Famous Richard Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Divine Epigrams: On the Baptized Ethiopian

by Richard Crashaw
 To wash an Ethiope;
He's wash'd, his gloomy skin a peaceful shade,
For his white soul is made;
And now, I doubt not, the Eternal Dove
A black-fac'd house will love.Credits and CopyrightTogether with the editors, the Department ofEnglish (University of Toronto), and the University of Toronto Press,the following individuals share copyright for the work that wentinto this edition:Screen Design (Electronic Edition): Sian...Read more of this...

In a Churchyard

by Richard Wilbur
 That flower unseen, that gem of purest ray, 
Bright thoughts uncut by men: 
Strange that you need but speak them, Thomas Gray, 
And the mind skips and dives beyond its ken, 

Finding at once the wild supposed bloom, 
Or in the imagined cave 
Some pulse of crystal staving off the gloom
As covertly as phosphorus in a grave.

Void notions proper...Read more of this...

Bombardment

by Richard Aldington
 Four days the earth was rent and torn
By bursting steel,
The houses fell about us;
Three nights we dared not sleep,
Sweating, and listening for the imminent crash
Which meant our death. 

The fourth night every man,
Nerve-tortured, racked to exhaustion,
Slept, muttering and twitching,
While the shells crashed overhead.

The fifth day there came a hush;
We left our holes
And looked above the wreckage of the earth
To...Read more of this...

The Road

by Richard Jones
 I, too, would ease my old car to a stop
on the side of some country road
and count the stars or admire a sunset
or sit quietly through an afternoon....

I'd open the door and go walking
like James Wright across a meadow,
where I might touch a pony's ear and
break into blossom; or, like Hayden

Carruth, sustained by the sight
of cows grazing in pastures...Read more of this...

To Lucasta Going To The Wars

by Richard Lovelace
 Tell me not, Sweet, I am unkind,
That from the nunnery
Of thy chaste breasts, and quiet mind,
To war and arms I fly.

True, a new mistress now I chase,
The first foe in the field;
And with a stronger faith embrace
A sword, a horse, a shield.

Yet this inconstancy is such,
As you too shall adore;
I could not love thee, Dear, so much,
Loved I not...Read more of this...

30 Cents Two Transfers Love

by Richard Brautigan
 Thinking hard about you 
I got on the bus 
and paid 30 cents car fare 
and asked the driver for two transfers 
before discovering 
that I was 
alone....Read more of this...

Love Poem

by Richard Brautigan
 My clumsiest dear, whose hands shipwreck vases,
At whose quick touch all glasses chip and ring,
Whose palms are bulls in china, burs in linen,
And have no cunning with any soft thing

Except all ill-at-ease fidgeting people:
The refugee uncertain at the door
You make at home; deftly you steady
The drunk clambering on his undulant floor.

Unpredictable dear, the taxi drivers' terror,
Shrinking from far headlights...Read more of this...

Verses from the Shepherds Hymn

by Richard Crashaw
 WE saw Thee in Thy balmy nest,
 Young dawn of our eternal day;
We saw Thine eyes break from the East,
 And chase the trembling shades away:
We saw Thee, and we blest the sight,
We saw Thee by Thine own sweet light.

Poor world, said I, what wilt thou do
 To entertain this starry stranger?
Is this the best thou canst bestow--
 A...Read more of this...

At the California Institute of Technology

by Richard Brautigan
 I don't care how God-damn smart
these guys are: I'm bored.

It's been raining like hell all day long
and there's nothing to do.

Written January 24, 1967
while poet-in-residence at
the California Institute of 
Technology....Read more of this...

Ive Never Had It Done So Gently Before

by Richard Brautigan
 The sweet juices of your mouth
are like castles bathed in honey.
I've never had it done so gently before.
You have put a circle of castles
around my ***** and you swirl them
like sunlight on the wings of birds....Read more of this...

Letter To Kizer From Seattle

by Richard Hugo
 Dear Condor: Much thanks for that telephonic support
from North Carolina when I suddenly went ape
in the Iowa tulips. Lord, but I'm ashamed.
I was afraid, it seemed, according to the doctor
of impending success, winning some poetry prizes
or getting a wet kiss. The more popular I got,
the softer the soft cry in my head: Don't believe them.
You were never good. Then...Read more of this...

Epistemology

by Richard Wilbur
 I.
Kick at the rock, Sam Johnson, break your bones: 
But cloudy, cloudy is the stuff of stones.

II.
We milk the cow of the world, and as we do
We whisper in her ear, 'You are not true.'...Read more of this...

Exeunt

by Richard Wilbur
 Piecemeal the summer dies;
At the field's edge a daisy lives alone;
A last shawl of burning lies
On a gray field-stone.

All cries are thin and terse;
The field has droned the summer's final mass;
A cricket like a dwindled hearse
Crawls from the dry grass....Read more of this...

Childhood

by Richard Aldington
 I 

The bitterness. the misery, the wretchedness of childhood 
Put me out of love with God. 
I can't believe in God's goodness; 
I can believe 
In many avenging gods. 
Most of all I believe 
In gods of bitter dullness, 
Cruel local gods 
Who scared my childhood. 

II 

I've seen people put 
A chrysalis in a match-box, 
"To see," they...Read more of this...

The Riddle

by Richard Wilbur
 Shall I love God for causing me to be?
I was mere utterance; shall these words love me?

Yet when I caused His work to jar and stammer,
And one free subject loosened all His grammar,

I love Him that He did not in a rage
Once and forever rule me off the page,

But, thinking I might come to please Him yet,
Crossed out 'delete'...Read more of this...

Richard Coeur de Lion

by Marriott Edgar
 Richard the First, Coeur-de-Lion, 
Is a name that we speak of with pride, 
Though he only lived six months in England
From his birth to the day that he died. 

He spent all his time fighting battles, 
Dressed up in most rigid attire, 
For he had his suits made by the Blacksmith, 
And his underwear knitted of wire. 

He married...Read more of this...

Death Of The Kapowsin Tavern

by Richard Hugo
 I can't ridge it back again from char.
Not one board left. Only ash a cat explores
and shattered glass smoked black and strung
about from the explosion I believe
in the reports. The white school up for sale
for years, most homes abandoned to the rocks
of passing boys--the fire, helped by wind
that blew the neon out six years before,
simply ended lots of ending.

A...Read more of this...

Sonnet On The Death Of Mr Richard West

by Thomas Gray
 In vain to me the smiling mornings shine,
And redd'ning Phoebus lifts his golden fire:
The birds in vain their amorous descant join;
Or cheerful fields resume their green attire:
These ears, alas! for other notes repine,
A different object do these eyes require:
My lonely anguish melts no heart but mine;
And in my breast the imperfect joys expire.
Yet morning smiles the busy race to...Read more of this...

Autobiography (polish It Like A Piece Of Silver)

by Richard Brautigan
 I am standing in the cemetery at Byrds, Texas.
What did Judy say? "God-forsaken is beautiful, too."
A very old man who has cancer on his face and takes
care of the cemetery, is raking a grave in such a
manner as to almost (polish it like a piece of silver.

An old dog stands beside him. It's a hot day: 105.
What am I...Read more of this...

Degrees Of Gray In Philipsburg

by Richard Hugo
 You might come here Sunday on a whim.
Say your life broke down. The last good kiss
you had was years ago. You walk these streets
laid out by the insane, past hotels
that didn't last, bars that did, the tortured try
of local drivers to accelerate their lives.
Only churches are kept up. The jail
turned 70 this year. The only prisoner
is always in, not...Read more of this...

A Hole In The Floor

by Richard Wilbur
 for Rene Magritte

The carpenter's made a hole
In the parlor floor, and I'm standing
Staring down into it now
At four o'clock in the evening,
As Schliemann stood when his shovel
Knocked on the crowns of Troy.

A clean-cut sawdust sparkles
On the grey, shaggy laths,
And here is a cluster of shavings
>From the time when the floor was laid.
They are silvery-gold, the color
Of Hesperian apple-parings.

Kneeling, I...Read more of this...

Milk For The Duck

by Richard Brautigan
 ZAP!
unlaid / 20 days

my sexual image
isn't worth a ****.

If I were dead
I couldn't attract
a female fly....Read more of this...

Parable

by Richard Wilbur
 I read how Quixote in his random ride
Came to a crossing once, and lest he lose
The purity of chance, would not decide

Whither to fare, but wished his horse to choose.
For glory lay wherever turned the fable.
His head was light with pride, his horse's shoes

Were heavy, and he headed for the stable....Read more of this...

To Amarantha That She Would Dishevel Her Hair

by Richard Lovelace
 Amarantha, sweet and fair,
Ah, braid no more that shining hair!
As my curious hand or eye
Hovering round thee, let it fly!

Let it fly as unconfined
As its calm ravisher the wind,
Who hath left his darling th' East,
To wanton o'er that spicy nest.

Every tress must be confessed
But neatly tangled at the best,
Like a clew of golden thread
Most excellently ravelled.

Do not then wind...Read more of this...

Shame

by Richard Wilbur
 It is a cramped little state with no foreign policy,
Save to be thought inoffensive. The grammar of the language
Has never been fathomed, owing to the national habit
Of allowing each sentence to trail off in confusion.
Those who have visited Scusi, the capital city,
Report that the railway-route from Schuldig passes
Through country best described as unrelieved.
Sheep are the national product. The faint...Read more of this...

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