Famous Numbers Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Numbers poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous numbers poems. These examples illustrate what a famous numbers poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
John Keats
O GODDESS! hear these tuneless numbers, wrung
By sweet enforcement and remembrance dear,
And pardon that thy secrets should be sung
Even into thine own soft-conch¨¨d ear:
Surely I dream'd to-day, or did I see 5
The wing¨¨d Psyche with awaken'd eyes?
I wander'd in a forest thoughtlessly,
And, on the sudden, fainting with surprise,
Saw two fair creatures, couch¨¨d...Read more of this...
by
Sir Walter Scott
Harp of the North, farewell! The hills grow dark,
On purple peaks a deeper shade descending;
In twilight copse the glow-worm lights her spark,
The deer, half-seen, are to the covert wending.
Resume thy wizard elm! the fountain lending,
And the wild breeze, thy wilder minstrelsy;
Thy numbers sweet with nature’s vespers blending,
With distant echo from the fold...Read more of this...
by
Mary Darby Robinson
Chill penury repress'd his noble rage,
And froze the genial current of his soul.
GRAY.
IF GRIEF can deprecate the wrath of Heaven,
Or human frailty hope to be forgiven !
Ere now thy sainted spirit bends its way
To the bland regions of celestial day;
Ere now, thy soul, immers'd in purest air
Smiles at the triumphs of supreme...Read more of this...
by
Robert Herrick
Now is the time for mirth,
Nor cheek or tongue be dumb;
For with the flow'ry earth
The golden pomp is come.
The golden pomp is come;
For now each tree does wear,
Made of her pap and gum,
Rich beads of amber here.
Now reigns the rose, and now
Th' Arabian dew besmears
My uncontrolled brow
And my retorted hairs.
Homer, this health to thee,
In sack of such a kind
That...Read more of this...
by
Andrew Barton Paterson
The Boers were down on Kimberley with siege and Maxim gun;
The Boers were down on Kimberley, their numbers ten to one!
Faint were the hopes the British had to make the struggle good --
Defenceless in an open plain the Diamond City stood.
They built them forts with bags of sand, they fought from roof and wall,
They...Read more of this...
by
William Topaz McGonagall
'Twas in the year of 1849, and on the 20th of February,
Lord Gough met and attacked Shere Sing right manfully.
The Sikh Army numbered 40,000 in strength,
And showing a front about two miles length.
It was a glorious morning, the sun was shining in a cloudless sky;
And the larks were singing merrily in the heavens high;
And 'twas about nine o'clock...Read more of this...
by
William Shakespeare
Whilst I alone did call upon thy aid,
My verse alone had all thy gentle grace,
But now my gracious numbers are decay'd
And my sick Muse doth give another place.
I grant, sweet love, thy lovely argument
Deserves the travail of a worthier pen,
Yet what of thee thy poet doth invent
He robs thee of and pays it thee again.
He lends thee virtue and...Read more of this...
by
Henry Kendall
TOWARDS the hills of Jamberoo
Some few fantastic shadows haste,
Uplit with fires
Like castle spires
Outshining through a mirage waste.
Behold, a mournful glory sits
On feathered ferns and woven brakes,
Where sobbing wild like restless child
The gusty breeze of evening wakes!
Methinks I hear on every breath
A lofty tone go passing by,
That whispers - ``Weave,...Read more of this...
by
Francesco Petrarch
CANZONE VI. Quando il suave mio fido conforto. SHE APPEARS TO HIM, AND, WITH MORE THAN WONTED AFFECTION, ENDEAVOURS TO CONSOLE HIM. When she, the faithful soother of my pain,This life's long weary pilgrimage to cheer,Vouchsafes beside my nightly couch to appear,With her sweet speech attempering reason's strain;O'ercome by tenderness, and...Read more of this...
by
Friedrich von Schiller
Priam's castle-walls had sunk,
Troy in dust and ashes lay,
And each Greek, with triumph drunk,
Richly laden with his prey,
Sat upon his ship's high prow,
On the Hellespontic strand,
Starting on his journey now,
Bound for Greece, his own fair land.
Raise the glad exulting shout!
Toward the land that gave them birth
Turn they now the ships about,
As they seek their native earth.
And in rows, all...Read more of this...
by
Matthew Prior
The merchant, to secure his treasure,
Conveys it in a borrowed name:
Euphelia serves to grace my measure;
But Cloe is my real flame.
My softest verse, my darling lyre
Upon Euphelia's toilet lay;
When Cloe noted her desire,
That I should sing, that I should play.
My lyre I tune, my voice I raise;
But with my numbers mix my...Read more of this...
by
Robert Burns
O DEATH! thou tyrant fell and bloody!
The meikle devil wi’ a woodie
Haurl thee hame to his black smiddie,
O’er hurcheon hides,
And like stock-fish come o’er his studdie
Wi’ thy auld sides!
He’s gane, he’s gane! he’s frae us torn,
The ae best fellow e’er was born!
Thee, Matthew, Nature’s sel’ shall mourn,
By wood and wild,
Where haply, Pity strays forlorn,
Frae man...Read more of this...
by
Ben Jonson
LXXIX. — TO ELIZABETH, COUNTESS OF RUTLAND. That poets are far rarer births than king, Your noblest father proved; like whom, before, Or then, or since, about our Muses' springs, Came not that soul exhausted so their store. Hence was it, that the Destinies decreed (Save that most masculine issue of his brain) No male unto him; who could so exceed...Read more of this...
by
Les Murray
The word goes round Repins,
the murmur goes round Lorenzinis,
at Tattersalls, men look up from sheets of numbers,
the Stock Exchange scribblers forget the chalk in their hands
and men with bread in their pockets leave the Greek Club:
There's a fellow crying in Martin Place. They can't stop him.
The traffic in George Street is banked up for half a mile
and drained of...Read more of this...
by
Isaac Watts
v.14-16,22-24
C. M.
Christ our strength and righteousness.
My Savior, my almighty Friend,
When I begin thy praise,
Where will the growing numbers end,
The numbers of thy grace?
Thou art my everlasting trust,
Thy goodness I adore;
And since I knew thy graces first,
I speak thy glories more.
My feet shall travel all the length
Of the celestial road,
And march with courage in thy strength,
To see my Father...Read more of this...
by
Friedrich von Schiller
Once to the song and chariot-fight,
Where all the tribes of Greece unite
On Corinth's isthmus joyously,
The god-loved Ibycus drew nigh.
On him Apollo had bestowed
The gift of song and strains inspired;
So, with light staff, he took his road
From Rhegium, by the godhead fired.
Acrocorinth, on mountain high,
Now burns upon the wanderer's eye,
And he begins, with pious dread,
Poseidon's grove of firs to tread.
Naught...Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
Something's wrong in Pigeon-land;
'Tisn't as it used to be,
When the pilgrim, corn in hand,
Courted us with laughing glee;
When we crooned with pinions furled,
Tamest pigeons in the world.
When we packed each arm and shoulder,
Never deeming man a menace;
Surly birds were never bolder
Than our dainty doves of Venice:
Who would have believed a pigeon
Could become wild as a widgeon.
Well, juts blame it...Read more of this...
by
Thomas Hardy
I
I saw a slowly-stepping train --
Lined on the brows, scoop-eyed and bent and hoar --
Following in files across a twilit plain
A strange and mystic form the foremost bore.
II
And by contagious throbs of thought
Or latent knowledge that within me lay
And had already stirred me, I was wrought
To consciousness of sorrow even as they.
III
The fore-borne shape, to my...Read more of this...
by
Thomas Moore
Dear Harp of my Country! in darkness I found thee,
The cold chain of Silence had hung o'er thee long.
When proudly, my own Island Harp, I unbound thee,
And gave all thy chords to light, freedom, and song.
The warm lay of love and the light note of gladness
Have waken'd thy fondest, thy livliest thrill,
But, so oft...Read more of this...
by
Friedrich von Schiller
Wreathe in a garland the corn's golden ear!
With it, the Cyane [31] blue intertwine
Rapture must render each glance bright and clear,
For the great queen is approaching her shrine,--
She who compels lawless passions to cease,
Who to link man with his fellow has come,
And into firm habitations of peace
Changed the rude tents' ever-wandering home.
Shyly in the mountain-cleft
Was the Troglodyte concealed;
And the...Read more of this...
by
Denise Duhamel
There is a chimp named Ai who can count to five.
There's a poet named Ai whose selected poems Vice
just won the National Book Award.
The name "Ai" is pronounced "I"
so that whenever I talk about the poet Ai
such as I'm teaching Ai's poems again this semester
it sounds like I'm teaching my own poems
or when I say I love Ai's work
it...Read more of this...
by
Edmund Spenser
AH when will this long vveary day haue end,
and lende me leaue to come vnto my loue?
Hovv slovvly do the houres theyr numbers spend?
How slowly does sad Time his feathers moue?
Hast thee O fayrest Planet to thy home
Within the Westerne some:
Thy tyred steedes long since haue need of rest.
Long though it be, at last I see it gloome,
And the...Read more of this...
by
Anne Sexton
In Memoriam
What's missing is the eyeballs
in each of us, but it doesn't matter
because you've got the bucks, the bucks, the bucks.
You let me touch them, fondle the green faces
lick at their numbers and it lets you be
my "Daddy!" "Daddy!" and though I fought all alone
with molesters and crooks, I knew your money
would save me, your courage, your "I've had
considerable...Read more of this...
by
Phillis Wheatley
Mæcenas, you, beneath the myrtle shade,
Read o'er what poets sung, and shepherds play'd.
What felt those poets but you feel the same?
Does not your soul possess the sacred flame?
Their noble strains your equal genius shares
In softer language, and diviner airs.
While Homer paints, lo! circumfus'd in air,
Celestial Gods in mortal forms appear;
Swift as they move hear each recess rebound,
Heav'n...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
One Sister have I in our house,
And one, a hedge away.
There's only one recorded,
But both belong to me.
One came the road that I came --
And wore my last year's gown --
The other, as a bird her nest,
Builded our hearts among.
She did not sing as we did --
It was a different tune --
Herself to her a music
As Bumble bee of...Read more of this...
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