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Famous Set Out Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Milton, John
..., lead on apace; I'll follow thee;
And some good angel bear a shield before us!

The Scene changes to a stately palace, set out with all manner of
deliciousness: soft music, tables spread with all dainties. Comus
appears with his rabble, and the LADY set in an enchanted chair;
to
whom he offers his glass; which she puts by, and goes about to
rise.

 COMUS. Nay, Lady, sit. If I but wave this wand,
Your nerves are all chained up in alabaster,
And you a statue, o...Read more of this...



by Pushkin, Alexander
...ing
I watch you like a spellbound child.
But then how wretched my existence,
How desolate my jealous pain,
When you set out into the distance
To wander in the cold and rain;
And then your solitary grievings,
Or, in the corner, twosome talks,
Or twosome piano in the evenings,
Or twosome trips, or twosome walks...
Alina! just a little mercy -
I dare not even mention love:
For sins I have been guilty of,
My angel, of your care unworthy...
But feign it...Read more of this...

by Collins, Billy
...und
where we stand in the tremble of thought
taking the vast outside into ourselves.

Still, let me know before you set out.
Come knock on my door
and I will walk with you as far as the garden 
with one hand on your shoulder.
I will even watch after you and not turn back
to the house until you disappear 
into the crowd of maple and ash,
heading up toward the hill,
percing the ground with your stick....Read more of this...

by Shakur, Tupac
...They could never understand
what u set out 2 do
instead they chose 2
ridicule u
when u got weak
they loved the sight
of your dimming
and flickering starlight
How could they understand what was so intricate
2 be loved by so many, so intimate
they wanted 2 c your lifeless corpse
this way u could not alter the course
of ignorance that they have set
2 make my people forget
what they ...Read more of this...

by Cavafy, Constantine P
...As you set out for Ithaka
hope your road is a long one,
full of adventure, full of discovery.
Laistrygonians, Cyclops,
angry Poseidon-don't be afraid of them:
you'll never find things like that on your way
as long as you keep your thoughts raised high,
as long as a rare excitement
stirs your spirit and your body.
Laistrygonians, Cyclops,
wild Poseidon-you w...Read more of this...



by Frost, Robert
...ll Corners (so called not because
The place is silent all day long, nor yet
Because it boasts a whisky still—because
It set out once to be a city and still
Is only corners, crossroads in a wood).
And I remember one whose name appeared
Between the pictures on a movie screen
Election night once in Franconia,
When everything had gone Republican
And Democrats were sore in need of comfort:
Easton goes Democratic, Wilson 4
Hughes 2. And everybody to the saddest
Laughed the ...Read more of this...

by St Vincent Millay, Edna
...aughter bore from home,
Uptorn by desperate fingers long ago,
Reluctant even as she,
Undone Persephone,
And even as she set out again to grow
In twilight, in perdition's lean and inauspicious loam).
She will love well," I said,
"The flowers of the dead;
Where dark Persephone the winter round,
Uncomforted for home, uncomforted,
Lacking a sunny southern slope in northern Sicily,
With sullen pupils focussed on a dream,
Stares on the stagnant stream
That moats the unequivocab...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...
That to corporeal substances could add 
Speed almost spiritual: Me thou thinkest not slow, 
Who since the morning-hour set out from Heaven 
Where God resides, and ere mid-day arrived 
In Eden; distance inexpressible 
By numbers that have name. But this I urge, 
Admitting motion in the Heavens, to show 
Invalid that which thee to doubt it moved; 
Not that I so affirm, though so it seem 
To thee who hast thy dwelling here on Earth. 
God, to remove his ways from human s...Read more of this...

by Lowell, Amy
...watching their faces Flickering 
in the wind-blown candle's shine.
Blue-coated lackeys tiptoe to their places, And set out plates 
of fruit and jugs of wine.
The table glitters black like Winter ice. The Dartle's rushing, 
and the gentle clash
Of blossomed branches, drifts into her ears. And 
through the casement sash
She sees each cherry stem a pointed slice
Of splintered moonlight, topped with all the spice
And shimmer of the blossoms it uprears.

XXII
...Read more of this...

by Boland, Eavan
...In the worst hour of the worst season
 of the worst year of a whole people
a man set out from the workhouse with his wife.
He was walking-they were both walking-north.

She was sick with famine fever and could not keep up.
 He lifted her and put her on his back.
He walked like that west and north.
Until at nightfall under freezing stars they arrived.

In the morning they were both found dead.
 Of cold. Of ...Read more of this...

by McGonagall, William Topaz
...ike a second deluge, the mighty torrents' roar,
At nine o'clock at night the storm did rage and moan
When Carl Springel set out on his crutches all alone -- 

From the handsome little hut in which he dwelt,
With some food to his father, for whom he greatly felt,
Who was watching at the railway bridge,
Which was built upon a perpendicular rocky ridge. 

The bridge was composed of iron and wooden blocks,
And crossed o'er the Devil's Gulch, an immense cleft of rocks,
Two hun...Read more of this...

by Ashbery, John
...tory of creation proceeds according to
Stringent laws, and that things
Do get done in this way, but never the things
We set out to accomplish and wanted so desperately
To see come into being. Parmigianino
Must have realized this as he worked at his
Life-obstructing task. One is forced to read
The perfectly plausible accomplishment of a purpose
Into the smooth, perhaps even bland (but so
Enigmatic) finish. Is there anything
To be serious about beyond this otherness...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...nowledge my live parts—it keeping tally with the meaning of things, 
HAPPINESS—which, whoever hears me, let him or her set out in search of this
 day. 

My final merit I refuse you—I refuse putting from me what I really am; 
Encompass worlds, but never try to encompass me; 
I crowd your sleekest and best by simply looking toward you.

Writing and talk do not prove me; 
I carry the plenum of proof, and everything else, in my face; 
With the hush of my lips I ...Read more of this...

by Lowell, Amy
...s, though 'tis late.
I shall be glad to serve what way is in my power.

7
Then once more, cloaked and ready, he set out,
Tripping the footsteps of the eager boy
Along the dappled cobbles, while the rout
Within the tavern jeered at his employ.
Through new-burst elm leaves filtered the white moon,
Who peered and splashed between the twinkling boughs,
Flooded the open spaces, and took flight
Before tall, serried houses in platoon,
Guarded by shadows. Past the Cus...Read more of this...

by Aiken, Conrad
...
All of it darkly moving . . . as for me,
I need no hasheesh for it—it's too easy!
Soon as I shut my eyes I set out walking
In a monstrous jungle of monstrous pale pink roseleaves,
Violets purple as death, dripping with water,
And ivy-leaves as big as clouds above me.

Here, in a simple pattern of separate violets—
With scalloped edges gilded—here you have me
Thinking of something else. My wife, you know,—
There's something lacking—force, or will, or passi...Read more of this...

by Chaucer, Geoffrey
...l fatal day is come,
That there may be no longer tarrying,
But forward they them dressen* all and some. *prepare to set out*
Constance, that was with sorrow all o'ercome,
Full pale arose, and dressed her to wend,
For well she saw there was no other end.

Alas! what wonder is it though she wept,
That shall be sent to a strange nation
From friendes, that so tenderly her kept,
And to be bound under subjection
of one, she knew not his condition?
Husbands be all good, and ...Read more of this...

by Kinnell, Galway
...it and look out
over miles of valleys and low hills.
Today on skis I took a friend
to show her the trees. We set out
down the road, turned in at
the lane which a few weeks ago,
when the trees were almost empty
and the November snows had not yet come,
lay thickly covered in bright red
and yellow leaves, crossed the swamp,
passed the cellar hole holding
the remains of the 1850s farmhouse
that had slid down into it by stages
in the thirties and forties, foll...Read more of this...

by Yeats, William Butler
...the bell,
Stand under the rough roof-timbers of the hall
Beside the castle door, where all is stark
Austerity, a place set out for wisdom
That he will never find; I'd play a part;
He would never know me after all these years
But take me for some drunken countryman:
I'd stand and mutter there until he caught
"Hunchback and Sant and Fool,' and that they came
Under the three last crescents of the moon.
And then I'd stagger out. He'd crack his wits
Day after day, yet nev...Read more of this...

by Khayyam, Omar
...lt -- a momentary taste
Of Being from the Well amid the Waste --
And Lo! the phantom Caravan has reach'd
The Nothing it set out from -- Oh, make haste! 

XLI.
Oh, plagued no more with Human or Divine,
To-morrow's tangle to itself resign,
And lose your fingers in the tresses of
The Cypress-slender Minister of Wine. 

XLII.
Waste not your Hour, nor in the vain pursuit
Of This and That endeavor and dispute;
Better be merry with the fruitful Grape
Than sadden after no...Read more of this...

by Dryden, John
...e did strike,
And knaves and fools we both abhorred alike.
To the same goal did both our studies drive;
The last set out the soonest did arrive.
Thus Nisus fell upon the slippery place,
While his young friend performed and won the race.
O early ripe! to thy abundant store
What could advancing age have added more?
It might (what nature never gives the young)
Have taught the numbers of thy native tongue.
But satire needs not those, and wit will shine
...Read more of this...

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Book: Shattered Sighs