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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How Lucy Backslid

by Paul Laurence Dunbar
De times is mighty stirrin' 'mong de people up ouah way,
Dey 'sputin' an' dey argyin' an' fussin' night an' day;
An' all dis monst'ous trouble dat hit meks me tiahed to tell
Is 'bout dat Lucy Jackson dat was sich a mighty belle.
She was de preachah's favoured, an' he tol' de chu'ch one night
Dat she travelled thoo de cloud o' sin a-bearin'...Read more of this...

A Plan The Muses Entertained

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
 A PLAN the Muses entertain'd

Methodically to impart

To Psyche the poetic art;
Prosaic-pure her soul remain'd.
No wondrous sounds escaped her lyre

E'en in the fairest Summer night;
But Amor came with glance of fire,--

The lesson soon was learn'd aright.

 1827.*...Read more of this...

The Battle of the Nile

by William Topaz McGonagall
 'Twas on the 18th of August in the year of 1798,
That Nelson saw with inexpressible delight
The City of Alexandria crowded with the ships of France,
So he ordered all sail to be set, and immediately advance. 

And upon the deck, in deep anxiety he stood,
And from anxiety of mind he took but little food;
But now he ordered dinner and prepared...Read more of this...

386. The Rights of Women—Spoken by Miss Fontenelle

by Robert Burns
 WHILE Europe’s eye is fix’d on mighty things,
The fate of Empires and the fall of Kings;
While quacks of State must each produce his plan,
And even children lisp the Rights of Man;
Amid this mighty fuss just let me mention,
The Rights of Woman merit some attention.


First, in the Sexes’ intermix’d connection,
One sacred Right of Woman is, protection.—
The tender flower that lifts...Read more of this...

The Guardian Angel Of The Private Life

by Jorie Graham
 All this was written on the next day's list.
On which the busyness unfurled its cursive roots,
pale but effective,
and the long stem of the necessary, the sum of events,
built-up its tiniest cathedral...
(Or is it the sum of what takes place? )
If I lean down, to whisper, to them,
down into their gravitational field, there where they head busily on
into the woods,...Read more of this...

As plan for Noon and plan for Night

by Emily Dickinson
 As plan for Noon and plan for Night
So differ Life and Death
In positive Prospective --
The Foot upon the Earth

At Distance, and Achievement, strains,
The Foot upon the Grave
Makes effort at conclusion
Assisted faint of Love....Read more of this...

Old Crony

by Robert William Service
 Said she: 'Although my husband Jim
 Is with his home content,
I never should have married him,
 We are so different.
Oh yes, I know he loves me well,
 Our children he adores;
But he's so dull, and I rebel
 Against a life that bores.

'Of course there is another man,
 Quite pennyless is he;
And yet with hope and joy we plan
 A...Read more of this...

Open Table

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
 MANY a guest I'd see to-day,

Met to taste my dishes!
Food in plenty is prepar'd,

Birds, and game, and fishes.
Invitations all have had,

All proposed attending.
Johnny, go and look around!

Are they hither wending?

Pretty girls I hope to see,

Dear and guileless misses,
Ignorant how sweet it is

Giving tender kisses.
Invitations all have had,

All proposed attending.
Johnny, go and look around!

Are they hither wending?

Women also I expect,

Loving...Read more of this...

To interrupt His Yellow Plan

by Emily Dickinson
 To interrupt His Yellow Plan
The Sun does not allow
Caprices of the Atmosphere --
And even when the Snow

Heaves Balls of Specks, like Vicious Boy
Directly in His Eye --
Does not so much as turn His Head
Busy with Majesty --

'Tis His to stimulate the Earth --
And magnetize the Sea --
And bind Astronomy, in place,
Yet Any passing by

Would deem Ourselves -- the busier
As...Read more of this...

Fit the Fifth ( Hunting of the Snark )

by Lewis Carroll
 The Beaver's Lesson 

They sought it with thimbles, they sought it with care; 
They pursued it with forks and hope; 
They threatened its life with a railway-share; 
They charmed it with smiles and soap. 

Then the Butcher contrived an ingenious plan 
For making a separate sally; 
And fixed on a spot unfrequented by man, 
A dismal and desolate valley....Read more of this...

Fragment of a Greek Tragedy

by A E Housman
 CHORUS: O suitably-attired-in-leather-boots
Head of a traveller, wherefore seeking whom
Whence by what way how purposed art thou come
To this well-nightingaled vicinity?
My object in inquiring is to know.
But if you happen to be deaf and dumb
And do not understand a word I say,
Then wave your hand, to signify as much.

ALCMAEON: I journeyed hither a Boetian road.
CHORUS: Sailing on horseback, or with...Read more of this...

Demon And Beast

by William Butler Yeats
 For certain minutes at the least
That crafty demon and that loud beast
That plague me day and night
Ran out of my sight;
Though I had long perned in the gyre,
Between my hatred and desire.
I saw my freedom won
And all laugh in the sun.

The glittering eyes in a death's head
Of old Luke Wadding's portrait said
Welcome, and the Ormondes all
Nodded upon the wall,
And...Read more of this...

The Knights Song

by Lewis Carroll
 I'll tell thee everything I can:
There's little to relate.
I saw an aged aged man,
A-sitting on a gate.

'Who are you, aged man?' I said.
'And how is it you live?'
And his answer trickled through my head,
Like water through a sieve.
He said, 'I look for butterflies
That sleep among the wheat:
I make them into mutton-pies,
And sell them in the street.

I sell them unto...Read more of this...

Observation Car

by Alec Derwent (A D) Hope
 To be put on the train and kissed and given my ticket, 
Then the station slid backward, the shops and the neon lighting, 
Reeling off in a drunken blur, with a whole pound note in my pocket 
And the holiday packed with Perhaps. It used to be very exciting. 

The present and past were enough. I did not mind...Read more of this...

The Aged Aged Man

by Lewis Carroll
 I'll tell thee everything I can;
There's little to relate.
I saw an aged aged man,
A-sitting on a gate.
"Who are you, aged man?" I said,
"And how is it you live?"
And his answer trickled through my head
Like water through a sieve.

He said, "I look for butterflies
That sleep among the wheat:
I make them into mutton-pies,
And sell them in the street.
I sell them unto...Read more of this...

Replying to Subprefect Zhang

by Wang Wei
 Old age think good quiet 
Everything not concern heart 
Self attend without great plan 
Empty know return old forest 
Pine wind blow undo belt 
Hill moon light pluck qin 
Gentleman ask end open reason 
Fisherman song enter riverbank deep 


Now in old age, I know the value of silence, 
The world's affairs no longer stir my heart. 
Turning to...Read more of this...

Indefinite space, which, by co-substance night,

by Fernando Pessoa
Indefinite space, which, by co-substance night,

In one black mystery two void mysteries blends;

The stray stars, whose innumerable light

Repeats one mystery till conjecture ends;

The stream of time, known by birth-bursting bubbles;

The gulf of silence, empty even of nought;

Thought's high-walled maze, which the outed owner troubles

Because the string's lost and the plan forgot:

When I think on this and that here I stand,

The...Read more of this...

20. Stanzas on the same Occasion

by Robert Burns
 WHY am I loth to leave this earthly scene?
 Have I so found it full of pleasing charms?
 Some drops of joy with draughts of ill between—
 Some gleams of sunshine ’mid renewing storms,
 Is it departing pangs my soul alarms?
 Or death’s unlovely, dreary, dark abode?
 For guilt, for guilt, my terrors are in arms:
 I tremble to...Read more of this...

Presumption

by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
 Whenever I am prone to doubt or wonder -
I check myself, and say, 'That mighty One
Who made the solar system cannot blunder -
And for the best all things are being done.'
Who set the stars on their eternal courses
Has fashioned this strange earth by come sure plan.
Bow low, bow low to those majestic forces, 
Nor dare to doubt their wisdom...Read more of this...

Song of the Universal

by Walt Whitman
 1
COME, said the Muse, 
Sing me a song no poet yet has chanted, 
Sing me the Universal. 

In this broad Earth of ours, 
Amid the measureless grossness and the slag,
Enclosed and safe within its central heart, 
Nestles the seed Perfection. 

By every life a share, or more or less, 
None born but it is born—conceal’d or unconceal’d, the seed...Read more of this...

481. Epigram on Andrew Turner

by Robert Burns
 IN se’enteen hunder’n forty-nine,
The deil gat stuff to mak a swine,
 An’ coost it in a corner;
But wilily he chang’d his plan,
An’ shap’d it something like a man,
 An’ ca’d it Andrew Turner....Read more of this...

A Servant to Servants

by Robert Frost
 I didn't make you know how glad I was 
To have you come and camp here on our land. 
I promised myself to get down some day 
And see the way you lived, but I don't know! 
With a houseful of hungry men to feed 
I guess you'd find.... It seems to me 
I can't express my feelings any...Read more of this...

Dream Song 22: Of 1826

by John Berryman
 I am the little man who smokes & smokes.
I am the girl who does know better but.
I am the king of the pool.
I am so wise I had my mouth sewn shut.
I am a government official & a goddamned fool.
I am a lady who takes jokes.

I am the enemy of the mind.
I am the auto salesman and lóve you.
I...Read more of this...

The Wind Is Without There And Howls In The Trees

by Robert Louis Stevenson
 THE wind is without there and howls in the trees,
And the rain-flurries drum on the glass:
Alone by the fireside with elbows on knees
I can number the hours as they pass.
Yet now, when to cheer me the crickets begin,
And my pipe is just happily lit,
Believe me, my friend, tho' the evening draws in,
That not all uncontested I sit.

Alone, did I...Read more of this...

The Wander-Light

by Henry Lawson
 And they heard the tent-poles clatter, 
And the fly in twain was torn – 
'Tis the soiled rag of a tatter 
Of the tent where I was born. 
And what matters it, I wonder? 
Brick or stone or calico? – 
Or a bush you were born under, 
When it happened long ago? 

And my beds were camp beds and...Read more of this...

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