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Famous Partial Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Burns, Robert
...speirs:
The social hours, swift-wing’d, unnotic’d fleet:
 Each tells the uncos that he sees or hears.
 The parents, partial, eye their hopeful years;
Anticipation forward points the view;
 The mother, wi’ her needle and her shears,
Gars auld claes look amaist as weel’s the new;
The father mixes a’ wi’ admonition due.


Their master’s and their mistress’ command,
 The younkers a’ are warned to obey;
And mind their labours wi’ an eydent hand,
 And ne’er, tho’ out o’ sig...Read more of this...



by Brackenridge, Hugh Henry
...raightway knew the soul immortal lives 
Beyond the grave and all the wrecks of time. 


From Judah's sacred hills a partial ray 
Extraneous, visited and cheer'd the gloom 
Spread o'er the shaded earth; yet more than half 
In superstition and the dreams of night 
Each hoary sage by long experience wise, 
And high philosopher of learning fam'd 
Lay buried deep shut from the light of day. 
Shut from the light of revelation clear 
In devious path they wandered oft, 
Nor c...Read more of this...

by Shelley, Percy Bysshe
...e the last, neglected and apart;
A herd-abandoned deer struck by the hunter's dart.

All stood aloof, and at his partial moan
Smiled through their tears; well knew that gentle band
Who in another's fate now wept his own,
As in the accents of an unknown land
He sung new sorrow; sad Urania scanned
The Stranger's mien, and murmured: "Who art thou?"
He answered not, but with a sudden hand
Made bare his branded and ensanguined brow,
Which was like Cain's or Christ's...Read more of this...

by Pope, Alexander
...se to Write.
Let such teach others who themselves excell,
And censure freely who have written well.
Authors are partial to their Wit, 'tis true,
But are not Criticks to their Judgment too?

Yet if we look more closely, we shall find
Most have the Seeds of Judgment in their Mind;
Nature affords at least a glimm'ring Light;
The Lines, tho' touch'd but faintly, are drawn right.
But as the slightest Sketch, if justly trac'd,
Is by ill Colouring but the more disgrac'd,...Read more of this...

by Pope, Alexander
...tempests sweep
Towns to one grave, whole nations to the deep?
"No, ('tis replied) the first Almighty Cause
Acts not by partial, but by gen'ral laws;
Th' exceptions few; some change since all began:
And what created perfect?"--Why then man?
If the great end be human happiness,
Then Nature deviates; and can man do less?
As much that end a constant course requires
Of show'rs and sunshine, as of man's desires;
As much eternal springs and cloudless skies,
As men for ever temp'rat...Read more of this...



by Pope, Alexander
...ive all thou canst--and let me dream the rest.
Ah no! instruct me other joys to prize,
With other beauties charm my partial eyes,
Full in my view set all the bright abode,
And make my soul quit Abelard for God.

Ah, think at least thy flock deserves thy care,
Plants of thy hand, and children of thy pray'r.
From the false world in early youth they fled,
By thee to mountains, wilds, and deserts led.
You rais'd these hallow'd walls; the desert smil'd,
And Paradis...Read more of this...

by Pope, Alexander
...empests sweep 
Towns to one grave, whole nations to the deep? 
"No ('tis reply'd) the first Almighty Cause 
Acts not by partial, but by gen'ral laws; 
Th' exceptions few; some change since all began, 
And what created perfect?" -- Why then Man? 
If the great end be human Happiness, 
Then Nature deviates; and can Man do less? 
As much that end a constant course requires 
Of show'rs and sun-shine, as of Man's desires; 
As much eternal springs and cloudless skies, 
As Men for ev...Read more of this...

by Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)
...ion, concentration
Without elimination, both a new world
And the old made explicit, understood
In the completion of its partial ecstasy,
The resolution of its partial horror.
Yet the enchainment of past and future
Woven in the weakness of the changing body,
Protects mankind from heaven and damnation
Which flesh cannot endure.
 Time past and time future
Allow but a little consciousness.
To be conscious is not to be in time
But only in time can the moment in the ros...Read more of this...

by Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)
...e becomes older,
That the past has another pattern, and ceases to be a mere sequence—
Or even development: the latter a partial fallacy
Encouraged by superficial notions of evolution,
Which becomes, in the popular mind, a means of disowning the past.
The moments of happiness—not the sense of well-being,
Fruition, fulfilment, security or affection,
Or even a very good dinner, but the sudden illumination—
We had the experience but missed the meaning,
And approach to the mea...Read more of this...

by Pope, Alexander
...eyes
None e'er has risen, and none e'er shall rise.

Just in one instance, be it yet confest
Your people, Sir, are partial in the rest:
Foes to all living worth except your own,
And advocates for folly dead and gone.
Authors, like coins, grow dear as they grow old;
It is the rust we value, not the gold.
Chaucer's worst ribaldry is learn'd by rote,
And beastly Skelton heads of houses quote:
One likes no language but the Faery Queen ;
A Scot will fight for Christ's...Read more of this...

by Marvell, Andrew
...e brawny female disobeys, 
And beats the husband till for peace he prays, 
No concerned jury for him damage finds, 
Nor partial justice her behavior binds, 
But the just street does the next house invade, 
Mounting the neighbour couple on lean jade, 
The distaff knocks, the grains from kettle fly, 
And boys and girls in troops run hooting by: 
Prudent antiquity, that knew by shame, 
Better than law, domestic crimes to tame, 
And taught youth by spect?cle innocent! 
So thou an...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...ss fall 
By doom of battle, and complain that Fate 
Free Virtue should enthrall to Force or Chance. 
Their song was partial; but the harmony 
(What could it less when Spirits immortal sing?) 
Suspended Hell, and took with ravishment 
The thronging audience. In discourse more sweet 
(For Eloquence the Soul, Song charms the Sense) 
Others apart sat on a hill retired, 
In thoughts more elevate, and reasoned high 
Of Providence, Foreknowledge, Will, and Fate-- 
Fixed fate...Read more of this...

by Whittier, John Greenleaf
...on his native grounds, 
The little world of sights and sounds 
Whose girdle was the parish bounds, 
Whereof his fondly partial pride 
The common features magnified, 
As Surrey hills to mountains grew 
In White of Selborne's loving view, -- 
He told how teal and loon he shot, 
And how the eagle's eggs he got, 
The feats on pond and river done, 
The prodigies of rod and gun; 
Till, warming with the tales he told, 
Forgotten was the outside cold, 
The bitter wind unheeded blew,...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...riads roll through the sky.

In spiral roads, by long detours, 
(As a much-tacking ship upon the sea,) 
For it, the partial to the permanent flowing, 
For it, the Real to the Ideal tends. 

For it, the mystic evolution;
Not the right only justified—what we call evil also justified. 

Forth from their masks, no matter what, 
From the huge, festering trunk—from craft and guile and tears, 
Health to emerge, and joy—joy universal. 

Out of the bulk, the morbid and...Read more of this...

by Swift, Jonathan
...y fair accounts it would be found,
He's poorer by ten thousand pound.
He owns, and hopes it is no sin,
He ne'er was partial to his kin;
He thought it base for men in stations
To crowd the Court with their relations;
His country was his dearest mother,
And ev'ry virtuous man his brother;
Through modesty or awkward shame
(For which he owns himself to blame),
He found the wisest man he could,
Without respect to friends or blood;
Nor ever acts on private views,
When he hath l...Read more of this...

by Frost, Robert
...
Nor Granny's, surely. Call up one of them. 
They have best right to be heard in this place." 
"You seem so partial to our great-grandmother 
(Nine times removed. Correct me if I err.) 
You will be likely to regard as sacred 
Anything she may say. But let me warn you, 
Folks in her day were given to plain speaking. 
You think you'd best tempt her at such a time?" 
"It rests with us always to cut her off." 
"Well then, it's Granny speaking: 'I d...Read more of this...

by Scott, Sir Walter
...o fly.
     And, trust, while in such guise she stood,
     Like fabled Goddess of the wood,
     That if a father's partial thought
     O'erweighed her worth and beauty aught,
     Well might the lover's judgment fail
     To balance with a juster scale;
     For with each secret glance he stole,
     The fond enthusiast sent his soul.
     XXV.

     Of stature fair, and slender frame,
     But firmly knit, was Malcolm Graeme.
     The belted plaid and tartan ...Read more of this...

by Smart, Christopher
...t ye, a word before I go," 
Quoth honest Hodge--and stooping low 
Produc'd the Pig, and thus aloud 
Bespoke the stupid, partial crowd: 
"Behold, and learn from this poor creature, 
How much you Critics know of Nature."...Read more of this...

by Petrarch, Francesco
...AN>With hate so deadly, as the learn'd and wise,Who scan their own desert with partial eyes.Carneades, renown'd for logic skill,Who right or wrong, and true and false, at willCould turn and change, employ'd his fruitless painTo reconcile the fierce, contending train:But, ever as he toil'd, the raging pestRead more of this...

by Yeats, William Butler
...d!'
Know that when all words are said
And a man is fighting mad,
Something drops from eyes long blind,
He completes his partial mind,
For an instant stands at ease,
Laughs aloud, his heart at peace.
Even the wisest man grows tense
With some sort of violence
Before he can accomplish fate,
Know his work or choose his mate.

 IV

Poet and sculptor, do the work,
Nor let the modish painter shirk
What his great forefathers did.
Bring the soul of man to God,
Make him fil...Read more of this...

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