Famous Ones Poems by Famous Poets

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

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O heart! when on the Loved One's sweets you feed,

by Omar Khayyam
O heart! when on the Loved One's sweets you feed,
You lose yourself, but find your Self indeed;
And, when you drink of His entrancing cup,
You hasten your escape from quick and dead!...Read more of this...

When One has given up Ones life

by Emily Dickinson
 When One has given up One's life
The parting with the rest
Feels easy, as when Day lets go
Entirely the West

The Peaks, that lingered last
Remain in Her regret
As scarcely as the Iodine
Upon the Cataract....Read more of this...

When Stretchd on Ones Bed

by Jane Austen
 When stretch'd on one's bed 
With a fierce-throbbing head, 
Which preculdes alike thought or repose, 
How little one cares 
For the grandest affairs 
That may busy the world as it goes!

How little one feels 
For the waltzes and reels 
Of our Dance-loving friends at a Ball! 
How slight one's concern 
To conjecture or learn 
What their flounces or hearts...Read more of this...

When Malindy Sings

by Paul Laurence Dunbar
 G'way an' quit dat noise, Miss Lucy--
Put dat music book away;
What's de use to keep on tryin'?
Ef you practise twell you're gray,
You cain't sta't no notes a-flyin'
Lak de ones dat rants and rings
F'om de kitchen to de big woods
When Malindy sings.

You ain't got de nachel o'gans
Fu' to make de soun' come right,
You ain't got de tu'ns an' twistin's
Fu' to...Read more of this...

The Trouble with Snowmen

by Roger McGough
 'The trouble with snowmen,'
Said my father one year
'They are no sooner made
than they just disappear.

I'll build you a snowman
And I'll build it to last
Add sand and cement
And then have it cast.

And so every winter,'
He went on to explain
'You shall have a snowman
Be it sunshine or rain.'

And that snowman still stands
Though my father is gone
Out there in the garden
Like an...Read more of this...

Curriculum Vitae

by Anthony Hecht
 As though it were reluctant to be day,
.......Morning deploys a scale
.......Of rarities in gray,
And winter settles down in its chain-mail,

Victorious over legions of gold and red.
......The smokey souls of stones,
......Blunt pencillings of lead,
Pare down the world to glintless monotones

Of graveyard weather, vapors of a fen
.......We reckon through our pores.
.......Save for the garbage men,
Our children are the first ones out...Read more of this...

One of the ones that Midas touched

by Emily Dickinson
 One of the ones that Midas touched
Who failed to touch us all
Was that confiding Prodigal
The reeling Oriole --

So drunk he disavows it
With badinage divine --
So dazzling we mistake him
For an alighting Mine --

A Pleader -- a Dissembler --
An Epicure -- a Thief --
Betimes an Oratorio --
An Ecstasy in chief --

The Jesuit of Orchards
He cheats as he enchants
Of an entire...Read more of this...

Longevity

by Robert William Service
 Said Brown: 'I can't afford to die
 For I have bought annuity,
And every day of living I
 Have money coming in to me:
While others toil to make their bread
 I make mine by not being dead.'

Said Jones: 'I can't afford to die,
 For I have books and books to write.
I do not care for pelf but I
 Would versify...Read more of this...

In Memoriam A. H. H.: The Prelude

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 made.
Thou wilt not leave us in the dust:
Thou madest man, he knows...Read more of this...

Dream Song 36: The high ones die die. They die

by John Berryman
 The high ones die, die. They die. You look up and who's there?
-”Easy, easy, Mr Bones. I is on your side.
I smell your grief.
-”I sent my grief away. I cannot care
forever. With them all align & again I died
and cried, and I have to live.

-”Now there you exaggerate, Sah. We hafta die.
That is our 'pointed task. Love & die.
-”Yes;...Read more of this...

Questions of Travel

by Elizabeth Bishop
 There are too many waterfalls here; the crowded streams 
hurry too rapidly down to the sea, 
and the pressure of so many clouds on the mountaintops 
makes them spill over the sides in soft slow-motion, 
turning to waterfalls under our very eyes. 
--For if those streaks, those mile-long, shiny, tearstains, 
aren't waterfalls yet, 
in a quick age or so,...Read more of this...

Be not beguiled by world's insidious wiles;

by Omar Khayyam
Be not beguiled by world's insidious wiles;
O foolish ones, ye know her tricks and guiles;
Your precious life-time cast not to the winds;
Haste to seek wine, and court a sweetheart's smile....Read more of this...

To lose ones faith -- surpass

by Emily Dickinson
 To lose one's faith -- surpass
The loss of an Estate --
Because Estates can be
Replenished -- faith cannot --

Inherited with Life --
Belief -- but once -- can be --
Annihilate a single clause --
And Being's -- Beggary --...Read more of this...

The Owl Describing her Young Ones

by Anne Kingsmill Finch
 Why was that baleful Creature made, 
Which seeks our Quiet to invade, 
And screams ill Omens through the Shade? 

'Twas, sure, for every Mortals good, 
When, by wrong painting of her Brood, 
She doom'd them for the Eagle's Food: 

Who proffer'd Safety to her Tribe, 
Wou'd she but shew them or describe, 
And serving him, his Favour bribe. 

When...Read more of this...

One's-Self I Sing

by Walt Whitman
 ONE’S-SELF I sing—a simple, separate Person; 
Yet utter the word Democratic, the word En-masse. 

Of Physiology from top to toe I sing; 
Not physiognomy alone, nor brain alone, is worthy for the muse—I say the
 Form complete is worthier far; 
The Female equally with the male I sing.

Of Life immense in passion, pulse, and power, 
Cheerful—for freest action form’d,...Read more of this...

The Wildy Ones

by Robert William Service
 The sheep are in the silver wood,
 The cows are in the broom;
The goats are in the wild mountain
 And won't be home by noon.

My mother sang that olden tune
 Most every night,
And to her newest she would croon
 By candle light;
While cuddling in the velvet gloom
 I'd dream of cows
That sought each dawn 'mid golden broom
 To gently...Read more of this...

The Silent Ones

by Robert William Service
 I'm just an ordinary chap
 Who comes home to his tea,
And mostly I don't care a rap
 What people think of me;
I do my job and take my pay,
 And love of peace expound;
But as I go my patient way,
 --Don't push me round.

Though I respect authority
 And order never flout,
When Law and Justice disagree
 You can include me...Read more of this...

The Young Ones Flip Side

by James A Emanuel
 In tight pants, tight skirts,
Stretched or squeezed,
Youth hurts,
Crammed in, bursting out,
Flesh will sing
And hide its doubt
In nervous hips, hopping glance,
Usurping rouge,
Provoking stance.

Put off, or put on,
Youth hurts. And then
It's gone....Read more of this...

The Song Of The Blindman

by Rainer Maria Rilke
 I am blind, you out there -- that is a curse,
against one's will, a contradiction,
a heavy daily burden.
I lay my hand on the arm of my wife,
my grey hand upon her greyer grey,
as she guides me through empty spaces.

You move about and stir, and imagine
your sounds differing from stone to stone.
But you are mistaken: I alone
live and suffer and...Read more of this...

All My Pretty Ones

by Anne Sexton
 Father, this year's jinx rides us apart 
where you followed our mother to her cold slumber; 
a second shock boiling its stone to your heart,
leaving me here to shuffle and disencumber
you from the residence you could not afford:
a gold key, your half of a woolen mill,
twenty suits from Dunne's, an English Ford,
the love and legal verbiage of another will,...Read more of this...

To make Ones Toilette -- after Death

by Emily Dickinson
 To make One's Toilette -- after Death
Has made the Toilette cool
Of only Taste we cared to please
Is difficult, and still --

That's easier -- than Braid the Hair --
And make the Bodice gay --
When eyes that fondled it are wrenched
By Decalogues -- away --...Read more of this...

The Rhyme Of The Restless Ones

by Robert William Service
 We couldn't sit and study for the law;
 The stagnation of a bank we couldn't stand;
For our riot blood was surging, and we didn't need much urging
 To excitements and excesses that are banned.
So we took to wine and drink and other things,
 And the devil in us struggled to be free;
Till our friends rose up in wrath, and...Read more of this...

Dream Song 110: It was the blue and plain ones. I forget all that

by John Berryman
 It was the blue & plain ones. I forget all that.
My own clouds darkening hung.
Besides, it wasn't serious.
They took them in different rooms & fed them lies.
'She admitted you wanted to get rid of it.'
'He told us he told you to.'

The Force, with its rapists con-men murderers,
has been our Pride (trust Henry) eighty years;-”
now Teddy was hard on.
Still the...Read more of this...

Consolatorium Ad Parentes

by William Strode
 Lett her parents then confesse
That they beleeve her happinesse,
Which now they question. Thinke as you
Lent her the world, Heaven lent her you:
And is it just then to complayne
When each hath but his owne againe?
Then thinke what both your glories are
In her preferment: for tis farre
Nobler to gett a Saint, and beare
A childe to Heaven than an Heyre
To a large...Read more of this...

The ones that disappeared are back

by Emily Dickinson
 The ones that disappeared are back
The Phoebe and the Crow
Precisely as in March is heard
The curtness of the Jay --
Be this an Autumn or a Spring
My wisdom loses way
One side of me the nuts are ripe
The other side is May....Read more of this...

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