Famous Paragon Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Dharma

by Billy Collins
 The way the dog trots out the front door
every morning
without a hat or an umbrella,
without any money
or the keys to her doghouse
never fails to fill the saucer of my heart
with milky admiration.

Who provides a finer example 
of a life without encumbrance—
Thoreau in his curtainless hut
with a single plate, a single spoon?
Gandhi with his staff and his holy diapers?

Off she...Read more of this...

On my Aunt Mrs A. K. Drownd under London-Bridge in the QUEENS Bardge Anno 1641

by Anne Killigrew
 THe Darling of a Father Good and Wise, 
The Vertue, which a Vertuous Age did prize; 
The Beauty Excellent even to those were Faire, 
Subscrib'd unto, by such as might compare; 
The Star that 'bove her Orb did always move, 
And yet the Noblest did not Hate, but Love; 
And those who most upon their Title stood, 
Vail'd also...Read more of this...

The Double Vision Of Michael Robartes

by William Butler Yeats
 I

On the grey rock of Cashel the mind's eye
Has called up the cold spirits that are born
When the old moon is vanished from the sky
And the new still hides her horn.

Under blank eyes and fingers never still
The particular is pounded till it is man.
When had I my own will?
O not since life began.

Constrained, arraigned, baffled, bent and unbent
By these...Read more of this...

The Crystal

by Sidney Lanier
 At midnight, death's and truth's unlocking time,
When far within the spirit's hearing rolls
The great soft rumble of the course of things --
A bulk of silence in a mask of sound, --
When darkness clears our vision that by day
Is sun-blind, and the soul's a ravening owl
For truth and flitteth here and there about
Low-lying woody tracts of time and oft
Is minded...Read more of this...

Villonaud for This Yule

by Ezra Pound
 Towards the Noel that morte saison 
(Christ make the shepherds' homage dear!)
Then when the grey wolves everychone 
Drink of the winds their chill small-beer 
And lap o' the snows food's gueredon 
Then makyth my heart his yule-tide cheer 
(Skoal! with the dregs if the clear be gone!)
Wineing the ghosts of yester-year.

Ask ye what ghost I dream upon? 
(What of...Read more of this...

The Dirge Of Jephthahs Daughter:sung By The Virgins

by Robert Herrick
 O thou, the wonder of all days!
O paragon, and pearl of praise!
O Virgin-martyr, ever blest
Above the rest
Of all the maiden-train! We come,
And bring fresh strewings to thy tomb.

Thus, thus, and thus, we compass round
Thy harmless and unhaunted ground;
And as we sing thy dirge, we will
The daffadil,
And other flowers, lay upon
The altar of our love, thy stone.

Thou wonder of all...Read more of this...

Sonnet LXVI

by Edmund Spenser
 TO all those happy blessings which ye haue,
with plenteous hand by heauen vpon you thrown:
this one disparagement they to you gaue,
that ye your loue lent to so meane a one.
Yee whose high worths surpassing paragon,
could not on earth haue found one fit for mate,
ne but in heauen matchable to none,
why did ye stoup vnto so lowly state.
But ye thereby...Read more of this...

Young wooer, charm all hearts with lover's art,

by Omar Khayyam
Young wooer, charm all hearts with lover's art,
Glad winner, lead thy paragon apart!
A hundred Ka'bas equal not one heart,
Seek not the Ka'ba, rather seek a heart!...Read more of this...

Threnody

by Ralph Waldo Emerson
 The south-wind brings
Life, sunshine, and desire,
And on every mount and meadow
Breathes aromatic fire,
But over the dead he has no power,
The lost, the lost he cannot restore,
And, looking over the hills, I mourn
The darling who shall not return.

I see my empty house,
I see my trees repair their boughs,
And he, —the wondrous child,
Whose silver warble wild
Outvalued every pulsing sound
Within the air's...Read more of this...

Be My Mistress Short or Tall

by Robert Herrick
 Be my mistress short or tall 
And distorted therewithall 
Be she likewise one of those 
That an acre hath of nose 
Be her teeth ill hung or set 
And her grinders black as jet 
Be her cheeks so shallow too 
As to show her tongue wag through 
Hath she thin hair, hath she none 
She's to me a paragon....Read more of this...

Recollect the Face of me

by Emily Dickinson
 Recollect the Face of me
When in thy Felicity,
Due in Paradise today
Guest of mine assuredly --

Other Courtesies have been --
Other Courtesy may be --
We commend ourselves to thee
Paragon of Chivalry....Read more of this...

Sirena

by Michael Drayton
 NEAR to the silver Trent 
 SIRENA dwelleth; 
She to whom Nature lent 
 All that excelleth; 
By which the Muses late 
 And the neat Graces 
Have for their greater state 
 Taken their places; 
Twisting an anadem 
 Wherewith to crown her, 
As it belong'd to them 
 Most to renown her. 
 On thy bank, 
...Read more of this...

ON THE Dutchess of Grafton Under the Name of Alinda

by Anne Killigrew
 A SONG.

I. 
TH'ambitious Eye that seeks alone, 
Where Beauties Wonders most are shown; 
Of all that bounteous Heaven displays, 
Let him on bright Alinda gaze; 
And in her high Example see, 
All can admir'd, or wisht-for, be ! 
II. 
An unmatch't Form, Mind like endow'd, 
Estate, and Title great and proud; 
A Charge Heaven dares to few commit, 
So...Read more of this...

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