Famous Meets Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Written among the Euganean Hills North Italy

by Percy Bysshe Shelley
MANY a green isle needs must be 
In the deep wide sea of Misery, 
Or the mariner, worn and wan, 
Never thus could voyage on 
Day and night, and night and day, 5 
Drifting on his dreary way, 
With the solid darkness black 
Closing round his vessel's track; 
Whilst above, the sunless sky 
Big with clouds, hangs heavily, 10 
And...Read more of this...

Hugh Selwyn Mauberly (Part I)

by Ezra Pound
 "Vocat aestus in umbram" 
Nemesianus Es. IV. 

E. P. Ode pour l'élection de son sépulchre 

For three years, out of key with his time,
He strove to resuscitate the dead art
Of poetry; to maintain "the sublime"
In the old sense. Wrong from the start --

No, hardly, but, seeing he had been born
In a half savage country, out of date;
Bent resolutely on...Read more of this...

Procemion

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
 IN His blest name, who was His own creation,
Who from all time makes making his vocation;
The name of Him who makes our faith so bright,
Love, confidence, activity, and might;
In that One's name, who, named though oft He be,
Unknown is ever in Reality:
As far as ear can reach, or eyesight dim,
Thou findest but the known resembling Him;
How high so'er thy...Read more of this...

The Iliad: Book VI (excerpt)

by Alexander Pope
 He said, and pass'd with sad presaging heart
To seek his spouse, his soul's far dearer part;
At home he sought her, but he sought in vain:
She, with one maid of all her menial train,
Had thence retir'd; and, with her second joy,
The young Astyanax, the hope of Troy,
Pensive she stood on Ilion's tow'ry height,
Beheld the war, and sicken'd at the sight;
There...Read more of this...

Under Ben Bulben

by William Butler Yeats
 I

Swear by what the sages spoke
Round the Mareotic Lake
That the Witch of Atlas knew,
Spoke and set the cocks a-crow.

Swear by those horsemen, by those women
Complexion and form prove superhuman,
That pale, long-visaged company
That air in immortality
Completeness of their passions won;
Now they ride the wintry dawn
Where Ben Bulben sets the scene.

Here's the gist of what they mean.

 II

Many times man lives...Read more of this...

A Cliff Dwelling

by Robert Frost
 There sandy seems the golden sky
And golden seems the sandy plain.
No habitation meets the eye
Unless in the horizon rim,
Some halfway up the limestone wall,
That spot of black is not a stain
Or shadow, but a cavern hole,
Where someone used to climb and crawl
To rest from his besetting fears.
I see the callus on his soul
The disappearing last of him
And of his...Read more of this...

Astræ

by Ralph Waldo Emerson
 Himself it was who wrote
His rank, and quartered his own coat.
There is no king nor sovereign state
That can fix a hero's rate;
Each to all is venerable,
Cap-a-pie invulnerable,
Until he write, where all eyes rest,
Slave or master on his breast.

I saw men go up and down
In the country and the town,
With this prayer upon their neck,
"Judgment and a judge we seek."
Not...Read more of this...

Il Penseroso

by John Milton
 Hence, vain deluding Joys,
............The brood of Folly without father bred!
How little you bested
............Or fill the fixed mind with all your toys!
Dwell in some idle brain,
............And fancies fond with gaudy shapes possess,
As thick and numberless
............As the gay motes that people the sun-beams,
Or likest hovering dreams,
............The fickle pensioners of Morpheus' train.
But, hail! thou Goddess sage and holy!
Hail, divinest Melancholy!
Whose saintly visage...Read more of this...

Certain Maxims Of Hafiz

by Rudyard Kipling
  I.
If It be pleasant to look on, stalled in the packed serai,
Does not the Young Man try Its temper and pace ere he buy?
If She be pleasant to look on, what does the Young Man say?
"Lo! She is pleasant to look on, give Her to me to-day!"

 II.
Yea, though a Kafir die, to him is remitted Jehannum
If he...Read more of this...

Last night I had a dream

by Muhammad Ali
Last night I had a dream, When I got to Africa,
I had one hell of a rumble.
I had to beat Tarzan’s behind first,
For claiming to be King of the Jungle.
For this fight, I’ve wrestled with alligators,
I’ve tussled with a whale.
I done handcuffed lightning
And throw thunder in jail.
You know I’m bad.
just last week, I murdered a rock,
Injured a stone, Hospitalized a...Read more of this...

The Negro Boy

by James Henry Leigh Hunt
 Paupertas onus visa est grave.


Cold blows the wind, and while the tear
Bursts trembling from my swollen eyes,
The rain's big drop, quick meets it there,
And on my naked bosom flies!
O pity, all ye sons of Joy,
The little wand'ring *****-boy.

These tatter'd clothes, this ice-cold breast
By Winter harden'd into steel,
These eyes, that know not soothing rest,
But speak the half of what I...Read more of this...

Stanzas to the Rose

by Mary Darby Robinson
 SWEET PICTURE of Life's chequer'd hour!
Ah, wherefore droop thy blushing head?
Tell me, oh tell me, hap'less flow'r,
Is it because thy charms are fled? 
Come, gentle ROSE, and learn from me 
A lesson of Philosophy. 

Thy scented buds, LIFE'S joys disclose;
They strew our paths with magic sweets;
Where many a thorn like thine, fair ROSE,
Full oft the weary wand'rer meets; 
And...Read more of this...

Does It Pay?

by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
 If one poor burdened toiler o’er life’s road, 
Who meets us by the way, 
Goes on less conscious of his galling load, 
Then life, indeed, does pay.

If we can show the troubled heart the gain
That lies always in loss, 
Why, then, we too are paid for all the pain
Of bearing life’s hard cross.

If some despondent soul to hope is...Read more of this...

Entanglements

by Barry Tebb
 Why is it that in dreams I have visited -

As teacher or pupil - almost every college and school

In our once so green and pleasant land?

Hardly a subject from art to anthropology I have not

In dream seminar or floating spinning classroom

Studied or tried my prentice hand at, or learned

At the sandalled feet of some guru; as this minute

I returned...Read more of this...

Two Gardens in Linndale

by Edwin Arlington Robinson
 Two brothers, Oakes and Oliver, 
Two gentle men as ever were, 
Would roam no longer, but abide 
In Linndale, where their fathers died, 
And each would be a gardener.

“Now first we fence the garden through, 
With this for me and that for you,” 
Said Oliver.—“Divine!” said Oakes, 
“And I, while I raise artichokes, 
Will do what I was born...Read more of this...

Ode On The Spring

by Thomas Gray
 Lo! where the rosy-bosomed Hours,
Fair Venus' train, appear,
Disclose the long-expecting flowers,
And wake the purple year!
The Attic warbler pours her throat,
Responsive to the cuckoo's note,
The untaught harmony of spring:
While, whisp'ring pleasure as they fly,
Cool Zephyrs thro' the clear blue sky
Their gathered fragrance fling.

Where'er the oak's thick branches stretch
A broader browner shade,
Where'er the rude and moss-grown beech
O'er-canopies the glade,
Beside some water's...Read more of this...

Leda

by Hilda Doolittle
 Where the slow river 
meets the tide, 
a red swan lifts red wings 
and darker beak, 
and underneath the purple down 
of his soft breast 
uncurls his coral feet. 

Through the deep purple 
of the dying heat 
of sun and mist, 
the level ray of sun-beam 
has caressed 
the lily with dark breast, 
and flecked with richer gold 
its...Read more of this...

Song For The Severed Head In `The King Of The Great Clock Tower

by William Butler Yeats
 Saddle and ride, I heard a man say,
Out of Ben Bulben and Knocknarea,
What says the Clock in the Great Clock Tower?
All those tragic characters ride
But turn from Rosses' crawling tide,
The meet's upon the mountain-side.
A slow low note and an iron bell.

What brought them there so far from their home.
Cuchulain that fought night long with the foam,
What says the Clock...Read more of this...

To Mr James Scrymgeour Dundee

by William Topaz McGonagall
 Success to James Scrymgeour,
He's a very good man,
And to gainsay it,
There's few people can; 

Because he makes the hearts
Of the poor o'erjoyed
By trying to find work for them
When they're unemployed. 

And to their complaints
He has always an attentive ear,
And ever ready to help them
When unto him they draw near. 

And no matter what your occupation is.
Or what is your...Read more of this...

Sound Of Sleat

by Jackie Kay
 I always looked out at the world,
And wondered if the world looked back at me,
Standing on the edge of something,
On my face- the wind from the cold sea.


Across the waters were mirrors to see
Faces that looked like me,
People caught between two places,
People crossing over the seas.


And it seemed from my croft
-With the old stones and the sheep,
And the sound...Read more of this...

Psalm 130

by Isaac Watts
 Pardoning grace.

Out of the deeps of long distress,
The borders of despair,
I sent my cries to seek thy grace,
My groans to move thine ear.

Great God, should thy severer eye,
And thine impartial hand,
Mark and revenge iniquity,
No mortal flesh could stand.

But there are pardons with my God
For crimes of high degree;
Thy Son has bought them with his blood,
To draw us near to...Read more of this...

The Cathedral of Rheims

by Joyce Kilmer
 (From the French of Emile Verhaeren)

He who walks through the meadows of Champagne
At noon in Fall, when leaves like gold appear,
Sees it draw near
Like some great mountain set upon the plain,
From radiant dawn until the close of day,
Nearer it grows
To him who goes
Across the country. When tall towers lay
Their shadowy pall
Upon his way,
He enters, where
The solid stone is hollowed...Read more of this...

139. Lines on Meeting with Lord Daer

by Robert Burns
 THIS 1 wot ye all whom it concerns,
I, Rhymer Robin, alias Burns,
 October twenty-third,
A ne’er-to-be-forgotten day,
Sae far I sprackl’d up the brae,
 I dinner’d wi’ a Lord.


I’ve been at drucken writers’ feasts,
Nay, been *****-fou ’mang godly priests—
 Wi’ rev’rence be it spoken!—
I’ve even join’d the honour’d jorum,
When mighty Squireships of the quorum,
 Their hydra drouth did sloken.


But wi’ a...Read more of this...

The Imperfect Enjoyment

by John Wilmot
 Naked she lay, clasped in my longing arms,
I filled with love, and she all over charms;
Both equally inspired with eager fire,
Melting through kindness, flaming in desire.
With arms,legs,lips close clinging to embrace,
She clips me to her breast, and sucks me to her face.
Her nimble tongue, Love's lesser lightening, played
Within my mouth, and to my thoughts conveyed
Swift orders that I should...Read more of this...

Christmass

by John Clare
 Christmass is come and every hearth
Makes room to give him welcome now
Een want will dry its tears in mirth
And crown him wi a holly bough
Tho tramping neath a winters sky
Oer snow track paths and ryhmey stiles
The huswife sets her spining bye
And bids him welcome wi her smiles
Each house is swept the day before
And windows stuck wi evergreens
The snow is...Read more of this...

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