Famous Pieces Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Pieces poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous pieces poems. These examples illustrate what a famous pieces poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
See also:
by
Chaucer, Geoffrey
...and rest!
Lo! how that thieves seven chase me!
Help, Lady bright, ere that my ship to-brest!* *be broken to pieces
C.
Comfort is none, but in you, Lady dear!
For lo! my sin and my confusion,
Which ought not in thy presence to appear,
Have ta'en on me a grievous action,* *control
Of very right and desperation!
And, as by right, they mighte well sustene
That I were worthy my damnation,
Ne wer...Read more of this...
by
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
...un on the margin.
Then from his leathern pouch the farmer threw on the table
Three times the old man's fee in solid pieces of silver;
And the notary rising, and blessing the bride and the bridegroom,
Lifted aloft the tankard of ale and drank to their welfare.
Wiping the foam from his lip, he solemnly bowed and departed,
While in silence the others sat and mused by the fireside,
Till Evangeline brought the draught-board out of its corner.
Soon was the game begun.Read more of this...
by
Hugo, Victor
...oes he, pauses near
That which is next the table shining bright,
Seizes the rider—plucks the phantom knight
To pieces—all in vain its panoply
And pallid shining to his practised eye;
Then he conveys the severed iron remains
To corner of the hall where darkness reigns;
Against the wall he lays the armor low
In dust and gloom like hero vanquished now—
But keeping pond'rous lance and shield so old,
Mounts to the empty saddle, and behold!
A statue...Read more of this...
by
Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...to accept this cloth of gold,
In token of true heart and felty.
Then Arthur cried to rend the cloth, to rend
In pieces, and so cast it on the hearth.
An oak-tree smouldered there. 'The goodly knight!
What! shall the shield of Mark stand among these?'
For, midway down the side of that long hall
A stately pile,--whereof along the front,
Some blazoned, some but carven, and some blank,
There ran a treble range of stony shields,--
Rose, and high-arching over...Read more of this...
by
Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...ish, or opulent flower.
But till this cosmic order everywhere
Shatter'd into one earthquake m one day
Cracks all to pieces, -- and that hour perhaps
Is not so far when momentary man
Shall seem no more a something to himself,
But he, his hopes and hates, his homes and fanes
And even his bones long laid within the grave,
The very sides of the grave itself shall pass,
Vanishing, atom and void, atom and void,
Into the unseen for ever, -- till that hour,
My golden work in whic...Read more of this...
by
Moore, Marianne
...escent stars
below the incandescent fruit,
the strange experience of beauty;
its existence is too much;
it tears one to pieces
and each fresh wave of consciousness
is poison.
"See her, see her in this common world,"
the central flaw
in that first crystal-fine experiment,
this amalgamation which can never be more
than an interesting possibility,
describing it
as "that strange paradise
unlike flesh, gold, or stately buildings,
the choicest piece of my life:
the heart rising...Read more of this...
by
Brautigan, Richard
...we call breakfast. We sit around and bring ourselves
slowly back to consciousness, treating ourselves like fine
pieces of china, and after we finish the last cup of the last
cup of the last cup of coffee, it's time to think about lunch or
go to the Goodwill in Fairfax.
So here we are, living in the California bush above Mill
Valley. We could look right down on the main street of Mill
Valley if it were not for the eucalyptus tree. We have to park
...Read more of this...
by
Whitman, Walt
...ith his own hands.
We had receiv’d some eighteen pound shots under the water;
On our lower-gun-deck two large pieces had burst at the first fire, killing all
around, and blowing up overhead.
Fighting at sun-down, fighting at dark;
Ten o’clock at night, the full moon well up, our leaks on the gain, and
five feet of water reported;
The master-at-arms loosing the prisoners confined in the afterhold, to give them
a chance for themselves.
The tra...Read more of this...
by
Ginsberg, Allen
...head like a dried wire spiderweb,
leaves stuck out like arms out of the stem, gestures from the sawdust root, broke pieces of plaster fallen out of the black twigs, a dead fly in its ear,
Unholy battered old thing you were, my sunflower O my soul, I loved you then!
The grime was no man's grime but death and human locomotives,
all that dress of dust, that veil of darkened railroad skin, that smog of cheek, that eyelid of black mis'ry, that sooty hand or phallus or...Read more of this...
by
Service, Robert William
...Have you gazed on naked grandeur where there's nothing else to gaze on,
Set pieces and drop-curtain scenes galore,
Big mountains heaved to heaven, which the blinding sunsets blazon,
Black canyons where the rapids rip and roar?
Have you swept the visioned valley with the green stream streaking through it,
Searched the Vastness for a something you have lost?
Have you strung your soul to silence? Then for God's sake go and do it;
He...Read more of this...
by
Masefield, John
...nd that round was an easy round.
During the wait my Jimmy said,
What's making Billy fight so dead?
He's all to pieces. Is he blown?"
"His thumb's out."
"No? Then it's your own.
It's all your own, but don't be rash
He's got the goods if you've got the cash,
And what one hand can do he'll do.
Be careful this next round or two."
Time. There was Bill, and I felt sick
That luck should play so mean a trick
And give me leave to knock him out...Read more of this...
by
Bishop, Elizabeth
...jaw,
and then I saw
that from his lower lip
--if you could call it a lip
grim, wet, and weaponlike,
hung five old pieces of fish-line,
or four and a wire leader
with the swivel still attached,
with all their five big hooks
grown firmly in his mouth.
A green line, frayed at the end
where he broke it, two heavier lines,
and a fine black thread
still crimped from the strain and snap
when it broke and he got away.
Like medals with their ribbons
frayed ...Read more of this...
by
Tagore, Rabindranath
...would give you
a cold shudder could you see it from your palanquin.
Many of them fly, and a great number are cut to pieces.
I know you are thinking, sitting all by yourself, that your
boy must be dead by this time.
But I come to you all stained with blood, and say,"Mother, the
fight is over now."
You come out and kiss me, pressing me to your heart, and you
say to yourself,
"I don't know what I should do if I hadn't my boy to escort
me."
A thousand useless ...Read more of this...
by
Scott, Sir Walter
...
The Ladies' Rock sent back the clang.
The King, with look unmoved, bestowed
A purse well filled with pieces broad.
Indignant smiled the Douglas proud,
And threw the gold among the crowd,
Who now with anxious wonder scan,
And sharper glance, the dark gray man;
Till whispers rose among the throng,
That heart so free, and hand so strong,
Must to the Douglas blood belong.
The old men marked and shook the head,
...Read more of this...
by
Chaucer, Geoffrey
...for to tell it at a word,
The Soudan and the Christians every one
Were all *to-hewn and sticked* at the board, *cut to pieces*
But it were only Dame Constance alone.
This olde Soudaness, this cursed crone,
Had with her friendes done this cursed deed,
For she herself would all the country lead.
Nor there was Syrian that was converted,
That of the counsel of the Soudan wot*, *knew
That was not all to-hewn, ere he asterted*: *escaped
And Constance have they ta'en anon ...Read more of this...
by
Khayyam, Omar
...much as Ocean of a pebble-cast.
LVIII.
'Tis all a Chequer-board of Nights and Days
Where Destiny with Men for Pieces plays:
Hither and thither moves, and mates, and slays,
And one by one back in the Closet lays.
LIX.
The Ball no Question makes of Ayes and Noes,
But Right or Left, as strikes the Player goes;
And he that toss'd Thee down into the Field,
He knows about it all -- He knows -- HE knows!
LX.
The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves...Read more of this...
by
Byron, George (Lord)
...re's scarce a scribbler has not one to show,
From the fiends' leader to the angels' prince;
There also are some altar-pieces, though
I really can't say that they much evince
One's inner notions of immortal spirits;
But let the connoisseurs explain their merits.
***
Michael flew forth in glory and in good;
A goodly work of him from whom all glory
And good arise; the portal past — he stood;
Before him the young cherubs and saints hoary —
(I say young, begging t...Read more of this...
by
Masefield, John
...d it up the windy glen,
Above the noise of sheep-bells on the hill.
Over the water came the lifted song--
Blind pieces in a mighty game we sing;
Life's battle is a conquest for the strong;
The meaning shows in the defeated thing....Read more of this...
by
Hugo, Victor
...as red as roses all?
What crime?—what wild and hapless deed?
What porcelain vase by you was split
To thousand pieces? Did you need
For pastime, as you handled it,
Some Gothic missal to enrich
With your designs fantastical?
Or did your tearing fingers fall
On some old picture? Which, oh, which
Your dreadful fault? Not one of these;
Only when left yourselves to please
This morning but a moment here
'Mid papers tinted by my mind
You took s...Read more of this...
by
Akhmatova, Anna
...ists a line
That can't be crossed by passion or love's art --
In awful silence lips melt into one
And out of love to pieces bursts the heart.
And friendship here is impotent, and years
Of happiness sublime in fire aglow,
When soul is free and does not hear
The dulling of sweet passion, long and slow.
Those who are striving toward it are in fever,
But those that reach it struck with woe that lingers.
Now you have understood, why forever
My heart does...Read more of this...
Dont forget to view our wonderful member Pieces poems.