Famous Need To Know Poems by Famous Poets

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

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231. Epistle to Robert Graham Esq. of Fintry

...WHEN Nature her great master-piece design’d,
And fram’d her last, best work, the human mind,
Her eye intent on all the mazy plan,
She form’d of various parts the various Man.


 Then first she calls the useful many forth;
Plain plodding Industry, and sober Worth:
Thence peasants, farmers, native sons of earth,
And merchandise’ whole genus take their birth:...Read more of this...
by Burns, Robert


A Pastoral Dialogue Between Two Shepherdesses

...[Silvia] Pretty Nymph! within this Shade, 
Whilst the Flocks to rest are laid,
Whilst the World dissolves in Heat,
Take this cool, and flow'ry Seat: 
And with pleasing Talk awhile
Let us two the Time beguile; 
Tho' thou here no Shepherd see, 
To encline his humble Knee, 
Or with melancholy Lays 
Sing thy dangerous Beauty's Praise. 


[Dorinda] Nymph! with ...Read more of this...
by Finch, Anne Kingsmill

A Way to Love God

...true.
And the line where the incoming swell from the sunset Pacific
First leans and staggers to break will tell all you need to know
About submarine geography, and your father's death rattle
Provides all biographical data required for the Who's Who of the dead.

I cannot recall what I started to tell you, but at least
I can say how night-long I have lain under the stars and 
Heard mountains moan in their sleep.By daylight,
They remember nothing, and go about their lawful occa...Read more of this...
by Warren, Robert Penn

Bride of Abydos The

...ssenger what fate 
The bearer of such boon may wait, [8] 
And now thy know'st thy father's will; 
All that thy sex hath need to know: 
'Twas mine to teach obedience still — 
The way to love, thy lord may show." 

VIII. 

In silence bow'd the virgin's head; 
And if her eye was fill'd with tears 
That stifled feeling dare not shed, 
And changed her cheek to pale to red, 
And red to pale, as through her ears 
Those winged words like arrows sped, 
What could such be but maiden fe...Read more of this...
by Byron, George (Lord)

James Simmons R.i.p

...dy’s ‘New Poetry’

Which did more damage to the course of poetry

Than anything I’ve read - poets unembarrassed

By the need to know more than what’s politically

White as snow. Constantine and Jackie Kay

And Hoffman with the right connections.

Sweeney and O’Brien bleeding in all the politically

Sensitive places, Peter Reading lifting

Horror headlines from the Sun to make a splash.

Sansom and Maxwell, Jamie and Greenlaw.

Proving lack of talent is no barrier to fame

If ...Read more of this...
by Tebb, Barry


Juan In Middle Age

...d 
He'll suffer more than simple belly-ache. 

He'll groan to think what others have to pay 
As price for his obsessive need to know 
That he's a champion still, though slightly grey, 
And both his skill and gameness clearly show. 

And after this quick non-decision bout, 
As he in his dark corner gasping lies, 
He'll hear derision like a distant shout 
While kisses press like pennies on his eyes....Read more of this...
by Scannell, Vernon

Magpiety

...ct you, and yet
you remain, still leaning forward
 into the grasses
that if you could hear them
 would tell you
all you need to know about
 the life ahead. 

 . . .

Out of a sense of modesty
 or to avoid the truth
I've been writing in the second
 person, but in truth
it was I, not you, who pulled
 the green Ford
over to the side of the road
 and decided to get
up that last hill to look
 back at the valley
he'd come to call home.
 I can't believe
that man, only thirty-two,
 l...Read more of this...
by Levine, Philip

Ode on a Grecian Urn

...n ours a friend to man to whom thou say'st  
'Beauty is truth truth beauty ¡ªthat is all 
Ye know on earth and all ye need to know.' 50 ...Read more of this...
by Keats, John

Paradise Regained: The First Book

...I, who erewhile the happy Garden sung
By one man's disobedience lost, now sing
Recovered Paradise to all mankind,
By one man's firm obedience fully tried
Through all temptation, and the Tempter foiled
In all his wiles, defeated and repulsed,
And Eden raised in the waste Wilderness.
 Thou Spirit, who led'st this glorious Eremite
Into the desert, his victori...Read more of this...
by Milton, John

Recurrence

...We shall have our little day.
Take my hand and travel still
Round and round the little way,
Up and down the little hill.

It is good to love again;
Scan the renovated skies,
Dip and drive the idling pen,
Sweetly tint the paling lies.

Trace the dripping, pierced heart,
Speak the fair, insistent verse,
Vow to God, and slip apart,
Little better, Little worse...Read more of this...
by Parker, Dorothy

September The First Day Of School

...s he finds
Among his teachers have a care of him
More than his father could. How that will look
I do not know, I do not need to know.
Even our tears belong to ritual.
But may great kindness come of it in the end....Read more of this...
by Nemerov, Howard

The Aristocrat

...The Devil is a gentleman and askes you down to stay
At his little place at What'sitsname (it isn't far away).
They say the sport is splendid; there is always something new,
And fairy scenes, and fearful feats that none but he can do;
He can shoot the feathered cherubs if they fly on the estate,
Or fish for Father Neptune with the mermaids for a bait;
He sc...Read more of this...
by Chesterton, G K

The Bride of Abydos

...ssenger what fate 
The bearer of such boon may wait, [8] 
And now thy know'st thy father's will; 
All that thy sex hath need to know: 
'Twas mine to teach obedience still — 
The way to love, thy lord may show." 

VIII. 

In silence bow'd the virgin's head; 
And if her eye was fill'd with tears 
That stifled feeling dare not shed, 
And changed her cheek to pale to red, 
And red to pale, as through her ears 
Those winged words like arrows sped, 
What could such be but maiden fe...Read more of this...
by Byron, George (Lord)

The Pro-Consuls

...The overfaithful sword returns the user
His heart's desire at price of his heart's blood.
The clamour of the arrogant accuser
Wastes that one hour we needed to make good.
This was foretold of old at our outgoing;
This we accepted who have squandered, knowing,
The strength and glory of our reputations,
At the day's need, as it were dross, to guard
The tende...Read more of this...
by Kipling, Rudyard

The Spirit Wooed

...ent time,

And never questioned what
 You fascinate
 In me; if good or not, the state
You pressed towards. There was no need to know.

Grave pristine absolutes
 Walked in my mind:
 So that I was not mute, or blind,
As years before or since. My only crime

Was holding you too dear.
 Was that the cause
 You daily came less near—a pause
Longer than life, if you decide it so?...Read more of this...
by Larkin, Philip

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