Get Your Premium Membership

Famous Possess Poems by Famous Poets

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

See also:

by Gibran, Kahlil
...will use your talk as evidence for his judgment, and you shall receive justice. 

You may deprive me of whatever I possess, for my greed instigated the amassing of wealth and you are entitled to my lot if it will satisfy you. 

You may do unto me whatever you wish, but you shall not be able to touch my Truth. 

You may shed my blood and burn my body, but you cannot kill or hurt my spirit. 

You may tie my hands with chains and my feet with shackles, and put m...Read more of this...



by Moody, William Vaughn
...crown shall crown their struggle and their ruth? 
Are we the eagle nation Milton saw 
Mewing its mighty youth, 
Soon to possess the mountain winds of truth, 
And be a swift familiar of the sun 
Where aye before God's face his trumpets run? 
Or have we but the talons and the maw, 
And for the abject likeness of our heart 
Shall some less lordly bird be set apart? -- 
Some gross-billed wader where the swamps are fat? 
Some gorger in the sun? Some prowler with the bat? 


IX 

A...Read more of this...

by Browning, Robert
...and I 
Are dowered alike--I'll ask you, I or he, 
Which in our two lives realizes most? 
Much, he imagined--somewhat, I possess. 
He had the imagination; stick to that! 
Let him say, "In the face of my soul's works 
"Your world is worthless and I touch it not 
"Lest I should wrong them"--I'll withdraw my plea. 
But does he say so? look upon his life! 
Himself, who only can, gives judgment there. 
He leaves his towers and gorgeous palaces 
To build the trimmest hou...Read more of this...

by Robinson, Edwin Arlington
...be more guidance to man’s worthiness 
Than—well, say in his prayers. But oftentimes 
It humors us to think that we possess 
By some divine adjustment of our own 
Particular shrewd cells, or something else,
What others, for untutored sympathy, 
Go spirit-fishing more than half their lives 
To catch—like cheerful sinners to catch faith; 
And I have not a doubt but I assumed 
Some egotistic attribute like this
When, cautiously, next morning I reduced 
The fretful qualms of ...Read more of this...

by Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)
...r> Do not let me hear
Of the wisdom of old men, but rather of their folly,
Their fear of fear and frenzy, their fear of possession,
Of belonging to another, or to others, or to God.
The only wisdom we can hope to acquire
Is the wisdom of humility: humility is endless.

 The houses are all gone under the sea.

 The dancers are all gone under the hill.


III

O dark dark dark. They all go into the dark,
The vacant interstellar spaces, the vacant into the vac...Read more of this...



by Dyke, Henry Van
...ef,
And fear, and hope, and longing unexpressed,
In pain most human, and in rapture brief
Almost divine.
Love would possess, yet deepens when denied;
And love would give, yet hungers to receive;
Love like a prince his triumph would achieve;
And like a miser in the dark his joys would hide.
Love is most bold:
He leads his dreams like armed men in line;
Yet when the siege is set, and he must speak,
Calling the fortress to resign
Its treasure, valiant love grows weak,
An...Read more of this...

by Stevenson, Robert Louis
...A little kingdom I possess 
where thoughts and feelings dwell, 
And very hard I find the task 
of governing it well; 
For passion tempts and troubles me, 
A wayward will misleads, 
And selfishness its shadow casts 
On all my words and deeds. 

How can I learn to rule myself, 
to be the child I should, 
Honest and brave, nor ever tire 
Of trying to be good? 
How can I keep ...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...erhaps, 
Some advantageous act may be achieved 
By sudden onset--either with Hell-fire 
To waste his whole creation, or possess 
All as our own, and drive, as we were driven, 
The puny habitants; or, if not drive, 
Seduce them to our party, that their God 
May prove their foe, and with repenting hand 
Abolish his own works. This would surpass 
Common revenge, and interrupt his joy 
In our confusion, and our joy upraise 
In his disturbance; when his darling sons, 
Hurled h...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...ence left, 
Among so many signs of power and rule 
Conferred upon us, and dominion given 
Over all other creatures that possess 
Earth, air, and sea. Then let us not think hard 
One easy prohibition, who enjoy 
Free leave so large to all things else, and choice 
Unlimited of manifold delights: 
But let us ever praise him, and extol 
His bounty, following our delightful task, 
To prune these growing plants, and tend these flowers, 
Which were it toilsome, yet with thee wer...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...happy places thou hast deigned a while 
To want, and honour these, vouchsafe with us 
Two only, who yet by sovran gift possess 
This spacious ground, in yonder shady bower 
To rest; and what the garden choicest bears 
To sit and taste, till this meridian heat 
Be over, and the sun more cool decline. 
Whom thus the angelick Virtue answered mild. 
Adam, I therefore came; nor art thou such 
Created, or such place hast here to dwell, 
As may not oft invite, though Spirit...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...ith hand 
Silence, and with these words attention, won. 
Thrones, Dominations, Princedoms, Virtues, Powers; 
For in possession such, not only of right, 
I call ye, and declare ye now; returned 
Successful beyond hope, to lead ye forth 
Triumphant out of this infernal pit 
Abominable, accursed, the house of woe, 
And dungeon of our tyrant: Now possess, 
As Lords, a spacious world, to our native Heaven 
Little inferiour, by my adventure hard 
With peril great achieved. ...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...ee from among the Cherubim 
Thy choice of flaming warriours, lest the Fiend, 
Or in behalf of Man, or to invade 
Vacant possession, some new trouble raise: 
Haste thee, and from the Paradise of God 
Without remorse drive out the sinful pair; 
From hallowed ground the unholy; and denounce 
To them, and to their progeny, from thence 
Perpetual banishment. Yet, lest they faint 
At the sad sentence rigorously urged, 
(For I behold them softened, and with tears 
Bewailing thei...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...rn to read? 
Have you felt so proud to get at the meaning of poems? 

Stop this day and night with me, and you shall possess the origin of all poems;
You shall possess the good of the earth and sun—(there are millions of suns
 left;) 
You shall no longer take things at second or third hand, nor look through the
 eyes of the dead, nor feed on the spectres in books; 
You shall not look through my eyes either, nor take things from me: 
You shall listen to all sides, and...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...ver long, but it
 stretches
 and
 waits for you;
To see no being, not God’s or any, but you also go thither, 
To see no possession but you may possess it—enjoying all without labor or
 purchase—abstracting
 the feast, yet not abstracting one particle of it; 
To take the best of the farmer’s farm and the rich man’s elegant villa, and the chaste
 blessings
 of the well-married couple, and the fruits of orchards and flowers of gardens, 
To take to your use out of the compact cit...Read more of this...

by Byron, George (Lord)
...ara Osman Oglou, is the principle landholder in Turkey; he governs Magnesia. Those who, by a kind of feudal tenure, possess land on condition of service, are called Timariots; they serve as Spahis, according to the extent of territory, and bring a certain number into the field, generally cavalry. 

(8) When a Pacha is sufficiently strong to resist, the single messenger, who is always the first bearer of the order for his death, is strangled instead, and sometimes five...Read more of this...

by Wilde, Oscar
...n in anguish beautiful; - such is the empery

Which Painters hold, and such the heritage
This gentle solemn Spirit doth possess,
Being a better mirror of his age
In all his pity, love, and weariness,
Than those who can but copy common things,
And leave the Soul unpainted with its mighty questionings.

But they are few, and all romance has flown,
And men can prophesy about the sun,
And lecture on his arrows - how, alone,
Through a waste void the soulless atoms run,
How fro...Read more of this...

by Dryden, John
...between his teeth and fly 
To the next headlong steep of anarchy. 
Too happy Engand, if our good we knew, 
Would we possess the freedom we pursue! 
The lavish government can give no more; 
Yet we repine, and plenty makes us poor. 
God tried us once; our rebel fathers fought; 
He glutted them with all the power they sought, 
Till, mastered by their own usurping brave, 
The free-born subject sunk into a slave. 
We loathe our manna, and we long for quails; 
Ah! what ...Read more of this...

by Pope, Alexander
...hes three am'rous Sighs to raise the Fire.
Then prostrate falls, and begs with ardent Eyes
Soon to obtain, and long possess the Prize:
The Pow'rs gave Ear, and granted half his Pray'r,
The rest, the Winds dispers'd in empty Air.

But now secure the painted Vessel glides,
The Sun-beams trembling on the floating Tydes,
While melting Musick steals upon the Sky,
And soften'd Sounds along the Waters die. 
Smooth flow the Waves, the Zephyrs gently play
Belinda smil'd, a...Read more of this...

by Shakur, Tupac
...
When will I finally get to rest from this oppression?
They punish the people that's asking questions
And those that possess steal from the ones without possessions
The message I stress
To make you stop study your lessons
Don't settle for less
Even the genius asks his questions
Be grateful for blessings
Don't ever change, keep your essense
The power is in the people and politics we address
Always do your best
Don't let the pressure make you panic
And when you get...Read more of this...

by Akhmatova, Anna
...know your jokes do not shine..
Why don't you come to lull into quiet
This wounded conscience of mine?

You possess other worries
You have another wife
And, looking into my dry eyes,
St. Petersburg spring has arrived.

With harsh cough and with evening fever
She will punish and she will kill.
Under the smoke on the river
Nieva's ice is no longer still.



x x x

God is unkind to gardeners and reapers.
Slanted rain coils and fal...Read more of this...

Dont forget to view our wonderful member Possess poems.


Book: Reflection on the Important Things