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Famous Plucked Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Moody, William Vaughn
...who lead us, 
Breathe on their chivalry no hint of stain! 
Turn not their new-world victories to gain! 
One least leaf plucked for chaffer from the bays 
Of their dear praise, 
One jot of their pure conquest put to hire, 
The implacable republic will require; 
With clamor, in the glare and gaze of noon, 
Or subtly, coming as a thief at night, 
But surely, very surely, slow or soon 
That insult deep we deeply will requite. 
Tempt not our weakness, our cupidity! 
For save ...Read more of this...



by Wilde, Oscar
...ver sing, and piping linnets mate no more,

There by a dim and dark Lethaean well
Young Charmides was lying; wearily
He plucked the blossoms from the asphodel,
And with its little rifled treasury
Strewed the dull waters of the dusky stream,
And watched the white stars founder, and the land was like a dream,

When as he gazed into the watery glass
And through his brown hair's curly tangles scanned
His own wan face, a shadow seemed to pass
Across the mirror, and a little hand
S...Read more of this...

by Hikmet, Nazim
...he Chinese homeland.
But
in this business it's not only the British lord's
gullet shaved
 like the thick neck
 of a plucked hen
that will be cut
but also
 the long
 thin
 beard of Confucius!


FROM GIOCONDA'S DIARY


21 April

Today my Chinese
 looked my straight 
 in the eye
and asked:
"Those who crush our rice fields
 with the caterpillar treads of their tanks
and who swagger through our cities
 like emperors of hell,
are they of YOUR race,
 the race of him who CREATED ...Read more of this...

by Rossetti, Christina
...anie,
How she met them in the moonlight,
Took their gifts both choice and many,
Ate their fruits and wore their flowers
Plucked from bowers
Where summer ripens at all hours?
But ever in the moonlight
She pined and pined away;
Sought them by night and day,
Found them no more, but dwindled and grew gray;
Then fell with the first snow,
While to this day no grass will grow
Where she lies low:
I planted daisies there a year ago
That never blow.
You should not loiter so."
"...Read more of this...

by Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...hand 
Picks from the colewort a green caterpillar, 
So from the high wall and the flowering grove 
Of grasses Lancelot plucked him by the heel, 
And cast him as a worm upon the way; 
But when he knew the Prince though marred with dust, 
He, reverencing king's blood in a bad man, 
Made such excuses as he might, and these 
Full knightly without scorn; for in those days 
No knight of Arthur's noblest dealt in scorn; 
But, if a man were halt or hunched, in him 
By those whom God...Read more of this...



by Homer,
...oms and lilies, marvellous to see, and the narcissus which the wide earth caused to grow yellow as a crocus. That I plucked in my joy; but the earth parted beneath, and there the strong lord, the Host of Many, sprang forth and in his golden chariot he bore me away, all unwilling, beneath the earth: then I cried with a shrill cry. All this is true, sore though it grieves me to tell the tale."

[Line 434] So did they then, with hearts at one, greatly cheer each th...Read more of this...

by Marvell, Andrew
...e swarms 
Of current Myrmidons appear in arms, 
And for their pay he writes, as from the King-- 
With that cursed quill plucked from a vulture's wing-- 
Of the whole nation now to ask a loan 
(The eighteen-hundred-thousand pound was gone). 

This done, he pens a proclamation stout, 
In rescue of the banquiers banquerout, 
His minion imps that, in his secret part, 
Lie nuzzling at the sacremental wart, 
Horse-leeches circling at the hem'rrhoid vein: 
He sucks the King, the...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...ll from me withhold 
'Longer thy offered good; why else set here? 
This said, he paused not, but with venturous arm 
He plucked, he tasted; me damp horrour chilled 
At such bold words vouched with a deed so bold: 
But he thus, overjoyed; 'O fruit divine, 
'Sweet of thyself, but much more sweet thus cropt, 
'Forbidden here, it seems, as only fit 
'For Gods, yet able to make Gods of Men: 
'And why not Gods of Men; since good, the more 
'Communicated, more abundant grows, 
'The ...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...To reach, and feed at once both body and mind? 
So saying, her rash hand in evil hour 
Forth reaching to the fruit, she plucked, she eat! 
Earth felt the wound; and Nature from her seat, 
Sighing through all her works, gave signs of woe, 
That all was lost. Back to the thicket slunk 
The guilty Serpent; and well might;for Eve, 
Intent now wholly on her taste, nought else 
Regarded; such delight till then, as seemed, 
In fruit she never tasted, whether true 
Or fancied so,...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...they rolled in heaps, and, up the trees 
Climbing, sat thicker than the snaky locks 
That curled Megaera: greedily they plucked 
The fruitage fair to sight, like that which grew 
Near that bituminous lake where Sodom flamed; 
This more delusive, not the touch, but taste 
Deceived; they, fondly thinking to allay 
Their appetite with gust, instead of fruit 
Chewed bitter ashes, which the offended taste 
With spattering noise rejected: oft they assayed, 
Hunger and thirst constr...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...: 
So mayest thou live; till, like ripe fruit, thou drop 
Into thy mother's lap; or be with ease 
Gathered, nor harshly plucked; for death mature: 
This is Old Age; but then, thou must outlive 
Thy youth, thy strength, thy beauty; which will change 
To withered, weak, and gray; thy senses then, 
Obtuse, all taste of pleasure must forego, 
To what thou hast; and, for the air of youth, 
Hopeful and cheerful, in thy blood will reign 
A melancholy damp of cold and dry 
To weigh t...Read more of this...

by Lanier, Sidney
...ruck thee dead, then stood above,
With tears that none but dreamers weep;'
`Dreams,' quoth Love;

"`In dreams, again, I plucked a flower
That clung with pain and stung with power,
Yea, nettled me, body and mind.'
`'Twas the nettle of sin, 'twas medicine;
No need nor seed of it here Above;
In dreams of hate true loves begin.'
`True,' quoth Love.

"`Now strange,' quoth Sense, and `Strange,' quoth Mind,
`We saw it, and yet 'tis hard to find,
-- But we saw it,' quoth ...Read more of this...

by Stevens, Wallace
...our sure answerers. 

540 Crispin concocted doctrine from the rout. 
541 The world, a turnip once so readily plucked, 
542 Sacked up and carried overseas, daubed out 
543 Of its ancient purple, pruned to the fertile main, 
544 And sown again by the stiffest realist, 
545 Came reproduced in purple, family font, 
546 The same insoluble lump. The fatalist 
547 Stepped in and dropped the chuckling down his craw, 
548 Without grace or grumble. Score this ...Read more of this...

by Goldsmith, Oliver
...passed, around the pious man,
With steady zeal, each honest rustic ran;
Even children followed with endearing wile,
And plucked his gown, to share the good man's smile.
His ready smile a parent's warmth expressed,
Their welfare pleased him, and their cares distressed;
To them his heart, his love, his griefs were given,
But all his serious thoughts had rest in Heaven.
As some tall cliff, that lifts its awful form,
Swells from the vale, and midway leaves the storm,
Thou...Read more of this...

by Scott, Duncan Campbell
...Sun on the mountain,
Shade in the valley,
Ripple and lightness
Leaping along the world,
Sun, like a gold sword
Plucked from the scabbard,
Striking the wheat-fields,
Splendid and lusty,
Close-standing, full-headed,
Toppling with plenty;
Shade, like a buckler
Kindly and ample,
Sweeping the wheat-fields
Darkening and tossing;
There on the world-rim
Winds break and gather
Heaping the mist
For the pyre of the sunset;
And still as a shadow,
In the dim westward,
A cloud slo...Read more of this...

by Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...twined and clung 
Round that one sin, until the wholesome flower 
And poisonous grew together, each as each, 
Not to be plucked asunder; and when thy knights 
Sware, I sware with them only in the hope 
That could I touch or see the Holy Grail 
They might be plucked asunder. Then I spake 
To one most holy saint, who wept and said, 
That save they could be plucked asunder, all 
My quest were but in vain; to whom I vowed 
That I would work according as he willed. 
And fo...Read more of this...

by Scott, Sir Walter
...liage storms may reeve,
     'Fine noble stem they cannot grieve.
     For me'—she stooped, and, looking round,
     Plucked a blue harebell from the ground,—
     'For me, whose memory scarce conveys
     An image of more splendid days,
     This little flower that loves the lea
     May well my simple emblem be;
     It drinks heaven's dew as blithe as rose
     That in the King's own garden grows;
     And when I place it in my hair,
     Allan, a bard is bound ...Read more of this...

by Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...one with Mark and hell. 
My God, the measure of my hate for Mark 
Is as the measure of my love for thee.' 

So, plucked one way by hate and one by love, 
Drained of her force, again she sat, and spake 
To Tristram, as he knelt before her, saying, 
`O hunter, and O blower of the horn, 
Harper, and thou hast been a rover too, 
For, ere I mated with my shambling king, 
Ye twain had fallen out about the bride 
Of one--his name is out of me--the prize, 
If prize she were--...Read more of this...

by Chaucer, Geoffrey
...aw that he would never fine* *finish
To readen on this cursed book all night,
All suddenly three leaves have I plight* *plucked
Out of his book, right as he read, and eke
I with my fist so took him on the cheek,
That in our fire he backward fell adown.
And he up start, as doth a wood* lion, *furious
And with his fist he smote me on the head,
That on the floor I lay as I were dead.
And when he saw how still that there I lay,
He was aghast, and would have fled away,
Til...Read more of this...

by Bukowski, Charles
...nights
and they were weary of 
berries
and
they waited as the worms
rose to the top,
half drowned worms.
the birds plucked them 
up
and gobbled them
down;there were
blackbirds and sparrows.
the blackbirds tried to
drive the sparrows off
but the sparrows,
maddened with hunger,
smaller and quicker,
got their
due.
the men stood on their porches
smoking cigarettes,
now knowing
they'd have to go out
there
to look for that job
that probably wasn't 
there, to start that...Read more of this...

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