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Famous Practised Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Carroll, Lewis
...He thought he saw an Elephant
That practised on a fife:
He looked again, and found it was
A letter from his wife.
"At length I realize," he said,
"The bitterness of life!"

He thought he saw a Buffalo
Upon the chimney-piece:
He looked again, and found it was
His Sister's Husband's Niece.
"Unless you leave this house," he said,
"I'll send for the police!"

he thought he saw a Rattlesna...Read more of this...



by Milton, John
...pose,
In such a scant allowance of star-light,
Would overtask the best land-pilot's art,
Without the sure guess of well-practised feet.
 COMUS. I know each lane, and every alley green,
Dingle, or bushy dell, of this wild wood,
And every bosky bourn from side to side,
My daily walks and ancient neighbourhood;
And, if your stray attendance be yet lodged,
Or shroud within these limits, I shall know
Ere morrow wake, or the low-roosted lark
From her thatched pallet rouse.<...Read more of this...

by Hugo, Victor
...profusion; all the vessels there, 
 Goblets and glasses gilt, or painted fair, 
 Are ranged for different wines with practised care. 
 He thirsts; the flagons tempt; but there must stay 
 One drop in emptied glass, and 'twould betray 
 The fact that some one living had been here. 
 Straight to the horses goes he, pauses near 
 That which is next the table shining bright, 
 Seizes the rider—plucks the phantom knight 
 To pieces—all in vain its panoply 
 And pallid s...Read more of this...

by Dickinson, Emily
...ow-
And then you wished you had eyes in your pages,
So you could see what moved them so.

"Tell him it wasn't a practised writer,
You guessed, from the way the sentence toiled;
You could hear the bodice tug, behind you,
As if it held but the might of a child;
You almost pitied it, you, it worked so.
Tell him--No, you may quibble there,
For it would split his heart to know it,
And then you and I were silenter.

"Tell him night finished before we finish...Read more of this...

by Robinson, Edwin Arlington
...turned him out, 
And touched him with his thumb to make him jump, 
And then composedly pulled out the plug 
With such a practised hand that scarce a drop
Did even touch his fingers. Then he drank 
And smacked his lips with a slow patronage 
And looked along the line of barrels there 
With a pride that may have been forgetfulness 
That they were Archibald’s and not his own.
“I never twist a spigot nowadays,” 
He said, and raised the glass up to the light, 
“But I thank...Read more of this...



by Marvell, Andrew
... 
Such up the stream the Belgic navy glides 
And at Sheerness unloads its stormy sides. 

Spragge there, though practised in the sea command, 
With panting heart lay like a fish on land 
And quickly judged the fort was not ten?ble-- 
Which, if a house, yet were not tenant?ble-- 
No man can sit there safe: the cannon pours 
Thorough the walls untight and bullet showers, 
The neighbourhood ill, and an unwholesome seat, 
So at the first salute resolves retreat, 
And swor...Read more of this...

by Donne, John
...e,
I must love her that loves not me.

Sure, they which made him god meant not so much,
Nor he in his young godhead practised it;
But when an even flame two hearts did touch,
His office was indulgently to fit
Actives to passives. Correspondency
Only his subject was; it cannot be
Love, till I love her that loves me.

But every modern god will now extend
His vast prerogative as far as Jove.
To rage, to lust, to write to, to commend,
All is the purlieu of the God...Read more of this...

by Browning, Robert
...trives and gets weary, loses and wins:
Where the strong and the weak, this world's congeries,
Repeat in large what they practised in small,
Through life after life in unlimited series; 
Only the scale's to be changed, that's all.

XXII.

Yet I hardly know. When a soul has seen
By the means of Evil that Good is best,
And, through earth and its noise, what is heaven's serene,---
When our faith in the same has stood the test---
Why, the child grown man, you burn the ...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
... Whereof he soon aware, 
Each perturbation smoothed with outward calm, 
Artificer of fraud; and was the first 
That practised falsehood under saintly show, 
Deep malice to conceal, couched with revenge: 
Yet not enough had practised to deceive 
Uriel once warned; whose eye pursued him down 
 The way he went, and on the Assyrian mount 
 Saw him disfigured, more than could befall 
 Spirit of happy sort; his gestures fierce 
 He marked and mad demeanour, then alone, 
 As he ...Read more of this...

by Akhmatova, Anna
...d so wonderful.
Assume whatever shape you wish. Burst in
Like a shell of noxious gas. Creep up on me
Like a practised bandit with a heavy weapon.
Poison me, if you want, with a typhoid exhalation,
Or, with a simple tale prepared by you
(And known by all to the point of nausea), take me
Before the commander of the blue caps and let me
glimpse
The house administrator's terrified white face.
I don't care anymore. The river Yenisey
Swirls on. The Pole ...Read more of this...

by Arnold, Matthew
...For that force,
Surely, has not been left vain!
Somewhere, surely afar,
In the sounding labour-house vast
Of being, is practised that strength,
Zealous, beneficent, firm!

Yes, in some far-shining sphere,
Conscious or not of the past,
Still thou performest the word
Of the Spirit in whom thou dost live--
Prompt, unwearied, as here!
Still thou upraisest with zeal
The humble good from the ground,
Sternly repressest the bad!
Still, like a trumpet, dost rouse
Those who with half-...Read more of this...

by Schiller, Friedrich von
...ghs her now with weights that human are,
Metes her with measures that she lent of old;
While in her beauty's rites more practised far,
She now must let his eye her form behold.
With youthful and self-pleasing bliss,
He lends the spheres his harmony,
And, if he praise earth's edifice,
'Tis for its wondrous symmetry.


In all that now around him breathes,
Proportion sweet is ever rife;
And beauty's golden girdle wreathes
With mildness round his path through life;
Perfec...Read more of this...

by Service, Robert William
...onsin his objective point; his object, Margaret.

With every mile of sea and land his longing grew and grew.
He practised all his pretty words, and these, I fear, were few.
At last, one frosty evening, with a cold chill down his spine,
He found himself before her house, the threshold of the shrine.
His courage flickered to a spark, then glowed with sudden flame--
He knocked; he heard a welcome word; she came--his goddess came.
Oh, she was fair as any flowe...Read more of this...

by Lowell, Amy
...
For she was young, and loved, while he was moved
Only by music. Each day that was proved.
Each day he rose and practised. While 
he played,
She stopped her work and listened, and her heart
Swelled painfully beneath her bodice. Swayed
And longing, she would hide from him her smart.
"Well, Lottchen, will that do?" Then what a start
She gave, and she would run to him and cry,
And he would gently chide her, "Fie, Dear, fie.
I'm glad I played it well. ...Read more of this...

by Hardy, Thomas
...r>.

-- A Troubadour-youth I rambled
With Life for lyre,
The beats of being raging
In me like fire.

But when I practised eyeing
The goal of men,
It iced me, and I perished
A little then.

When passed my friend, my kinsfolk,
Through the Last Door,
And left me standing bleakly,
I died yet more;

And when my Love's heart kindled
In hate of me,
Wherefore I knew not, died I
One more degree.

And if when I died fully
I cannot say,
And changed into the corpse-thing
...Read more of this...

by Scott, Sir Walter
...often dashed aside;
     For, trained abroad his arms to wield
     Fitz-James's blade was sword and shield.
     He practised every pass and ward,
     To thrust, to strike, to feint, to guard;
     While less expert, though stronger far,
     The Gael maintained unequal war.
     Three times in closing strife they stood
     And thrice the Saxon blade drank blood;
     No stinted draught, no scanty tide,
     The gushing flood the tartars dyed.
     Fierce Roderi...Read more of this...

by Carroll, Lewis
...He thought he saw an Elephant,
That practised on a fife:
He looked again, and found it was
A letter from his wife.
'At length I realise,' he said,
The bitterness of Life!'

He thought he saw a Buffalo
Upon the chimney-piece:
He looked again, and found it was
His Sister's Husband's Niece.
'Unless you leave this house,' he said,
"I'll send for the Police!'

He thought he saw a Rattlesnak...Read more of this...

by Arnold, Matthew
...w,
And hope, once crush'd, less quick to spring again.

And long the way appears, which seem'd so short
To the less practised eye of sanguine youth;
And high the mountain-tops, in cloudy air,
The mountain-tops where is the throne of Truth,
Tops in life's morning-sun so bright and bare!
Unbreachable the fort
Of the long-batter'd world uplifts its wall;
And strange and vain the earthly turmoil grows,
And near and real the charm of thy repose,
And night as welcome as a frien...Read more of this...

by Tebb, Barry
...To three young men about to tie the knot, a handsome lothario

In his midforties winked at me constantly,

Dancing with practised ease with sixteen year olds

Who all seemed to know him and determined to show him.

Three hours passed in as many minutes and then the crowds

Disappeared to catch the last bus home. The young aren’t 

As black as they are painted, one I danced with reminded me

Of how Margaret would have been at sixteen

With straw gold hair Yeats would h...Read more of this...

by Hardy, Thomas
...hat an instant hues her, 
Or some early light or pose 
 Wherewith thought renews her - 
Seen by him at full, ere woes 
 Practised to abuse her - 
Sparely comes it, swiftly goes, 
 Time again subdues her....Read more of this...

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