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Famous Shows Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Dickinson, Emily
...
   On solitary hills
That science cannot overtake,
   But human nature feels.

It waits upon the lawn;
   It shows the furthest tree
Upon the furthest slope we know;
   It almost speaks to me.

Then, as horizons step,
   Or noons report away,
Without the formula of sound,
   It passes, and we stay:

A quality of loss
   Affecting our content,
As trade had suddenly encroached
   Upon a sacrament....Read more of this...



by Shakespeare, William
...either's aptness, as it best deceives,
To blush at speeches rank to weep at woes,
Or to turn white and swoon at tragic shows.

'That not a heart which in his level came
Could 'scape the hail of his all-hurting aim,
Showing fair nature is both kind and tame;
And, veil'd in them, did win whom he would maim:
Against the thing he sought he would exclaim;
When he most burn'd in heart-wish'd luxury,
He preach'd pure maid, and praised cold chastity.

'Thus merely with the g...Read more of this...

by Kipling, Rudyard
...e
That worn sail which Argo bore.

Dust and dust of ashes close
 All the Vestal Virgin's care;
And the oldest altar shows
 But an older darkness there.
Age-encamped Oblivion
Tenteth every light that shone.

Yet shall we, for Suns that die,
 Wall our wanderings from desire?
Or, because the Moon is high,
 Scorn to use a nearer fire?
Lest some envious Pharaoh stir,
Make our lives our sepulcher?

Nay! Though Time with petty Fate
 Prison us and Emperors,
By our Arts do...Read more of this...

by Smart, Christopher
...or ADORATION myrtles stay 
To keep the garden from dismay, 
 And bless the sight from dearth. 

 LXII 
The pheasant shows his pompous neck; 
The ermine, jealous of a speck, 
 With fear eldues offence: 
The sable, with his glossy pride, 
For ADORATION is describ'd, 
 Where frosts the waves condense. 

 LXIII 
The cheerful holly, pensive yew, 
And holy thorn, their trim renew; 
 The squirrel hoards his nuts; 
All creatures batten o'er their stores, 
And careful nature a...Read more of this...

by Shelley, Percy Bysshe
...ore, or painting's woe
Or sculpture, speak in feeble imagery
Their own cold powers. Art and eloquence, 
And all the shows o' the world, are frail and vain
To weep a loss that turns their lights to shade.
It is a woe "too deep for tears," when all
Is reft at once, when some surpassing Spirit,
Whose light adorned the world around it, leaves
Those who remain behind, not sobs or groans,
The passionate tumult of a clinging hope;
But pale despair and cold tranquillity,
Natu...Read more of this...



by Pope, Alexander
...guide than spur the Muse's Steed;
Restrain his Fury, than provoke his Speed;
The winged Courser, like a gen'rous Horse,
Shows most true Mettle when you check his Course.

Those RULES of old discover'd, not devis'd,
Are Nature still, but Nature Methodiz'd;
Nature, like Liberty, is but restrain'd
By the same Laws which first herself ordain'd.

Hear how learn'd Greece her useful Rules indites,
When to repress, and when indulge our Flights:
High on Parnassus' Top her Sons...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...ou up there, or any one; 
It is to walk rapidly through civilizations, governments, theories, 
Through poems, pageants, shows, to form great individuals. 

Underneath all, individuals!
I swear nothing is good to me now that ignores individuals, 
The American compact is altogether with individuals, 
The only government is that which makes minute of individuals, 
The whole theory of the universe is directed to one single individual—namely, to You.


(Mother! with subtle...Read more of this...

by García Lorca, Federico
...>
The little boy stares at her, stares.
The boy is staring hard.
In the shaken air
the moon moves her amrs,
and shows lubricious and pure,
her breasts of hard tin.
"Moon, moon, moon, run!
If the gypsies come,
they will use your heart
to make white necklaces and rings."
"Let me dance, my little one.
When the gypsies come,
they'll find you on the anvil
with your lively eyes closed tight.
"Moon, moon, moon, run!
I can feelheir horses come."
"Let me be...Read more of this...

by Wilcox, Ella Wheeler
...en, by the shelt'ring river's bank at last, 
The weary warriors paused for their repast.
A couch of ice and falling shows for spread
Made many a suffering soldier's chilling bed.
They slept to dream of glory and delight, 
While the pale fingers of the pitying night
Wove ghostly winding sheets for that doomed score
Who, ere another eve, should sleep to wake no more.

X.

But those who slept not, saw with startled eyes
Far off, athwart dim unprotecting skies, 
A...Read more of this...

by Hugo, Victor
...gs, 
 With pity moved, he to them succor brings. 
 'Twas he defended Alix from her foes 
 As sword of Urraca—he ever shows 
 His strength is for the feeble and oppressed; 
 Father of orphans he, and all distressed! 
 Kings of the Rhine in strongholds were by him 
 Boldly attacked, and tyrant barons grim. 
 He freed the towns—confronting in his lair 
 Hugo the Eagle; boldly did he dare 
 To break the collar of Saverne, the ring 
 Of Colmar, and the iron torture thin...Read more of this...

by Alighieri, Dante
...These came, and who they be, and passing hence 
 Where go they? Wherefore wait they there content, 
 - The faint light shows it, - for their transit o'er 
 The unbridged abyss?" 
 He answered, "When we stand 
 Together, waiting on the joyless strand, 
 In all it shall be told thee." If he meant 
 Reproof I know not, but with shame I bent 
 My downward eyes, and no more spake until 
 The bank we reached, and on the stream beheld 
 A bark ply toward us. 
 Of exceeding ...Read more of this...

by Marvell, Andrew
...
Lee, ready to obey or to command, 
Adjutant-general, was still at hand. 
The martial standard, Sandys displaying, shows 
St Dunstan in it, tweaking Satan's nose. 
See sudden chance of war! To paint or write 
Is longer work and harder than to fight. 
At the first charge the enemy give out, 
And the Excise receives a total rout. 

Broken in courage, yet the men the same 
Resolve henceforth upon their other game: 
Where force had failed, with stratagem to play,...Read more of this...

by Moore, Marianne
...ligation:
I wonder what Adam and Eve
think of it by this time,
this firegilt steel
alive with goldenness;
how bright it shows --
"of circular traditions and impostures,
committing many spoils,"
requiring all one's criminal ingenuity
to avoid!
Psychology which explains everything
explains nothing
and we are still in doubt.
Eve: beautiful woman --
I have seen her
when she was so handsome
she gave me a start,
able to write simultaneously
in three languages --
English, German...Read more of this...

by Frost, Robert
...ual mountains given in a map
Of early times as twice the height they are—
Ten thousand feet instead of only five—
Which shows how sad an accident may be.
Five thousand is no longer high enough.
Whereas I never had a good idea
About improving people in the world,
Here I am overfertile in suggestion,
And cannot rest from planning day or night
How high I'd thrust the peaks in summer snow
To tap the upper sky and draw a flow
Of frosty night air on the vale below
Down from...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...ilty shame, dishonest shame 
Of nature's works, honour dishonourable, 
Sin-bred, how have ye troubled all mankind 
With shows instead, mere shows of seeming pure, 
And banished from man's life his happiest life, 
Simplicity and spotless innocence! 
So passed they naked on, nor shunned the sight 
Of God or Angel; for they thought no ill: 
So hand in hand they passed, the loveliest pair, 
That ever since in love's embraces met; 
Adam the goodliest man of men since born 
His son...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...nd what do you think has become of the women and children? 

They are alive and well somewhere; 
The smallest sprout shows there is really no death; 
And if ever there was, it led forward life, and does not wait at the end to
 arrest it, 
And ceas’d the moment life appear’d.

All goes onward and outward—nothing collapses; 
And to die is different from what any one supposed, and luckier. 

7
Has any one supposed it lucky to be born? 
I hasten to inform him...Read more of this...

by Browning, Robert
...nd when my Cotnar begins to operate
And the tongue of the rogue to run at a proper rate,
And our wine-skin, tight once, shows each flaccid dent,
I shall drop in with---as if by accident---
``You never knew, then, how it all ended,
``What fortune good or bad attended
``The little lady your Queen befriended?''
---And when that's told me, what's remaining?
This world's too hard for my explaining.
The same wise judge of matters equine
Who still preferred some slim four-year-o...Read more of this...

by Thomson, James
...ith their Watry Friends.
The vivid Stars shine out, in radiant Files;
And boundless Ether glows, till the fair Moon
Shows her broad Visage, in the crimson'd East; 
Now, stooping, seems to kiss the passing Cloud:
Now, o'er the pure Cerulean, rides sublime.
Wide the pale Deluge floats, with silver Waves,
O'er the sky'd Mountain, to the low-laid Vale;
From the white Rocks, with dim Reflexion, gleams, 
And faintly glitters thro' the waving Shades.

ALL Night, abundant...Read more of this...

by Miller, Alice Duer
...upper classes— they're dead as mutton.
Go home. SUSAN: I notice that you don't go.

ROSAMUND: My dear, that shows how little you know.
I'm escaping the fate of my peers,
Marrying one of the profiteers,
Who hasn't an 'aitch' where an 'aitch' should be,
But millions and millions to spend on me.
Not much fun— but there wasn't any
Other way out. I haven't a penny.
But with you it's different. You can go away,
And oh, what a fool you'd be to stay.Read more of this...

by Plath, Sylvia
...d into the world.

THIRD VOICE:
Today the colleges are drunk with spring.
My black gown is a little funeral:
It shows I am serious.
The books I carry wedge into my side.
I had an old wound once, but it is healing.
I had a dream of an island, red with cries.
It was a dream, and did not mean a thing.

FIRST VOICE:
Dawn flowers in the great elm outside the house.
The swifts are back. They are shrieking like paper rockets.
I hear the sound ...Read more of this...

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