Famous Sided Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Milton

by Henry Van Dyke
 I 

Lover of beauty, walking on the height 
Of pure philosophy and tranquil song; 
Born to behold the visions that belong 
To those who dwell in melody and light; 
Milton, thou spirit delicate and bright!
What drew thee down to join the Roundhead throng
Of iron-sided warriors, rude and strong, 
Fighting for freedom in a world half night? 

Lover of Liberty...Read more of this...

The Sycamores

by John Greenleaf Whittier
 In the outskirts of the village 
On the river's winding shores 
Stand the Occidental plane-trees, 
Stand the ancient sycamores. 

One long century hath been numbered, 
And another half-way told 
Since the rustic Irish gleeman 
Broke for them the virgin mould. 

Deftly set to Celtic music 
At his violin's sound they grew, 
Through the moonlit eves of summer, 
Making Amphion's...Read more of this...

The Monument

by Elizabeth Bishop
 Now can you see the monument? It is of wood
built somewhat like a box. No. Built
like several boxes in descending sizes
one above the other.
Each is turned half-way round so that
its corners point toward the sides
of the one below and the angles alternate.
Then on the topmost cube is set 
a sort of fleur-de-lys of weathered wood,
long petals of board, pierced...Read more of this...

The Night Dances

by Sylvia Plath
 A smile fell in the grass.
Irretrievable!

And how will your night dances
Lose themselves. In mathematics?

Such pure leaps and spirals ----
Surely they travel

The world forever, I shall not entirely
Sit emptied of beauties, the gift

Of your small breath, the drenched grass
Smell of your sleeps, lilies, lilies.

Their flesh bears no relation.
Cold folds of ego, the calla,

And the tiger, embellishing itself ----
Spots, and a...Read more of this...

Mrs. Charles Bliss

by Edgar Lee Masters
 Reverend Wiley advised me not to divorce him
For the sake of the children,
And Judge Somers advised him the same.
So we stuck to the end of the path.
But two of the children thought he was right,
And two of the children thought I was right.
And the two who sided with him blamed me,
And the two who sided with me blamed him,
And...Read more of this...

Afternoon Rain in State Street

by Amy Lowell
 Cross-hatchings of rain against grey walls,
Slant lines of black rain
In front of the up and down, wet stone sides of buildings.
Below,
Greasy, shiny, black, horizontal,
The street.
And over it, umbrellas,
Black polished dots
Struck to white
An instant,
Stream in two flat lines
Slipping past each other with the smoothness of oil.
Like a four-sided wedge
The Custom House Tower
Pokes at the low, flat sky,
Pushing it farther and...Read more of this...

Heaven--Haven: A Nun Takes The Veil

by Gerard Manley Hopkins
 I have desired to go
 Where springs not fail,
To fields where flies no sharp and sided hail
 And a few lilies blow.

 And I have asked to be
 Where no storms come,
Where the green swell is in the havens dumb,
 And out of the swing of the sea....Read more of this...

From Loves First Fever To Her Plague

by Dylan Thomas
 From love's first fever to her plague, from the soft second
And to the hollow minute of the womb,
From the unfolding to the scissored caul,
The time for breast and the green apron age
When no mouth stirred about the hanging famine,
All world was one, one windy nothing,
My world was christened in a stream of milk.
And earth and sky were as one...Read more of this...

Gigolo

by Sylvia Plath
 Pocket watch, I tick well.
The streets are lizardly crevices
Sheer-sided, with holes where to hide.
It is best to meet in a cul-de-sac,

A palace of velvet
With windows of mirrors.
There one is safe,
There are no family photographs,

No rings through the nose, no cries.
Bright fish hooks, the smiles of women
Gulp at my bulk
And I, in my snazzy blacks,

Mill a litter of breasts like...Read more of this...

Our Eunuch Dreams

by Dylan Thomas
 I

Our eunuch dreams, all seedless in the light,
Of light and love the tempers of the heart,
Whack their boys' limbs,
And, winding-footed in their shawl and sheet,
Groom the dark brides, the widows of the night
Fold in their arms.

The shades of girls, all flavoured from their shrouds,
When sunlight goes are sundered from the worm,
The bones of men, the broken in their beds,
By...Read more of this...

The Admirers Of The Little Box

by Vasko Popa
 Sing little box

Don't let sleep overtake you
The world's awake within you

In your four-sided emptiness
We turn distance into nearness
Forgetfulness into memory

Don't let your nails come loose

For the very first time
We watch sights beyond this world
Through your keyhole

Turn your key in our mouths
Swallow words and numbers
Out of your song

Don't let your lid fly open
Your bottom drop

Sing little box...Read more of this...

Ode to the Goddess Ceres

by Thomas Moore
 Dear Goddess of Corn, whom the ancients we know,
(Among other odd whims of those comical bodies,)
Adorn'd with somniferous poppies, to show,
Thou wert always a true Country-gentleman's Goddess.

Behold in his best, shooting-jacket, before thee,
An eloquent 'Squire, who most humbly beseeches,
Great Queen of the Mark-lane (if the thing doesn't bore thee),
Thou'lt read o'er the last of his -- never-last speeches.

Ah! Ceres,...Read more of this...

Goliath and David

by Robert Graves
 (For D. C. T., Killed at Fricourt, March, 1916)


Yet once an earlier David took 
Smooth pebbles from the brook: 
Out between the lines he went 
To that one-sided tournament, 
A shepherd boy who stood out fine
And young to fight a Philistine 
Clad all in brazen mail. He swears 
That he’s killed lions, he’s killed bears, 
And those that scorn...Read more of this...

Chanting the Square Deific

by Walt Whitman
 1
CHANTING the square deific, out of the One advancing, out of the sides; 
Out of the old and new—out of the square entirely divine, 
Solid, four-sided, (all the sides needed)... from this side JEHOVAH am I, 
Old Brahm I, and I Saturnius am; 
Not Time affects me—I am Time, old, modern as any;
Unpersuadable, relentless, executing righteous judgments; 
As the...Read more of this...

The Two-Sided Man

by Rudyard Kipling
 Much I owe to the Lands that grew--
More to the Lives that fed--
But most to Allah Who gave me two
Separate sides to my head.

Much I reflect on the Good and the True
In the Faiths beneath the sun,
But most to Allah Who gave me two
Sides to my head, not one.

Wesley's following, Calvin's flock,
White or yellow or bronze,
Shaman, Ju-ju or Angekok,
Minister,...Read more of this...

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