Famous Precise Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Precise poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous precise poems. These examples illustrate what a famous precise poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Howard Nemerov
Two universes mosey down the street
Connected by love and a leash and nothing else.
Mostly I look at lamplight through the leaves
While he mooches along with tail up and snout down,
Getting a secret knowledge through the nose
Almost entirely hidden from my sight.
We stand while he's enraptured by a bush
Till I can't stand our standing any more
And haul him off; for...Read more of this...
by
Delmore Schwartz
"little soul, little flirting,
little perverse one
where are you off to now?
little wan one, firm one
little exposed one...
and never make fun of me again."
Now I must betray myself.
The feast of bondage and unity is near,
And none engaged in that great piety
When each bows to the other, kneels, and takes
Hand in hand, glance and glance, care...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
The Outer -- from the Inner
Derives its Magnitude --
'Tis Duke, or Dwarf, according
As is the Central Mood --
The fine -- unvarying Axis
That regulates the Wheel --
Though Spokes -- spin -- more conspicuous
And fling a dust -- the while.
The Inner -- paints the Outer --
The Brush without the Hand --
Its Picture publishes -- precise --
As is the inner Brand --
On...Read more of this...
by
Mary Elizabeth Coleridge
O LET me be in loving nice,
Dainty, fine, and o’er precise,
That I may charm my charmàd dear
As tho’ I felt a secret fear
To lose what never can be lost,—
Her faith who still delights me most!
So shall I be more than true,
Ever in my ageing new.
So dull habit shall not be
Wrongly call’d Fidelity....Read more of this...
by
Andrew Barton Paterson
Awake, of Muse, the echoes of a day
Long past, the ghosts of mem'ries manifold --
Youth's memories that once were green and gold
But now, alas, are grim and ashen grey.
The drowsy schoolboy wakened up from sleep,
First stays his system with substantial food,
Then off for school with tasks half understood,
Alas, alas, that cribs should...Read more of this...
by
Robert Herrick
Be the mistress of my choice,
Clean in manners, clear in voice;
Be she witty, more than wise,
Pure enough, though not precise;
Be she showing in her dress,
Like a civil wilderness,
That the curious may detect
Order in a sweet neglect;
Be she rolling in her eye,
Tempting all the passers by;
And each ringlet of her hair,
An enchantment, or a snare,
For to catch the lookers on;
But...Read more of this...
by
Yehuda Amichai
A precise woman with a short haircut brings order
to my thoughts and my dresser drawers,
moves feelings around like furniture
into a new arrangement.
A woman whose body is cinched at the waist and firmly divided
into upper and lower,
with weather-forecast eyes
of shatterproof glass.
Even her cries of passion follow a certain order,
one after the other:
tame dove, then wild dove,
then peacock, wounded peacock, peacock,...Read more of this...
by
Robert Herrick
A sweet disorder in the dress
Kindles in clothes a wantonness;
A lawn about the shoulders thrown
Into a fine distraction;
An erring lace, which here and there
Enthrals the crimson stomacher;
A cuff neglectful, and thereby
Ribbons to flow confusedly;
A winning wave, deserving note,
In the tempestuous petticoat;
A careless shoe-string, in whose tie
I see a wild civility;--
Do more bewitch me, than when art
Is too precise in...Read more of this...
by
Dejan Stojanovic
From where do simplicity and ease
In the movement of heavenly bodies derive?
It is precision.
Sun is never late to rise upon the Earth,
Moon is never late to cause the tides,
Earth is never late to greet the Sun and the Moon;
Thus accidents are not accidents
But precise arrivals at the wrong right time.
Love is almost...Read more of this...
by
Philip Levine
You pull over to the shoulder
of the two-lane
road and sit for a moment wondering
where you were going
in such a hurry. The valley is burned
out, the oaks
dream day and night of rain
that never comes.
At noon or just before noon
the short shadows
are gray and hold what little
life survives.
In the still heat the engine
clicks, although
the...Read more of this...
by
Rg Gregory
however foul the times or difficult the ways are
through those personal morasses this change of age
won’t let a single being (rich or poor) be free from
come spring the trees get on with their blossoming
you’d think they didn’t read the newspapers
you’d think the media hadn’t yet found a way
of getting to them conveying the miserable truths
this creaking into a new...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
I am alive -- I guess --
The Branches on my Hand
Are full of Morning Glory --
And at my finger's end --
The Carmine -- tingles warm --
And if I hold a Glass
Across my Mouth -- it blurs it --
Physician's -- proof of Breath --
I am alive -- because
I am not in a Room --
The Parlor -- Commonly -- it is...Read more of this...
by
Geoffrey Chaucer
THE PROLOGUE.
THE Cook of London, while the Reeve thus spake,
For joy he laugh'd and clapp'd him on the back:
"Aha!" quoth he, "for Christes passion,
This Miller had a sharp conclusion,
Upon this argument of herbergage.* *lodging
Well saide Solomon in his language,
Bring thou not every man into thine house,
For harbouring by night is perilous.
*Well ought a man avised for to be* *a...Read more of this...
by
Larry Levis
--The Carpathian Frontier, October, 1968
--for my brother
Once, in a foreign country, I was suddenly ill.
I was driving south toward a large city famous
For so little it had a replica, in concrete,
In two-thirds scale, of the Arc de Triomphe stuck
In the midst of traffic, & obstructing it.
But the city was hours away, beyond the hills
Shaped like the bodies of...Read more of this...
by
Carolyn Forche
By way of a vanished bridge we cross this river
as a cloud of lifted snow would ascend a mountain.
She has always been afraid to come here.
It is the river she most
remembers, the living
and the dead both crying for help.
A world that allowed neither tears nor lamentation.
The matsu trees brush her hair as she passes
beneath them, as do the...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
Perception of an object costs
Precise the Object's loss --
Perception in itself a Gain
Replying to its Price --
The Object Absolute -- is nought --
Perception sets it fair
And then upbraids a Perfectness
That situates so far --...Read more of this...
by
Adrienne Rich
Thinking of Caroline Herschel (1750-1848),
astronomer, sister of William; and others.
A woman in the shape of a monster
a monster in the shape of a woman
the skies are full of them
a woman 'in the snow
among the Clocks and instruments
or measuring the ground with poles'
in her 98 years to discover
8 comets
She whom the moon ruled
like us
levitating into the night sky
riding the...Read more of this...
by
Robert Herrick
A sweet disorder in the dress
Kindles in clothes a wantonness:
A lawn about the shoulders thrown
Into a fine distraction--
An erring lace, which here and there
Enthrals the crimson stomacher--
A cuff neglectful, and thereby
Ribbands to flow confusedly--
A winning wave, deserving note,
In the tempestuous petticoat--
A careless shoe-string, in whose tie
I see a wild civility--
Do more bewitch me than when art
Is too precise in...Read more of this...
by
Philip Levine
On March 1, 1958, four deserters from the French Army of North Africa,
August Rein, Henri Bruette, Jack Dauville, & Thomas Delain, robbed a
government pay station at Orleansville. Because of the subsequent
confession of Dauville the other three were captured or shot. Dauville
was given his freedom and returned to the land of his birth, the U.S.A.
AUGUST REIN:...Read more of this...
by
Judy Grahn
When she goes to Hollywood
she is an angel.
She writes in red red lipstick
on the window of her body,
long for me, oh need me!
Parts her lips like a lotus.
Opening night she stands, poised
on her carpet, luminescent,
young men humming
all around her. She is flying.
Her high heels are wands, her
furs electric. Her bracelets
flashing. How completely
dazzling her complexion,
how vibrant her hair and eyes,
how...Read more of this...
by
Sidney Lanier
Inscribed to the Memory of John Keats.
Dear uplands, Chester's favorable fields,
My large unjealous Loves, many yet one --
A grave good-morrow to your Graces, all,
Fair tilth and fruitful seasons!
Lo, how still!
The midmorn empties you of men, save me;
Speak to your lover, meadows! None can hear.
I lie as lies yon placid Brandywine,
Holding the hills and heavens in my heart
For contemplation.
'Tis a...Read more of this...
by
Edwin Arlington Robinson
“Do I hear them? Yes, I hear the children singing—and what of it?
Have you come with eyes afire to find me now and ask me that?
If I were not their father and if you were not their mother,
We might believe they made a noise…. What are you—driving at!”
“Well, be glad that you can hear them,...Read more of this...
by
Walt Whitman
SPIRIT that form’d this scene,
These tumbled rock-piles grim and red,
These reckless heaven-ambitious peaks,
These gorges, turbulent-clear streams, this naked freshness,
These formless wild arrays, for reasons of their own,
I know thee, savage spirit—we have communed together,
Mine too such wild arrays, for reasons of their own;
Was’t charged against my chants they had forgotten art?
To fuse...Read more of this...
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