Famous Restricted Poems by Famous Poets

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

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My Goddess

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
 SAY, which Immortal
Merits the highest reward?
With none contend I,
But I will give it
To the aye-changing,
Ever-moving
Wondrous daughter of Jove.
His best-beloved offspring.
Sweet Phantasy.

For unto her
Hath he granted
All the fancies which erst
To none allow'd he
Saving himself;
Now he takes his pleasure
In the mad one.

She may, crowned with roses,
With staff twined round with lilies,
Roam thro' flow'ry valleys,
Rule the butterfly-people,
And soft-nourishing dew
With bee-like lips
Drink from...Read more of this...

No Crowd that has occurred

by Emily Dickinson
 No Crowd that has occurred
Exhibit -- I suppose
That General Attendance
That Resurrection -- does --

Circumference be full --
The long restricted Grave
Assert her Vital Privilege --
The Dust -- connect -- and live --

On Atoms -- features place --
All Multitudes that were
Efface in the Comparison --
As Suns -- dissolve a star --

Solemnity -- prevail --
Its Individual Doom
Possess each separate Consciousness --
August --...Read more of this...

(Greek Title)

by Thomas Hardy
 Long have I framed weak phantasies of Thee, 
 O Willer masked and dumb! 
 Who makest Life become, - 
As though by labouring all-unknowingly, 
 Like one whom reveries numb. 

How much of consciousness informs Thy will 
 Thy biddings, as if blind, 
 Of death-inducing kind, 
Nought shows to us ephemeral ones who fill 
 But moments...Read more of this...

City Visions

by Emma Lazarus
 I

As the blind Milton's memory of light, 
The deaf Beethoven's phantasy of tone, 
Wroght joys for them surpassing all things known 
In our restricted sphere of sound and sight,-- 
So while the glaring streets of brick and stone 
Vix with heat, noise, and dust from morn till night, 
I will give rein to Fancy, taking flight 
From dismal now...Read more of this...

Very Like a Whale

by Ogden Nash
 One thing that literature would be greatly the better for
Would be a more restricted employment by the authors of simile and
metaphor.
Authors of all races, be they Greeks, Romans, Teutons or Celts,
Can't seem just to say that anything is the thing it is but have to
go out of their way to say that it is like something else.
What does it...Read more of this...

A Coffin -- is a small Domain

by Emily Dickinson
 A Coffin -- is a small Domain,
Yet able to contain
A Citizen of Paradise
In it diminished Plane.

A Grave -- is a restricted Breadth --
Yet ampler than the Sun --
And all the Seas He populates
And Lands He looks upon

To Him who on its small Repose
Bestows a single Friend --
Circumference without Relief --
Or Estimate -- or End --...Read more of this...

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