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Famous Regular Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Kipling, Rudyard
...ate, caught on the wire -
 Some die suddenly. This will not.


"Regis suprema voluntas Lex"
[It will follow the regular course of--throats.]
Some die pinned by the broken decks,
 Some die sobbing between the boats.


Some die eloquent, pressed to death
 By the sliding trench as their friends can hear
Some die wholly in half a breath.
 Some--give trouble for half a year.


"There is neither Evil nor Good in life
 Except as the needs of the State ordain....Read more of this...



by Brooke, Rupert
...seeming-simple rhymes, bizarre emotions,
Decked in the simple verses of the day,
Infinite meaning in a little gloom,
Irregular thoughts in stanzas regular,
Modern despair in antique metres, myths
Incomprehensible at evening,
And symbols that mean nothing in the dawn.
The slow lines swell. The new style sighs. The Celt
Moans round with many voices.
God! to see
Gaunt anap?sts stand up out of the verse,
Combative accents, stress where no stress should be,
Sponde...Read more of this...

by Shelley, Percy Bysshe
...o speak her love, and watched his nightly sleep,
Sleepless herself, to gaze upon his lips
Parted in slumber, whence the regular breath
Of innocent dreams arose; then, when red morn
Made paler the pale moon, to her cold home
Wildered, and wan, and panting, she returned.

The Poet, wandering on, through Arabie, 
And Persia, and the wild Carmanian waste,
And o'er the aërial mountains which pour down
Indus and Oxus from their icy caves,
In joy and exultation held his way;
Til...Read more of this...

by Pope, Alexander
...light,
The gen'rous Pleasure to be charm'd with Wit.
But in such Lays as neither ebb, nor flow,
Correctly cold, and regularly low,
That shunning Faults, one quiet Tenour keep;
We cannot blame indeed--but we may sleep.
In Wit, as Nature, what affects our Hearts
Is nor th' Exactness of peculiar Parts;
'Tis not a Lip, or Eye, we Beauty call,
But the joint Force and full Result of all.
Thus when we view some well-proportion'd Dome,
The World's just Wonder, and ev'n th...Read more of this...

by Frost, Robert
...o small beside the dollar friends
I should be writing to within the hour
Would pay in cities for good trees like those,
Regular vestry-trees whole Sunday Schools
Could hang enough on to pick off enough.
A thousand Christmas trees I didn’t know I had!
Worth three cents more to give away than sell,
As may be shown by a simple calculation.
Too bad I couldn’t lay one in a letter.
I can’t help wishing I could send you one,
In wishing you herewith a Merry Christmas....Read more of this...



by Sexton, Anne
...ever telling the same story twice,
never getting a middle-aged spread,
their darling smiles pasted on for eternity.
Regular Bobbsey Twins.
That story....Read more of this...

by Carver, Raymond
...r
you remarked how it was light
enough in the room that you could see
circles under my eyes.
You said I needed more regular sleep,
and I agreed. Each of us went
to the bathroom, and climbed back into bed
on our respective sides.
Pulled the covers up. "Good night,"
you said, for the second time that night.
And fell asleep. Maybe
into that same dream, or else another.

 *

I lay until daybreak, holding
both arms fast across my chest.
Working my f...Read more of this...

by Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
...blossoms.
Patiently stood the cows meanwhile, and yielded their udders
Unto the milkmaid's hand; whilst loud and in regular cadence
Into the sounding pails the foaming streamlets descended.
Lowing of cattle and peals of laughter were heard in the farm-yard, 
Echoed back by the barns. Anon they sank into stillness;
Heavily closed, with a jarring sound, the valves of the barn-doors,
Rattled the wooden bars, and all for a season was silent.

In-doors, warm by the...Read more of this...

by Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)
..."Now then kittens, they do not get trained
As we did in the days when Victoria reigned.
They never get drilled in a regular troupe,
And they think they are smart, just to jump through a hoop."
And he'll say, as he scratches himself with his claws,
"Well, the Theatre's certainly not what it was.
These modern productions are all very well,
But there's nothing to equal, from what I hear tell,
That moment of mystery
When I made history
As Firefrorefiddle, the Fiend of...Read more of this...

by Smart, Christopher
...eceitful, and temporal honour the crown of him that creepeth. 

Let Ithiel bless with the Baboon, whose motions are regular in the wilderness, and who defendeth himself with a staff against the assailant. 

Let Ucal bless with the Cameleon, which feedeth on the Flowers and washeth himself in the dew. 

Let Lemuel bless with the Wolf, which is a dog without a master, but the Lord hears his cries and feeds him in the desert. 

Let Hananiah bless with the Civet, ...Read more of this...

by Trumbull, John
...iscord straight might cease;
Demonstrate, and by proofs uncommon,
Their orders were to injure no man?
For did not every regular run,
As soon as e'er you fired a gun;
Take the first shot you sent them, greeting,
As meant their signal for retreating;
And fearful, if they staid for sport,
You might by accident be hurt,
Convey themselves with speed away
Full twenty miles in half a day;
Race till their legs were grown so weary,
They scarce sufficed their weight to carry?
Whence Ga...Read more of this...

by Finch, Anne Kingsmill
...ther's Right, 
Driving at once the Bounds, and licens'd Herds along. 
The Earth agen one general Scene appears; 
No regular distinction now, 
Betwixt the Grounds for Pasture, or the Plough, 
The Face of Nature wears. 


Free as the Men, who wild Confusion love, 
And lawless Liberty approve, 
Their Fellow-Brutes pursue their way, 
To their own Loss, and disadvantage stray, 
As wretched in their Choice, as unadvis'd as They. 
The tim'rous Deer, whilst he forsakes th...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...sphere 
Of planets, and of fixed, in all her wheels 
Resembles nearest, mazes intricate, 
Eccentrick, intervolved, yet regular 
Then most, when most irregular they seem; 
And in their motions harmony divine 
So smooths her charming tones, that God's own ear 
Listens delighted. Evening now approached, 
(For we have also our evening and our morn, 
We ours for change delectable, not need;) 
Forthwith from dance to sweet repast they turn 
Desirous; all in circles as they sto...Read more of this...

by Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)
...corridor he paces and examines all the faces
Of the travellers in the First and the Third;
He establishes control by a regular patrol
And he'd know at once if anything occurred.
He will watch you without winking and he sees what you are thinking
And it's certain that he doesn't approve
Of hilarity and riot, so the folk are very quiet
When Skimble is about and on the move.
You can play no pranks with Skimbleshanks!
He's a Cat that cannot be ignored;
So nothing goes wr...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...e wood-pile, the axe supported by it;
The sylvan hut, the vine over the doorway, the space clear’d for a garden, 
The irregular tapping of rain down on the leaves, after the storm is lull’d, 
The wailing and moaning at intervals, the thought of the sea, 
The thought of ships struck in the storm, and put on their beam ends, and the cutting away
 of
 masts;

The sentiment of the huge timbers of old-fashion’d houses and barns;
The remember’d print or narrative, the voyage at a v...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...e, arts, institutions, known. 

See, projected, through time, 
For me, an audience interminable.

With firm and regular step they wend—they never stop, 
Successions of men, Americanos, a hundred millions; 
One generation playing its part, and passing on; 
Another generation playing its part, and passing on in its turn, 
With faces turn’d sideways or backward towards me, to listen,
With eyes retrospective towards me, 

3Americanos! conquerors! marches humanitarian; 
Fo...Read more of this...

by Chaucer, Geoffrey
...tween these two characters is quite natural, as no two
professions at that time were at more constant variance. The
regular clergy, and particularly the mendicant friars, affected a
total exemption from all ecclesiastical jurisdiction, except that
of the Pope, which made them exceedingly obnoxious to the
bishops and of course to all the inferior officers of the national
hierarchy." Both tales, whatever their origin, are bitter satires
on the greed and worldliness of t...Read more of this...

by Chaucer, Geoffrey
...es
of their death; also the masses themselves, which were very
profitable to the clergy.

2. Possessioners: The regular religious orders, who had lands
and fixed revenues; while the friars, by their vows, had to
depend on voluntary contributions, though their need suggested
many modes of evading the prescription.

3. In Chaucer's day the most material notions about the tortures
of hell prevailed, and were made the most of by the clergy, who
preyed on the affec...Read more of this...

by Schiller, Friedrich von
...like that alone joins itself on to the like.
Orders I see depicted; the haughty tribes of the poplars
Marshalled in regular pomp, stately and beauteous appear.
All gives token of rule and choice, and all has its meaning,--
'Tis this uniform plan points out the Ruler to me.
Brightly the glittering domes in far-away distance proclaim him.
Out of the kernel of rocks rises the city's high wall.
Into the desert without, the fauns of the forest are driven,
But b...Read more of this...

by Lear, Edward
...Old Man in a tree,
Who was horribly bored by a bee.
When they said "Does it buzz?"
He replied "Yes, it does!
It's a regular brute of a bee!"...Read more of this...

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