Famous Merely Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Merely poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous merely poems. These examples illustrate what a famous merely poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Edward Lear
There was a Young Lady of Parma,Whose conduct grew calmer and calmer:When they said, "Are you dumb?" she merely said, "Hum!"That provoking Young Lady of Parma. ...Read more of this...
by
William Topaz McGonagall
'Twas in the year of 1888, and on July the 14th day,
That an alarming accident occurred in the River Tay.
Which resulted in the sinking of the Tay Ferries' Steamer "Dundee,"
Which was a most painful and sickening sight to see.
The Steamer was engaged by the Independent Order of Rechabites,
And all were resolved to see some rural sights;
And the place...Read more of this...
by
Lewis Carroll
The Beaver's Lesson
They sought it with thimbles, they sought it with care;
They pursued it with forks and hope;
They threatened its life with a railway-share;
They charmed it with smiles and soap.
Then the Butcher contrived an ingenious plan
For making a separate sally;
And fixed on a spot unfrequented by man,
A dismal and desolate valley....Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
While it is alive
Until Death touches it
While it and I lap one Air
Dwell in one Blood
Under one Sacrament
Show me Division can split or pare --
Love is like Life -- merely longer
Love is like Death, during the Grave
Love is the Fellow of the Resurrection
Scooping up the Dust and chanting "Live"!...Read more of this...
by
Rupert Brooke
"Oh! Love," they said, "is King of Kings,
And Triumph is his crown.
Earth fades in flame before his wings,
And Sun and Moon bow down." --
But that, I knew, would never do;
And Heaven is all too high.
So whenever I meet a Queen, I said,
I will not catch her eye.
"Oh! Love," they said, and "Love," they said,
"The gift of Love is this;
A...Read more of this...
by
Thomas Moore
Lesbia hath a beaming eye,
But no one knows for whom it beameth;
Right and left its arrows fly,
But what they aim at no one dreameth.
Sweeter 'tis to gaze upon
My Nora's lid that seldom rises;
Few its looks, but every one,
Like unexpected light, surprises!
Oh, my Nora Creina, dear,
My gentle, bashful Nora Creina,
Beauty...Read more of this...
by
T S (Thomas Stearns) Eliot
You ought to know Mr. Mistoffelees!
The Original Conjuring Cat--
(There can be no doubt about that).
Please listen to me and don't scoff. All his
Inventions are off his own bat.
There's no such Cat in the metropolis;
He holds all the patent monopolies
For performing suprising illusions
And creating eccentric confusions.
At prestidigitation
And at legerdemain
He'll defy examination
And deceive you again.
The greatest magicians have something to learn
From...Read more of this...
by
Yehuda Amichai
And we shall not get excited. Because a translator
May not get excited. Calmly, we shall pass on
Words from man to son, from one tongue
To others' lips, un-
Knowingly, like a father who passes on
The features of his dead father's face
To his son, and he himself is like neither of them. Merely a mediator.
We shall remember the things we held in...Read more of this...
by
Walt Whitman
1
HARK! some wild trumpeter—some strange musician,
Hovering unseen in air, vibrates capricious tunes to-night.
I hear thee, trumpeter—listening, alert, I catch thy notes,
Now pouring, whirling like a tempest round me,
Now low, subdued—now in the distance lost.
2
Come nearer, bodiless one—haply, in thee resounds
Some dead composer—haply thy pensive life
Was fill’d with aspirations high—unform’d ideals,
Waves, oceans musical,...Read more of this...
by
Anne Sexton
It's in the heart of the grape
where that smile lies.
It's in the good-bye-bow in the hair
where that smile lies.
It's in the clerical collar of the dress
where that smile lies.
What smile?
The smile of my seventh year,
caught here in the painted photograph.
It's peeling now, age has got it,
a kind of cancer of the background
and also in the assorted features.
It's like a...Read more of this...
by
Victor Hugo
("Il neigeait.")
{Bk. V. xiii., Nov. 25-30, 1852.}
It snowed. A defeat was our conquest red!
For once the eagle was hanging its head.
Sad days! the Emperor turned slowly his back
On smoking Moscow, blent orange and black.
The winter burst, avalanche-like, to reign
Over the endless blanched sheet of...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
"Lethe" in my flower,
Of which they who drink
In the fadeless orchards
Hear the bobolink!
Merely flake or petal
As the Eye beholds
Jupiter! my father!
I perceive the rose!...Read more of this...
by
Francesco Petrarch
[Pg 178] SONNET CLXIV. L' aura celeste che 'n quel verde Lauro. HER HAIR AND EYES. The heavenly airs from yon green laurel roll'd,Where Love to Phœbus whilom dealt his stroke,Where on my neck was placed so sweet a yoke,That freedom thence I hope not to behold,O'er me...Read more of this...
by
Richard Brautigan
Sometimes life is merely a matter of coffee and whatever intimacy a cup of coffee
affords. I once read something about coffee. The thing said that coffee is good for you;
it stimulates all the organs.
I thought at first this was a strange way to put it, and not altogether pleasant, but
as time goes by I have found out that it...Read more of this...
by
Delmore Schwartz
"I have been one acquainted with the night" - Robert Frost
Rode in the train all night, in the sick light. A bird
Flew parallel with a singular will. In daydream's moods and
attitudes
The other passengers slumped, dozed, slept, read,
Waiting, and waiting for place to be displaced
On the exact track of safety or the rack of accident.
Looked out at the night,...Read more of this...
by
Amy Lowell
Holy Mother of God, Merciful Mary. Hear
me! I am very weary. I have come
from a village miles away, all day I have been coming, and I ache
for such
far roaming. I cannot walk as light as I used, and my
thoughts grow confused.
I am heavier than I was. Mary Mother, you know the cause!
Beautiful Holy Lady, take my...Read more of this...
by
Jean Ingelow
A Scholar is musing on his want of success.)
To strive—and fail. Yes, I did strive and fail;
I set mine eyes upon a certain night
To find a certain star—and could not hail
With them its deep-set light.
Fool that I was! I will rehearse my fault:
I, wingless, thought myself on high to lift
Among...Read more of this...
by
Delmore Schwartz
When from the watercolored window idly you look
Each is but and clear to see, not steep:
So does the neat print in an actual book
Marching as if to true conclusion, reap
The illimitable blue immensely overhead,
The night of the living and the day of the dead.
I drive in an auto all night long to reach
The apple which has sewed the...Read more of this...
by
Bob Hicok
Wasn't on purpose that I drilled
through my finger or the nurse
laughed. She apologized
three times and gave me a shot
of something that was a lusher
apology. The person
who drove me home
said my smile was a smeared
totem that followed
his body that night as it arced
over a cliff in a dream.
He's always flying...Read more of this...
by
Edward Lear
There was an old person of Sestri,Who sate himself down in the vestry;When they said, "You are wrong!" he merely said "Bong!"That repulsive old person of Sestri. ...Read more of this...
by
Frank Bidart
Bound, hungry to pluck again from the thousand
technologies of ecstasy
boundlessness, the world that at a drop of water
rises without boundaries,
I push the PLAY button:—
...Callas, Laurel & Hardy, Szigeti
you are alive again,—
the slow movement of K.218
once again no longer
bland, merely pretty, nearly
banal, as it is
in all but Szigeti's hands
*
Therefore you and I and Mozart
must thank the Twentieth Century, for
it...Read more of this...
by
John Berryman
They pointed me out on the highway, and they said
'That man has a curious way of holding his head.'
They pointed me out on the beach; they said 'That man
Will never become as we are, try as he can.'
They pointed me out at the station, and the guard
Looked at me twice, thrice, thoughtfully & hard.
I took the same train that...Read more of this...
by
Robert Herrick
Fair pledges of a fruitful tree,
Why do ye fall so fast?
Your date is not so past,
But you may stay yet here a-while,
To blush and gently smile;
And go at last.
What, were ye born to be
An hour or half's delight;
And so to bid good-night?
'Twas pity Nature brought ye forth,
Merely to show your worth,
And lose you quite.
But you are lovely leaves, where...Read more of this...
by
Wystan Hugh (W H) Auden
When there are so many we shall have to mourn,when grief has been made so public, and exposedto the critique of a whole epochthe frailty of our conscience and anguish, of whom shall we speak? For every day they dieamong us, those who were doing us some good,who knew it was never enough buthoped to improve a little by living....Read more of this...
by
Rg Gregory
the winding wye
curls into my senses
feliniously
there's no such word
but no such river
merely exists
where this river slivers
between the dream
and the time i camped by it
has left a furmark
on my inward skin
it takes only a wet thought
for hunchbacked woods
and a drift of mist
lifting off the silver water
to sidle onto the retina
where the lazy mind's at ease
(nectar's the drinks all round)
this is...Read more of this...
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