Famous Motive(A) Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Motive(A) poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous motive(a) poems. These examples illustrate what a famous motive(a) poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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...IF all the gentlest-hearted friends I know
Concentred in one heart their gentleness,
That still grew gentler till its pulse was less
For life than pity,--I should yet be slow
To bring my own heart nakedly below
The palm of such a friend, that he should press
Motive, condition, means, appliances,
My false ideal joy and fickle woe,
Out full to light and kno...Read more of this...
by
Browning, Elizabeth Barrett
..."Had we never loved so kindly,
Had we never loved so blindly,
Never met or never parted,
We had ne'er been broken-hearted." — Burns
TO
THE RIGHT HONOURABLE LORD HOLLAND,
THIS TALE IS INSCRIBED,
WITH EVERY SENTIMENT OF REGARD AND RESPECT,
BY HIS GRATEFULLY OBLIGED AND SINCERE FRIEND,
BYRON.
THE BRIDE OF ABYDOS
_________
CANTO THE FIRST. ...Read more of this...
by
Byron, George (Lord)
...I
I doubt if ten men in all Tilbury Town
Had ever shaken hands with Captain Craig,
Or called him by his name, or looked at him
So curiously, or so concernedly,
As they had looked at ashes; but a few—
Say five or six of us—had found somehow
The spark in him, and we had fanned it there,
Choked under, like a jest in Holy Writ,
By Tilbury prudence. He ...Read more of this...
by
Robinson, Edwin Arlington
...Oh what is fame! a flower that dies at eve,
A golden mist that subtle fancies weave,
An unknown star that wise men never see,
An idle dream of things that may not be.
Farewell to peace when once the dreams of fame
Shall stir the soul into a restless flame.
There is no rest by day, no sleep by night;
The eyes are blinded by the dazzling light.
Ah! wo...Read more of this...
by
Sherrick, Fannie Isabelle
...Last nite I dreamed of T.S. Eliot
welcoming me to the land of dream
Sofas couches fog in England
Tea in his digs Chelsea rainbows
curtains on his windows, fog seeping in
the chimney but a nice warm house
and an incredibly sweet hooknosed
Eliot he loved me, put me up,
gave me a couch to sleep on,
conversed kindly, took me serious
asked my opinion on Mayako...Read more of this...
by
Ginsberg, Allen
...I
In my beginning is my end. In succession
Houses rise and fall, crumble, are extended,
Are removed, destroyed, restored, or in their place
Is an open field, or a factory, or a by-pass.
Old stone to new building, old timber to new fires,
Old fires to ashes, and ashes to the earth
Which is already flesh, fur and faeces,
Bone of man and beast, cornstalk and...Read more of this...
by
Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)
...I
Midwinter spring is its own season
Sempiternal though sodden towards sundown,
Suspended in time, between pole and tropic.
When the short day is brightest, with frost and fire,
The brief sun flames the ice, on pond and ditches,
In windless cold that is the heart's heat,
Reflecting in a watery mirror
A glare that is blindness in the early afternoon.
And g...Read more of this...
by
Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)
...I. Sunrise.
In my sleep I was fain of their fellowship, fain
Of the live-oak, the marsh, and the main.
The little green leaves would not let me alone in my sleep;
Up-breathed from the marshes, a message of range and of sweep,
Interwoven with waftures of wild sea-liberties, drifting,
Came through the lapped leaves sifting, sifting,
Came to the gates of sl...Read more of this...
by
Lanier, Sidney
...When I leave you postcode and your commuting station,
When I left undone all the things we planned to do
You may feel you have been left by association
But there is leaving and leaving you.
When I leave your town and the club that you belong to,
When I leave without much warning or much regret,
Remember, there's doing wrong and there's doing wrong to
You,...Read more of this...
by
Hannah, Sophie
...And what is life?—a pleasure and a pain,
A vision of the sun—a day of rain.
And what is love?—a dream, a chain of gold
That turns to iron bands when love is cold.
What matters they?—the visions of our youth,
Through years of sorrow we must pass to truth.
A woman's life is full of longing days,
Her heart is not content to live on praise;
She must hav...Read more of this...
by
Sherrick, Fannie Isabelle
...1
SINGING my days,
Singing the great achievements of the present,
Singing the strong, light works of engineers,
Our modern wonders, (the antique ponderous Seven outvied,)
In the Old World, the east, the Suez canal,
The New by its mighty railroad spann’d,
The seas inlaid with eloquent, gentle wires,
I sound, to commence, the cry, with thee, O soul,
T...Read more of this...
by
Whitman, Walt
..."Had we never loved so kindly,
Had we never loved so blindly,
Never met or never parted,
We had ne'er been broken-hearted." — Burns
TO
THE RIGHT HONOURABLE LORD HOLLAND,
THIS TALE IS INSCRIBED,
WITH EVERY SENTIMENT OF REGARD AND RESPECT,
BY HIS GRATEFULLY OBLIGED AND SINCERE FRIEND,
BYRON.
THE BRIDE OF ABYDOS
_________
CANTO THE FIRST. ...Read more of this...
by
Byron, George (Lord)
...I
The World without Imagination
1 Nota: man is the intelligence of his soil,
2 The sovereign ghost. As such, the Socrates
3 Of snails, musician of pears, principium
4 And lex. Sed quaeritur: is this same wig
5 Of things, this nincompated pedagogue,
6 Preceptor to the sea? Crispin at sea
7 Created, in his day, a touch of doubt.
8 An eye...Read more of this...
by
Stevens, Wallace
...I know a village in a far-off land
Where from a sunny, mountain-girdled plain
With tinted walls a space on either hand
And fed by many an olive-darkened lane
The high-road mounts, and thence a silver band
Through vineyard slopes above and rolling grain,
Winds off to that dim corner of the skies
Where behind sunset hills a stately city lies.
Here, among tr...Read more of this...
by
Seeger, Alan
...IN search of prey once raised his pinions
An eaglet;
A huntsman's arrow came, and reft
His right wing of all motive power.
Headlong he fell into a myrtle grove,
For three long days on anguish fed,
In torment writhed
Throughout three long, three weary nights;
And then was cured,
Thanks to all-healing Nature's
Soft, omnipresent balm.
He crept away from out t...Read more of this...
by
von Goethe, Johann Wolfgang
...The trumpets of the four winds of the world
From the ends of the earth blow battle; the night heaves,
With breasts palpitating and wings refurled,
With passion of couched limbs, as one who grieves
Sleeping, and in her sleep she sees uncurled
Dreams serpent-shapen, such as sickness weaves,
Down the wild wind of vision caught and whirled,
Dead leaves of slee...Read more of this...
by
Swinburne, Algernon Charles
..."the withness of the body" --Whitehead
The heavy bear who goes with me,
A manifold honey to smear his face,
Clumsy and lumbering here and there,
The central ton of every place,
The hungry beating brutish one
In love with candy, anger, and sleep,
Crazy factotum, dishevelling all,
Climbs the building, kicks the football,
Boxes his brother in the hate-ridde...Read more of this...
by
Schwartz, Delmore
...Part 1
WHAT dire Offence from am'rous Causes springs,
What mighty Contests rise from trivial Things,
I sing -- This Verse to C---, Muse! is due;
This, ev'n Belinda may vouchfafe to view:
Slight is the Subject, but not so the Praise,
If She inspire, and He approve my Lays.
Say what strange Motive, Goddess! cou'd compel
A well-bred Lord t'assault a gentle B...Read more of this...
by
Pope, Alexander
...Nolueram, Belinda, tuos violare capillos;
Sedjuvat, hoc precibus me tribuisse tuis.
(Martial, Epigrams 12.84)
What dire offence from am'rous causes springs,
What mighty contests rise from trivial things,
I sing--This verse to Caryl, Muse! is due:
This, ev'n Belinda may vouchsafe to view:
Slight is the subject, but not so the praise,
If she inspire...Read more of this...
by
Pope, Alexander
...BY
QUEVEDO REDIVIVUS
SUGGESTED BY THE COMPOSITION SO ENTITLED BY THE AUTHOR OF 'WAT TYLER'
'A Daniel come to judgment! yes a Daniel!
I thank thee, Jew for teaching me that word.'
PREFACE
It hath been wisely said, that 'One fool makes many;' and it hath been poetically observed —
'That fools rush in where angels fear to tread.' - Pope
If Mr. So...Read more of this...
by
Byron, George (Lord)
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