Famous Plots Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Absalom And Achitophel

...Devil is still at hand with means;
And providently pimps for ill desires:
The good old cause reviv'd, a plot requires.
Plots, true or false, are necessary things,
To raise up common-wealths, and ruin kings.

 Th' inhabitants of old Jerusalem
Were Jebusites: the town so call'd from them;
And theirs the native right—
But when the chosen people grew more strong,
The rightful cause at length became the wrong:
And every loss the men of Jebus bore,
They still were thought God's en...Read more of this...
by Dryden, John


As I Sat Alone by Blue Ontario's Shores

...be mine, you beautiful, terrible, rude forms. 

(Mother! bend down, bend close to me your face! 
I know not what these plots and wars, and deferments are for;
I know not fruition’s success—but I know that through war and peace your work
 goes
 on, and must yet go on.) 

21
.... Thus, by blue Ontario’s shore, 
While the winds fann’d me, and the waves came trooping toward me, 
I thrill’d with the Power’s pulsations—and the charm of my theme was upon
 me, 
Till the tissues that...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt

Blessing The Cornfields

...laughter,
With their melancholy laughter,
At the words of Hiawatha.
"Hear him!" said they; "hear the Wise Man,
Hear the plots of Hiawatha!"
When the noiseless night descended
Broad and dark o'er field and forest,
When the mournful Wawonaissa
Sorrowing sang among the hemlocks,
And the Spirit of Sleep, Nepahwin,
Shut the doors of all the wigwams,
From her bed rose Laughing Water,
Laid aside her garments wholly,
And with darkness clothed and guarded,
Unashamed and unaffrighted,
...Read more of this...
by Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth

Custer

...d sighed.



IV.
As some strange bullock in a pasture field
Compels the herds to fear him, and to yield
The juicy grass plots and the cooling shade
Until, despite their greater strength, afraid, 
They huddle in some corner spot and cower
Before the monarch's all controlling power, 
So has the white man driven from its place
By his aggressive greed, Columbia's native race.



V.
Yet when the bull pursues the herds at bay, 
Incensed they turn, and dare dispute his sway.
And so ...Read more of this...
by Wilcox, Ella Wheeler

Elegy I: Jealousy

...y, and do it there,
We play in another house, what should we fear?
There we will scorn his houshold policies,
His seely plots, and pensionary spies,
As the inhabitants of Thames' right side
Do London's Mayor; or Germans, the Pope's pride....Read more of this...
by Donne, John


Eviradnus

...hing eyes, 
 And art thou Satan come to us surprise?" 
 "Much less am I and yet much more. 
 Oh, kings of crimes and plots! your day is o'er, 
 But I your lives will only take to-day; 
 Beneath the talons black your souls let stay 
 To wrestle still." 
 
 The pair looked stupefied 
 And crushed. Exchanging looks 'twas Zeno cried, 
 Speaking to Joss, "Now who—who can it be?" 
 Joss stammered, "Yes, no refuge can I see; 
 The doom is on us. But oh, spectre! say 
 W...Read more of this...
by Hugo, Victor

Gareth And Lynette

...and meet, and hold him from our eyes, 
Lest we should lap him up in cloth of lead, 
Silenced for ever--craven--a man of plots, 
Craft, poisonous counsels, wayside ambushings-- 
No fault of thine: let Kay the seneschal 
Look to thy wants, and send thee satisfied-- 
Accursed, who strikes nor lets the hand be seen!' 

And many another suppliant crying came 
With noise of ravage wrought by beast and man, 
And evermore a knight would ride away. 

Last, Gareth leaning both hands he...Read more of this...
by Tennyson, Alfred Lord

Imitations of Horace: The First Epistle of the Second Book

...benefits mankind;
And rarely av'rice taints the tuneful mind.
Allow him but his plaything of a pen,
He ne'er rebels, or plots, like other men:
Flight of cashiers, or mobs, he'll never mind;
And knows no losses while the Muse is kind.
To cheat a friend, or ward, he leaves to Peter;
The good man heaps up nothing but mere metre,
Enjoys his garden and his book in quiet;
And then--a perfect hermit in his diet.
Of little use the man you may suppose,
Who says in verse what others sa...Read more of this...
by Pope, Alexander

Jubilate Agno: Fragment B Part 1

...ultivating of heaths and the peopling of deserts. 

Let Hillel rejoice with Ammodytes, whose colour is deceitful and he plots against the pilgrim's feet. 

Let Eli rejoice with Leucon -- he is an honest fellow, which is a rarity. 

Let Jemuel rejoice with Charadrius, who is from the HEIGHT and the sight of him is good for the jaundice. 

Let Pharaoh rejoice with Anataria, whom God permits to prey upon the ducks to check their increase. 

Let Lotan rejoice with Sauterelle. Ble...Read more of this...
by Smart, Christopher

Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey

...dscape with the quiet of the sky.
The day is come when I again repose
Here, under this dark sycamore, and view
These plots of cottage-ground, these orchard-tufts,
Which at this season, with their unripe fruits,
Are clad in one green hue, and lose themselves
'Mid groves and copses. Once again I see
These hedgerows, hardly hedgerows, little lines
Of sportive wood run wild; these pastoral farms,
Green to the very door; and wreaths of smoke
Sent up, in silence, from amo...Read more of this...
by Wordsworth, William

Paradise Lost: Book 02

...ht 
All these our motions vain sees and derides, 
Not more almighty to resist our might 
Than wise to frustrate all our plots and wiles. 
Shall we, then, live thus vile--the race of Heaven 
Thus trampled, thus expelled, to suffer here 
Chains and these torments? Better these than worse, 
By my advice; since fate inevitable 
Subdues us, and omnipotent decree, 
The Victor's will. To suffer, as to do, 
Our strength is equal; nor the law unjust 
That so ordains. This was at first...Read more of this...
by Milton, John

Passage to India

...ca’s fables!
The far-darting beams of the spirit!—the unloos’d dreams! 
The deep diving bibles and legends; 
The daring plots of the poets—the elder religions; 
—O you temples fairer than lilies, pour’d over by the rising sun! 
O you fables, spurning the known, eluding the hold of the known, mounting to heaven!
You lofty and dazzling towers, pinnacled, red as roses, burnish’d with gold! 
Towers of fables immortal, fashion’d from mortal dreams! 
You too I welcome, and fully, t...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt

Sohrab and Rustum

...on the sand,
Like some rich hyacinth which by the scythe
Of an unskilful gardener has been cut,
Mowing the garden grass-plots near its bed,
And lies, a fragrant tower of purple bloom,
On the mown, dying grass--so Sohrab lay,
Lovely in death, upon the common sand.
And Rustum gazed on him with grief, and said:-- 

"O Sohrab, thou indeed art such a son
Whom Rustum, wert thou his, might well have loved!
Yet here thou errest, Sohrab, or else men
Have told thee false--thou art not ...Read more of this...
by Arnold, Matthew

Song of the Exposition

...ennants, Labor, loosen’d to the breeze! 
Thy bugles sounding loud and clear!

Away with old romance! 
Away with novels, plots, and plays of foreign courts! 
Away with love-verses, sugar’d in rhyme—the intrigues, amours of idlers, 
Fitted for only banquets of the night, where dancers to late music slide; 
The unhealthy pleasures, extravagant dissipations of the few,
With perfumes, heat and wine, beneath the dazzling chandeliers. 

9
To you, ye Reverent, sane Sisters, 
To this ...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt

Song of the Redwood-Tree

...ongue, bore part. 

Not wan from Asia’s fetishes, 
Nor red from Europe’s old dynastic slaughter-house, 
(Area of murder-plots of thrones, with scent left yet of wars and scaffolds every
 where,)
But come from Nature’s long and harmless throes—peacefully builded thence, 
These virgin lands—Lands of the Western Shore, 
To the new Culminating Man—to you, the Empire New, 
You, promis’d long, we pledge, we dedicate. 

You occult, deep volitions,
You average Spiritual Manhood, purp...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt

Sylvias Death

...ree extra dry martinis in Boston, 
the death that talked of analysts and cures, 
the death that talked like brides with plots, 
the death we drank to, 
the motives and the quiet deed? 
(In Boston 
the dying 
ride in cabs, 
yes death again, 
that ride home 
with our boy.) 
O Sylvia, I remember the sleepy drummer 
who beat on our eyes with an old story, 
how we wanted to let him come 
like a sadist or a New York fairy 
to do his job, 
a necessity, a window in a wall or a crib, ...Read more of this...
by Sexton, Anne

The Brook

...flow 
To join the brimming river 
For men may come and men may go, 
But I go on for ever. 

I steal by lawns and grassy plots, 
I slide by hazel covers; 
I move the sweet forget-me-nots 
That grow for happy lovers. 

I slip, I slide, I gloom, I glance, 
Among my skimming swallows; 
I make the netted sunbeam dance 
Against my sandy shallows. 

I murmur under moon and stars 
In brambly wildernesses; 
I linger by my shingly bars; 
I loiter round my cresses; 

And out again I cur...Read more of this...
by Tennyson, Alfred Lord

The Deserted Garden

...break
Or towers loom up beneath the clear, translucent lake;

And under the deep grass blue hare-bells hide,
And myrtle plots with dew-fall ever wet,
Gay tiger-lilies flammulate and pied,
Sometime on pathway borders neatly set,
Now blossom through the brake on either side,
Where heliotrope and weedy mignonette,
With vines in bloom and flower-bearing trees,
Mingle their incense all to swell the perfumed breeze,

That sprung like Hermes from his natal cave
In some blue rampart ...Read more of this...
by Seeger, Alan

The Marriage Of Geraint

...
That all was bright; that all about were birds 
Of sunny plume in gilded trellis-work; 
That all the turf was rich in plots that looked 
Each like a garnet or a turkis in it; 
And lords and ladies of the high court went 
In silver tissue talking things of state; 
And children of the King in cloth of gold 
Glanced at the doors or gamboled down the walks; 
And while she thought 'They will not see me,' came 
A stately queen whose name was Guinevere, 
And all the children in th...Read more of this...
by Tennyson, Alfred Lord

The Story Of Our Lives

...of a story
that may never be told.
"He wanted to see her naked and vulnerable,
to see her in the refuse, the discarded
plots of old dreams, the costumes and masks
of unattainable states.
It was as if he were drawn
irresistably to failure."
It was hard to keep reading.
I was tired and wanted to give up.
The book seemed aware of this.
It hinted at changing the subject.
I waited for you to wake not knowing
how long I waited,
and it seemed that I was no longer reading.
I heard t...Read more of this...
by Strand, Mark

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