Get Your Premium Membership

Famous Matters Poems by Famous Poets

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

See also:

Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry
...ng to construct something
Upon which to rejoice

And pray to God to have mercy upon us
And pray that I may forget
These matters that with myself I too much discuss
Too much explain
Because I do not hope to turn again
Let these words answer
For what is done, not to be done again
May the judgement not be too heavy upon us

Because these wings are no longer wings to fly
But merely vans to beat the air
The air which is now thoroughly small and dry
Smaller and dryer than the will
...Read more of this...
by Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)



...eral is held; and the surviving visitors become in a way vassals or liegemen of Finn, going back with him to Frisia. So matters rest a while. Hengest is now leader of the Danes; but he is set upon revenge for his former lord, Hnaef. Probably he is killed in feud; but his clansmen, Guthlaf and Oslaf, gather at their home a force of sturdy Danes, come back to Frisia, storm Finn’s stronghold, kill him, and carry back their kinswoman Hildeburh.

{16f} The “enemies” must be the ...Read more of this...
by Anonymous,
...d mass we seek to rule: 
We are their lords, or they are free of us, 
Just as we tighten or relax our hold. 
So, others matters equal, we'll revert 
To the first problem--which, if solved my way 
And thrown into the balance, turns the scale-- 
How we may lead a comfortable life, 
How suit our luggage to the cabin's size. 



Of course you are remarking all this time 
How narrowly and grossly I view life, 
Respect the creature-comforts, care to rule 
The masses, and regard com...Read more of this...
by Browning, Robert
...bulation, and that those "other times"
Are in fact the silences of the soul, picked out in 
Diamonds on stygian velvet, matters less than it should.
Prodigies of timing may be arranged to convince them
We live in one dimension, they in ours. While I
Abroad through all the coasts of dark destruction seek
Deliverance for us all, think in that language: its 
Grammar, though tortured, offers pavillions
At each new parting of the ways. Pastel
Ambulances scoop up the quick and hie ...Read more of this...
by Ashbery, John
...table sun. I was athirst
To search the book, and in the warming air
Parted its dripping leaves with eager care.
Strange matters did it treat of, and drew on
My soul page after page, till well-nigh won
Into forgetfulness; when, stupefied,
I read these words, and read again, and tried
My eyes against the heavens, and read again.
O what a load of misery and pain
Each Atlas-line bore off!--a shine of hope
Came gold around me, cheering me to cope
Strenuous with hellish tyranny. At...Read more of this...
by Keats, John



...be. 
 Aged he is, but of a lineage rare; 
 The least intrepid of the birds that dare 
 Is not the eagle barbed. What matters age, 
 The years but fire him with a holy rage. 
 Though late from Palestine, he is not spent,— 
 With age he wrestles, firm in his intent. 
 
 III. 
 
 IN THE FOREST. 
 
 If in the woodland traveller there had been 
 That eve, who lost himself, strange sight he'd seen. 
 Quite in the forest's heart a lighted space 
 Arose to view; in tha...Read more of this...
by Hugo, Victor
...s 
 Looms but the Horror of the shade, 
And yet the menace of the years 
 Finds, and shall find, me unafraid. 

It matters not how strait the gate, 
 How charged with punishments the scroll, 
I am the master of my fate: 
 I am the captain of my soul....Read more of this...
by Henley, William Ernest
...spoil! 

XIII. 

A moment's pause — 'tis but to breathe their band 
Or shall they onward press, or here withstand? 
It matters little — if they charge the foes 
Who by their border-stream their march oppose, 
Some few, perchance, may break and pass the line, 
However link'd to baffle such design. 
"The charge be ours! to wait for their assault 
Were fate well worthy of a coward's halt." 
Forth flies each sabre, rein'd is every steed, 
And the next word shall scarce outstrip ...Read more of this...
by Byron, George (Lord)
...e she said it, but she said it):
"None of my family ever worked, or had
A thing to sell." I don't suppose the work
Much matters. You may work for all of me.
I've seen the time I've had to work myself.
The having anything to sell is what
Is the disgrace in man or state or nation.

I met a traveler from Arkansas
Who boasted of his state as beautiful
For diamonds and apples. "Diamonds
And apples in commercial quantities?"
I asked him, on my guard. "Oh, yes," he answered,
Off his...Read more of this...
by Frost, Robert
...Wordsworth heard about 
 the scraps of paper on the table, and tried shuffling some 
 stanzas of his own, but only made matters worse.
I would not have known any of this but for my reluctance to eat oatmeal 
 alone.
When breakfast was over, John recited "To Autumn."
He recited it slowly, with much feeling, and he articulated the words 
 lovingly, and his odd accent sounded sweet.
He didn't offer the story of writing "To Autumn," I doubt if there 
 is much of one.
But he did s...Read more of this...
by Kinnell, Galway
...fears aggrandize the rags and tatters:
``To bring the invisible full into play!
``Let the visible go to the dogs---what matters?''

XX.

Give these, I exhort you, their guerdon and glory
For daring so much, before they well did it. 
The first of the new, in our race's story,
Beats the last of the old; 'tis no idle quiddit. 
The worthies began a revolution,
Which if on earth you intend to acknowledge,
Why, honour them now! (ends my allocution)
Nor confer your degree when the f...Read more of this...
by Browning, Robert
...n her soft axle, while she paces even, 
And bears thee soft with the smooth hair along; 
Sollicit not thy thoughts with matters hid; 
Leave them to God above; him serve, and fear! 
Of other creatures, as him pleases best, 
Wherever placed, let him dispose; joy thou 
In what he gives to thee, this Paradise 
And thy fair Eve; Heaven is for thee too high 
To know what passes there; be lowly wise: 
Think only what concerns thee, and thy being; 
Dream not of other worlds, what cre...Read more of this...
by Milton, John
...still remains,
Deep-versed in books and shallow in himself,
Crude or intoxicate, collecting toys
And trifles for choice matters, worth a sponge,
As children gathering pebbles on the shore. 
Or, if I would delight my private hours
With music or with poem, where so soon
As in our native language can I find
That solace? All our Law and Story strewed
With hymns, our Psalms with artful terms inscribed,
Our Hebrew songs and harps, in Babylon
That pleased so well our victor's ear, d...Read more of this...
by Milton, John
...n the action of leveling,
Why it should all boil down to one
Uniform substance, a magma of interiors.
My guide in these matters is your self,
Firm, oblique, accepting everything with the same
Wraith of a smile, and as time speeds up so that it is soon
Much later, I can know only the straight way out,
The distance between us. Long ago
The strewn evidence meant something,
The small accidents and pleasures
Of the day as it moved gracelessly on,
A housewife doing chores. Impossib...Read more of this...
by Ashbery, John
...-pane.”

“Brother Meserve, take care, you’ll scare yourself
More than you will us with such nightmare talk.
It’s you it matters to, because it’s you
Who have to go out into it alone.”

“Let him talk, Helen, and perhaps he’ll stay.”

“Before you drop the curtain—I’m reminded:
You recollect the boy who came out here
To breathe the air one winter—had a room
Down at the Averys’? Well, one sunny morning
After a downy storm, he passed our place
And found me banking up the house wit...Read more of this...
by Frost, Robert
...ffir wrought this deed of fear. 

XIII. 

"How first their strife to rancour grew, 
If love or envy made them foes, 
It matters little if I knew; 
In fiery spirits, slights, though few 
And thoughtless, will disturb repose. 
In war Abdallah's arm was strong, 
Remember'd yet in Bosniac song, 
And Paswan's rebel hordes attest [31] 
How little love they bore such guest: 
His death is all I need relate, 
The stern effect of Giaffir's hate; 
And how my birth disclosed to me, 
What...Read more of this...
by Byron, George (Lord)
...g, quite by a mistake,
Along the street where Heinrich had his shop.
What harm to pass it since she should not stop!
It matters nothing how one day she met
Him on a bridge, and blushed, and hurried by.
Nor how the following week he stood to let
Her pass, the pavement narrowing suddenly.
How once he took her basket, and once he
Pulled back a rearing horse who might have struck
Her with his hoofs. It seemed the oddest luck
How many times their business took them each
Right to t...Read more of this...
by Lowell, Amy
...carried her,
The day she arrived and the Duke married her.
And, do you know, though it's easy deceiving
Oneself in such matters, I can't help believing
The lady had not forgotten it either,
And knew the poor devil so much beneath her
Would have been only too glad for her service
To dance on hot ploughshares like a Turk dervise,
But, unable to pay proper duty where owing it,
Was reduced to that pitiful method of showing it:
For though the moment I began setting
His saddle on m...Read more of this...
by Browning, Robert
...— by its wire, 
And will be judged like all the rest, no doubt: 
My business and your own is not to inquire 
Into such matters, but to mind our cue — 
Which is to act as we are bid to do.' 

XXIII 

While thus they spake, the angelic caravan, 
Arriving like a rush of mighty wind, 
Cleaving the fields of space, as doth the swan 
Some silver stream (say Ganges, Nile, or Inde, 
Or Thames, or Tweed), and 'midst them an old man 
With an old soul, and both extremely blind, 
Halted...Read more of this...
by Byron, George (Lord)
...and hate, and doubt,
And cold suspicion never rise;
Where thou, and I, and Liberty,
Have undisputed sovereignty. 

What matters it, that, all around,
Danger, and guilt, and darkness lie,
If but within our bosom's bound
We hold a bright, untroubled sky,
Warm with ten thousand mingled rays
Of suns that know no winter days? 

Reason, indeed, may oft complain
For Nature's sad reality,
And tell the suffering heart, how vain
Its cherished dreams must always be;
And Truth may rudely...Read more of this...
by Brontë, Emily

Dont forget to view our wonderful member Matters poems.


Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry