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Famous Poets Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Brackenridge, Hugh Henry
...ach adjoining vale and desert plain, 
Lost in the umbrage of dark heathen shades. 
'Twas at this stream the fabling poets drank 
And sang how heav'n and earth from chaos rose; 
'Twas at this stream the wiser sages drank 
And straightway knew the soul immortal lives 
Beyond the grave and all the wrecks of time. 


From Judah's sacred hills a partial ray 
Extraneous, visited and cheer'd the gloom 
Spread o'er the shaded earth; yet more than half 
In superstition and the...Read more of this...



by Poe, Edgar Allan
...h'd not- for a voice was there
How solemnly pervading the calm air!
A sound of silence on the startled ear
Which dreamy poets name "the music of the sphere."
Ours is a world of words: Quiet we call
"Silence"- which is the merest word of all.
All Nature speaks, and ev'n ideal things
Flap shadowy sounds from visionary wings-
But ah! not so when, thus, in realms on high
The eternal voice of God is passing by,
And the red winds are withering in the sky:-

"What tho 'in wo...Read more of this...

by Pope, Alexander
...many more in Prose.

'Tis with our Judgments as our Watches, none
Go just alike, yet each believes his own.
In Poets as true Genius is but rare,
True Taste as seldom is the Critick's Share;
Both must alike from Heav'n derive their Light,
These born to Judge, as well as those to Write.
Let such teach others who themselves excell,
And censure freely who have written well.
Authors are partial to their Wit, 'tis true,
But are not Criticks to their Judgment too?

...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...ve long been accumulating undirected materials, 
America brings builders, and brings its own styles. 

The immortal poets of Asia and Europe have done their work, and pass’d to other
 spheres, 
A work remains, the work of surpassing all they have done. 

America, curious toward foreign characters, stands by its own at all hazards,
Stands removed, spacious, composite, sound—initiates the true use of precedents, 
Does not repel them, or the past, or what they have produ...Read more of this...

by Keats, John
...our dull, uninspired, snail-paced lives.
Long have I said, how happy he who shrives
To thee! But then I thought on poets gone,
And could not pray:--nor can I now--so on
I move to the end in lowliness of heart.----

 "Ah, woe is me! that I should fondly part
From my dear native land! Ah, foolish maid!
Glad was the hour, when, with thee, myriads bade
Adieu to Ganges and their pleasant fields!
To one so friendless the clear freshet yields
A bitter coolness, the ripe gra...Read more of this...



by Hugo, Victor
...s home. 
 But you amuse me; I am rich, you poor— 
 What boon shall I confer and make secure? 
 What gift? ask of me, poets, what you will 
 And I will grant it—promise to fulfil." 
 "A kiss," said Joss. 
 "A kiss!" and anger fraught 
 Amazed at minstrel having such a thought— 
 While flush of indignation warmed her cheek. 
 "You do forget to whom it is you speak," 
 She cried. 
 "Had I not known your high degree, 
 Should I have asked this royal boon," said he, 
...Read more of this...

by Frost, Robert
...disposing of it. Do you know,
Considering the market, there are more
Poems produced than any other thing?
No wonder poets sometimes have to seem
So much more businesslike than businessmen.
Their wares are so much harder to get rid of.

She's one of the two best states in the Union.
Vermont's the other. And the two have been
Yokefellows in the sap yoke from of old
In many Marches. And they lie like wedges,
Thick end to thin end and thin end to thick end...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...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, the same as th...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...Christ; 
I hear the Hindoo teaching his favorite pupil the loves, wars, adages, transmitted safely
 to
 this
 day, from poets who wrote three thousand years ago. 

4
What do you see, Walt Whitman? 
Who are they you salute, and that one after another salute you?

I see a great round wonder rolling through the air; 
I see diminute farms, hamlets, ruins, grave-yards, jails, factories, palaces, hovels, huts
 of
 barbarians, tents of nomads, upon the surface; 
I see the shaded...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...umours.
Hence Philosophers and other gravest Writers, as Cicero, Plutarch
and others, frequently cite out of Tragic Poets, both to adorn and
illustrate thir discourse. The Apostle Paul himself thought it not
unworthy to insert a verse of Euripides into the Text of Holy
Scripture, I Cor. 15. 33. and Paraeus commenting on the
Revelation, divides the whole Book as a Tragedy, into Acts
distinguisht each by a Chorus of Heavenly Harpings and Song
between. He...Read more of this...

by Ashbery, John
...br> It hints at
Our own, which we were hoping to keep hidden.
We don't need paintings or
Doggerel written by mature poets when
The explosion is so precise, so fine.
Is there any point even in acknowledging
The existence of all that? Does it
Exist? Certainly the leisure to
Indulge stately pastimes doesn't,
Any more. Today has no margins, the event arrives
Flush with its edges, is of the same substance,
Indistinguishable. "Play" is something else;
It exists, in ...Read more of this...

by Byron, George (Lord)
...d is a game of blunt javelins, animated and graceful. 

(14) "Ollahs," Alla il Allah, the "Leilles," as the Spanish poets call them; the sound is Ollah; a cry of which the Turks, for a silent people, are somewhat profuse, particularly during the jerreed, or in the chase, but mostly in battle. Their animation in the field, and gravity in the chamber, with their pipes and comboloios, form an amusing contrast. 

(15) "Atar-g?l," ottar of roses. The Persian is the...Read more of this...

by Browning, Robert
...dle Age no treason
In resolving on a hunting-party.
Always provided, old books showed the way of it!
What meant old poets by their strictures?
And when old poets had said their say of it,
How taught old painters in their pictures?
We must revert to the proper channels,
Workings in tapestry, paintings on panels,
And gather up woodcraft's authentic traditions:
Here was food for our various ambitions,
As on each case, exactly stated---
To encourage your dog, now, the propere...Read more of this...

by Bridges, Robert Seymour
...hty Shakespeare, then for third
The classic Milton, and to us arose
Shelley with liquid music in the world. 

5
The poets were good teachers, for they taught
Earth had this joy; but that 'twould ever be
That fortune should be perfected in me,
My heart of hope dared not engage the thought.
So I stood low, and now but to be caught
By any self-styled lords of the age with thee
Vexes my modesty, lest they should see
I hold them owls and peacocks, things of nought. 
An...Read more of this...

by Chaucer, Geoffrey
...n attack on Gower, who
had given these tales in his book; whence Tyrwhitt concludes
that the friendship between the two poets suffered some
interruption in the latter part of their lives. Gower was not the
inventor of the story, which he found in old French romances,
and it is not improbable that Chaucer may have gone to the
same source as Gower, though the latter undoubtedly led the
way.
(Transcriber's note: later commentators have identified the
introduction describ...Read more of this...

by Blake, William
...Truth can never be told so as to be understood, and not be
believ'd.

Enough! or Too much



PLATE 11 

The ancient Poets animated all sensible objects with Gods or
Geniuses calling them by the names and adorning them with the
properties of woods, rivers, mountains, lakes, cities, nations,
and whatever their enlarged & numerous senses could percieve.
And particularly they studied the genius of each city &
country. placing it under its mental deity.
Till a syst...Read more of this...

by Thomson, James
...s! nor comes alone,
With sober State, and of majestic Mien,
The Sister-Muses in his Train -- 'Tis He!
Maro! the best of Poets, and of Men!
Great Homer too appears, of daring Wing!
Parent of Song! and, equal, by his Side,
The British Muse, join'd Hand in Hand, they walk,
Darkling, nor miss their Way to Fame's Ascent.

Society divine! Immortal Minds!
Still visit thus my Nights, for you reserv'd,
And mount my soaring Soul to Deeds like yours.
Silence! thou lonely Power! ...Read more of this...

by Byron, George (Lord)
...to cough, and hawk, and hem, and pitch 
His voice into that awful note of woe 
To all unhappy hearers within reach 
Of poets when the tide of rhyme's in flow; 
But stuck fast with his first hexameter, 
Not one of all whose gouty feet would stir. 

XCI 

But ere the spavin'd dactyls could be spurr'd 
Into recitative, in great dismay 
Both cherubim and seraphim were heard 
To murmur loudly through their long array: 
And Michael rose ere he could get a word 
Of all his foun...Read more of this...

by Nash, Ogden
...a lot of
wolves dressed up in gold and purple ate them.
That's the kind of thing that's being done all the time by poets,
from Homer to Tennyson;
They're always comparing ladies to lilies and veal to venison,
And they always say things like that the snow is a white blanket
after a winter storm.
Oh it is, is it, all right then, you sleep under a six-inch blanket of
snow and I'll sleep under a half-inch blanket of unpoetical
blanket material and we'll see which one kee...Read more of this...

by Service, Robert William
...Let poets piece prismatic words,
Give me the jewelled joy of birds!

What ecstasy moves them to sing?
Is it the lyric glee of Spring,
The dewy rapture of the rose?
Is it the worship born in those
Who are of Nature's self a part,
The adoration of the heart?

Is it the mating mood in them
That makes each crystal note a gem?
Oh mocking bird and nightingale,
Oh mavi...Read more of this...

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