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Famous Rough Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry
...pheres!
A year of infinite love unwearying ---
No circling seasons, but perennial spring!
A year of triumph trampling through defeat,
The first made holy and the last made sweet
By this same love; a year of wealth and woe,
Joy, poverty, health, sickness --- all one glow
In the pure light that filled our firmament
Of supreme silence and unbarred extent,
Wherein one sacrament was ours, one Lord,
One resurrection, one recurrent chord,
One incarnation, one descending dove,
All th...Read more of this...
by Crowley, Aleister



...lory won; 
I sing the rise of that all glorious light, 
Whose sacred dawn the aged fathers saw 
By faith's clear eye, through many a cloud obscure 
And heavy mist between: they saw it beam 
From Judah's royal tribe, they saw it shine 
O'er Judah's happy land, and bade the hills, 
The rocky hills and barren vallies smile, 
The desert blossom and the wilds rejoice. 


This is that light and revelation pure, 
Which Jacob saw and in prophetic view, 
Did hail its author from the s...Read more of this...
by Brackenridge, Hugh Henry
...ce,
Made him observe the Subject and the Plot,
The Manners, Passions, Unities, what not?
All which, exact to Rule were brought about,
Were but a Combate in the Lists left out.
What! Leave the Combate out? Exclaims the Knight;
Yes, or we must renounce the Stagyrite.
Not so by Heav'n (he answers in a Rage)
Knights, Squires, and Steeds, must enter on the Stage.
So vast a Throng the Stage can ne'er contain.
Then build a New, or act it in a Plain.

Thus Criticks, of less Judgment ...Read more of this...
by Pope, Alexander
...ife,
the Sovereign of Glory, gave to them worldly honor.
Beow was famous—prosperity sprang widely—
as Scyld’s son, throughout all the northern lands. (ll. 12-19)

So ought a young man to make good his disposition,
gracious payments from the start, even in the lap of his father,
so that loyal companions should linger with him
in old age, when war comes soon,
the people should follow him. By these praiseful deeds
one ought to flourish in every tribe everywhere. (ll. 2...Read more of this...
by Anonymous,
...a Grecian lad, who coming home
With pulpy figs and wine from Sicily
Stood at his galley's prow, and let the foam
Blow through his crisp brown curls unconsciously,
And holding wave and wind in boy's despite
Peered from his dripping seat across the wet and stormy night.

Till with the dawn he saw a burnished spear
Like a thin thread of gold against the sky,
And hoisted sail, and strained the creaking gear,
And bade the pilot head her lustily
Against the nor'west gale, and all d...Read more of this...
by Wilde, Oscar



...eart, that pays its toll 
To Youth and Age, and travels on with cheer. 

So let the way wind up the hill or down, 
O'er rough or smooth, the journey will be joy: 
Still seeking what I sought when but a boy, 
New friendship, high adventure, and a crown, 
My heart will keep the courage of the quest, 
And hope the road's last turn will be the best....Read more of this...
by Dyke, Henry Van
...n the man who passed us, 
If there was not a world. I may have driven 
Since then some restive horses, and alone,
And through a splashing of abundant mud; 
But he who made the dust that sets you on 
To coughing, made the road. Now it seems dry, 
And in a measure safe. 

BURR

Here’s a new tune
From Hamilton. Has your caution all at once, 
And over night, grown till it wrecks the cradle? 
I have forgotten what my father said 
When I was born, but there’s a rustling of it 
Amon...Read more of this...
by Robinson, Edwin Arlington
...fall 
To us is adverse. Who but felt of late, 
When the fierce foe hung on our broken rear 
Insulting, and pursued us through the Deep, 
With what compulsion and laborious flight 
We sunk thus low? Th' ascent is easy, then; 
Th' event is feared! Should we again provoke 
Our stronger, some worse way his wrath may find 
To our destruction, if there be in Hell 
Fear to be worse destroyed! What can be worse 
Than to dwell here, driven out from bliss, condemned 
In this abhorred d...Read more of this...
by Milton, John
...every bough; so much the more 
His wonder was to find unwakened Eve 
With tresses discomposed, and glowing cheek, 
As through unquiet rest: He, on his side 
Leaning half raised, with looks of cordial love 
Hung over her enamoured, and beheld 
Beauty, which, whether waking or asleep, 
Shot forth peculiar graces; then with voice 
Mild, as when Zephyrus on Flora breathes, 
Her hand soft touching, whispered thus. Awake, 
My fairest, my espoused, my latest found, 
Heaven's last be...Read more of this...
by Milton, John
...ore, and enter'd one
Of those dark caves that run beneath the cliffs.
I thought the motion of the boundless deep
Bore through the cave, and I was heaved upon it
In darkness: then I saw one lovely star
Larger and larger. "What a world," I thought,
"To live in!" but in moving I found
Only the landward exit of the cave,
Bright with the sun upon the stream beyond:
And near the light a giant woman sat,
All over earthy, like a piece of earth,
A pickaxe in her hand: then out I slipt...Read more of this...
by Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate.
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date.
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature's changing course, untrimmed;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st...Read more of this...
by Shakespeare, William
...ecruit for myself and you as I go;
I will scatter myself among men and women as I go; 
I will toss the new gladness and roughness among them; 
Whoever denies me, it shall not trouble me; 
Whoever accepts me, he or she shall be blessed, and shall bless me. 

6
Now if a thousand perfect men were to appear, it would not amaze me;
Now if a thousand beautiful forms of women appear’d, it would not astonish me. 

Now I see the secret of the making of the best persons, 
It is to grow...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt
...gs about your neck,
Where One more than Melchizedek
Is dead and never dies.

Therefore I bring these rhymes to you
Who brought the cross to me,
Since on you flaming without flaw
I saw the sign that Guthrum saw
When he let break his ships of awe,
And laid peace on the sea.

Do you remember when we went
Under a dragon moon,
And `mid volcanic tints of night
Walked where they fought the unknown fight
And saw black trees on the battle-height,
Black thorn on Ethandune?
And I though...Read more of this...
by Chesterton, G K
...as fill'd with tears 
That stifled feeling dare not shed, 
And changed her cheek to pale to red, 
And red to pale, as through her ears 
Those winged words like arrows sped, 
What could such be but maiden fears? 
So bright the tear in Beauty's eye, 
Love half regrets to kiss it dry; 
So sweet the blush of Bashfulness, 
Even Pity scarce can wish it less! 

Whate'er it was the sire forgot; 
Or if remember'd, mark'd it not; 
Thrice clapp'd his hands, and call'd his steed, [9] 
Re...Read more of this...
by Byron, George (Lord)
...ter, died. 

And one, a fellow-monk among the rest, 
Ambrosius, loved him much beyond the rest, 
And honoured him, and wrought into his heart 
A way by love that wakened love within, 
To answer that which came: and as they sat 
Beneath a world-old yew-tree, darkening half 
The cloisters, on a gustful April morn 
That puffed the swaying branches into smoke 
Above them, ere the summer when he died 
The monk Ambrosius questioned Percivale: 

`O brother, I have seen this yew-tree...Read more of this...
by Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...hnny well,  Yet for his life he cannot tell  What he has got upon his back.   So through the moonlight lanes they go,  And far into the moonlight dale,  And by the church, and o'er the down,  To bring a doctor from the town,  To comfort poor old Susan Gale.   And Betty, now at Susan's side,  Is in the middle of her story,  What comfort Johnny soon will bring, ...Read more of this...
by Wordsworth, William
...left behind the panting chase.
     VI.

     'T were long to tell what steeds gave o'er,
     As swept the hunt through Cambusmore;
     What reins were tightened in despair,
     When rose Benledi's ridge in air;
     Who flagged upon Bochastle's heath,
     Who shunned to stem the flooded Teith,—
     For twice that day, from shore to shore,
     The gallant stag swam stoutly o'er.
     Few were the stragglers, following far,
     That reached the lake of Venn...Read more of this...
by Scott, Sir Walter
...et of sun 
Up to the people: thither flocked at noon 
His tenants, wife and child, and thither half 
The neighbouring borough with their Institute 
Of which he was the patron. I was there 
From college, visiting the son,--the son 
A Walter too,--with others of our set, 
Five others: we were seven at Vivian-place. 

And me that morning Walter showed the house, 
Greek, set with busts: from vases in the hall 
Flowers of all heavens, and lovelier than their names, 
Grew side by s...Read more of this...
by Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...
When, nurs'd by careless Solitude, I liv'd,
And sung of Nature with unceasing Joy,
Pleas'd, have I wander'd thro' your rough Domains; 
Trod the pure, virgin, Snows, my self as pure:
Heard the Winds roar, and the big Torrent burst:
Or seen the deep, fermenting, Tempest brew'd,
In the red, evening, Sky. -- Thus pass'd the Time,
Till, thro' the opening Chambers of the South, 
Look'd out the joyous Spring, look'd out, and smil'd.
THEE too, Inspirer of the toiling Swain!
Fair AUT...Read more of this...
by Thomson, James
...supernatural hate, 
As made Saint Peter wish himself within; 
He potter'd with his keys at a great rate, 
And sweated through his apostolic skin: 
Of course his perspiration was but ichor, 
Or some such other spiritual liquor. 

XXIV 

The very cherubs huddled all together, 
Like birds when soars the falcon; and they felt 
A tingling to the top of every feather, 
And form'd a circle like Orion's belt 
Around their poor old charge; who scarce knew whither 
His guards had led h...Read more of this...
by Byron, George (Lord)

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Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry