Get Your Premium Membership

Famous Poesy Poems by Famous Poets

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

See also:

by Brackenridge, Hugh Henry
...eart, 
To that high glory in the world unseen, 
And crown celestial, which pure virtue gives. 


Thus eloquence and poesy divine 
A nobler range of sentiment receive; 
Life brought to view and immortality, 
A recent world through which bold fancy roves, 
And gives new magic to the pow'r of song; 
For where the streams of revelation flow 
Unknown to bards of Helicon, or those 
Who on the top of Pindus, or the banks 
Of Arethusa and Eurotas stray'd, 
The poet drinks, and gl...Read more of this...



by Brackenridge, Hugh Henry
...Persia's haughty king. 
No more of Rome enlighten'd by her beams, 
Fresh kindling there the fire of eloquence, 
And poesy divine; imperial Rome! 
Whose wide dominion reach'd o'er half the globe; 
Whose eagle flew o'er Ganges to the East, 
And in the West far to the British isles. 
No more of Britain, and her kings renown'd, 
Edward's and Henry's thunderbolts of war; 
Her chiefs victorious o'er the Gallic foe; 
Illustrious senators, immortal bards, 
And wise philosophe...Read more of this...

by Shelley, Percy Bysshe
...r>
Knowledge and truth and virtue were her theme,
And lofty hopes of divine liberty,
Thoughts the most dear to him, and poesy, 
Herself a poet. Soon the solemn mood
Of her pure mind kindled through all her frame
A permeating fire; wild numbers then
She raised, with voice stifled in tremulous sobs
Subdued by its own pathos; her fair hands
Were bare alone, sweeping from some strange harp
Strange symphony, and in their branching veins
The eloquent blood told an ineffable tal...Read more of this...

by Wilde, Oscar
...pipe again of love, too venturous reed!
Enough, enough that Eros laughed upon that flowerless mead.

Too venturous poesy, O why essay
To pipe again of passion! fold thy wings
O'er daring Icarus and bid thy lay
Sleep hidden in the lyre's silent strings
Till thou hast found the old Castalian rill,
Or from the Lesbian waters plucked drowned Sappho's golden quid!

Enough, enough that he whose life had been
A fiery pulse of sin, a splendid shame,
Could in the loveless land of...Read more of this...

by Keats, John
...no, even as the trees
That whisper round a temple become soon
Dear as the temple's self, so does the moon,
The passion poesy, glories infinite,
Haunt us till they become a cheering light
Unto our souls, and bound to us so fast,
That, whether there be shine, or gloom o'ercast,
They alway must be with us, or we die.

 Therefore, 'tis with full happiness that I
Will trace the story of Endymion.
The very music of the name has gone
Into my being, and each pleasant scene
I...Read more of this...



by Keats, John
...his head,
Who, thus far, discontent, has dared to tread,
Without one muse's smile, or kind behest,
The path of love and poesy. But rest,
In chaffing restlessness, is yet more drear
Than to be crush'd, in striving to uprear
Love's standard on the battlements of song.
So once more days and nights aid me along,
Like legion'd soldiers.

 Brain-sick shepherd-prince,
What promise hast thou faithful guarded since
The day of sacrifice? Or, have new sorrows
Come with the c...Read more of this...

by Keats, John
...he bay,
Fly from all sorrowing far, far away;
A sudden glow comes on them, nought they see
In water, earth, or air, but poesy.
It has been said, dear George, and true I hold it,
(For knightly Spenser to Libertas told it,)
That when a Poet is in such a trance,
In air her sees white coursers paw, and prance,
Bestridden of gay knights, in gay apparel,
Who at each other tilt in playful quarrel,
And what we, ignorantly, sheet-lightning call,
Is the swift opening of their wide ...Read more of this...

by Hikmet, Nazim
...e
five times a day,
undaunted,
claim
I can prove it;
if I can't, 
I'll be ruined and banished
forever from the realm of poesy.

 1928


Part One
Excerpts from Gioconda's Diary

15 March 1924: Paris, Louvre Museum

At last I am bored with the Louvre Museum.
You can get fed up with boredom very fast.
I am fed up with my boredom.
And from the devastation inside me
 I drew this lesson;
 to visit
 a museum is fine,
 to be a museum piece is terrible!
In this palace ...Read more of this...

by Bukowski, Charles
...drunk again at 3 a.m. at the end of my 2nd bottle
of wine, I have typed from a dozen to 15 pages of
poesy
an old man
maddened for the flesh of young girls in this
dwindling twilight
liver gone
kidneys going
pancrea pooped
top-floor blood pressure 
while all the fear of the wasted years
laughs between my toes
no woman will live with me
no Florence Nightingale to watch the
Johnny Carson show with 
if I have a stroke I will lay here for six
days, my three cat...Read more of this...

by Shelley, Percy Bysshe
...ngs
Now float above thy darkness, and now rest
Where that or thou art no unbidden guest,
In the still cave of the witch Poesy,
Seeking among the shadows that pass by
Ghosts of all things that are, some shade of thee,
Some phantom, some faint image; till the breast
From which they fled recalls them, thou art there!

3

Some say that gleams of a remoter world
Visit the soul in sleep,-that death is slumber,
And that its shapes the busy thoughts outnumber
Of those who wake and li...Read more of this...

by Dryden, John
...To the Pious Memory of the Accomplished Young Lady, Mrs Anne Killigrew,
Excellent in the Two Sister-arts of Poesy and Painting

Thou youngest Virgin Daughter of the skies,
Made in the last promotion of the blest;
Whose palms, new-plucked from Paradise,
In spreading branches more sublimely rise,
Rich with immortal green, above the rest:
Whether, adopted to some neighbouring star,
Thou roll'st above us in thy wand'ring race,
Or, in procession fixed and regular
Moved...Read more of this...

by Keats, John
...br> 30 

Away! away! for I will fly to thee, 
Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards, 
But on the viewless wings of Poesy, 
Though the dull brain perplexes and retards: 
Already with thee! tender is the night, 35 
And haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne, 
Cluster'd around by all her starry Fays 
But here there is no light, 
Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown 
Through verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways. 40 

I cannot see what flowers are at...Read more of this...

by Spenser, Edmund
...irst, which of thy Nation sung 
Th' old nonor of the people gowné long. 


L' Envoi 

Bellay, first garland of free Poesy 
That France brought forth, though fruitful of brave wits, 
Well worthy thou of immorality, 
That long hast travail'd by thy learned writs, 
Old Rome out of her ashes to revive, 
And give a second life to dead decays: 
Needs must he all eternity survive, 
That can to other give eternal days. 
Thy days therefore are endless, and thy praise 
Excellin...Read more of this...

by Hugo, Victor
...d by each anxious friend, 
 No carking care within— 
 When summer gambols end, 
 My winter sports begin. 
 
 Sweet poesy from heaven 
 Around thy form is placed, 
 A mother's beauty given, 
 By father's thought is graced! 
 
 Seize, then, each blissful second, 
 Live, for joy sinks in night, 
 And those whose tale is reckoned, 
 Have had their days of light. 
 
 Then, oh! before we part, 
 The poet's blessing take, 
 Ere bleeds that aged heart, 
 Or c...Read more of this...

by Wilde, Oscar
...he Indies ever! these at least bring back again,

For well I know they are not dead at all,
The ancient Gods of Grecian poesy:
They are asleep, and when they hear thee call
Will wake and think 't is very Thessaly,
This Thames the Daulian waters, this cool glade
The yellow-irised mead where once young Itys laughed and played.

If it was thou dear jasmine-cradled bird
Who from the leafy stillness of thy throne
Sang to the wondrous boy, until he heard
The horn of Atalanta fa...Read more of this...

by Lanier, Sidney
...ws
From steep-wall'd heavens, holy malcontents,
Sweet seers, and stellar visionaries, all
That brood about the skies of poesy,
Full bright ye shine, insuperable stars;
Yet, if a man look hard upon you, none
With total lustre blazeth, no, not one
But hath some heinous freckle of the flesh
Upon his shining cheek, not one but winks
His ray, opaqued with intermittent mist
Of defect; yea, you masters all must ask
Some sweet forgiveness, which we leap to give,
We lovers of you, hea...Read more of this...

by Wilde, Oscar
...gn grows grey and dim before its conqueror.

Spirit of Beauty! tarry with us still,
It is not quenched the torch of poesy,
The star that shook above the Eastern hill
Holds unassailed its argent armoury
From all the gathering gloom and fretful fight -
O tarry with us still! for through the long and common night,

Morris, our sweet and simple Chaucer's child,
Dear heritor of Spenser's tuneful reed,
With soft and sylvan pipe has oft beguiled
The weary soul of man in troublou...Read more of this...

by Bradstreet, Anne
...ance.


6

But sure the antique Greeks were far more mild,
Else of our sex, why feigned they those nine,
And poesy made Calliope's own child?
So 'mongst the rest they placed the arts divine:
But this weak knot they will full soon untie,
The Greeks did nought, but play the fool and lie.


7

Let Greeks be Greeks, and women what they are,
Men have precedency, and still excel;
It is but vain, unjustly to wage war;
Men can do best, and women know it well...Read more of this...

by Shelley, Percy Bysshe
...sat aloof;
Spelling out scrolls of dread antiquity
Under the cavern's fountain-lighted roof;
Or broidering the pictured poesy
Of some high tale upon her growing woof,
Which the sweet splendor of her smiles could dye
In hues outshining heaven--and ever she
Added some grace to the wrought poesy:--

While on her hearth lay blazing many a piece
Of sandal-wood, rare gums, and cinnamon.
Men scarcely know how beautiful fire is;
Each flame of it is as a precious stone
Dissolved i...Read more of this...

by Jonson, Ben
...t maintains you, and your house in laughter.Item, the Babylonian song you sing;Item, a fair Greek poesy for a ring, With which a learned madam you bely.Item, a charm surrounding fearfully Your partie-per-pale picture, one half drawn In solemn cypress, th' other cobweb lawn.Item, a gulling imprese for you, at tilt.Item, your mistress' anagram, in your hilt.Item, your own, sewn in your mistress...Read more of this...

Dont forget to view our wonderful member Poesy poems.


Book: Reflection on the Important Things