Famous Piece Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Piece poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous piece poems. These examples illustrate what a famous piece poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
See also:
by
Wilfred Owen
Be slowly lifted up, thou long black arm,
Great gun towering towards Heaven, about to curse;
Sway steep against them, and for years rehearse
Huge imprecations like a blasting charm!
Reach at that Arrogance which needs thy harm,
And beat it down before its sins grow worse;
Spend our resentment, cannon,--yea, disburse
Our gold in shapes of flame, our breaths in storm.
Yet, for men's sakes whom...Read more of this...
by
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
WHAT time our Lord still walk'd the earth,
Unknown, despised, of humble birth,
And on Him many a youth attended
(His words they seldom comprehended),
It ever seem'd to Him most meet
To hold His court in open street,
As under heaven's broad canopy
One speaks with greater liberty.
The teachings of His blessed word
From out His holy mouth were heard;
Each market to a fane turn'd He
With...Read more of this...
by
William Cowper
England, with all thy faults, I love thee still--
My country! and, while yet a nook is left
Where English minds and manners may be found,
Shall be constrain'd to love thee. Though thy clime
Be fickle, and thy year most part deform'd
With dripping rains, or wither'd by a frost,
I would not yet exchange thy sullen skies,
And fields without a flow'r, for warmer...Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
Let poets piece prismatic words,
Give me the jewelled joy of birds!
What ecstasy moves them to sing?
Is it the lyric glee of Spring,
The dewy rapture of the rose?
Is it the worship born in those
Who are of Nature's self a part,
The adoration of the heart?
Is it the mating mood in them
That makes each crystal note a gem?
Oh mocking bird and nightingale,
Oh...Read more of this...
by
John Berryman
A spot of poontang on a five-foot piece,
Diminutive, but room enough . . like clay
To finger eager on some torrid day . .
Who'd throw her black hair back, and hang, and tease.
Never, not once in all one's horny lease
To'have had a demi-lay, a pretty, gay,
Snug, slim and supple-breasted girl for play . .
She bats her big, warm eyes, and...Read more of this...
by
Algernon Charles Swinburne
Wind and sea and cloud and cloud-forsaking
Mirth of moonlight where the storm leaves free
Heaven awhile, for all the wrath of waking
Wind and sea.
Bright with glad mad rapture, fierce with glee,
Laughs the moon, borne on past cloud's o'ertaking
Fast, it seems, as wind or sail can flee.
One blown sail beneath her, hardly making
Forth, wild-winged for harbourage yet to be,
Strives and leaps...Read more of this...
by
Mark Strand
For Sharon Horvath
From the shadow of domes in the city of domes,
A snowflake, a blizzard of one, weightless, entered your room
And made its way to the arm of the chair where you, looking up
From your book, saw it the moment it landed.
That's all There was to it. No more than a solemn waking
To brevity, to the lifting and falling...Read more of this...
by
A S J Tessimond
Climb, claim your shelf-room, far
Packed from inquisitive moon
And cold contagious stars.
Lean out, but look no longer,
No further, than to stir
Night with extended finger.
Now fill the box with light,
Flood full the shining block,
Masonry against night.
Let window, curtain, blind
Soft-sieve and sift and shred
The impertinence of sound.
Now draw the silence up,
A blanket round your ears;
Lay darkness close and sure,
Inverted cup to cup
On...Read more of this...
by
Richard Brautigan
I am standing in the cemetery at Byrds, Texas.
What did Judy say? "God-forsaken is beautiful, too."
A very old man who has cancer on his face and takes
care of the cemetery, is raking a grave in such a
manner as to almost (polish it like a piece of silver.
An old dog stands beside him. It's a hot day: 105.
What am I...Read more of this...
by
Omar Khayyam
Art thou sad? Take a piece of hasheesh as large as a
grain of barley, or drink a small measure of rose-colored
wine. Then you will become a Sufi. But, if you will
not drink of this or partake of that, nothing remains for
you but to eat pebbles; go, eat some pebbles!...Read more of this...
by
John Crowe Ransom
-- I am a gentleman in a dustcoat trying
To make you hear. Your ears are soft and small
And listen to an old man not at all,
They want the young men's whispering and sighing.
But see the roses on your trellis dying
And hear the spectral singing of the moon;
For I must have my lovely lady soon,
I am a gentleman in a...Read more of this...
by
Adrienne Rich
First having read the book of myths,
and loaded the camera,
and checked the edge of the knife-blade,
I put on
the body-armor of black rubber
the absurd flippers
the grave and awkward mask.
I am having to do this
not like Cousteau with his
assiduous team
aboard the sun-flooded schooner
but here alone.
There is a ladder.
The ladder is always there
hanging innocently
close to the side of the schooner.
We know what...Read more of this...
by
Ezra Pound
O fan of white silk,
clear as frost on the grass-blade,
You also are laid aside....Read more of this...
by
Ben Jonson
LVI. ? ON POET-APE. Poor POET-APE, that would be thought our chief, Whose works are e'en the frippery of wit, From brokage is become so bold a thief, As we, the robb'd, leave rage, and pity it. At first he made low shifts, would pick and glean, Buy the reversion of...Read more of this...
by
Rg Gregory
what's that
i'm awake
a bang like a door or a foot
knocking a chair
who's there
tense i lie in my bed my face
stretching out on the black air
my ears strain......a creak this time
like a cat on the stair - but we have no cat
if the door-handle turned and a....
shape came in.....darkness
clutches at my startled hair
spiders walk my...Read more of this...
by
William Ernest Henley
Madam Life's a piece in bloom
Death goes dogging everywhere:
She's the tenant of the room,
He's the ruffian on the stair.
You shall see her as a friend,
You shall bilk him once or twice;
But he'll trap you in the end,
And he'll stick you for her price.
With his kneebones at your chest,
And his knuckles in your throat,
You would reason -- plead -- protest!
Clutching...Read more of this...
by
Siegfried Sassoon
YE hooded witches baleful shapes that moan
Quench your fantastic lanterns and be still;
For now the moon through heaven sails alone
Shedding her peaceful rays from hill to hill.
The faun from out his dim and secret place 5
Draws nigh the darkling pool and from his dream
Half-wakens seeing there his sylvan face
Reflected and the wistful eyes that gleam.
To his cold lips...Read more of this...
by
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
THOUGHTS ON JESUS CHRIST'S DESCENT INTO HELL.
[THE remarkable Poem of which this is a literal
but faint representation, was written when Goethe was only sixteen
years old. It derives additional interest from the fact of its being
the very earliest piece of his that is preserved. The few other
pieces included by Goethe under the title of Religion and...Read more of this...
by
Nazim Hikmet
Taut, thick fingers punch
the teeth of my typewriter.
Three words are down on paper
in capitals:
SPRING
SPRING
SPRING...
And me -- poet, proofreader,
the man who's forced to read
two thousand bad lines
every day
for two liras--
why,
since spring
has come, am I
still sitting here
like a ragged
black chair?
My head puts on its cap by itself,
I fly out...Read more of this...
by
Robert Herrick
Her eyes the glow-worm lend thee,
The shooting stars attend thee;
And the elves also,
Whose little eyes glow
Like the sparks of fire, befriend thee.
No Will-o'-th'-Wisp mis-light thee,
Nor snake or slow-worm bite thee;
But on, on thy way,
Not making a stay,
Since ghost there's none to affright thee.
Let not the dark thee cumber;
What though the moon does slumber?
The stars of the night
Will lend thee...Read more of this...
by
William Topaz McGonagall
A pathetic tale of the sea I will unfold,
Enough to make one's blood run cold;
Concerning four fishermen cast adrift in a dory.
As I've been told I'll relate the story.
T'was on the 8th April on the afternoon of that day
That the village of Louisburg was thrown into a wild state or dismay,
And the villagers flew to the beach in...Read more of this...
by
Robert Herrick
Her eyes the glow-worm lend thee,
The shooting stars attend thee,
And the elves also,
Whose little eyes glow
Like sparks of fire befriend thee.
No will-o'th'-wisp mislight thee;
No snake or slow-worm bite thee;
But on, on thy way,
Not making a stay,
Since ghost there's none to affright thee.
Let not the dark thee cumber;
What through...Read more of this...
by
Richard Wilbur
The good gray guardians of art
Patrol the halls on spongy shoes,
Impartially protective, though
Perhaps suspicious of Toulouse.
Here dozes one against the wall,
Disposed upon a funeral chair.
A Degas dancer pirouettes
Upon the parting of his hair.
See how she spins! The grace is there,
But strain as well is plain to see.
Degas loved the two together:
Beauty joined to energy.
Edgar Degas purchased once
A fine El...Read more of this...
by
Shel Silverstein
One picture puzzle piece
Lyin' on the sidewalk,
One picture puzzle piece
Soakin' in the rain.
It might be a button of blue
On the coat of the woman
Who lived in a shoe.
It might be a magical bean,
Or a fold in the red
Velvet robe of a queen.
It might be the one little bite
Of the apple her stepmother
Gave to Snow White.
It might be the veil...Read more of this...
by
Algernon Charles Swinburne
Heart's ease or pansy, pleasure or thought,
Which would the picture give us of these?
Surely the heart that conceived it sought
Heart's ease.
Surely by glad and divine degrees
The heart impelling the hand that wrought
Wrought comfort here for a soul's disease.
Deep flowers, with lustre and darkness fraught,
From glass that gleams as the chill still seas
Lean and lend for a heart distraught
Heart's ease....Read more of this...
Dont forget to view our wonderful member Piece poems.