Famous Only To Be Met Poems by Famous Poets

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

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My Foe

by Robert William Service
 A Belgian Priest-Soldier Speaks;

GURR! You cochon! Stand and fight!
Show your mettle! Snarl and bite!
Spawn of an accursed race,
Turn and meet me face to face!
Here amid the wreck and rout
Let us grip and have it out!
Here where ruins rock and reel
Let us settle, steel to steel!
Look! Our houses, how they spit
Sparks from brands your friends have lit.
See! Our gutters running...Read more of this...

I met a King this afternoon!

by Emily Dickinson
 I met a King this afternoon!
He had not on a Crown indeed,
A little Palmleaf Hat was all,
And he was barefoot, I'm afraid!

But sure I am he Ermine wore
Beneath his faded Jacket's blue --
And sure I am, the crest he bore
Within that Jacket's pocket too!

For 'twas too stately for an Earl --
A Marquis would not go so grand!
'Twas possibly a...Read more of this...

When First I Met Thee

by Thomas Moore
 When first I met thee, warm and young, 
There shone such truth about thee, 
And on thy lip such promise hung, 
I did not dare to doubt thee. 
I saw thee change, yet still relied, 
Still clung with hope the fonder, 
And thought, though false to all beside, 
From me thou couldst not wander. 
But go, deceiver! go, 
The...Read more of this...

435. Song—Where are the Joys I have met

by Robert Burns
 WHERE are the joys I have met in the morning,
 That danc’d to the lark’s early song?
Where is the peace that awaited my wand’ring,
 At evening the wild-woods among?


No more a winding the course of yon river,
 And marking sweet flowerets so fair,
No more I trace the light footsteps of Pleasure,
 But Sorrow and sad-sighing Care.


Is it that Summer’s...Read more of this...

Sonnet 36 - When we met first and loved I did not build

by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
 When we met first and loved, I did not build
Upon the event with marble. Could it mean
To last, a love set pendulous between
Sorrow and sorrow? Nay, I rather thrilled,
Distrusting every light that seemed to gild
The onward path, and feared to overlean
A finger even. And, though I have grown serene
And strong since then, I think that God has willed
A still...Read more of this...

There was one I met upon the road

by Stephen Crane
 There was one I met upon the road
Who looked at me with kind eyes.
Her said, "Show me of your wares."
And this I did,
Holding forth one.
He said, "It is a sin."
Then held I forth another;
He said, "It is a sin."
Then held I forth another;
He said, "It is a sin."
And so to the end;
Always he said, "It is a sin."
And, finally,...Read more of this...

Our Hands Have Met

by William Morris
 Our hands have met, our lips have met
Our souls - who knows when the wind blows
How light souls drift mid longings set,
If thou forget'st, can I forget
The time that was not long ago?

Thou wert not silent then, but told
Sweet secrets dear - I drew so near
Thy shamefaced cheeks grown overbold,
That scarce thine eyes might I behold!
Ah was it then...Read more of this...

I Met A Genius

by Charles Bukowski
 I met a genius on the train
today
about 6 years old,
he sat beside me
and as the train 
ran down along the coast
we came to the ocean
and then he looked at me
and said,
it's not pretty.

it was the first time I'd 
realized 
that....Read more of this...

When I Met My Muse

by William Stafford
 I glanced at her and took my glasses
off--they were still singing. They buzzed
like a locust on the coffee table and then
ceased. Her voice belled forth, and the
sunlight bent. I felt the ceiling arch, and
knew that nails up there took a new grip
on whatever they touched. "I am your own
way of looking at things," she said. "When
you allow me to...Read more of this...

The Deficit Demon

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 It was the lunatic poet escaped from the local asylum, 
Loudly he twanged on his banjo and sang with his voice like a saw-mill, 
While as with fervour he sang there was borne o'er the shuddering wildwood, 
Borne on the breath of the poet a flavour of rum and of onions. 
He sang of the Deficit Demon that dqelt...Read more of this...

From an Atlas of the Difficult World

by Adrienne Rich
 I know you are reading this poem
late, before leaving your office
of the one intense yellow lamp-spot and the darkening window
in the lassitude of a building faded to quiet
long after rush-hour. I know you are reading this poem
standing up in a bookstore far from the ocean
on a grey day of early spring, faint flakes driven
across the plains' enormous spaces around...Read more of this...

The most triumphant Bird I ever knew or met

by Emily Dickinson
 The most triumphant Bird I ever knew or met
Embarked upon a twig today
And till Dominion set
I famish to behold so eminent a sight
And sang for nothing scrutable
But intimate Delight.
Retired, and resumed his transitive Estate --
To what delicious Accident
Does finest Glory fit!...Read more of this...

The Three Kings

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
 Three Kings came riding from far away,
Melchior and Gaspar and Baltasar;
Three Wise Men out of the East were they,
And they travelled by night and they slept by day,
For their guide was a beautiful, wonderful star. 

The star was so beautiful, large, and clear,
That all the other stars of the sky
Became a white mist in the atmosphere,
And by this they...Read more of this...

In Memoriam A. H. H.: 6. One writes that Other Friends Rem

by Alfred Lord Tennyson
 One writes, that "Other friends remain," 
That "Loss is common to the race"--
And common is the commonplace,
And vacant chaff well meant for grain.
That loss is common would not make
My own less bitter, rather more.
Too common! Never morning wore
To evening, but some heart did break.
O father, wheresoe'er thou be,
Who pledgest now thy gallant son,
A shot, ere half thy draught be...Read more of this...

We met as Sparks -- Diverging Flints

by Emily Dickinson
 We met as Sparks -- Diverging Flints
Sent various -- scattered ways --
We parted as the Central Flint
Were cloven with an Adze --
Subsisting on the Light We bore
Before We felt the Dark --
A Flint unto this Day -- perhaps --
But for that single Spark....Read more of this...

Dream Song 98: I met a junior--not so junior--and

by John Berryman
 I met a junior-”not so junior-”and
a-many others, who knew 'him' or 'them'
long ago, slightly,
whom I know. It was the usual
cocktail party, only (my schedule being strict)
beforehand.

I worked. Well. Then they kept the kids away
with their own questions, over briefest coffee.
Then kids drove me to my city.
I think of the junior: once my advanced élève,
sweetnatured, slack a little, never perhaps...Read more of this...

Sonnet XXV: The Wisest Scholar

by Sir Philip Sidney
 The wisest scholar of the wight most wise 
By Phoebus' doom, with sugar'd sentence says, 
That Virtue, if it once met with our eyes, 
Strange flames of love it in our souls would raise; 

But for that man with pain his truth descries, 
Whiles he each thing in sense's balance weighs, 
And so nor will, nor can behold those...Read more of this...

Heccar and Gaira

by Thomas Chatterton
 Where the rough Caigra rolls the surgy wave, 
Urging his thunders thro' the echoing cave; 
Where the sharp rocks, in distant horror seen, 
Drive the white currents thro' the spreading green; 
Where the loud tiger, pawing in his rage, 
Bids the black archers of the wilds engage; 
Stretch'd on the sand, two panting warriors lay, 
In all the burning...Read more of this...

I met a seer

by Stephen Crane
 I met a seer.
He held in his hands
The book of wisdom.
"Sir," I addressed him,
"Let me read."
"Child -- " he began.
"Sir," I said,
"Think not that I am a child,
For already I know much
Of that which you hold.
Aye, much."

He smiled.
Then he opened the book
And held it before me. --
Strange that I should have grown so suddenly blind....Read more of this...

The Mylora Elopement

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 By the winding Wollondilly where the weeping willows weep, 
And the shepherd, with his billy, half awake and half asleep, 
Folds his fleecy flocks that linger homewards in the setting sun 
Lived my hero, Jim the Ringer, "cocky" on Mylora Run. 
Jimmy loved the super's daughter, Miss Amelia Jane McGrath. 
Long and earnestly he sought her, but he feared...Read more of this...

Substitution

by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
 WHEN some beloved voice that was to you
Both sound and sweetness, faileth suddenly,
And silence, against which you dare not cry,
Aches round you like a strong disease and new--
What hope ? what help ? what music will undo
That silence to your sense ? Not friendship's sigh,
Not reason's subtle count; not melody
Of viols, nor of pipes that Faunus blew;
Not songs of...Read more of this...

The Hearth Eternal

by Vachel Lindsay
 There dwelt a widow learned and devout,
Behind our hamlet on the eastern hill.
Three sons she had, who went to find the world.
They promised to return, but wandered still.
The cities used them well, they won their way,
Rich gifts they sent, to still their mother's sighs.
Worn out with honors, and apart from her,
They died as many a self-made exile dies.
The mother...Read more of this...

The Philanderer

by Robert William Service
 Oh, have you forgotten those afternoons
With riot of roses and amber skies,
When we thrilled to the joy of a million Junes,
And I sought for your soul in the deeps of your eyes?
I would love you, I promised, forever and aye,
And I meant it too; yet, oh, isn't it odd?
When we met in the Underground to-day
I addressed you as Mary...Read more of this...

Sonnet XXXVI

by Francesco Petrarch
SONNET XXXVI. Quel che 'n Tessaglia ebbe le man sì pronte. SOME HAVE WEPT FOR THEIR WORST ENEMIES, BUT LAURA DEIGNS HIM NOT A SINGLE TEAR.  He who for empire at Pharsalia threw,Reddening its beauteous plain with civil gore,As Pompey's corse his conquering soldiers bore,Wept when the well-known features met his view:Read more of this...

Yesterday, while passing drunk before an inn, I met an

by Omar Khayyam
Yesterday, while passing drunk before an inn, I met an
old man overcome with wine and carrying a gourd of
wine upon his back. I said to him: O aged man! have
you no fear of God? He answered me: Pity comes from
Him; go, drink some wine.
340...Read more of this...

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