Famous Owns Poems by Famous Poets

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

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The Atheist

by Aleister Crowley
 Nor thou, Habib, nor I are glad,
when rosy limbs and sweat entwine;
But rapture drowns the sense and self,
the wine the drawer of the wine,

And Him that planted first the grape-
o podex, in thy vault there dwells
A charm to make the member mad,
And shake the marrow of the spine.

O member, in thy stubborn strenght
a power avails on podex-sense
To boil the...Read more of this...

The Shepherd's Brow Fronting Forked Lightning Owns

by Gerard Manley Hopkins
 The shepherd's brow, fronting forked lightning, owns 
The horror and the havoc and the glory 
Of it. Angels fall, they are towers, from heaven—a story 
Of just, majestical, and giant groans. 
But man—we, scaffold of score brittle bones;
Who breathe, from groundlong babyhood to hoary 
Age gasp; whose breath is our memento mori— 
What bass is our viol for tragic...Read more of this...

Story

by Stephen Dunn
 A woman's taking her late-afternoon walk
on Chestnut where no sidewalk exists
and houses with gravel driveways
sit back among the pines. Only the house
with the vicious dog is close to the road.
An electric fence keeps him in check.
When she comes to that house, the woman
always crosses to the other side.

I'm the woman's husband. It's a problem
loving your protagonist too much.
Soon the...Read more of this...

324. Song—The Charms of Lovely Davies

by Robert Burns
 O HOW shall I, unskilfu’, try
 The poet’s occupation?
The tunefu’ powers, in happy hours,
 That whisper inspiration;
Even they maun dare an effort mair
 Than aught they ever gave us,
Ere they rehearse, in equal verse,
 The charms o’ lovely Davies.


Each eye it cheers when she appears,
 Like Phoebus in the morning,
When past the shower, and every flower
 The garden is...Read more of this...

The Hard Times In Elfland

by Sidney Lanier
 A Story of Christmas Eve.

Strange that the termagant winds should scold
The Christmas Eve so bitterly!
But Wife, and Harry the four-year-old,
Big Charley, Nimblewits, and I,

Blithe as the wind was bitter, drew
More frontward of the mighty fire,
Where wise Newfoundland Fan foreknew
The heaven that Christian dogs desire --

Stretched o'er the rug, serene and grave,
Huge nose on heavy paws reclined,
With never a drowning...Read more of this...

Sonnet XXIV: O Thou! Meek Orb

by Mary Darby Robinson
 O thou! meek Orb! that stealing o'er the dale
Cheer'st with thy modest beams the noon of night!
On the smooth lake diffusing silv'ry light,
Sublimely still, and beautifully pale!
What can thy cool and placid eye avail,
Where fierce despair absorbs the mental sight,
While inbred glooms the vagrant thoughts invite,
To tempt the gulph where howling fiends assail?
O, Night! all nature owns thy temper'd...Read more of this...

The Land

by Rudyard Kipling
 When Julius Fabricius, Sub-Prefect of the Weald,
In the days of Diocletian owned our Lower River-field,
He called to him Hobdenius-a Briton of the Clay,
Saying: "What about that River-piece for layin'' in to hay?"

And the aged Hobden answered: "I remember as a lad
My father told your father that she wanted dreenin' bad.
An' the more that you neeglect her the less you'll...Read more of this...

Jehovah Jesus

by William Cowper
 My song shall bless the Lord of all,
My praise shall climb to His abode;
Thee, Saviour, by that name I call,
The great Supreme, the mighty God.

Without beginning or decline,
Object of faith and not of sense;
Eternal ages saw Him shine,
He shines eternal ages hence.

As much when in the manger laid,
Almighty Ruler of the sky,
As when the six days' work He made,
Fill'd...Read more of this...

I cannot want it more --

by Emily Dickinson
 I cannot want it more --
I cannot want it less --
My Human Nature's fullest force
Expends itself on this.

And yet it nothing is
To him who easy owns --
Is Worth itself or Distance
He fathoms who obtains....Read more of this...

De Hortis Julii Martialis

by Robert Louis Stevenson
 MY Martial owns a garden, famed to please,
Beyond the glades of the Hesperides;
Along Janiculum lies the chosen block
Where the cool grottos trench the hanging rock.
The moderate summit, something plain and bare,
Tastes overhead of a serener air;
And while the clouds besiege the vales below,
Keeps the clear heaven and doth with sunshine glow.
To the June stars that circle in the skies
The...Read more of this...

Wild With All Regrets

by Wilfred Owen
 (Another version of "A Terre".)

 To Siegfried Sassoon


My arms have mutinied against me -- brutes!
My fingers fidget like ten idle brats,
My back's been stiff for hours, damned hours.
Death never gives his squad a Stand-at-ease.
I can't read. There: it's no use. Take your book.
A short life and a merry one, my buck!
We said we'd hate to grow dead old. But...Read more of this...

Dedication

by Lewis Carroll
 Inscribed to a Dear Child:
In Memory of Golden Summer Hours
And Whispers of a Summer Sea 


Girt with a boyish garb for boyish task,
Eager she wields her spade: yet loves as well
Rest on a friendly knee, intent to ask
The tale he loves to tell. 
Rude spirits of the seething outer strife,
Unmeet to read her pure and simple spright,
Deem if you...Read more of this...

199. Song—My Peggy's Charms

by Robert Burns
 MY Peggy’s face, my Peggy’s form,
The frost of hermit Age might warm;
My Peggy’s worth, my Peggy’s mind,
Might charm the first of human kind.


I love my Peggy’s angel air,
Her face so truly heavenly fair,
Her native grace, so void of art,
But I adore my Peggy’s heart.


The lily’s hue, the rose’s dye,
The kindling lustre of an eye;
Who but owns their magic sway!
Who...Read more of this...

Loot

by Rudyard Kipling
 If you've ever stole a pheasant-egg be'ind the keeper's back,
 If you've ever snigged the washin' from the line,
If you've ever crammed a gander in your bloomin' 'aversack,
 You will understand this little song o' mine.
But the service rules are 'ard, an' from such we are debarred,
 For the same with English morals does not suit.
 (Cornet: Toot! toot!)
W'y,...Read more of this...

Ode to the Moon

by Mary Darby Robinson
 PALE GODDESS of the witching hour;
Blest Contemplation's placid friend; 
Oft in my solitary bow'r,
I mark thy lucid beam
From thy crystal car descend,
Whitening the spangled heath, and limpid sapphire stream. 

And oft, amidst the shades of night
I court thy undulating light;
When Fairies dance around the verdant ring,
Or frisk beside the bubbling spring,
When the thoughtless SHEPHERD'S song
Echoes thro' the silent air,
As...Read more of this...

A Terre

by Wilfred Owen
 (Being the philosophy of many Soldiers.)


Sit on the bed; I'm blind, and three parts shell,
Be careful; can't shake hands now; never shall.
Both arms have mutinied against me -- brutes.
My fingers fidget like ten idle brats.

I tried to peg out soldierly -- no use!
One dies of war like any old disease.
This bandage feels like pennies on my eyes.
I have my...Read more of this...

Sonnet XLIII: While From the Dizzy Precipice

by Mary Darby Robinson
 While from the dizzy precipice I gaze,
The world receding from my pensive eyes,
High o'er my head the tyrant eagle flies,
Cloth'd in the sinking sun's transcendent blaze!
The meek-ey'd moon, 'midst clouds of amber plays
As o'er the purpling plains of light she hies,
Till the last stream of living lustre dies,
And the cool concave owns her temper'd rays!
So shall this glowing, palpitating...Read more of this...

The stoddards

by Eugene Field
 When I am in New York, I like to drop around at night,
To visit with my honest, genial friends, the Stoddards hight;
Their home in Fifteenth street is all so snug, and furnished so,
That, when I once get planted there, I don't know when to go;
A cosy cheerful refuge for the weary homesick guest,
Combining Yankee comforts with the freedom of...Read more of this...

sacked

by Rg Gregory
 fog owns the town

in its palm
lawyers nibble each other's fingers
the churches take their cut

at the fat lunch
the men of business
carve themselves prayers and praises

the fog comes to my window
and lisping in says

 i've drained the town of you
 and you of the town
 come outside
 and let me smother you
 to the border

no person calls
and only the headless
watch and...Read more of this...

The Divine Vision

by George William Russell
 THIS mood hath known all beauty, for it sees
O’erwhelmed majesties
In these pale forms, and kingly crowns of gold
On brows no longer bold,
And through the shadowy terrors of their hell
The love for which they fell,
And how desire which cast them in the deep
Called God too from His sleep.
Oh, Pity, only seer, who looking through
A heart melted like dew,
Seest the long...Read more of this...

Examination at the Womb-Door

by Ted Hughes
 Who owns those scrawny little feet? Death.
Who owns this bristly scorched-looking face? Death.
Who owns these still-working lungs? Death.
Who owns this utility coat of muscles? Death.
Who owns these unspeakable guts? Death.
Who owns these questionable brains? Death.
All this messy blood? Death.
These minimum-efficiency eyes? Death.
This wicked little tongue? Death.
This occasional wakefulness? Death.

Given, stolen, or held pending trial?
Held.

Who owns the whole rainy, stony...Read more of this...

In a Minor Key

by Amy Levy
 (AN ECHO FROM A LARGER LYRE.)


That was love that I had before
Years ago, when my heart was young;
Ev'ry smile was a gem you wore;
Ev'ry word was a sweet song sung.

You came--all my pulses burn'd and beat.
(O sweet wild throbs of an early day!)
You went--with the last dear sound of your feet
The light wax'd dim and the place grew grey.

And...Read more of this...

Misgivings

by William Matthews
 "Perhaps you'll tire of me," muses
my love, although she's like a great city 
to me, or a park that finds new
ways to wear each flounce of light
and investiture of weather.
Soil doesn't tire of rain, I think,

but I know what she fears: plans warp,
planes explode, topsoil gets peeled away 
by floods. And worse than what we can't 
control is what...Read more of this...

While in love's book I sought an augury;

by Omar Khayyam
While in love's book I sought an augury;
An ardent youth cried out in ecstasy,
«Who owns a sweetheart beauteous as the moon,
Might wish his moments long as years to be!»...Read more of this...

Clover

by Sidney Lanier
 Inscribed to the Memory of John Keats.



Dear uplands, Chester's favorable fields,
My large unjealous Loves, many yet one --
A grave good-morrow to your Graces, all,
Fair tilth and fruitful seasons!
Lo, how still!
The midmorn empties you of men, save me;
Speak to your lover, meadows! None can hear.
I lie as lies yon placid Brandywine,
Holding the hills and heavens in my heart
For contemplation.
'Tis a...Read more of this...

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