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Famous Rival Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Brackenridge, Hugh Henry
...eep philosophy, 
A genius piercing as th' electric fire, 
Bright as the light'nings flash explain'd so well 
By him the rival of Britannia's sage. 
This is a land of ev'ry joyous sound 
Of liberty and life; sweet liberty! 
Without whose aid the noblest genius fails, 
And science irretrievably must die. 



ACASTO. 
This is a land where the more noble light 
Of holy revelation beams, the star 
Which rose from Judah lights our skies, we feel 
Its influence as once d...Read more of this...



by Dryden, John
...is own:
But charming greatness since so few refuse,
'Tis juster to lament him, than accuse.
Strong were his hopes a rival to remove,
With blandishments to gain the public love;
To head the faction while their zeal was hot,
And popularly prosecute the plot.
To farther this Achitophel unites
The malcontents of all the Israelites:
Whose differing parties he could wisely join,
For several ends, to serve the same design.
The best, and of the princes some were such,
Who...Read more of this...

by Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...ver dashed 
Horse against horse; but seeing that thy realm 
Hath prospered in the name of Christ, the King 
Took, as in rival heat, to holy things; 
And finds himself descended from the Saint 
Arimathan Joseph; him who first 
Brought the great faith to Britain over seas; 
He boasts his life as purer than thine own; 
Eats scarce enow to keep his pulse abeat; 
Hath pushed aside his faithful wife, nor lets 
Or dame or damsel enter at his gates 
Lest he should be polluted. Th...Read more of this...

by Lewis, C S
...questions we perplexed.

Oh then! Value means survival-
Value. If our progeny
Spreads and spawns and licks each rival,
That will prove its deity
(Far from pleasant, by our present,
Standards, though it may well be)....Read more of this...

by the Magnificent, Suleiman
...g and each even;
My weeping, Liege, the ocean's might resembles.
Lest he seduce thee, this my dread and terror,
That rival who Iblis in spite resembles.
Around the taper bright, thy cheek, Muhibbi
Turns and the moth in his sad plight resembles....Read more of this...



by Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
...mis, 
She a wife, but not a mother.
She was sporting with her women, 
Swinging in a swing of grape-vines, 
When her rival the rejected, 
Full of jealousy and hatred, 
Cut the leafy swing asunder, 
Cut in twain the twisted grape-vines, 
And Nokomis fell affrighted 
Downward through the evening twilight, 
On the Muskoday, the meadow, 
On the prairie full of blossoms. 
"See! a star falls!" said the people; 
"From the sky a star is falling!"
There among the ferns and moss...Read more of this...

by Keats, John
...n her dusky face,
For she was prophesying of her glory;
And in her wide imagination stood
Palm-shaded temples, and high rival fanes
By Oxus or in Ganges' sacred isles.
Even as Hope upon her anchor leans,
So leant she, not so fair, upon a tusk
Shed from the broadest of her elephants.
Above her, on a crag's uneasy shelve,
Upon his elbow rais'd, all prostrate else,
Shadow'd Enceladus; once tame and mild
As grazing ox unworried in the meads;
Now tiger-passion'd, lion-thou...Read more of this...

by McGough, Roger
...d sports car
on my way home
from an allnight party

Or when I'm 91
with silver hair
and sitting in a barber's chair
may rival gangsters
with hamfisted tommyguns burst in
and give me a short back and insides

Or when I'm 104
and banned from the Cavern
may my mistress
catching me in bed with her daughter
and fearing for her son
cut me up into little pieces
and throw away every piece but one

Let me die a youngman's death
not a free from sin tiptoe in
candle wax and waning death...Read more of this...

by Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...undred scrolls
Left by the Teacher, whom he held divine. 
She brook'd it not, but wrathful, petulant 
Dreaming some rival, sought and found a witch 
Who brew'd the philtre which had power, they said 
To lead an errant passion home again. 
And this, at times, she mingled with his drink, 
And this destroy'd him; for the wicked broth 
Confused the chemic labor of the blood, 
And tickling the brute brain within the man's 
Made havoc among those tender cells, and check'd 
...Read more of this...

by Moore, Marianne
...t forgot
that "some have merely rights
while some have obligations,"
he loves himself so much,
he can permit himself
no rival in that love.
She loves herself so much,
she cannot see herself enough --
a statuette of ivory on ivory,
the logical last touch
to an expansive splendor
earned as wages for work done:
one is not rich but poor
when one can always seem so right.
What can one do for them --
these savages
condemned to disaffect
all those who are not visionaries
ale...Read more of this...

by Collins, Billy
...
Where has the summer of 1572 gone? Brocade and sonnet
marathons were the rage. We used to dress up in the flags
of rival baronies and conquer one another in cold rooms of stone.
Out on the dance floor we were all doing the Struggle
while your sister practiced the Daphne all alone in her room.
We borrowed the jargon of farriers for our slang.
These days language seems transparent a badly broken code.

The 1790's will never come again. Childhood was big...Read more of this...

by Sexton, Anne
...ut. I crucify. 
My little plum is what you said. 
At night, alone, I marry the bed. 
Then my black-eyed rival came. 
The lady of water, rising on the beach, 
a piano at her fingertips, shame 
on her lips and a flute's speech. 
And I was the knock-kneed broom instead. 
At night, alone, I marry the bed. 
She took you the way a women takes 
a bargain dress off the rack 
and I broke the way a stone breaks. 
I give back your books and fishing ta...Read more of this...

by Service, Robert William
...r> . .
And as he lay, the sleeper dreamed a dream.

* * * * * *

'Twas in a ruder land, a wilder day.
A rival princeling sat upon his throne,
Within a dungeon, dark and foul he lay,
With chains that bit and festered to the bone.
They haled him harshly to a vaulted room,
Where One gazed on him with malignant eye;
And in that devil-face he read his doom,
Knowing that ere the dawn-light he must die.
Well, he was sorrow-glutted; let them bring
Their prize ...Read more of this...

by Scott, Sir Walter
...roil?'
     Sullen and slowly they unclasp,
     As struck with shame, their desperate grasp,
     And each upon his rival glared,
     With foot advanced and blade half bared.
     XXXV.

     Ere yet the brands aloft were flung,
     Margaret on Roderick's mantle hung,
     And Malcolm heard his Ellen's scream,
     As faltered through terrific dream.
     Then Roderick plunged in sheath his sword,
     And veiled his wrath in scornful word:'
     Rest safe til...Read more of this...

by Trumbull, John
...ght the generous hearts' esteem,
And sigh for those, who fly from them.


Just when your wishes would prevail,
Some rival bird with gayer tail,
Who sings his strain with sprightlier note,
And chatters praise with livelier throat,
Shall charm your flutt'ring fair one down,
And leave your choice, to hang or drown.


Ev'n I, my son, have felt the smart;
A Pheasant won my youthful heart.
For her I tuned the doleful lay,[4]
For her I watch'd the night away;
In vain I t...Read more of this...

by Pope, Alexander
...art 2

NOT with more Glories, in th' Etherial Plain,
The Sun first rises o'er the purpled Main,
Than issuing forth, the Rival of his Beams
Lanch'd on the Bosom of the Silver Thames.
Fair Nymphs, and well-drest Youths around her shone,
But ev'ry Eye was fix'd on her alone.
On her white Breast a sparkling Cross she wore,
Which Jews might kiss, and Infidels adore.
Her lively Looks a sprightly Mind disclose,
Quick as her Eyes, and as unfix'd as those: 
Favours to none...Read more of this...

by Byron, George (Lord)
...erflow 
Her isthmus idly spread below: 
Or could the bones of all the slain, 
Who perish'd there, be piled again, 
That rival pyramid would rise 
More mountain-like, through those clear skies 
Than yon tower-capp'd Acropolis, 
Which seems the very clouds to kiss. 

II. 

On dun Cith?ron's ridge appears 
The gleam of twice ten thousand spears, 
And downward to the Isthmian plain, 
From shore to shore of either main, 
The tent is pitch'd, the crescent shines 
Along the ...Read more of this...

by Petrarch, Francesco
...s minions, famed in fight;A brotherhood, to whom the circling sunNo rivals yet beheld, since time begun.—But ah! the Muse despairs to mount their fameAbove the plaudits of historic Fame.But now a foreign band the strain recalls—Stern Hannibal, that shook the Roman walls;Achilles, famed in Home...Read more of this...

by Johnson, Samuel
...eap'd on wealth, nor truth nor safety buys,
28 The dangers gather as the treasures rise.

29 Let hist'ry tell where rival kings command,
30 And dubious title shakes the madded land,
31 When statutes glean the refuse of the sword,
32 How much more safe the vassal than the lord,
33 Low sculks the hind beneath the rage of pow'r,
34 And leaves the wealthy traitor in the Tow'r,
35 Untouch'd his cottage, and his slumbers sound,
36 Tho' confiscation's vultures hover round.

...Read more of this...

by Ali, Muhammad
...There live a great man named Joe
who was belittled by a loudmouth foe.
While his rival would taunt and tease
Joe silently bore the stings.
And then fought like gladiator in the ring....Read more of this...

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Book: Reflection on the Important Things