Famous Needed Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Needed poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous needed poems. These examples illustrate what a famous needed poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Robert William Service
He gave a picture exhibition,
Hiring a little empty shop.
Above its window: FREE ADMISSION
Cajoled the passers-by to stop;
Just to admire - no need to purchase,
Although his price might have been low:
But no proud artist ever urges
Potential buyers at his show.
Of course he badly needed money,
But more he needed moral aid.
Some people thought his pictures funny,
Too ultra-modern, I'm afraid.
His painting was...Read more of this...
by
Alfred Lord Tennyson
Strong Son of God, immortal Love,
Whom we, that have not seen thy face,
By faith, and faith alone, embrace,
Believing where we cannot prove;
Thine are these orbs of light and shade;
Thou madest Life in man and brute;
Thou madest Death; and lo, thy foot
Is on the skull which thou hast...Read more of this...
by
John Greenleaf Whittier
FOR the fairest maid in Hampton
They needed not to search,
Who saw young Anna favor
Come walking into church,--
Or bringing from the meadows,
At set of harvest-day,
The frolic of the blackbirds,
The sweetness of the hay.
Now the weariest of all mothers,
The saddest two years' bride,
She scowls in the face of her husband,
And spurns her child aside.
"Rake out the red coals, goodman,--
For there the...Read more of this...
by
Francesco Petrarch
SESTINA VI. Anzi tre di creata era alma in parte. THE HISTORY OF HIS LOVE; AND PRAYER FOR HELP. Life's three first stages train'd my soul in partTo place its care on objects high and new,And to disparage what men often prize,But, left alone, and of her fatal courseAs yet uncertain,...Read more of this...
by
Denise Levertov
This wild night, gathering the washing as if it were flowers animal vines twisting over the line and
slapping my face lightly, soundless merriment
in the gesticulations of shirtsleeves,
I recall out of my joy a night of misery
walking in the dark and the wind over broken earth,
halfmade foundations and unfinished drainage trenches and the spaced-out circles of glaring light marking streets...Read more of this...
by
Robert Frost
What tree may not the fig be gathered from?
The grape may not be gathered from the birch?
It's all you know the grape, or know the birch.
As a girl gathered from the birch myself
Equally with my weight in grapes, one autumn,
I ought to know what tree the grape is fruit of.
I was born, I suppose, like anyone,
And grew...Read more of this...
by
Rudyard Kipling
This 'appened in a battle to a batt'ry of the corps
Which is first among the women an' amazin' first in war;
An' what the bloomin' battle was I don't remember now,
But Two's off-lead 'e answered to the name o' Snarleyow.
Down in the Infantry, nobody cares;
Down in the Cavalry, Colonel 'e swears;
But down in the lead with the...Read more of this...
by
Robert Bly
(For Donald Hall)
Have you heard about the boy who walked by
The black water? I won't say much more.
Let's wait a few years. It wanted to be entered.
Sometimes a man walks by a pond, and a hand
Reaches out and pulls him in.
There was no
Intention, exactly. The pond was lonely, or needed
Calcium, bones would do. What happened then?
It was a little...Read more of this...
by
Constantine P Cavafy
I never had you, nor will I ever have you
I suppose. A few words, an approach
as in the bar yesterday, and nothing more.
It is, undeniably, a pity. But we who serve Art
sometimes with intensity of mind, and of course only
for a short while, we create pleasure
which almost seems real.
So in the bar the day before yesterday -- the merciful...Read more of this...
by
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Once in the world’s first prime,
When nothing lived or stirred,
Nothing but new-born Time,
Nor was there even a bird –
The Silence spoke to a Star,
But do not dare repeat
What it said to its love afar:
It was too sweet, too sweet.
But there, in the fair world’s youth,
Ere sorrow had drawn breath,
When nothing was known...Read more of this...
by
Paul Laurence Dunbar
I has hyeahd o' people dancin' an' I 's hyeahd o' people singin'.
An' I 's been 'roun' lots of othahs dat could keep de banjo ringin';
But of all de whistlin' da'kies dat have lived an' died since Ham,
De whistlin'est I evah seed was ol' Ike Bates's Sam.
In de kitchen er de stable, in de fiel' er mowin' hay,
You could hyeah...Read more of this...
by
Rudyard Kipling
More than a hundred years ago, in a great battle fought near Delhi,
an Indian Prince rode fifty miles after the day was lost
with a beggar-girl, who had loved him and followed him in all his camps,
on his saddle-bow. He lost the girl when almost within sight of safety.
A Maratta trooper tells the story: --
The wreath of banquet overnight lay...Read more of this...
by
Charles Bukowski
what i liked about e.e. cummings
was that he cut away from
the holiness of the
word
and with charm
and gamble
gave us lines
that sliced through the
dung.
how it was needed!
how we were withering
away
in the old
tired
manner.
of course, then came all
the e.e. cummings
copyists.
they copied him then
as the others had
copied Keats, Shelly,
Swinburne, Byron, et
al.
but there was only
one
e.e. cummings.
of course.
one sun.
one moon....Read more of this...
by
Henry Lawson
With eyes that are narrowed to pierce
To the awful horizons of land,
Through the blaze of hot days, and the fierce
White heat-waves that flow on the sand;
Through the Never Land westward and nor'ward,
Bronzed, bearded, and gaunt on the track,
Low-voiced and hard-knuckled, rides forward
The Christ of the Outer Out-back.
For the cause that will ne'er be relinquished
Despite all the cynics on earth---
In...Read more of this...
by
David Lehman
He woke up in New York City on Valentine's Day,
Speeding. The body in the booth next to his was still warm,
Was gone. He had bought her a sweater, a box of chocolate
Said her life wasn't working he looked stricken she said
You're all bent out of shape, accusingly, and when he
She went from being an Ivy League professor of French
To...Read more of this...
by
John Berryman
He loom' so cagey he say 'Leema beans'
and measured his intake to the atmosphere
of that fairly stable country.
His ear hurt. Left. The rock-cliffs, a mite sheer
at his age, in these places.
Scrubbing out his fear,-”
the knowledge that they will take off your hands,
both hands; as well as your both feet, & likewise
both eyes,
might be discouraging to a bloddy hero
Also you...Read more of this...
by
Allen Ginsberg
The flower in the glass peanut bottle formerly in the
kitchen crooked to take a place in the light,
the closet door opened, because I used it before, it
kindly stayed open waiting for me, its owner.
I began to feel my misery in pallet on floor, listening
to music, my misery, that's why I want to sing.
The room closed...Read more of this...
by
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Little thinks, in the field, yon red-cloaked clown,
Of thee, from the hill-top looking down;
And the heifer, that lows in the upland farm,
Far-heard, lows not thine ear to charm;
The sexton tolling the bell at noon,
Dreams not that great Napoleon
Stops his horse, and lists with delight,
Whilst his files sweep round yon Alpine height;
Nor knowest thou what argument
Thy life to thy neighbor's...Read more of this...
by
Stephen Dunn
Relax. This won't last long.
Or if it does, or if the lines
make you sleepy or bored,
give in to sleep, turn on
the T.V., deal the cards.
This poem is built to withstand
such things. Its feelings
cannot be hurt. They exist
somewhere in the poet,
and I am far away.
Pick it up anytime. Start it
in the middle if you wish.
It is as approachable as...Read more of this...
by
John Berryman
While his wife earned the living, Rabbi Henry
studied the Torah, writing commentaries
more likely to be burnt than printed.
It was rumoured that they needed revision.
Smiling, kissing, he bent his head not with 'Please'
but with austere requests barely hinted,
like a dog with a bone he worried the Sacred Book
and often taught its fringes.
Imperishable enthusiasms.
I have only one request to make...Read more of this...
by
Philip Larkin
When I was a child, I thought,
Casually, that solitude
Never needed to be sought.
Something everybody had,
Like nakedness, it lay at hand,
Not specially right or specially wrong,
A plentiful and obvious thing
Not at all hard to understand.
Then, after twenty, it became
At once more difficult to get
And more desired - though all the same
More undesirable; for what
You are alone has, to achieve
The rank...Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
Blind Peter Piper used to play
All up and down the city;
I'd often meet him on my way,
And throw a coin for pity.
But all amid his sparkling tones
His ear was quick as any
To catch upon the cobble-stones
The jingle of my penny.
And as upon a day that shone
He piped a merry measure:
"How well you play!" I chanced to say;
Poor Peter glowed...Read more of this...
by
Walt Whitman
1
CHANTING the square deific, out of the One advancing, out of the sides;
Out of the old and new—out of the square entirely divine,
Solid, four-sided, (all the sides needed)... from this side JEHOVAH am I,
Old Brahm I, and I Saturnius am;
Not Time affects me—I am Time, old, modern as any;
Unpersuadable, relentless, executing righteous judgments;
As the...Read more of this...
by
Robert Pinsky
to Robert Hass and in memory of Elliot Gilbert
Slow dulcimer, gavotte and bow, in autumn,
Bashõ and his friends go out to view the moon;
In summer, gasoline rainbow in the gutter,
The secret courtesy that courses like ichor
Through the old form of the rude, full-scale joke,
Impossible to tell in writing. "Bashõ"
He named himself, "Banana Tree": banana
After the plant some grateful students...Read more of this...
by
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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 the copse,
And stretch'd his wing--alas!
Lost is all power...Read more of this...
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