Famous Metres Poems by Famous Poets

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

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A Letter to a Live Poet

...verses of the day,
Infinite meaning in a little gloom,
Irregular thoughts in stanzas regular,
Modern despair in antique metres, myths
Incomprehensible at evening,
And symbols that mean nothing in the dawn.
The slow lines swell. The new style sighs. The Celt
Moans round with many voices.
God! to see
Gaunt anap?sts stand up out of the verse,
Combative accents, stress where no stress should be,
Spondee on spondee, iamb on choriamb,
The thrill of all the tribrachs in the world,
A...Read more of this...
by Brooke, Rupert


Clavering

...ve 
To Lingard leave to be amused, 
And listened with a patient grace 
That we, the wise ones, had refused;

I think of metres that he wrote 
For Cubit, the ophidian guest: 
“What Lilith, or Dark Lady”… Well, 
Time swallows Cubit with the rest. 

I think of last words that he said
One midnight over Calverly: 
“Good-by—good man.” He was not good; 
So Clavering was wrong, you see. 

I wonder what had come to pass 
Could he have borrowed for a spell
The fiery-frantic indolence 
...Read more of this...
by Robinson, Edwin Arlington

I think I was enchanted

...murmured to herself
To keep herself in Cheer --
I took for Giants -- practising
Titanic Opera --

The Days -- to Mighty Metres stept --
The Homeliest -- adorned
As if unto a Jubilee
'Twere suddenly confirmed --

I could not have defined the change --
Conversion of the Mind
Like Sanctifying in the Soul --
Is witnessed -- not explained --

'Twas a Divine Insanity --
The Danger to be Sane
Should I again experience --
'Tis Antidote to turn --

To Tomes of solid Witchcraft --
Magi...Read more of this...
by Dickinson, Emily

MFingal - Canto I

...many a halter?
What warnings had ye of your duty,
From our old rev'rend Sam. Auchmuty;
From priests of all degrees and metres,
T' our ***-end man, poor Parson Peters?
Have not our Cooper and our Seabury
Sung hymns, like Barak and old Deborah;
Proved all intrigues to set you free
Rebellion 'gainst the Pow'rs that be;
Brought over many a scripture text,
That used to wink at rebel sects,
Coax'd wayward ones to favor regents,
And paraphrased them to obedience;
Proved every king,...Read more of this...
by Trumbull, John

The Clod and The Pebble

...spair.

 So sung a little Clod of Clay,
 Trodden with the cattle's feet;
 But a Pebble of the brook.
 Warbled out these metres meet.

Love seeketh only Self to please,
To bind another to Its delight;
Joys in anothers loss of ease.
And builds a Hell in Heavens despite....Read more of this...
by Blake, William


The Man of Laws Tale

...tain
I can right now no thrifty* tale sayn, *worthy
But Chaucer (though he *can but lewedly* *knows but imperfectly*
On metres and on rhyming craftily)
Hath said them, in such English as he can,
Of olde time, as knoweth many a man.
And if he have not said them, leve* brother, *dear
In one book, he hath said them in another
For he hath told of lovers up and down,
More than Ovide made of mentioun
In his Epistolae, that be full old.
Why should I telle them, since they he told?
I...Read more of this...
by Chaucer, Geoffrey

The murmuring of Bees has ceased

...The murmuring of Bees, has ceased
But murmuring of some
Posterior, prophetic,
Has simultaneous come.
The lower metres of the Year
When Nature's laugh is done
The Revelations of the Book
Whose Genesis was June.
Appropriate Creatures to her change
The Typic Mother sends
As Accent fades to interval
With separating Friends
Till what we speculate, has been
And thoughts we will not show
More intimate with us become
Than Persons, that we know....Read more of this...
by Dickinson, Emily

To Walt Whitman In America

...d in kings.

Freedom we call it, for holier
Name of the soul's there is none;
Surelier it labours if slowlier,
Than the metres of star or of sun;
Slowlier than life into breath,
Surelier than time into death,
It moves till its labour be done.

Till the motion be done and the measure
Circling through season and clime,
Slumber and sorrow and pleasure,
Vision of virtue and crime;
Till consummate with conquering eyes,
A soul disembodied, it rise
From the body transfigured of time...Read more of this...
by Swinburne, Algernon Charles

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