Famous Plan Poems by Famous Poets

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

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As I Sat Alone by Blue Ontario's Shores

...and peaks of mountains, forests coated with northern transparent ice,
Off him pasturage, sweet and natural as savanna, upland, prairie, 
Through him flights, whirls, screams, answering those of the fish-hawk, mocking-bird,
 night-heron, and eagle; 
His spirit surrounding his country’s spirit, unclosed to good and evil, 
Surrounding the essences of real things, old times and present times, 
Surrounding just found shores, islands, tribes of red aborigines,
Weather-beaten vessel...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt


Beowulf (Modern English)

...ef, grey-haired and war-ready,
the lord of the Bright-Danes. He heard, the people’s ward,
in Beowulf a well-conceived plan. (ll. 607-10)

There was a laughter of heroes, a singing sound,
their words were winsome. Wealhtheow went forth,
Hrothgar’s queen, mindful of manners,
gold-fretted she greeted the men in the hall,
and the generous woman gave a cup first
to the home-warden of the East-Danes,
bidding him be blithe at the beer-taking,
cherished by the people. He a...Read more of this...
by Anonymous,

By The Fire-Side

...ize!

XIIV.

You might have turned and tried a man,
Set him a space to weary and wear,
And prove which suited more your plan,
His best of hope or his worst despair,
Yet end as he began.

XLVI.

But you spared me this, like the heart you are,
And filled my empty heart at a word.
If two lives join, there is oft a scar,
They are one and one, with a shadowy third;
One near one is too far.

XLVII.

A moment after, and hands unseen
Were hanging the night around us fast
But we knew ...Read more of this...
by Browning, Robert

Essay on Man

...Than just to look about us and to die) 
Expatiate(2) free o'er all this scene of Man; 
A mighty maze! but not without a plan; 
A Wild, where weeds and flow'rs promiscuous shoot, 
Or Garden, tempting with forbidden fruit. 
Together let us beat this ample field, 
Try what the open, what the covert yield; 
The latent tracts(3), the giddy heights explore 
Of all who blindly creep, or sightless soar; 
Eye Nature's walks, shoot Folly as it flies, 
And catch the Manners living as th...Read more of this...
by Pope, Alexander

Eviradnus

...th praise. 
 The ancient hierarch in those old days 
 Had custom strange, a now forgotten thing, 
 It was a European plan that King 
 Of France was marquis, and th' imperial head 
 Of Germany was duke; there was no need 
 To class the other kings, but barons they, 
 Obedient vassals unto Rome, their stay. 
 The King of Poland was but simple knight, 
 Yet now, for once, had strange unwonted right, 
 And, as exception to the common state, 
 This one Sarmatian King wa...Read more of this...
by Hugo, Victor


Freedoms Plow

...and the slave hands,
In indentured hands and adventurous hands,
Turning the rich soil went the plow in many hands
That planted and harvested the food that fed
And the cotton that clothed America.
Clang against the trees went the ax into many hands
That hewed and shaped the rooftops of America.
Splash into the rivers and the seas went the boat-hulls
That moved and transported America.
Crack went the whips that drove the horses
Across the plains of America.
Free hands and slav...Read more of this...
by Hughes, Langston

Let America Be America Again

...m the red man driven from the land,
I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek--
And finding only the same old stupid plan
Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.

I am the young man, full of strength and hope,
Tangled in that ancient endless chain
Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land!
Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need!
Of work the men! Of take the pay!
Of owning everything for one's own greed!

I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil.
I am the worke...Read more of this...
by Hughes, Langston

Love

...l things even 
In earth or heaven; 
Finding thy way through prison-bars 
Up to the stars; 
Or, true to the Almighty plan, 
That out of dust created man, 
Thou lookest in a grave,--to see 
Thine immortality! 
...Read more of this...
by Adams, Sarah Fuller Flower

The Ballad of the White Horse

...an island
That ruled once on a time;
And as he walked by an apple tree
There came green devils out of the sea
With sea-plants trailing heavily
And tracks of opal slime.

Yet Alfred is no fairy tale;
His days as our days ran,
He also looked forth for an hour
On peopled plains and skies that lower,
From those few windows in the tower
That is the head of a man.

But who shall look from Alfred's hood
Or breathe his breath alive?
His century like a small dark cloud
Drifts far; it...Read more of this...
by Chesterton, G K

The Bride of Abydos

...hee had yet to learn: 
Too well I know he loves thee not; 
But is Zuleika's love forgot? 
Ah! deem I right? the Pacha's plan — 
This kinsman Bey of Carasman 
Perhaps may prove some foe of thine: 
If so, I swear by Mecca's shrine, 
If shrines that ne'er approach allow 
To woman's step admit her vow, 
Without thy free consent, command, 
The Sultan should not have my hand! 
Think'st though that I could bear to part 
With thee, and learn to halve my heart? 
Ah! were I sever'd fro...Read more of this...
by Byron, George (Lord)

The Dungeon

...there was pleasure there.   If I these thoughts may not prevent,  If such be of my creed the plan,  Have I not reason to lament  What man has made of man? The NIGHTINGALE.  Written in April, 1798.   No cloud, no relique of the sunken day  Distinguishes the West, no long thin slip  Of sullen Light, no obscure trembling hues.  Come, we will rest on this old moss...Read more of this...
by Wordsworth, William

The Everlasting Mercy

...
Who should come up but Billy Myers, 
A friend of mine, who used to be 
As black a sprig of hell as me, 
With whom I'd planned, to save encroachin', 
Which fields and coverts each should poach in. 
Now when he saw me set my snare, 
He tells me "Get to hell from there. 
This field is mine," he says, "by right; 
If you poach here, there'll be a fight. 
Out now," he says, "and leave your wire; 
It's mine." 
"It ain't." 
"You put." 
"You liar." 
"You closhy put." 
"You bloody li...Read more of this...
by Masefield, John

The Flight Of The Duchess

...do nothing at all.
There was already this man in his post,
This in his station, and that in his office,
And the Duke's plan admitted a wife, at most,
To meet his eye, with the other trophies,
Now outside the hall, now in it,
To sit thus, stand thus, see and be seen,
At the proper place in the proper minute,
And die away the life between.
And it was amusing enough, each infraction
Of rule---(but for after-sadness that came)
To hear the consummate self-satisfaction
With which ...Read more of this...
by Browning, Robert

The Growth of Love

...
And at her helm the master reason sit. 

16
This world is unto God a work of art,
Of which the unaccomplish'd heavenly plan
Is hid in life within the creature's heart,
And for perfection looketh unto man.
Ah me! those thousand ages: with what slow
Pains and persistence were his idols made,
Destroy'd and made, ere ever he could know
The mighty mother must be so obey'd. 
For lack of knowledge and thro' little skill
His childish mimicry outwent his aim;
His effort shaped the ge...Read more of this...
by Bridges, Robert Seymour

The Hunting Of The Snark

...that poem. Humpty-Dumpty's theory, of two meanings packed into one word like a port{-} manteau, seems to me the right explanation for all. 

For instance, take the two words "fuming" and "furious." Make up your mind that you will say both words, but leave it unsettled which you will say first. Now open your mouth and speak. If your thoughts incline ever so little towards "fuming," you will say "fuming-furious;" if they turn, by even a hair's breadth, towards "furious," you wi...Read more of this...
by Carroll, Lewis

The Lady of the Lake

...d dyes
     Waved in the west-wind's summer sighs.
     XII.

     Boon nature scattered, free and wild,
     Each plant or flower, the mountain's child.
     Here eglantine embalmed the air,
     Hawthorn and hazel mingled there;
     The primrose pale and violet flower
     Found in each cliff a narrow bower;
     Foxglove and nightshade, side by side,
     Emblems of punishment and pride,
     Grouped their dark hues with every stain
     The weather-beaten cr...Read more of this...
by Scott, Sir Walter

The Man of Laws Tale

...*spirit
And sleeping in thy dream be in penance,* *pain, trouble
When Donegild cast* all this ordinance.** *contrived **plan, plot

This messenger, on morrow when he woke,
Unto the castle held the nexte* way, *nearest
And to the constable the letter took;
And when he this dispiteous* letter sey,** *cruel **saw
Full oft he said, "Alas, and well-away!
Lord Christ," quoth he, "how may this world endure?
So full of sin is many a creature.

"O mighty God, if that it be thy will,
S...Read more of this...
by Chaucer, Geoffrey

The Walk

...ar pomp, stately and beauteous appear.
All gives token of rule and choice, and all has its meaning,--
'Tis this uniform plan points out the Ruler to me.
Brightly the glittering domes in far-away distance proclaim him.
Out of the kernel of rocks rises the city's high wall.
Into the desert without, the fauns of the forest are driven,
But by devotion is lent life more sublime to the stone.
Man is brought into nearer union with man, and around him
Closer, more actively wakes, swi...Read more of this...
by Schiller, Friedrich von

The Waste Land

...here I saw one I knew, and stopped him, crying "Stetson!
"You who were with me in the ships at Mylae! 
"That corpse you planted last year in your garden,
"Has it begun to sprout? Will it bloom this year?
"Or has the sudden frost disturbed its bed?
"Oh keep the Dog far hence, that's friend to men,
"Or with his nails he'll dig it up again!
"You! hypocrite lecteur! - mon semblable, - mon frere!"
II. A GAME OF CHESS
 The Chair she sat in, like a burnished throne,
Glowed on the ma...Read more of this...
by Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)

The White Cliffs

...lieve me, cast your mind 
Back over history, what do you find? 
They certainly had no justification 
For that maddening plan to impose taxation 
Without any form of representation. 
Your man may be all that a man should be,
Only don't you bring him back to me
Saying he can't get decent tea—
He could have got his tea all right
In Boston Harbour a certain night,
When your great-great-grandmother— also a Sue—
Shook enough tea from her husband's shoe
To supply her house for a wee...Read more of this...
by Miller, Alice Duer

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