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Famous Sets Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry
...ev'ry hill reflects a purer ray, 
Than when Aurora paints his woods in gold, 
Or when the sun first in the orient sky, 
Sets thick with gems the dewy mountain's brow. 


The earth perceives a sov'reign virtue shed 
And from each cave, and midnight haunt retires 
Dark superstition, with her vot'ries skill'd, 
In potent charm, or spell of magic pow'r; 
In augury, by voice, or flight of birds, 
Or boding sign at morn, or noon, or eve, 
Portent and prodigy and omen dire. 
Each or...Read more of this...
by Brackenridge, Hugh Henry



...A sudden elemental sword. 

The sun at bay with splendid thrusts still keeps the sullen fold; 
And momently at distance sets, as a cupola of gold, 
The thatched roof of a cot a-glance; 
Or on the blurred horizon joins his battle with the haze; 
Or pools the blooming fields about with inter-isolate blaze, 
Great moveless meres of radiance. 

Then mark you how there hangs athwart the firmament's swept track, 
Yonder a mighty crocodile with vast irradiant back, 
A triple row of ...Read more of this...
by Hugo, Victor
...ight we find,
That gives us back the Image of our Mind:
As Shades more sweetly recommend the Light,
So modest Plainness sets off sprightly Wit:
For Works may have more Wit than does 'em good,
As Bodies perish through Excess of Blood.

Others for Language all their Care express,
And value Books, as Women Men, for Dress:
Their Praise is still--The Stile is excellent:
The Sense, they humbly take upon Content.
Words are like Leaves; and where they most abound,
Much Fruit of Sense...Read more of this...
by Pope, Alexander
...ion roughly sermonizing
On providence and trust in Heaven, she heard,
Heard and not heard him; as the village girl,
Who sets her pitcher underneath the spring,
Musing on him that used to fill it for her,
Hears and not hears, and lets it overflow. 

At length she spoke `O Enoch, you are wise;
And yet for all your wisdom well know I
That I shall look upon your face no more.' 

`Well then,' said Enoch, `I shall look on yours.
Annie, the ship I sail in passes here
(He named the d...Read more of this...
by Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...T. 
 
 ("Qu'est-ce que Sigismond et Ladislas ont dit.") 
 
 {Bk. XV. iii. 1.} 


 I. 
 
 THE ADVENTURER SETS OUT. 
 
 What was it Sigismond and Ladisläus said? 
 
 I know not if the rock, or tree o'erhead, 
 Had heard their speech;—but when the two spoke low, 
 Among the trees, a shudder seemed to go 
 Through all their branches, just as if that way 
 A beast had passed to trouble and dismay. 
 More dark the shadow of the rock was seen, 
 And then a ...Read more of this...
by Hugo, Victor



...Lord. Scenes from my life flashed across the sky. In
each, I noticed footprints in the sand. Sometimes there were
two sets of footprints; other times there was only one.

During the low periods of my life I could see only one set of
footprints, so I said, "You promised me, Lord, that you would
walk with me always. Why, when I have needed you most,
have you not been there for me?"

The Lord replied, "The times when you have seen only one set
of footprints, my child, ...Read more of this...
by Stevenson, Mary
...heated metal extend, and crowd the plain." 
 He answered, "These the eternal fire contain, 
 That pulsing through them sets their domes aglow." 
 At this we came those joyless walls below, 
 - Of iron I thought them, - with a circling moat; 
 But saw no entrance, and the burdened boat 
 Traced the deep fosse for half its girth, before 
 The steersman warned us. "Get ye forth. The shore 
 Is here, - and there the Entrance." 
 There,
 indeed, 
 The entrance. On the barred and ...Read more of this...
by Alighieri, Dante
...ven 
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 
Among my memories, and it makes a noise
About as loud as all that I ha...Read more of this...
by Robinson, Edwin Arlington
...awake 
'Tunes sweetest his love-laboured song; now reigns 
'Full-orbed the moon, and with more pleasing light 
'Shadowy sets off the face of things; in vain, 
'If none regard; Heaven wakes with all his eyes, 
'Whom to behold but thee, Nature's desire? 
'In whose sight all things joy, with ravishment 
'Attracted by thy beauty still to gaze.' 
I rose as at thy call, but found thee not; 
To find thee I directed then my walk; 
And on, methought, alone I passed through ways 
That ...Read more of this...
by Milton, John
...rhead
a strange wife sleeping beside me.
In my mind, the bedroom is an amalgamation
of various cold medicine commercial sets
(there is always a box of tissue on the nightstand).

I know these recurring news articles are clues,
flaws in the design though I haven't figured out
how to string them together yet,
but I've begun to notice that the same people
are dying over and over again,
for instance Minnie Pearl
who died this year
for the fourth time in four years.

III three

To...Read more of this...
by Berman, David
...that we are in fact it
If we could get back to it, relive some of the way
It looked, turn our faces to the globe as it sets
And still be coming out all right:
Nerves normal, breath normal. Since it is a metaphor
Made to include us, we are a part of it and
Can live in it as in fact we have done,
Only leaving our minds bare for questioning
We now see will not take place at random
But in an orderly way that means to menace
Nobody--the normal way things are done,
Like the concen...Read more of this...
by Ashbery, John
...bow to each other; 
The youth lies awake in the cedar-roof’d garret, and harks to the musical
 rain; 
The Wolverine sets traps on the creek that helps fill the Huron;
The squaw, wrapt in her yellow-hemm’d cloth, is offering moccasins and
 bead-bags for sale; 
The connoisseur peers along the exhibition-gallery with half-shut eyes bent
 sideways; 
As the deck-hands make fast the steamboat, the plank is thrown for the
 shore-going passengers; 
The young sister holds o...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt
...er breathing his breath on the cold steel, and trying the edge with his thumb,
The one who clean-shapes the handle, and sets it firmly in the socket; 
The shadowy processions of the portraits of the past users also, 
The primal patient mechanics, the architects and engineers, 
The far-off Assyrian edifice and Mizra edifice, 
The Roman lictors preceding the consuls,
The antique European warrior with his axe in combat, 
The uplifted arm, the clatter of blows on the helmeted hea...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt
...e the crude ores of California and Nevada passing on and on till they become
 bullion; 
You shall watch how the printer sets type, and learn what a composing stick is; 
You shall mark, in amazement, the Hoe press whirling its cylinders, shedding the printed
 leaves
 steady and fast: 
The photograph, model, watch, pin, nail, shall be created before you.

In large calm halls, a stately Museum shall teach you the infinite, solemn lessons of
 Minerals;

In another, woods, plants,...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt
...essive bear no binding force, 
That coronation oaths are things of course; 
Maintains the multitude can never err, 
And sets the people in the papal chair. 
The reason's obvious, interest never lies; 
The most have still their interest in their eyes, 
The power is always theirs, and power is ever wise. 
Almighty crowd! thou shortenest all dispute. 
Power is thy essence, wit thy attribute! 
Nor faith nor reason make thee at a stay, 
Thou leapst o'er all eternal truths in thy P...Read more of this...
by Dryden, John
...fth.
And yet, twice born, twice buried, grow he must,
Before the full moon, helpless as a worm.
The thirteenth moon but sets the soul at war
In its own being, and when that war's begun
There is no muscle in the arm; and after,
Under the frenzy of the fourteenth moon,
The soul begins to tremble into stillness,
To die into the labyrinth of itself!

Aherne. Sing out the song; sing to the end, and sing
The strange reward of all that discipline.

Robartes. All thought becomes an i...Read more of this...
by Yeats, William Butler
...
If Job be allegory or a fact, 
But a true narrative; and thus I pick 
From out the whole but such and such an act 
As sets aside the slightest thought of trick. 
'Tis every tittle true, beyond suspicion, 
And accurate as any other vision. 

XXXV 

The spirits were in neutral space, before 
The gates of heaven; like eastern thresholds is 
The place where Death's grand cause is argued o'er, 
And souls despatch'd to that world or to this; 
And therefore Michael and the other w...Read more of this...
by Byron, George (Lord)
...lling back again.

XXI 
The English love their country with a love 
Steady, and simple, wordless, dignified;
I think it sets their patriotism above 
All others. We Americans have pride— 
We glory in our country's short romance. 
We boast of it and love it. Frenchmen when 
The ultimate menace comes, will die for France 
Logically as they lived. But Englishmen 
Will serve day after day, obey the law, 
And do dull tasks that keep a nation strong. 
Once I remember in London how I...Read more of this...
by Miller, Alice Duer
...didn't know I liked snow

I never knew I loved the sun
even when setting cherry-red as now
in Istanbul too it sometimes sets in postcard colors 
but you aren't about to paint it that way
I didn't know I loved the sea
 except the Sea of Azov
or how much

I didn't know I loved clouds
whether I'm under or up above them
whether they look like giants or shaggy white beasts

moonlight the falsest the most languid the most petit-bourgeois 
strikes me
I like it

I didn't know I liked...Read more of this...
by Hikmet, Nazim
...light
we dare be brave
And suddenly we see
that love costs all we are
and will ever be.
Yet it is only love
which sets us free....Read more of this...
by Angelou, Maya

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Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry