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Famous Possible Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Crowley, Aleister
...s, put bit
In the mule-mouths that have such need of it,
Until the world there's so much to forgive in
Becomes a little possible to live in.

God alone knows if battle or surrender
Be the true courage; either has its splendour. 
But since we chose the first, God aid the right,
And damn me if I fail you in the fight!
God join again the ways that lie apart,
And bless the love of loyal heart to heart!
God keep us every hour in every thought,
And bring the vessel of our l...Read more of this...



by Plath, Sylvia
...ent, anyway, this year.
After all I am alive only by accident.

I would have killed myself gladly that time any possible way.
Now there are these veils, shimmering like curtains,

The diaphanous satins of a January window
White as babies' bedding and glittering with dead breath. O ivory!

It must be a tusk there, a ghost column.
Can you not see I do not mind what it is.

Can you not give it to me?
Do not be ashamed--I do not mind if it is small.

D...Read more of this...

by Lehman, David
...rs, he joined the counter-
 terrorism unit of army intelligence.
Contrary to what the spook novels say, he found it possible to
 avoid betraying either his country or his lover.
This was the life: strange bedrooms, the perfume of other men's
 wives.
As a spy he has a unique mission: to get his name on the front 
 page of the nation's newspaper of record. Only by doing that 
 would he get the message through to his immediate superior.
If he goes to jail, he...Read more of this...

by Robinson, Edwin Arlington
...silence 
That was itself a story and affirmed 
A savage emphasis of honesty 
That I would only gladly have attuned 
If possible, to vinous innovation.
But his indifferent wassailing was always 
Too far within the measure of excess 
For that; and then there were those eyes of his. 
Avon indeed had kept his word with me, 
And there was not much yet to make me happy.

“So there we were,” he said, “we two together, 
Breathing one air. And how shall I go on 
To sa...Read more of this...

by Pope, Alexander
...e weeds they shade? 
Or ask of yonder argent fields(5) above, 
Why JOVE'S Satellites are less than JOVE?(6) 
Of Systems possible, if 'tis confest 
That Wisdom infinite must form the best, 
Where all must full or not coherent be, 
And all that rises, rise in due degree; 
Then, in the scale of reas'ning life, 'tis plain 
There must be, somewhere, such rank as Man; 
And all the question (wrangle e'er so long) 
Is only this, if God has plac'd him wrong? 
Respecting Man, whatever ...Read more of this...



by Milton, John
...anspires 
Through Spirits with ease; nor wonder;if by fire 
Of sooty coal the empirick alchemist 
Can turn, or holds it possible to turn, 
Metals of drossiest ore to perfect gold, 
As from the mine. Mean while at table Eve 
Ministered naked, and their flowing cups 
With pleasant liquours crowned: O innocence 
Deserving Paradise! if ever, then, 
Then had the sons of God excuse to have been 
Enamoured at that sight; but in those hearts 
Love unlibidinous reigned, nor jealou...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...
Not then mistrust, but tender love, enjoins, 
That I should mind thee oft; and mind thou me. 
Firm we subsist, yet possible to swerve; 
Since Reason not impossibly may meet 
Some specious object by the foe suborned, 
And fall into deception unaware, 
Not keeping strictest watch, as she was warned. 
Seek not temptation then, which to avoid 
Were better, and most likely if from me 
Thou sever not: Trial will come unsought. 
Wouldst thou approve thy constancy, appro...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...osal, Father, spare the trouble
Of that sollicitation; let me here,
As I deserve, pay on my punishment;
And expiate, if possible, my crime, 
Shameful garrulity. To have reveal'd
Secrets of men, the secrets of a friend,
How hainous had the fact been, how deserving
Contempt, and scorn of all, to be excluded
All friendship, and avoided as a blab,
The mark of fool set on his front?
But I Gods counsel have not kept, his holy secret
Presumptuously have publish'd, impiously,
Wea...Read more of this...

by Ashbery, John
...thrashed by the wind,
Longing to be free, outside, but it must stay
Posing in this place. It must move
As little as possible. This is what the portrait says.
But there is in that gaze a combination
Of tenderness, amusement and regret, so powerful
In its restraint that one cannot look for long.
The secret is too plain. The pity of it smarts,
Makes hot tears spurt: that the soul is not a soul,
Has no secret, is small, and it fits
Its hollow perfectly: its ro...Read more of this...

by Frost, Robert
...“Its mother wouldn’t let it cry like that,
Not if she’s there.”

“What do you make of it?”

“There’s only one thing possible to make,
That is, assuming—that she has gone out.
Of course she hasn’t though.” They both sat down
Helpless. “There’s nothing we can do till morning.”

“Fred, I shan’t let you think of going out.”

“Hold on.” The double bell began to chirp.
They started up. Fred took the telephone.
“Hello, Meserve. You’re ther...Read more of this...

by Whittier, John Greenleaf
...t, the squalid sloth, 
Which nurtured Treason's monstrous growth, 
Made murder pastime, and the hell 
Of prison-torture possible; 
The cruel lie of caste refute, 
Old forms remould, and substitute 
For Slavery's lash the freeman's will, 
For blind routine, wise-handed skill; 
A school-house plant on every hill, 
Stretching in radiate nerve-lines thence 
The quick wires of intelligence; 
Till North and South together brought 
Shall own the same electric thought, 
In peace a co...Read more of this...

by Byron, George (Lord)
...ed into serpentine curves like the ripple of water, or the wavering of flame. I asked the Armenian who sold it what possible use such a figure could add: he said, in Italian, that he did not know; but the Mussulmans had an idea that those of this form gave a severer wound; and liked it because it was "piu feroce." I did not much admire the reason, but bought it for its peculiarity. 

(30) It is to be observed, that every allusion to anything or personage in the Ol...Read more of this...

by Stevens, Wallace
...essential prose 
275 As being, in a world so falsified, 
276 The one integrity for him, the one 
277 Discovery still possible to make, 
278 To which all poems were incident, unless 
279 That prose should wear a poem's guise at last. 

IV 

The Idea of a Colony 

280 Nota: his soil is man's intelligence. 
281 That's better. That's worth crossing seas to find. 
282 Crispin in one laconic phrase laid bare 
283 His cloudy drift and planned a colony.<...Read more of this...

by Tagore, Rabindranath
...and why
couldn't such a thing come true by chance?
It would be like a story in a book.
My brother would say, "Is it possible? I always thought he was
so delicate!"
Our village people would all say in amazement, "Was it not
lucky that the boy was with his mother?"...Read more of this...

by Carroll, Lewis
...days--
Albeit bright memories of that sunlit shore
 Yet haunt my dreaming gaze!


PREFACE


If--and the thing is wildly possible--the charge of writing nonsense were ever brought against the author of this brief but instructive poem, it would be based, I feel convinced, on the line (in p.18) 

"Then the bowsprit got mixed with the rudder sometimes." 

In view of this painful possibility, I will not (as I might) appeal indignantly to my other writings as a proof that I...Read more of this...

by Chaucer, Geoffrey
...rtes, in paradise.
Well hath fortune y-turned thee the dice,
That hast the sight of her, and I th' absence.
For possible is, since thou hast her presence,
And art a knight, a worthy and an able,
That by some cas*, since fortune is changeable, *chance
Thou may'st to thy desire sometime attain.
But I that am exiled, and barren
Of alle grace, and in so great despair,
That there n'is earthe, water, fire, nor air,
Nor creature, that of them maked is,
That may me helpe ...Read more of this...

by Chaucer, Geoffrey
...ick',* *wicked
There is no man could bring her to that prick.* *point

Now was this child as like unto Constance
As possible is a creature to be:
This Alla had the face in remembrance
Of Dame Constance, and thereon mused he,
If that the childe's mother *were aught she* *could be she*
That was his wife; and privily he sight,* *sighed
And sped him from the table *that he might.* *as fast as he could*

"Parfay,"* thought he, "phantom** is in mine head. *by my faith
I...Read more of this...

by Blake, William
...e thought. fills immensity.
Always be ready to speak your mind, and a base man will avoid
you.

Every thing possible to be believ'd is an image of truth.

The eagle never lost so much time, as when he submitted to learn
of the crow.


PLATE 9

The fox provides for himself. but God provides for the lion. 
Think in the morning, Act in the noon, Eat in the evening, Sleep
in the night. 
He who has sufferd you to impose on him knows you.
As the ...Read more of this...

by Chaucer, Geoffrey
...of Oxford as he did the French
of Stratford at Bow.

19. Shot window: A projecting or bow window, whence it was
possible shoot at any one approaching the door.

20. Piment: A drink made with wine, honey, and spices.

21. Because she was town-bred, he offered wealth, or money
reward, for her love.

22. Parish-clerks, like Absolon, had leading parts in the
mysteries or religious plays; Herod was one of these parts,
which may have been an object o...Read more of this...

by Byron, George (Lord)
...and where he never was before, and never will be again, the following poem would not have been written. It is not impossible that it may be as good as his own, seeing that it cannot, by any species of stupidity, natural or acquired, be worse. The gross flattery, the dull impudence, the renegado intolerance, and impious cant, of the poem by the author if 'Wat Tyler,' are something so stupendous as to form the sublime of himself — containing the quintessence of his own ...Read more of this...

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