Famous Qualities Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Qualities poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous qualities poems. These examples illustrate what a famous qualities poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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...gracefu’ mein,
The like I never saw.
A bonie lass, I will confess,
Is pleasant to the e’e;
But, without some better qualities,
She’s no a lass for me.
But Nelly’s looks are blythe and sweet,
And what is best of a’,
Her reputation is complete,
And fair without a flaw.
She dresses aye sae clean and neat,
Both decent and genteel;
And then there’s something in her gait
Gars ony dress look weel.
A gaudy dress and gentle air
May slightly touch the heart;
But it’s in...Read more of this...
by
Burns, Robert
...n my soul, my soul in Thee, I feel,
Self of my self. Lo, through my sense doth steal
Clear cognizance of all selves and qualities,
Of all existence that hath been or is,
Of all strange haps that men miscall of chance,
And all the works of tireless circumstance:
Each borders each, like mutual sea and shore,
Nor aught misfits his neighbor that's before,
Nor him that's after -- nay, through this still air,
Out of the North come quarrels, and keen blare
Of challenge by the hot-br...Read more of this...
by
Lanier, Sidney
...en; loved much, read more;
Had a discerning wit; to her was known
Everyone's fault and merit, but her own.
All the good qualities that ever blessed
A woman so distinguished from the rest,
Except discretion only, she possessed.
--But now, "Mon cher dear Pug," she cries, "adieu!"
And the discourse broke off does thus renew:
--"You smile to see me, whom the world perchance
Mistakes to have some wit, so far advance
The interest of fools, that I approve
Their merit, more than men'...Read more of this...
by
Wilmot, John
...sage by that cost more dear;
And nice affections wavering stood in doubt
If best were as it was, or best without.
'His qualities were beauteous as his form,
For maiden-tongued he was, and thereof free;
Yet, if men moved him, was he such a storm
As oft 'twixt May and April is to see,
When winds breathe sweet, untidy though they be.
His rudeness so with his authorized youth
Did livery falseness in a pride of truth.
'Well could he ride, and often men would say
'That horse his ...Read more of this...
by
Shakespeare, William
...ptive, without shame or the need of shame.
2
Air, soil, water, fire—these are words;
I myself am a word with them—my qualities interpenetrate with theirs—my name is
nothing to
them;
Though it were told in the three thousand languages, what would air, soil, water, fire,
know of
my
name?
A healthy presence, a friendly or commanding gesture, are words, sayings, meanings;
The charms that go with the mere looks of some men and women, are sayings and meanings
also.
3
...Read more of this...
by
Whitman, Walt
...the visible world before,
Asking to be combined, dim fragments meant
To be united in some wondrous whole,
Imperfect qualities throughout creation,
Suggesting some one creature yet to make,
Some point where all those scattered rays should meet
Convergent in the faculties of man....Read more of this...
by
Browning, Robert
...t across the flat prairie
of my chest and plunge even
to my groin, that first girls
and then women would be drawn
to my qualities. Amazingly, later
some of this took place, but
first the bottle had to be
emptied, and then the three boys
had to empty themselves of all
they had so painfully taken in
and by means even more painful
as they bowed by turns over
the eye of the toilet bowl
to discharge their shame. Ahead
lay cigarettes, the futility
of guaranteed programs of
exercise...Read more of this...
by
Levine, Philip
...e mightiest of the sciences,
It is the fulness, color, form, diversity of the earth, and of men and women, and of all
qualities and processes;
It is greater than wealth—it is greater than buildings, ships, religions, paintings,
music.
Great is the English speech—what speech is so great as the English?
Great is the English brood—what brood has so vast a destiny as the English?
It is the mother of the brood that must rule the earth with the new rule;
The new rule shall ...Read more of this...
by
Whitman, Walt
...ution lie.
Too clear! That crystal nothing who'll peruse?
The blackest night could bring us brighter news.
Yet precious qualities of silence haunt
Round these vast margins, ministrant.
Oh, if thy soul's at latter gasp for space,
With trying to breathe no bigger than thy race
Just to be fellow'd, when that thou hast found
No man with room, or grace enough of bound
To entertain that New thou tell'st, thou art, --
'Tis here, 'tis here thou canst unhand thy heart
And breathe it f...Read more of this...
by
Lanier, Sidney
...d is the exit of the rest;
You are the gates of the body, and you are the gates of the soul.
The female contains all qualities, and tempers them—she is in her place, and moves with
perfect balance;
She is all things duly veil’d—she is both passive and active;
She is to conceive daughters as well as sons, and sons as well as daughters.
As I see my soul reflected in nature;
As I see through a mist, one with inexpressible completeness and beauty,
See the bent head, and ...Read more of this...
by
Whitman, Walt
...off one of her legs and force his whole arm inside her.
With only the vaguest suggestion of genitals,
all the alluring qualities they possess as fashion dolls,
up until now, have done neither of them much good.
But suddenly Barbie is excited looking at her own body
under the weight of Ken's face. He is part circus freak,
part thwarted hermaphrodite. And she is imagining
she is somebody else-- maybe somebody middle class and ordinary,
maybe another teenage model being cau...Read more of this...
by
Duhamel, Denise
...
The order of the phrases makes
No difference at all.
"Then, if you'd be impressive,
Remember what I say,
The abstract qualities begin
With capitals alway:
The True, the Good, the Beautiful,
These are the things that pay!
"Next, when you are describing
A shape, or sound, or tint,
Don't state the matter plainly,
But put it in a hint;
And learn to look at all things
With a sort of mental squint."
"For instance, if I wished, Sir,
Of mutton-pies to tell,
Should I say 'Dreams o...Read more of this...
by
Carroll, Lewis
...d ends,
[For indeed I do not love it ... you knew? you are not blind!
How keen you are!]
To find a friend who has these qualities,
Who has, and gives
Those qualities upon which friendship lives.
How much it means that I say this to you—
Without these friendships—life, what cauchemar!”
Among the windings of the violins
And the ariettes
Of cracked cornets
Inside my brain a dull tom-tom begins
Absurdly hammering a prelude of its own,
Capricious monotone
That is at least one def...Read more of this...
by
Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)
...ng to have read all his books.
But he smiles anyway, tries to be helpful.
I mean, this poet has to have some redeeming qualities, right?
For instance, he writes a mean iambic.
Otherwise, what was I doing in his arms....Read more of this...
by
Duhamel, Denise
...the earth and of man encloses as much as the delicatesse of the earth
and
of
man,
And nothing endures but personal qualities.
What do you think endures?
Do you think the great city endures?
Or a teeming manufacturing state? or a prepared constitution? or the best-built
steamships?
Or hotels of granite and iron? or any chef-d’oeuvres of engineering, forts, armaments?
Away! These are not to be cherish’d for themselves;
They fill their hour, the dancers dance, the mu...Read more of this...
by
Whitman, Walt
...having it;
Wisdom is of the Soul, is not susceptible of proof, is its own proof,
Applies to all stages and objects and qualities, and is content,
Is the certainty of the reality and immortality of things, and the excellence of things;
Something there is in the float of the sight of things that provokes it out of the Soul.
Now I reëxamine philosophies and religions,
They may prove well in lecture-rooms, yet not prove at all under the spacious clouds, and
along
the
lan...Read more of this...
by
Whitman, Walt
...There are some qualities- some incorporate things,
That have a double life, which thus is made
A type of that twin entity which springs
From matter and light, evinced in solid and shade.
There is a two-fold Silence- sea and shore-
Body and soul. One dwells in lonely places,
Newly with grass o'ergrown; some solemn graces,
Some human memories and tearful lore,
Render him ter...Read more of this...
by
Poe, Edgar Allan
...erstand love, with all its sorrow and joy?
And who but I should be the poet of comrades?)
8I am the credulous man of qualities, ages, races;
I advance from the people in their own spirit;
Here is what sings unrestricted faith.
Omnes! Omnes! let others ignore what they may;
I make the poem of evil also—I commemorate that part also;
I am myself just as much evil as good, and my nation is—And I say there is
in fact no evil;
(Or if there is, I say it is just as importan...Read more of this...
by
Whitman, Walt
..., the world is gone
For him, unless he left a German will:
But where's the proctor who will ask his son?
In whom his qualities are reigning still,
Except that household virtue, most uncommon,
Of constancy to a bad, ugly woman.
XIII
'God save the king!' It is a large economy
In God to save the like; but if he will
Be saving, all the better; for not one am I
Of those who think damnation better still:
I hardly know too if not quite alone am I
In this small hope of ...Read more of this...
by
Byron, George (Lord)
...ss),
To be content with our wives,
And prize the virtues they possess;
And with dispraise to turn one's back
On all the qualities they lack....Read more of this...
by
Service, Robert William
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