumes, 
As th' Indians, draw our luxury in plumes. 
Or if to score out our compendious fame, 
With Hooke, then, through the microscope take aim, 
Where, like the new C...Read more of this...
by Marvell, Andrew
...uffer the august John Quincey Adams 
to speak with so much passion of the right 
of chattel slaves to kill their lawful masters 
and with his Roman rhetoric weave a hero's 
garland for Cinquez. I tell you that 
we are determined to return to Cuba 
with our slaves and there see justice done. 
Cinquez-- 
or let us say 'the Prince'--Cinquez shall die." 

The deep immortal human wish, 
the timeless will: 

Cinquez its deathless primaveral image, 
life that transfigures many lives...Read more of this...
by Hayden, Robert
...g. 
Now in sordid weeds they sleep,
Their secret now in dulness keep.
Yet, will you learn our ancient speech,
These the masters who can teach,
Fourscore or a hundred words
All their vocal muse affords,
These they turn in other fashion
Than the writer or the parson.
I can spare the college-bell,
And the learned lecture well.
Spare the clergy and libraries,
Institutes and dictionaries,
For the hardy English root
Thrives here unvalued underfoot.
Rude poets of the tavern hearth,
...Read more of this...
by Emerson, Ralph Waldo
...let those
 that
 were prisoners take the keys! Say! why might they not just as well be transposed?) 
Let the slaves be masters! let the masters become slaves!
Let the reformers descend from the stands where they are forever bawling! let an idiot or
 insane person appear on each of the stands! 
Let the Asiatic, the African, the European, the American, and the Australian, go armed
 against
 the murderous stealthiness of each other! let them sleep armed! let none believe in goo...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt
...command from Heav'n
To free my Countrey; if their servile minds
Me their Deliverer sent would not receive,
But to thir Masters gave me up for nought,
Th' unworthier they; whence to this day they serve.
I was to do my part from Heav'n assign'd,
And had perform'd it if my known offence
Had not disabl'd me, not all your force:
These shifts refuted, answer thy appellant 
Though by his blindness maim'd for high attempts,
Who now defies thee thrice to single fight,
As a petty ente...Read more of this...
by Milton, John
...eartfelt lay  
That shall soothe this restless feeling 15 
And banish the thoughts of day. 

Not from the grand old masters  
Not from the bards sublime  
Whose distant footsteps echo 
Through the corridors of Time. 20 

For like strains of martial music  
Their mighty thoughts suggest 
Life's endless toil and endeavor; 
And to-night I long for rest. 

Read from some humbler poet 25 
Whose songs gushed from his heart  
As showers from the clouds of summer  
O...Read more of this...
by Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
...ull fair grace
That such a lewed* mannes wit shall pace** *unlearned **surpass
The wisdom of an heap of learned men?
Of masters had he more than thries ten,
That were of law expert and curious:
Of which there was a dozen in that house,
Worthy to be stewards of rent and land
Of any lord that is in Engleland,
To make him live by his proper good,
In honour debtless, *but if he were wood*, *unless he were mad*
Or live as scarcely as him list desire;
And able for to helpen all a s...Read more of this...
by Chaucer, Geoffrey
...know them and all that they say 
I see only beautiful faces 
Good faces, sure of themselves 
Certain soon to ruin their masters 

II. The women’s role 

As they sing, the maids dash forward 
To tidy up the killing fields 
Well-powdered girls, quickly to their knees 

Their hands -- reaching for the fresh air -- 
Are blue like never before 
What a glorious day! 

Look at their hands, the dead 
Look at their liquid eyes 

This is the toilet of transience 
The final toilet of li...Read more of this...
by Eluard, Paul
...ry wight had dainty* to chaffare** *pleasure **deal
With them, and eke to selle them their ware.

Now fell it, that the masters of that sort
Have *shapen them* to Rome for to wend, *determined, prepared*
Were it for chapmanhood* or for disport, *trading
None other message would they thither send,
But come themselves to Rome, this is the end:
And in such place as thought them a vantage
For their intent, they took their herbergage.* *lodging

Sojourned have these merchants in t...Read more of this...
by Chaucer, Geoffrey
...resses, their hair hangs down in rain
like sailors' wives. They're classic trees, and we,
if we live like the names our masters please,
by careful mimicry might become men."


7 The Flight Anchors in
 Castries Harbor

When the stars self were young over Castries,
I loved you alone and I loved the whole world.
What does it matter that our lives are different?
Burdened with the loves of our different children?
When I think of your young face washed by the wind
and your voice th...Read more of this...
by Walcott, Derek
...
 they
 on the Pacific, and they between, and all through the Mississippi country, and all over
 the
 earth.

The great masters and kosmos are well as they go—the heroes and good-doers are well, 
The known leaders and inventors, and the rich owners and pious and distinguish’d, may
 be
 well, 
But there is more account than that—there is strict account of all. 

The interminable hordes of the ignorant and wicked are not nothing, 
The barbarians of Africa and Asia are not nothi...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt

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Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry