Famous Scans Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Camma

...(To Ellen Terry)

As one who poring on a Grecian urn
Scans the fair shapes some Attic hand hath made,
God with slim goddess, goodly man with maid,
And for their beauty's sake is loth to turn
And face the obvious day, must I not yearn
For many a secret moon of indolent bliss,
When in midmost shrine of Artemis
I see thee standing, antique-limbed, and stern?

And yet - methinks I'd rather see thee play
That serpe...Read more of this...
by Wilde, Oscar


Edinburgh

...aglow
As he views the beautiful scenery in the valley below;
And if, with an observant eye, the little loch beneath he scans,
He can see the wild ducks about and beautiful white swans. 

Then, as for Arthur's Seat, I'm sure it is a treat
Most worthy to be seen, with its rugged rocks and pastures green,
And the sheep browsing on its sides
To and fro, with slow-paced strides,
And the little lambkins at play
During the livelong summer day,
Beautiful city of Edinburgh! the truth...Read more of this...
by McGonagall, William Topaz

Endymion: Book III

...illion times ocean must ebb and flow,
And he oppressed. Yet he shall not die,
These things accomplish'd:--If he utterly
Scans all the depths of magic, and expounds
The meanings of all motions, shapes, and sounds;
If he explores all forms and substances
Straight homeward to their symbol-essences;
He shall not die. Moreover, and in chief,
He must pursue this task of joy and grief
Most piously;--all lovers tempest-tost,
And in the savage overwhelming lost,
He shall deposit side ...Read more of this...
by Keats, John

Epistles to Several Persons: Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot

...sprig of laurel grac'd these ribalds,
From slashing Bentley down to pidling Tibbalds.
Each wight who reads not, and but scans and spells,
Each word-catcher that lives on syllables,
Ev'n such small critics some regard may claim,
Preserv'd in Milton's or in Shakespeare's name.
Pretty! in amber to observe the forms
Of hairs, or straws, or dirt, or grubs, or worms;
The things, we know, are neither rich nor rare,
But wonder how the devil they got there?

Were others angry? I excus...Read more of this...
by Pope, Alexander

Marginalia

...o death

While finding the certificate. Blunkett wants us all to have ID

Photo cards, genetic codes, DNA database, eye scans, the lot – 

And kiss good-bye to the last bits of freedom we’ve got"

"At the end of the day she shopped me and all I’d done

Was take a few pound from the till ’cos Jenny was ill

And I didn’t have thirteen quid to get the bloody prescription done" 

To-morrow I’ll be back in the Great Wen,

Two days of manic catching up and then

Thistledown, wild w...Read more of this...
by Tebb, Barry


Octaves

...nkind. 

XXII 

Forebodings are the fiends of Recreance;
The master of the moment, the clean seer
Of ages, too securely scans what is,
Ever to be appalled at what is not;
He sees beyond the groaning borough lines
Of Hell, God's highways gleaming, and he knows
That Love's complete communion is the end
Of anguish to the liberated man. 

XXIII 

Here by the windy docks I stand alone,
But yet companioned. There the vessel goes,
And there my friend goes with it; but the wake
That ...Read more of this...
by Robinson, Edwin Arlington

Sympathy

...-
 I'm rather low.

For I am cast of common clay,
And from a ditch I fought my way,
 And that is why
The while the poet scans the skies,
My gaze is grimly gutterwise,
 Earthy am I.

And yet I have a gift, perhaps
Denied to proud poetic chaps
 Who scoff at me;
I know the hearts of humble folk;
I too have bowed beneath the yoke:
So let my verse for them evoke
 Your sympathy....Read more of this...
by Service, Robert William

The Rendezvous

...la' the choir intones. 
He marks not the monotonous refrain, 
The priest that serves nor him that celebrates, 
But ever scans the aisle for his blonde head. . . . In vain! 
She will not come, the woman that he waits. 


How like a flower seemed the perfumed place 
Where the sweet flesh lay loveliest to kiss; 
And her white hands in what delicious ways, 
With what unfeigned caresses, answered his! 
Each tender charm intolerable to lose, 
Each happy scene his fancy recreates. 
...Read more of this...
by Seeger, Alan

The Summer that we did not prize

...r treasures were so easy
Instructs us by departing now
And recognition lazy --

Bestirs itself -- puts on its Coat,
And scans with fatal promptness
For Trains that moment out of sight,
Unconscious of his smartness....Read more of this...
by Dickinson, Emily

Two Octaves

...
Laboriously dawdle, curse, and sweat, 
Disqualified, unsatisfied, inert, -- 
It seems to me somehow that God himself 
Scans with a close reproach what I have done, 
Counts with an unphrased patience my arrears, 
And fathoms my unprofitable thoughts....Read more of this...
by Robinson, Edwin Arlington

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