Famous Needs Must Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Needs Must poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous needs must poems. These examples illustrate what a famous needs must poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
YOUTH.
AWAY, thou swarthy witch! Go forth
From out my house, I tell thee!
Or else I needs must, in my wrath,
Expel thee!
What's this thou singest so falsely, forsooth,
Of love and a maiden's silent truth?
Who'll trust to such a story!
GIPSY.
I sing of a maid's repentant fears,
And long and bitter yearning;
Her levity's changed to truth and tears
All-burning.
She dreads no more the threats of...Read more of this...
by
Tupac Shakur
excuse me but lady liberty needs glasses
and so does mrs justice by her side
both the broads r blind as bats
stumbling thru the system
justice bumbed into mutulu and
trippin on geronimo pratt
but stepped right over oliver
and his crooked partner ronnie
justice stubbed her big toe on mandela
and liberty was misquoted by the indians
slavery was a learning phase
forgotten with out a verdict
while justice is...Read more of this...
by
Rg Gregory
[from agape (love); anthus (flower)]
you may not be willing to notice me
i have an awkward sense of myself
my name can be hard on the tongue
i do not grow easily in places
where the sun only fitfully appears
i've come a long way northwards
gardens do not flatter my needs
i am a shy sheltered plant - my leaves
first come above the earth slowly
serpenting...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
I meant to have but modest needs --
Such as Content -- and Heaven --
Within my income -- these could lie
And Life and I -- keep even --
But since the last -- included both --
It would suffice my Prayer
But just for One -- to stipulate --
And Grace would grant the Pair --
And so -- upon this wise -- I prayed...Read more of this...
by
R S Thomas
'Listen, now, verse should be as natural
As the small tuber that feeds on muck
And grows slowly from obtuse soil
To the white flower of immortal beauty.'
'Natural, hell! What was it Chaucer
Said once about the long toil
That goes like blood to the poem's making?
Leave it to nature and the verse sprawls,
Limp as bindweed,...Read more of this...
by
Sir Philip Sidney
Virtue, alas, now let me take some rest.
Thou set'st a bate between my soul and wit.
If vain love have my simple soul oppress'd,
Leave what thou likest not, deal not thou with it.
The scepter use in some old Cato's breast;
Churches or schools are for thy seat more fit.
I do confess, pardon a fault confess'd,...Read more of this...
by
Sir Philip Sidney
Love, born in Greece, of late fled from his native place,
Forc'd by a tedious proof, that Turkish harden'd heart
Is no fit mark to pierce with his fine pointed dart,
And pleas'd with our soft peace, stayed here his flying race.
But finding these north climes do coldly him embrace,
Not used to frozen clips, he strave to...Read more of this...
by
Siegfried Sassoon
THEY threw me from the gates: my matted hair
Was dank with dungeon wetness; my spent frame
O¡¯erlaid with marish agues: everywhere
Tortured by leaping pangs of frost and flame
So hideous was I that even Lazarus there 5
In noisome rags arrayed and leprous shame
Beside me set had seemed full sweet and fair
And looked on me with loathing.
But one came
Who laid...Read more of this...
by
Friedrich von Schiller
She comes, she comes--the burden of the deeps!
Beneath her wails the universal sea!
With clanking chains and a new god, she sweeps,
And with a thousand thunders, unto thee!
The ocean-castles and the floating hosts--
Ne'er on their like looked the wild water!--Well
May man the monster name "Invincible."
O'er shuddering waves she gathers to thy coasts!
The horror that she spreads can claim
Just title to...Read more of this...
by
George (Lord) Byron
AND thou art dead as young and fair
As aught of mortal birth;
And form so soft and charms so rare
Too soon return'd to Earth!
Though Earth received them in her bed 5
And o'er the spot the crowd may tread
In carelessness or mirth
There is an eye which could not brook
A moment on that grave...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
No ladder needs the bird but skies
To situate its wings,
Nor any leader's grim baton
Arraigns it as it sings.
The implements of bliss are few --
As Jesus says of Him,
"Come unto me" the moiety
That wafts the cherubim....Read more of this...
by
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
My thoughts soar not as they ought to soar,
Higher and higher on soul-lent wings;
But ever and often and more and more
They are dragged down earthward by little things,
By little troubles and little needs,
As a lark might be tangled among the weeds.
My purpose is not what it ought to be,
Steady and fixed, like a...Read more of this...
by
William Strode
You that affright with lamentable notes
The servants from their beef, whose hungry throats
Vex the grume porter's surly conscience:
That blesse the mint for coyning lesse than pence:
You whose unknown and meanly payd desarts
Begge silently within, and knocke at hearts:
You whose commanding worth makes men beleeve
That you a kindnesse give when you receave:
All sorts of them that want, your tears now...Read more of this...
by
Omar Khayyam
Needs must the tavern-hunter bathe in wine,
For none can make a tarnished name to shine;
Go! bring me wine, for none can now restore
Its pristine sheen to this soiled veil of mine....Read more of this...
by
Victor Hugo
When the Christians were doomed to the lions of old
By the priest and the praetor, combined to uphold
An idolatrous cause,
Forth they came while the vast Colosseum throughout
Gathered thousands looked on, and they fell 'mid the shout
Of "the People's" applause.
On the eve of that day of their...Read more of this...
by
Robert Frost
For Lincoln MacVeagh
Never tell me that not one star of all
That slip from heaven at night and softly fall
Has been picked up with stones to build a wall.
Some laborer found one faded and stone-cold,
And saving that its weight suggested gold
And tugged it from his first too certain hold,
He noticed nothing in it to remark.
He was not used to handling...Read more of this...
by
Francesco Petrarch
CANZONE XX. Ben mi credea passar mio tempo omai. HE CANNOT LIVE WITHOUT SEEING HER, BUT WOULD NOT DIE THAT HE MAY STILL LOVE HER. As pass'd the years which I have left behind,To pass my future years I fondly thought,Amid old studies, with desires the same;But, from my lady since I...Read more of this...
by
George Eliot
Your soul was lifted by the wings today
Hearing the master of the violin:
You praised him, praised the great Sabastian too
Who made that fine Chaconne; but did you think
Of old Antonio Stradivari? -him
Who a good century and a half ago
Put his true work in that brown instrument
And by the nice adjustment of its frame
Gave it responsive life, continuous
With the master's...Read more of this...
by
Paul Laurence Dunbar
What's the use o' folks a-frownin'
When the way's a little rough?
Frowns lay out the road fur smilin'
You'll be wrinkled soon enough.
What's the use?
What's the use o' folks a-sighin'?
It's an awful waste o' breath,
An' a body can't stand wastin'
What he needs so bad in death.
What's the use?
What's the use o' even weepin'?
Might as well go long an' smile.
Life, our longest, strongest...Read more of this...
by
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
ONE day a shameless and impudent wight
Went into a shop full of steel wares bright,
Arranged with art upon ev'ry shelf.
He fancied they were all meant for himself;
And so, while the patient owner stood by,
The shining goods needs must handle and try,
And valued,--for how should a fool better know?--
The bad things high, and the good ones low,
And all with an...Read more of this...
by
George (Lord) Byron
And thou art dead, as young and fair
As aught of mortal birth;
And form so soft, and charms so rare,
Too soon return'd to Earth!
Though Earth receiv'd them in her bed,
And o'er the spot the crowd may tread
In carelessness or mirth,
There is an eye which could not brook
A moment on that grave to look.
I will not ask where thou liest...Read more of this...
by
Patrick Kavanagh
Leafy-with-love banks and the green waters of the canal
Pouring redemption for me, that I do
The will of God, wallow in the habitual, the banal,
Grow with nature again as before I grew.
The bright stick trapped, the breeze adding a third
Party to the couple kissing on an old seat,
And a bird gathering materials for the nest for the Word
Eloquently new and...Read more of this...
by
Natasha Trethewey
--New Orleans, November 1910
Four weeks have passed since I left, and still
I must write to you of no work. I've worn down
the soles and walked through the tightness
of my new shoes calling upon the merchants,
their offices bustling. All the while I kept thinking
my plain English and good writing would secure
for me some modest position Though I dress each day
in...Read more of this...
by
Weldon Kees
To Ernest Brace
"And when the seven thunders had uttered their voices, I was
about to write: and I heard a voice from heaven saying unto
me, Seal up those things which the seven thunders uttered, and
write them not." --REVELATIONS, x, 4.
That raft we rigged up, under the water,
Was just the item: when he walked,
With his robes blowing, dark against the sky,
It...Read more of this...
by
A E Housman
Tell me not here, it needs not saying,
What tune the enchantress plays
In aftermaths of soft September
Or under blanching mays,
For she and I were long acquainted
And I knew all her ways.
On russet floors, by waters idle,
The pine lets fall its cone;
The cuckoo shouts all day at nothing
In leafy dells alone;
And traveller’s joy beguiles in autumn
Hearts that have lost their own.
On...Read more of this...
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