Famous Scheme Poems by Famous Poets

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

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The Baldness Of Chewed-Ear

by Robert William Service
 When Chewed-ear Jenkins got hitched up to Guinneyveer McGee,
His flowin' locks, ye recollect, wuz frivolous an' free;
But in old Hymen's jack-pot, it's a most amazin' thing,
Them flowin' locks jest disappeared like snow-balls in the Spring;
Jest seemed to wilt an' fade away like dead leaves in the Fall,
An' left old Chewed-ear balder than a white-washed cannon ball.

Now Missis Chewed-ear Jenkins,...Read more of this...

71. Second Epistle to Davie

by Robert Burns
 AULD NEIBOUR,I’m three times doubly o’er your debtor,
For your auld-farrant, frien’ly letter;
Tho’ I maun say’t I doubt ye flatter,
 Ye speak sae fair;
For my puir, silly, rhymin clatter
 Some less maun sair.


Hale be your heart, hale be your fiddle,
Lang may your elbuck jink diddle,
To cheer you thro’ the weary widdle
 O’ war’ly cares;
Till barins’ barins kindly cuddle
 Your auld...Read more of this...

Canzone VI

by Francesco Petrarch
CANZONE VI. Spirto gentil che quelle membra reggi. TO RIENZI, BESEECHING HIM TO RESTORE TO ROME HER ANCIENT LIBERTY.  Spirit heroic! who with fire divineKindlest those limbs, awhile which pilgrim holdOn earth a Chieftain, gracious, wise, and bold;Since, rightly, now the rod of state is thineRome and her wandering children to...Read more of this...

Two Sonnets

by Edwin Arlington Robinson
 I

Just as I wonder at the twofold screen 
Of twisted innocence that you would plait 
For eyes that uncourageously await 
The coming of a kingdom that has been, 
So do I wonder what God’s love can mean
To you that all so strangely estimate 
The purpose and the consequent estate 
Of one short shuddering step to the Unseen. 

No, I...Read more of this...

From ‘Paracelsus'

by Robert Browning
 I

TRUTH is within ourselves; it takes no rise 
From outward things, whate’er you may believe. 
There is an inmost centre in us all, 
Where truth abides in fullness; and around, 
Wall upon wall, the gross flesh hems it in, 
This perfect, clear perception—which is truth. 
A baffling and perverting carnal mesh 
Binds it, and makes all error: and, to...Read more of this...

The Bedridden Peasant to an Unknown God

by Thomas Hardy
 Much wonder I--here long low-laid - 
 That this dead wall should be 
Betwixt the Maker and the made, 
 Between Thyself and me! 

For, say one puts a child to nurse, 
 He eyes it now and then 
To know if better 'tis, or worse, 
 And if it mourn, and when. 

But Thou, Lord, giv'st us men...Read more of this...

The Days that we can spare

by Emily Dickinson
 The Days that we can spare
Are those a Function die
Or Friend or Nature -- stranded then
In our Economy

Our Estimates a Scheme --
Our Ultimates a Sham --
We let go all of Time without
Arithmetic of him --...Read more of this...

Sonnet IV

by Francesco Petrarch
SONNET IV. Quel ch' infinita providenza ed arte. HE CELEBRATES THE BIRTHPLACE OF LAURA.  He that with wisdom, goodness, power divine,Did ample Nature's perfect book design,Adorn'd this beauteous world, and those above,Kindled fierce Mars, and soften'd milder Jove:When seen on earth the shadows to fulfillOf the less volume which conceal'd...Read more of this...

Robert William Service - Laughter

by Robert William Service
 I Laugh at Life: its antics make for me a giddy games,
Where only foolish fellows take themselves with solemn aim.
I laugh at pomp and vanity, at riches, rank and pride;
At social inanity, at swager, swank and side.
At poets, pastry-cooks and kings, at folk sublime and small,
Who fuss about a thousand things that matter not at all;
At those who dream...Read more of this...

The Eternal Goodness

by John Greenleaf Whittier
 O Friends! with whom my feet have trod
The quiet aisles of prayer,
Glad witness to your zeal for God
And love of man I bear.

I trace your lines of argument;
Your logic linked and strong
I weigh as one who dreads dissent,
And fears a doubt as wrong.

But still my human hands are weak
To hold your iron creeds:
Against the words ye bid me speak
My...Read more of this...

The Red Lacquer Music-Stand

by Amy Lowell
 A music-stand of crimson lacquer, long since brought
In some fast clipper-ship from China, quaintly wrought
With bossed and carven flowers and fruits in blackening gold,
The slender shaft all twined about and thickly scrolled
With vine leaves and young twisted tendrils, whirling, curling,
Flinging their new shoots over the four wings, and swirling
Out on the three wide feet in golden lumps and streams;
Petals...Read more of this...

When Dacey rode the Mule

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 ’TWAS to a small, up-country town, 
When we were boys at school, 
There came a circus with a clown, 
Likewise a bucking mule. 
The clown announced a scheme they had 
Spectators for to bring— 
They’d give a crown to any lad 
Who’d ride him round the ring. 

And, gentle reader, do not scoff 
Nor think a man a fool—...Read more of this...

The Tree: An Old Mans Story

by Thomas Hardy
 I 

Its roots are bristling in the air 
Like some mad Earth-god's spiny hair; 
The loud south-wester's swell and yell 
Smote it at midnight, and it fell. 
 Thus ends the tree 
 Where Some One sat with me. 

II 

Its boughs, which none but darers trod, 
A child may step on from the sod, 
And twigs that earliest...Read more of this...

To Think of Time

by Walt Whitman
 1
TO think of time—of all that retrospection! 
To think of to-day, and the ages continued henceforward! 

Have you guess’d you yourself would not continue? 
Have you dreaded these earth-beetles? 
Have you fear’d the future would be nothing to you?

Is to-day nothing? Is the beginningless past nothing? 
If the future is nothing, they are just as surely nothing. 

To think...Read more of this...

A Poem Sacred to the Memory of Sir Isaac Newton

by James Thomson
 Shall the great soul of Newton quit this earth, 
To mingle with his stars; and every muse,
Astonish'd into silence, shun the weight
Of honours due to his illustrious name?
But what can man?--Even now the sons of light,
In strains high-warbled to seraphic lyre,
Hail his arrival on the coast of bliss.
Yet am not I deterr'd, though high the theme,
And sung to harps...Read more of this...

Let America Be America Again

by Langston Hughes
 Let America be America again.
Let it be the dream it used to be.
Let it be the pioneer on the plain
Seeking a home where he himself is free.

(America never was America to me.)

Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed--
Let it be that great strong land of love
Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme
That any man be crushed by one...Read more of this...

Art

by Herman Melville
 In placid hours well-pleased we dream 
Of many a brave unbodied scheme. 
But form to lend, pulsed life create, 
What unlike things must meet and mate: 
A flame to melt--a wind to freeze; 
Sad patience--joyous energies; 
Humility--yet pride and scorn; 
Instinct and study; love and hate; 
Audacity--reverence. These must mate, 
And fuse with Jacob's mystic heart, 
To wrestle with...Read more of this...

Alfonso Churchill

by Edgar Lee Masters
 They laughed at me as "Prof. Moon,"
As a boy in Spoon River, born with the thirst
Of knowing about the stars.
They jeered when I spoke of the lunar mountains,
And the thrilling heat and cold,
And the ebon valleys by silver peaks,
And Spica quadrillions of miles away,
And the littleness of man.
But now that my grave is honored, friends,
Let it not be because...Read more of this...

Breadfruit

by Philip Larkin
 Boys dream of native girls who bring breadfruit,
 Whatever they are,
As bribes to teach them how to execute
Sixteen sexual positions on the sand;
This makes them join (the boys) the tennis club,
Jive at the Mecca, use deodorants, and
On Saturdays squire ex-schoolgirls to the pub
 By private car.

Such uncorrected visions end in church
 Or registrar:
A mortgaged semi- with a silver birch;
Nippers;...Read more of this...

Motel Seedy

by Thomas Lux
 The artisans of this room, who designed the lamp base
(a huge red slug with a hole
where its heart should be) or chose this print
of a butterscotch sunset,
must have been abused in art class
as children, forced to fingerpaint
with a nose, or a tongue. To put this color
green--exhausted grave grass--to cinder blocks
takes an understanding of loneliness
and/or institutions that terrifies.
It would seem...Read more of this...

Abt Vogler

by Robert Browning
 Would that the structure brave, the manifold music I build,
Bidding my organ obey, calling its keys to their work,
Claiming each slave of the sound, at a touch, as when Solomon willed
Armies of angels that soar, legions of demons that lurk,
Man, brute, reptile, fly,--alien of end and of aim,
Adverse, each from the other heaven-high, hell-deep removed,--
Should rush into sight at...Read more of this...

The Right To Die

by Paul Laurence Dunbar
I have no fancy for that ancient cant
That makes us masters of our destinies,
And not our lives, to hold or give them up
As will directs; I cannot, will not think
That men, the subtle worms, who plot and plan
And scheme and calculate with such shrewd wit,
Are such great blund'ring fools as not to know
When they have lived enough. Men court not...Read more of this...

15. Winter: A Dirge

by Robert Burns
 THE WINTRY west extends his blast,
 And hail and rain does blaw;
Or the stormy north sends driving forth
 The blinding sleet and snaw:
While, tumbling brown, the burn comes down,
 And roars frae bank to brae;
And bird and beast in covert rest,
 And pass the heartless day.


“The sweeping blast, the sky o’ercast,”
 The joyless winter day
Let others fear, to me...Read more of this...

Octaves

by Edwin Arlington Robinson
 I 

We thrill too strangely at the master's touch;
We shrink too sadly from the larger self
Which for its own completeness agitates
And undetermines us; we do not feel -- 
We dare not feel it yet -- the splendid shame
Of uncreated failure; we forget,
The while we groan, that God's accomplishment
Is always and unfailingly at hand. 

II 

Tumultuously void of a clean...Read more of this...

Nephelidia

by Algernon Charles Swinburne
 From the depth of the dreamy decline of the dawn through a notable nimbus of nebulous noonshine,
Pallid and pink as the palm of the flag-flower that flickers with fear of the flies as they float,
Are they looks of our lovers that lustrously lean from a marvel of mystic miraculous moonshine,
These that we feel in the blood of our blushes...Read more of this...

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