Famous Regain Poems by Famous Poets

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

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The Chinese Nightingale

by Vachel Lindsay
 A Song in Chinese Tapestries


"How, how," he said. "Friend Chang," I said,
"San Francisco sleeps as the dead—
Ended license, lust and play:
Why do you iron the night away?
Your big clock speaks with a deadly sound,
With a tick and a wail till dawn comes round.
While the monster shadows glower and creep,
What can be better for man than sleep?"

"I will tell you...Read more of this...

Doctor of Billiards

by Edwin Arlington Robinson
 Of all among the fallen from on high, 
We count you last and leave you to regain 
Your born dominion of a life made vain 
By three spheres of insidious ivory. 
You dwindle to the lesser tragedy—
Content, you say. We call, but you remain. 
Nothing alive gone wrong could be so plain, 
Or quite so blasted with absurdity. 

You...Read more of this...

Dreamers

by Siegfried Sassoon
 Soldiers are citizens of death's gray land,
Drawing no dividend from time's to-morrows.
In the great hour of destiny they stand,
Each with his feuds, and jealousies, and sorrows.
Soldiers are sworn to action; they must win
Some flaming, fatal climax with their lives.
Soldiers are dreamers; when the guns begin
They think of firelit homes, clean beds, and wives.

I see them in foul dug-outs, gnawed...Read more of this...

To Flowers From Italy in Winter

by Thomas Hardy
 Sunned in the South, and here to-day; 
 --If all organic things 
Be sentient, Flowers, as some men say, 
 What are your ponderings? 

How can you stay, nor vanish quite 
 From this bleak spot of thorn, 
And birch, and fir, and frozen white 
 Expanse of the forlorn? 

Frail luckless exiles hither brought! 
 Your dust will...Read more of this...

Woolworths

by Mark Hillringhouse
 for Greg Fallon

A kid yells "*************" out the school bus window.
I don't think anyone notices the afternoon clouds turning pink along the horizon,
sunlight dripping down the stone facades,
the ancient names of old stores fading like the last century
above the street, above the Spandex women who adjust their prize buttocks,
sweating in the sun as I wonder how this city...Read more of this...

Bad Day At The Beauty Salon

by Maggie Estep
 I was a 20 year old unemployed receptionist with
dyed orange dreadlocks sprouting out of my skull. I needed a job, but first,
I needed a haircut.

So I head for this beauty salon on Avenue B.
I'm gonna get a hairdo.
I'm gonna look just like those hot Spanish haircut models, become brown
and bodacious, grow some 7 inch fingernails painted ***** red and...Read more of this...

Sonnet LVI

by Francesco Petrarch
SONNET LVI. Amor con sue promesse lusingando. LOVE CHAINS ARE STILL DEAR TO HIM.  By promise fair and artful flatteryMe Love contrived in prison old to snare,And gave the keys to her my foe in care,Who in self-exile dooms me still to lie.Alas! his wiles I knew not until IWas...Read more of this...

Tranquilism

by Robert William Service
 I call myself a Tranquilist;
With deep detachment I exist,
 From friction free;
While others court the gilded throng
And worship Women, Wine and Song,
 I scorn the three.
For I have reached the sober age
When I prefer to turn a page
 Beside the fire,
And from the busy mart of men
To meditative book and pen
 With grace retire.

If you are craving peace of...Read more of this...

Burning of the Exeter Theatre

by William Topaz McGonagall
 'Twas in the year of 1887, which many people will long remember,
The burning of the Theatre at Exeter on the 5th of September,
Alas! that ever-to-be-remembered and unlucky night,
When one hundred and fifty lost their lives, a most agonising sight. 

The play on this night was called "Romany Rye,"
And at act four, scene third, Fire! Fire! was the cry;
And all...Read more of this...

A New Song

by Thomas Chatterton
 Ah blame me not, Catcott, if from the right way 
My notions and actions run far. 
How can my ideas do other but stray, 
Deprived of their ruling North-Star? 

A blame me not, Broderip, if mounted aloft, 
I chatter and spoil the dull air; 
How can I imagine thy foppery soft, 
When discord's the voice of my fair? 

If...Read more of this...

The Gods Of Greece

by Friedrich von Schiller
 Ye in the age gone by,
Who ruled the world--a world how lovely then!--
And guided still the steps of happy men
In the light leading-strings of careless joy!
Ah, flourished then your service of delight!
How different, oh, how different, in the day
When thy sweet fanes with many a wreath were bright,
O Venus Amathusia!

Then, through a veil of dreams
Woven by song, truth's youthful...Read more of this...

The Dreamers

by Siegfried Sassoon
 Soldiers are citizens of death's gray land,
Drawing no dividend from time's to-morrows.
In the great hour of destiny they stand,
Each with his feuds, and jealousies, and sorrows.
Soldiers are sworn to action; they must win
Some flaming, fatal climax with their lives.
Soldiers are dreamers; when the guns begin
They think of firelit homes, clean beds, and wives.

I see them in foul dug-outs, gnawed...Read more of this...

Trojans

by Constantine P Cavafy
 Our efforts are those of the unfortunate;
our efforts are like those of the Trojans.
Somewhat we succeed; somewhat
we regain confidence; and we start
to have courage and high hopes.

But something always happens and stops us.
Achilles in the trench before us
emerges and with loud cries terrifies us.--

Our efforts are like those of the Trojans.
We believe that with resolution and daring
we will alter...Read more of this...

The Complaint Of Ceres

by Friedrich von Schiller
 Does pleasant spring return once more?
Does earth her happy youth regain?
Sweet suns green hills are shining o'er;
Soft brooklets burst their icy chain:
Upon the blue translucent river
Laughs down an all-unclouded day,
The winged west winds gently quiver,
The buds are bursting from the spray;
While birds are blithe on every tree;
The Oread from the mountain-shore
Sighs, "Lo! thy flowers come back to thee--
Thy child,...Read more of this...

On Being Born The Same Exact Day Of The Same Exact Year As Boy George

by Denise Duhamel
 We must have clamored for the same mother, hurried for
 the same womb.
I know it now as I read that my birthday is his.
Since the first time I saw his picture, I sensed something—
and with a fierce bonding and animosity
began following his career. 

Look where I am and look where he is!
There is a book documenting his every haircut
while...Read more of this...

A Farewel To America to Mrs. S. W

by Phillis Wheatley
 I.
ADIEU, New-England's smiling meads,
Adieu, the flow'ry plain:
I leave thine op'ning charms, O spring,
And tempt the roaring main.

II.
In vain for me the flow'rets rise,
And boast their gaudy pride,
While here beneath the northern skies
I mourn for health deny'd.

III.
Celestial maid of rosy hue,
O let me feel thy reign!
I languish till thy face I view,
Thy vanish'd joys regain.

IV.
Susanna mourns, nor can I bear
To...Read more of this...

The Battle

by Friedrich von Schiller
 Heavy and solemn,
A cloudy column,
Through the green plain they marching came!
Measure less spread, like a table dread,
For the wild grim dice of the iron game.
The looks are bent on the shaking ground,
And the heart beats loud with a knelling sound;
Swift by the breasts that must bear the brunt,
Gallops the major along the front--
"Halt!"
And fettered they stand at the stark...Read more of this...

Deceptions

by Philip Larkin
 "Of course I was drugged, and so heavily I did not regain
consciousness until the next morning. I was horrified to
discover that I had been ruined, and for some days I was inconsolable,
and cried like a child to be killed or sent back to my aunt."

 --Mayhew, London Labour and the London Poor

Even so distant, I can taste the grief,
Bitter...Read more of this...

Long For This World

by Sophie Hannah
 I settle for less than snow,
try to go gracefully like seasons go

which will regain their ground -
ditch, hill and field - when a new year comes round.

Now I know everything:
how winter leaves without resenting spring,

lives in a safe time frame,
gives up so much but knows he can reclaim

all titles that are his,
fall out for months and still be what...Read more of this...

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