Famous Naught Poems by Famous Poets

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

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The Proverbs Of Confucius

by Friedrich von Schiller
 Threefold is the march of time
While the future slow advances,
Like a dart the present glances,
Silent stands the past sublime.

No impatience e'er can speed him
On his course if he delay;
No alarm, no doubts impede him
If he keep his onward way;
No regrets, no magic numbers
Wake the tranced one from his slumbers.
Wouldst thou wisely and with pleasure,
Pass the days of life's short...Read more of this...

The Veiled Statue At Sais

by Friedrich von Schiller
 A youth, impelled by a burning thirst for knowledge
To roam to Sais, in fair Egypt's land,
The priesthood's secret learning to explore,
Had passed through many a grade with eager haste,
And still was hurrying on with fond impatience.
Scarce could the Hierophant impose a rein
Upon his headlong efforts. "What avails
A part without the whole?" the youth exclaimed;
"Can there be here a lesser...Read more of this...

You see the world, but all you see is naught,

by Omar Khayyam
You see the world, but all you see is naught,
And all you say, and all you hear is naught,
Naught the four quarters of the mighty earth,
The secrets treasured in your chamber naught....Read more of this...

Say not the Struggle Naught availeth

by Arthur Hugh Clough
 SAY not the struggle naught availeth,
 The labour and the wounds are vain,
The enemy faints not, nor faileth,
 And as things have been they remain.

If hopes were dupes, fears may be liars;
 It may be, in yon smoke conceal'd,
Your comrades chase e'en now the fliers,
 And, but for you, possess the field.

For while the tired waves, vainly breaking,
 Seem...Read more of this...

'Tis naught but smoke this people's fire doth bear,

by Omar Khayyam
'Tis naught but smoke this people's fire doth bear,
For my well-being not a soul doth care;
With hands fate makes me lift up in despair,
I grasp men's skirts, but find no succour there....Read more of this...

The Man Who Had Naught

by Mother Goose
There was a man and he had naught,
    And robbers came to rob him;
He crept up to the chimney pot,
    And then they thought they had him.

But he got down on t'other side,
    And then they could not find him;
He ran fourteen miles in fifteen days,
    And never...Read more of this...

Venus Runaway

by Ben Jonson
 Beauties, have ye seen this toy,
Called Love, a little boy,
Almost naked, wanton, blind;
Cruel now, and then as kind?
If he be amongst ye, say?
He is Venus' runaway.

She that will but now discover
Where the winged wag doth hover,
Shall to-night receive a kiss,
How or where herself would wish:
But who brings him to his mother,
Shall have that kiss, and another.

He hath marks about...Read more of this...

The Trial by Existence

by Robert Frost
 Even the bravest that are slain
Shall not dissemble their surprise
On waking to find valor reign,
Even as on earth, in paradise;
And where they sought without the sword
Wide fields of asphodel fore'er,
To find that the utmost reward
Of daring should be still to dare.

The light of heaven falls whole and white
And is not shattered into dyes,
The light forever is morning light;
The hills...Read more of this...

Dirge of the Three Queens

by William Shakespeare
 URNS and odours bring away! 
 Vapours, sighs, darken the day! 
Our dole more deadly looks than dying; 
 Balms and gums and heavy cheers, 
 Sacred vials fill'd with tears, 
And clamours through the wild air flying! 

 Come, all sad and solemn shows, 
 That are quick-eyed Pleasure's foes! 
 We convent naught else but woes....Read more of this...

Famine Song

by Adela Florence Cory Nicolson
   Third Song, written during Fever

   To-night the clouds hang very low,
       They take the Hill-tops to their breast,
       And lay their arms about the fields.
   The wind that fans me lying low,
       Restless with great...Read more of this...

What lord is fit to rule but Truth? Not one

by Omar Khayyam
What lord is fit to rule but «Truth»? Not one.
What beings disobey His rule? Not one.
All things that are, are such as He decrees;
And naught is there beside beneath the sun....Read more of this...

We lay in the cloak of Naught, asleep and still,

by Omar Khayyam
We lay in the cloak of Naught, asleep and still,
Thou said'st, «Awake! taste the world's good and ill»;
Here we are puzzled by Thy strange command,
From slanted jars no single drop to spill....Read more of this...

Cain

by Victor Hugo
 ("Lorsque avec ses enfants Cain se fût enfui.") 
 
 {Bk. II} 


 Then, with his children, clothed in skins of brutes, 
 Dishevelled, livid, rushing through the storm, 
 Cain fled before Jehovah. As night fell 
 The dark man reached a mount in a great plain, 
 And his tired wife and his sons, out of breath,...Read more of this...

O heedless man! this veil of flesh is naught; this nine-fold

by Omar Khayyam
O heedless man! this veil of flesh is naught; this nine-fold
vault of brilliant heaven is naught. Then give thyself
to joy in this disordered place [the world], for life is
but an instant wed to it, and that is equally naught.
298...Read more of this...

Hens Nest

by John Clare
 Among the orchard weeds, from every search,
Snugly and sure, the old hen's nest is made,
Who cackles every morning from her perch
To tell the servant girl new eggs are laid;
Who lays her washing by, and far and near
Goes seeking all about from day to day,
And stung with nettles tramples everywhere;
But still the cackling pullet lays away.
The boy on Sundays goes...Read more of this...

Dinah Kneading Dough

by Paul Laurence Dunbar
I have seen full many a sight
Born of day or drawn by night:
Sunlight on a silver stream,
Golden lilies all a-dream,
Lofty mountains, bold and proud,
Veiled beneath the lacelike cloud;
But no lovely sight I know
Equals Dinah kneading dough.
Brown arms buried elbow-deep
Their domestic rhythm keep,
As with steady sweep they go
Through the gently yielding dough.[Pg 189]
Maids may vaunt their finer charms—
Naught to...Read more of this...

The Glory

by Edward Thomas
 The glory of the beauty of the morning, -
The cuckoo crying over the untouched dew; 
The blackbird that has found it, and the dove
That tempts me on to something sweeter than love; 
White clouds ranged even and fair as new-mown hay; 
The heat, the stir, the sublime vacancy
Of sky and meadow and forest and my own heart: -
The glory...Read more of this...

O foolish one! this moulded earth is naught,

by Omar Khayyam
O foolish one! this moulded earth is naught,
This particoloured vault of heaven is naught;
Our sojourn in this seat of life and death
Is but one breath, and what is that but naught?...Read more of this...

The Old Issue

by Rudyard Kipling
 Here is nothing new nor aught unproven," say the Trumpets,
 "Many feet have worn it and the road is old indeed.
"It is the King--the King we schooled aforetime! "
 (Trumpets in the marshes-in the eyot at Runnymede!)

"Here is neither haste, nor hate, nor anger," peal the Trumpets,
 "Pardon for his penitence or pity for his fall.
"It is the King!"--inexorable...Read more of this...

The Beauty of Death XIV

by Kahlil Gibran
 Part One - The Calling


Let me sleep, for my soul is intoxicated with love and 
Let me rest, for my spirit has had its bounty of days and nights; 
Light the candles and burn the incense around my bed, and 
Scatter leaves of jasmine and roses over my body; 
Embalm my hair with frankincense and sprinkle my feet with...Read more of this...

To E. H. K

by Paul Laurence Dunbar
To me, like hauntings of a vagrant breath
From some far forest which I once have known,
The perfume of this flower of verse is blown.
Tho' seemingly soul-blossoms faint to death,
Naught that with joy she bears e'er withereth.
So, tho' the pregnant years have come and flown,
Lives come and gone and altered like mine own,
This poem comes to me a shibboleth:
Brings sound of...Read more of this...

Naught is thy body but a tent, Khayyam, thy soul is

by Omar Khayyam
Naught is thy body but a tent, Khayyam, thy soul is
its inhabitant, and its last, long home annihilation is.
When thy soul leaves the tent, the slaves arise and
strike it ere they pitch it for the oncoming soul.
299...Read more of this...

Suttee

by Sarojini Naidu
 LAMP of my life, the lips of Death 
Hath blown thee out with their sudden breath; 
Naught shall revive thy vanished spark . . . 
Love, must I dwell in the living dark? 


Tree of my life, Death's cruel foot 
Hath crushed thee down to thy hidden root; 
Nought shall restore thy glory fled . . . 
Shall the...Read more of this...

Now of old joys naught but the name is left,

by Omar Khayyam
Now of old joys naught but the name is left,
Of all old friends but wine we are bereft,
And that wine new, but still cleave to the cup,
For save the cup, what single joy is left?...Read more of this...

Ave atque Vale (In memory of Charles Baudelaire)

by Algernon Charles Swinburne
 SHALL I strew on thee rose or rue or laurel, 
 Brother, on this that was the veil of thee? 
 Or quiet sea-flower moulded by the sea, 
Or simplest growth of meadow-sweet or sorrel, 
 Such as the summer-sleepy Dryads weave, 
 Waked up by snow-soft sudden rains at eve? 
Or wilt thou rather, as on earth before,...Read more of this...

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