Famous Planned Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Adonais

...e
Feeds, like slow fire upon a hoary brand;
And one keen pyramid with wedge sublime,
Pavilioning the dust of him who planned
This refuge for his memory, doth stand
Like flame transformed to marble; and beneath,
A field is spread, on which a newer band
Have pitched in Heaven's smile their camp of death,
Welcoming him we lose with scarce extinguished breath.

Here pause: these graves are all too young as yet
To have outgrown the sorrow which consigned
Its charge to ...Read more of this...
by Shelley, Percy Bysshe


Beowulf (Modern English)

...lmost immediately,
the son of Halfdane wished to seek his evening rest.
He knew a raid upon that high house
had been planned by the monster since the sun’s light
could be seen, until the night was darkening over all,
and that shape of shadowy night would come scurrying,
dark under a dark sky. The troops all rose. (ll. 642-51)

Then that man hailed the other, Hrothgar
to Beowulf, and bid him fair fortune,
ceding him care of the wine-hall, and speaking these words:
“...Read more of this...
by Anonymous,

Coffee

...asking them for a cup of coffee.
I realized that the day had been committed to a very strange pilgrimage, and I had not
planned it that way. At least the jar of instant coffee was not on the table, beside an
empty white cup and a spoon.
They say in the spring a young man's fancy turns to thoughts of love. Perhaps if he has
enough time left over, his fancy can even make room for a cup of coffee. 
-from Revenge of the Lawn...Read more of this...
by Brautigan, Richard

Flee On Your Donkey

...elp of the red-haired secretary
who was built like a lifeguard.
My shoes,
I remember,
were lost in the snowbank
as if I planned never to walk again.

That was the winter
that my mother died,
half mad on morphine,
blown up, at last,
like a pregnant pig.
I was her dreamy evil eye.
In fact,
I carried a knife in my pocketbook—
my husband's good L. L. Bean hunting knife.
I wasn't sure if I should slash a tire
or scrape the guts out of some dream.

You taught me
to believe in dream...Read more of this...
by Sexton, Anne

Liberty

...heir hands in higher trust
Unto the one Great King;
Sing for the patriot heart and hand;
Sing for the country they have planned;
Sing that the world may understand
This is Freedom's land!'


3

'Sing in the tones of prayer,
Sing till the soaring soul
Shall float above the world's control
In freedom everywhere!
Sing for the good that is to be,
Sing for the eyes that are to see
The land where man at last is free,
O sing for liberty!'

III

A holy quiet reigned, save where the h...Read more of this...
by Riley, James Whitcomb


Looking Across the Fields and Watching the Birds Fly

...es in air, 

In an element that does not do for us, 
so well, that which we do for ourselves, too big, 
A thing not planned for imagery or belief, 

Not one of the masculine myths we used to make, 
A transparency through which the swallow weaves, 
Without any form or any sense of form, 

What we know in what we see, what we feel in what 
We hear, what we are, beyond mystic disputation, 
In the tumult of integrations out of the sky, 

And what we think, a breathi...Read more of this...
by Stevens, Wallace

On the Way

...le in Themistocles:
He went away to Persia, and fared well. 

BURR

So? Must I go so far? And if so, why so? 
I had not planned it so. Is this the road 
I take? If so, farewell. 

HAMILTON

Quite so. Farewell....Read more of this...
by Robinson, Edwin Arlington

Self-Portrait

...lected for a firm accomplishment;
and yet as though from far off with scattered Things
a serious true work were being planned....Read more of this...
by Rilke, Rainer Maria

The Artists

...d your ecstasy.
The laws of wonder-working might,
The stores by beauty brought to light,
Inventive reason in soft union planned
To blend together 'neath your forming hand.
The obelisk, the pyramid ascended,
The Hermes stood, the column sprang on high,
The reed poured forth the woodland melody,
Immortal song on victor's deeds attended.

The fairest flowers that decked the earth,
Into a nosegay, with wise choice combined,
Thus the first art from Nature had its birth;
Into a gar...Read more of this...
by Schiller, Friedrich von

The Building of the Ship

...ty, 
The heir of his house, and his daughter's hand, 
When he had built and launched from land 
What the elder head had planned. 
"Thus," said he, "will we build this ship! 
Lay square the blocks upon the slip, 
And follow well this plan of mine. 
Choose the timbers with greatest care; 
Of all that is unsound beware; 
For only what is sound and strong 
To this vessel shall belong. 
Cedar of Maine and Georgia pine 
Here together shall combine. 
A goodly frame, and a goodly fam...Read more of this...
by Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth

The Comedian As The Letter C

...'s better. That's worth crossing seas to find. 
282 Crispin in one laconic phrase laid bare 
283 His cloudy drift and planned a colony. 
284 Exit the mental moonlight, exit lex, 
285 Rex and principium, exit the whole 
286 Shebang. Exeunt omnes. Here was prose 
287 More exquisite than any tumbling verse: 
288 A still new continent in which to dwell. 
289 What was the purpose of his pilgrimage, 
290 Whatever shape it took in Crispin's mind, 
291 If not, when all is s...Read more of this...
by Stevens, Wallace

The Deserted Garden

...window of her golden house.

Or most like Vivien, the enchanting fay,
Where with her friend, in the strange tower they planned,
She lies and dreams eternity away,
Above the treetops in Broceliande,
Sometimes at twilight when the woods are gray
And wolf-packs howl far out across the lande,
Waking to love, while up behind the trees
The large midsummer moon lifts-even so loved these.

For here, their pleasure was to come and sit
Oft when the sun sloped midway to the west,
Watch...Read more of this...
by Seeger, Alan

The Division Of Parts

...
Now the houts of The Cross
rewind. In Boston, the devout
work their cold knees
toward that sweet martyrdom
that Christ planned. My timely loss
is too customary to note; and yet
I planned to suffer
and I cannot. It does not please
my yankee bones to watch
where the dying is done
in its usly hours. Black birds peck
at my window glass
and Easter will take its ragged son.
The clutter of worship
that you taught me, Mary Gray,
is old. I imitate
a memory of belief
that I do not own...Read more of this...
by Sexton, Anne

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 House Of Dust: Complete (Long)

...sleeping.
But I cannot delay any longer to write and tell you.
The woman is dead.
She died—you know the way. Just as we planned.
Smiling, with open sunlit eyes.
Smiling upon the outstretched fatal hand . . .'

He folds his letter, steps softly down the stairs.
The doors are closed and silent. A gas-jet flares.
His shadow disturbs a shadow of balustrades.
The door swings shut behind. Night roars above him.
Into the night he fades.

Wind; wind; wind; carving the walls;
Blowing ...Read more of this...
by Aiken, Conrad

The Hunting Of The Snark

...e
A number of cases, in which making laces
 Had been proved an infringement of right.

The maker of Bonnets ferociously planned
 A novel arrangement of bows:
While the Billiard-marker with quivering hand
 Was chalking the tip of his nose.

But the Butcher turned nervous, and dressed himself fine,
 With yellow kid gloves and a ruff--
Said he felt it exactly like going to dine,
 Which the Bellman declared was all "stuff."

"Introduce me, now there's a good fellow," he said,
 "I...Read more of this...
by Carroll, Lewis

The Mother

...t shall I say, how is the truth to be said?
You were born, you had body, you died.
It is just that you never giggled or planned or cried.

Believe me, I loved you all.
Believe me, I knew you, though faintly, and I loved, I loved you
All....Read more of this...
by Brooks, Gwendolyn

The Wanderer

...r murderess and the past a dream. 

And when she sailed again, we watched in awe, 
Wondering what bloody act her beauty planned, 
What evil lurked behind the thing we saw, 
What strength there was that thus annulled man's hand, 

How next its triumph would compel man's will 
Into compliance with external fate, 
How next the powers would use her to work ill 
On suffering men; we had not long to wait. 

For soon the outcry of derision rose, 
"Here comes the Wanderer!" the expec...Read more of this...
by Masefield, John

Trout Fishing in America

...ing.

And slept. The next morning I got up
early and ate my breakfast. I took a slice of white bread to use for bait.
I planned on making dough balls from the soft center of the bread
and putting them on my vaudevillian hook. I left the place and walked
down to the different streetCorner. How beautiful the field looked and
the creek that came pouring down in a waterfall off the hill.

 But as I got closer to the creek I could see that
something was wrong. The creek did not ac...Read more of this...
by Brautigan, Richard

Untitled 2

...
Always do your best
Don't let the pressure make you panic
And when you get stranded and things don't go the way you planned it
Dreaming of riches in the position of making a difference
Politicians is hypocrites
They don't want to listen
If I'm insane it's the fame
I ain't about to change
It ain't nothing like the game
It's just me against the world ...Read more of this...
by Shakur, Tupac

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