Famous Quite A Poems by Famous Poets

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

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The Poet And The Baby

by Paul Laurence Dunbar
How's a man to write a sonnet, can you tell,—
How's he going to weave the dim, poetic spell,—
When a-toddling on the floor
Is the muse he must adore,
And this muse he loves, not wisely, but too well?
Now, to write a sonnet, every one allows,
One must always be as quiet as a mouse;
But to write one seems to me
Quite superfluous to be,
When...Read more of this...

If I Should Learn In Some Quite Casual Way

by Edna St. Vincent Millay
 IF I should learn, in some quite casual way, 
 That you were gone, not to return again— 
Read from the back-page of a paper, say, 
 Held by a neighbor in a subway train, 
How at the corner of this avenue 
 And such a street (so are the papers filled) 
A hurrying man—who happened to be you—...Read more of this...

Quite empty quite at rest

by Emily Dickinson
 Quite empty, quite at rest,
The Robin locks her Nest, and tries her Wings.
She does not know a Route
But puts her Craft about
For rumored Springs --
She does not ask for Noon --
She does not ask for Boon,
Crumbless and homeless, of but one request --
The Birds she lost --...Read more of this...

The Courtship of the Yonghy-Bonghy-Bo

by Edward Lear
 I 

On the Coast of Coromandel
Where the early pumpkins blow,
In the middle of the woods
Lived the Yonghy-Bonghy-B?.
Two old chairs, and half a candle,--
One old jug without a handle,--
These were all his worldly goods:
In the middle of the woods,
These were all the worldly goods,
Of the Yonghy-Bonghy-B?,
Of the Yonghy-Bonghy-B?.

II 

Once, among the Bong-trees walking
Where the early pumpkins blow,
To a little heap...Read more of this...

Plain Language From Truthful James

by Bret Harte
Which I wish to remark,
And my language is plain,
That for ways that are dark
And for tricks that are vain,
The heathen Chinee is peculiar,
Which the same I would rise to explain.

Ah Sin was his name;
And I shall not deny,
In regard to the same,
What that name might imply;
But his smile it was pensive and childlike,
As I frequent remarked to Bill Nye.

It was...Read more of this...

Sonnet LXXV

by Francesco Petrarch
[Pg 93] SONNET LXXV. Io son dell' aspectar omai sì vinto. HAVING ONCE SURRENDERED HIMSELF, HE IS COMPELLED EVER TO ENDURE THE PANGS OF LOVE.  Weary with expectation's endless round,And overcome in this long war of sighs,I hold desires in hate and hopes despise,And every tie wherewith my breast...Read more of this...

Not Quite The Same

by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
 Not quite the same the springtime seems to me, 
Since that sad season when in separate ways
Our paths diverged. There are no more such days
As dawned for us in that last time when we
Dwelt in the realm of dreams, illusive dreams; 
Spring may be just as fair now, but it seems
Not quite the same.

Not quite the same in life,...Read more of this...

Sisters cake

by Eugene Field
 I'd not complain of Sister Jane, for she was good and kind,
Combining with rare comeliness distinctive gifts of mind;
Nay, I'll admit it were most fit that, worn by social cares,
She'd crave a change from parlor life to that below the stairs,
And that, eschewing needlework and music, she should take
Herself to the substantial art of manufacturing cake.

At breakfast, then, it...Read more of this...

Smoke

by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
 Last summer, lazing by the sea, 
I met a most entrancing creature, 
Her black eyes quite bewildered me--- 
She had a Spanish cast of feature.

She often smoked a cigarette, 
And did it in the cutest fashion. 
Before a week passed by she set 
My young heart in a raging passion.

I swore I loved her as my life, 
I gave...Read more of this...

The Other Tiger

by Jorge Luis Borges
 A tiger comes to mind. The twilight here
Exalts the vast and busy Library
And seems to set the bookshelves back in gloom;
Innocent, ruthless, bloodstained, sleek
It wanders through its forest and its day
Printing a track along the muddy banks
Of sluggish streams whose names it does not know
(In its world there are no names or past
Or time to come, only the vivid...Read more of this...

The Secret People

by G K Chesterton
 Smile at us, pay us, pass us; but do not quite forget;
For we are the people of England, that never have spoken yet.
There is many a fat farmer that drinks less cheerfully,
There is many a free French peasant who is richer and sadder than we.
There are no folk in the whole world so helpless or so wise.
There is hunger...Read more of this...

At Nightfall

by Lucy Maud Montgomery
 The dark is coming o'er the world, my playmate,
And the fields where poplars stand are very still,
All our groves of green delight have been invaded,
There are voices quite unknown upon the hill; 

The wind has grown too weary for a comrade,
It is keening in the rushes spent and low,
Let us join our hands and hasten very softly
To the little,...Read more of this...

Cut

by Sylvia Plath
 for Susan O'Neill Roe

What a thrill ----
My thumb instead of an onion.
The top quite gone
Except for a sort of hinge

Of skin,
A flap like a hat,
Dead white.
Then that red plush.

Little pilgrim,
The Indian's axed your scalp.
Your turkey wattle
Carpet rolls

Straight from the heart.
I step on it,
Clutching my bottle
Of pink fizz. A celebration, this is.
Out of a gap
A million soldiers run,
Redcoats, every one.

Whose...Read more of this...

It dont sound so terrible -- quite -- as it did

by Emily Dickinson
 It don't sound so terrible -- quite -- as it did --
I run it over -- "Dead", Brain, "Dead."
Put it in Latin -- left of my school --
Seems it don't shriek so -- under rule.

Turn it, a little -- full in the face
A Trouble looks bitterest --
Shift it -- just --
Say "When Tomorrow comes this way --
I shall have...Read more of this...

Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary

by Mother Goose
Mary, Mary, quite contrary,
  How does your garden grow?
Silver bells and cockle-shells,
  And pretty maids all of a row....Read more of this...

Jimmy Dooleys Army

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 There's a dashin' sort of boy 
Which they call his Party's Joy, 
And his smile-that-won't-come-off would quite disarm ye; 
And he played the leadin' hand 
In the Helter-Skelter Band, 
Known as Jimmy Dooley's Circulating Army. 
When the rank and file they found, 
They were marchin' round and round, 
They one and all began to act unruly; 
And the letter...Read more of this...

Detachment

by Robert William Service
 As I go forth from fair to mart
With racket ringing,
Who would divine that in my heart
Mad larks are singing.
As I sweet sympathy express,
Lest I should pain them,
The money-mongers cannot guess
How I disdain them.

As I sit at some silly tea
And flirt and flatter
How I abhor society
And female chatter.
As I with wonderment survey
Their peacock dresses,
My mind is wafted far away
To wildernesses.

As...Read more of this...

The three tailors

by Eugene Field
 I shall tell you in rhyme how, once on a time,
Three tailors tramped up to the inn Ingleheim,
On the Rhine, lovely Rhine;
They were broke, but the worst of it all, they were curst
With that malady common to tailors--a thirst
For wine, lots of wine.

"Sweet host," quoth the three, "we're hard up as can be,
Yet skilled in the practice of cunning...Read more of this...

Infidelity

by Robert William Service
 Three Triangles

TRIANGLE ONE

My husband put some poison in my beer,
And fondly hoped that I would drink it up.
He would get rid of me - no bloody fear,
For when his back was turned I changed the cup.
He took it all, and if he did not die,
Its just because he's heartier than I.

And now I watch and watch him night and...Read more of this...

Common Things

by Paul Laurence Dunbar
 I like to hear of wealth and gold, 
And El Doradoes in their glory; 
I like for silks and satins bold 
To sweep and rustle through a story.

The nightingale is sweet of song; 
The rare exotic smells divinely; 
And knightly men who stride along, 
The role heroic carry finely.

But then, upon the other hand, 
Our minds have got a...Read more of this...

The Channel Swimmer

by Marriott Edgar
 Would you hear a Wild tale of adventure 
Of a hero who tackled the sea,
A super-man swimming the ocean,
Then hark to the tale of Joe Lee.

Our Channel, our own Straits of Dover
Had heen swum by an alien lot:
Our British-born swimmers had tried it, 
But that was as far as they'd got.

So great was the outcry in England, 
Darts Players...Read more of this...

Not quite dark yet

by Yosa Buson
 Not quite dark yet
and the stars shining
above the withered fields....Read more of this...

Sonnet 05: If I Should Learn In Some Quite Casual Way

by Edna St. Vincent Millay
 If I should learn, in some quite casual way,
 That you were gone, not to return again—
Read from the back-page of a paper, say,
 Held by a neighbor in a subway train,
How at the corner of this avenue
 And such a street (so are the papers filled)
A hurrying man—who happened to be you—
 At noon to-day had happened to...Read more of this...

Obstacles

by Barry Tebb
 A thousand visits to the supermarket

A thousand acts of sexual intimacy

Spread over forty years.

Your essence was quite other

A smile of absolute connection

Repeated a thousand times.

Your daily visits to the outside lavatory

While I stood talking outside,

An intimacy I have sought

With no other.

My greatest fear is that you might

Have changed beyond recognition,

Submerged in trivia and the

Minutiae of the quotidian.

At ten my...Read more of this...

The Church-Builder

by Thomas Hardy
 The church flings forth a battled shade 
Over the moon-blanched sward: 
The church; my gift; whereto I paid 
My all in hand and hoard; 
Lavished my gains 
With stintless pains 
To glorify the Lord. 

I squared the broad foundations in 
Of ashlared masonry; 
I moulded mullions thick and thin, 
Hewed fillet and ogee; 
I circleted 
Each sculptured head 
With...Read more of this...

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