Famous Single Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Single poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous single poems. These examples illustrate what a famous single poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Whitman, Walt
...else has destroy’d us;
It is by ourselves we go down to eternal night.)
3
Have you thought there could be but a single Supreme?
There can be any number of Supremes—One does not countervail another, any more than
one
eyesight countervails another, or one life countervails another.
All is eligible to all,
All is for individuals—All is for you,
No condition is prohibited—not God’s, or any.
All comes by the body—only health puts you rapport with the univer...Read more of this...
by
Wilde, Oscar
...ot wounded, - ah! enough that once their lips could meet
In that wild throb when all existences
Seemed narrowed to one single ecstasy
Which dies through its own sweetness and the stress
Of too much pleasure, ere Persephone
Had bade them serve her by the ebon throne
Of the pale God who in the fields of Enna loosed her zone....Read more of this...
by
Dickinson, Emily
...
Still in her Eye
The Violets lie
Mouldered this many May.
I spilt the dew—
But took the morn—
I chose this single star
From out the wide night's numbers—
Sue—forevermore!
67
Success is counted sweetest
By those who ne'er succeed.
To comprehend a nectar
Requires sorest need.
Not one of all the purple Host
Who took the Flag today
Can tell the definition
So clear of Victory
As he defeated—dying—
On whose forbidden ear
The distant strain...Read more of this...
by
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
...st were the tones and sad; then soaring to madness
Seemed they to follow or guide the revel of frenzied Bacchantes.
Single notes were then heard, in sorrowful, low lamentation;
Till, having gathered them all, he flung them abroad in derision,
As when, after a storm, a gust of wind through the tree-tops
Shakes down the rattling rain in a crystal shower on the branches.
With such a prelude as this, and hearts that throbbed with emotion,
Slowly they entered the Teche, wh...Read more of this...
by
Wilde, Oscar
...ut gives it not; his rod
Hath lost its virtue, and, when all is said,
Death is too rude, too obvious a key
To solve one single secret in a life's philosophy.
And Love! that noble madness, whose august
And inextinguishable might can slay
The soul with honeyed drugs, - alas! I must
From such sweet ruin play the runaway,
Although too constant memory never can
Forget the arched splendour of those brows Olympian
Which for a little season made my youth
So soft a swoon of exqu...Read more of this...
by
Alighieri, Dante
...o
Unhindered through these homes of gateless woe, -
Is my son with thee? Hast thou nought to tell?"
I answered, "Single through the gates of hell...Read more of this...
by
Byron, George (Lord)
...hey more might marvel, when the greeting's o'er,
Not that he came, but came not long before:
No train is his beyond a single page,
Of foreign aspect, and of tender age.
Years had roll'd on, and fast they speed away
To those that wander as to those that stay;
But lack of tidings from another clime
Had lent a flagging wing to weary Time.
They see, they recognise, yet almost deem
The present dubious, or the past a dream.
He lives, nor yet is past his manho...Read more of this...
by
Frost, Robert
...e road)
To see if there was not some special tree
She might have overlooked. They could find none,
Not so much as a single tree for shade,
Let alone grove of trees for sugar orchard.
She told him of the bookmark maple leaf
In the big Bible, and all she remembered
of the place marked with it—"Wave offering,
Something about wave offering, it said."
"You've never asked your father outright, have you?"
"I have, and been Put off sometime, I think."
(This was he...Read more of this...
by
Milton, John
...
To be both will and deed created free;
Yet that we never shall forget to love
Our Maker, and obey him whose command
Single is yet so just, my constant thoughts
Assured me, and still assure: Though what thou tellest
Hath passed in Heaven, some doubt within me move,
But more desire to hear, if thou consent,
The full relation, which must needs be strange,
Worthy of sacred silence to be heard;
And we have yet large day, for scarce the sun
Hath finished half his journey...Read more of this...
by
Milton, John
...br>
If this be our condition, thus to dwell
In narrow circuit straitened by a foe,
Subtle or violent, we not endued
Single with like defence, wherever met;
How are we happy, still in fear of harm?
But harm precedes not sin: only our foe,
Tempting, affronts us with his foul esteem
Of our integrity: his foul esteem
Sticks no dishonour on our front, but turns
Foul on himself; then wherefore shunned or feared
By us? who rather double honour gain
From his surmise prove...Read more of this...
by
Whitman, Walt
...change;
The floor-men are laying the floor—the tinners are tinning the
roof—the masons are calling for mortar;
In single file, each shouldering his hod, pass onward the laborers;
Seasons pursuing each other, the indescribable crowd is gather’d—it is
the Fourth of Seventh-month—(What salutes of cannon and small arms!)
Seasons pursuing each other, the plougher ploughs, the mower mows, and the
winter-grain falls in the ground;
Off on the lakes the pike-fisher wat...Read more of this...
by
Chesterton, G K
...ight
The King unbound his sword,
Severed the harp of all his goods,
And there in the cool and soundless woods
Sounded a single chord.
Then laughed; and watched the finches flash,
The sullen flies in swarm,
And went unarmed over the hills,
With the harp upon his arm,
Until he came to the White Horse Vale
And saw across the plains,
In the twilight high and far and fell,
Like the fiery terraces of hell,
The camp fires of the Danes--
The fires of the Great Army
That was m...Read more of this...
by
Byron, George (Lord)
...
He in Abdallah's palace grew,
And held that post in his Serai
Which holds he here — he saw him die:
But what could single slavery do?
Avenge his lord? alas! too late;
Or save his son from such a fate?
He chose the last, and when elate
With foes subdued, or friends betray'd,
Proud Giaffir in high triumph sate,
He led me helpless to his gate,
And not in vain it seems essay'd
To save the life for which he pray'd.
The knowledge of my birth secured
From all and ...Read more of this...
by
Wordsworth, William
...bsp; And at the word right gladly he Received my proffer'd aid. I struck, and with a single blow The tangled root I sever'd, At which the poor old man so long And vainly had endeavoured. The tears into his eyes were brought, And thanks and praises seemed to run So fast out of his heart, I thought They never would have done.&nb...Read more of this...
by
Wordsworth, William
...bsp;"Oh cruel! I'm almost three-score; Such night as this was ne'er before, There's not a single soul abroad." She listens, but she cannot hear The foot of horse, the voice of man; The streams with softest sound are flowing, The grass you almost hear it growing, You hear it now if e'er you can. The owlets through the long blue night&n...Read more of this...
by
Scott, Sir Walter
...And place his clansmen in array.
Yet lags the Chief in musing mind,
Unwonted sight, his men behind.
A single page, to bear his sword,
Alone attended on his lord;
The rest their way through thickets break,
And soon await him by the lake.
It was a fair and gallant sight
To view them from the neighboring height,
By the low-levelled sunbeam's light!
For strength and stature, from the clan
Each warrior was a chosen ...Read more of this...
by
Blake, William
...enborg; he shews the
folly of churches & exposes hypocrites, till he imagines that all
are religious. & himself the single [PL 22] One on earth that ever
broke a net.
Now hear a plain fact: Swedenborg has not written one new
truth: Now hear another: he has written all the old falshoods.
And now hear the reason. He conversed with Angels who are
all religious, & conversed not with Devils who all hate religion,
for he was incapable thro' his conceited notions.Read more of this...
by
Thomson, James
...o early sought the Shade,
To dwell, with Innocence, and Truth, retir'd.
And, equal to the best, the Theban, He
Who, single, rais'd his Country into Fame.
Thousands behind, the Boast of Greece and Rome,
Whom Vertue owns, the Tribute of a Verse
Demand, but who can count the Stars of Heaven?
Who sing their Influence on this lower World?
But see who yonder comes! nor comes alone,
With sober State, and of majestic Mien,
The Sister-Muses in his Train -- 'Tis He!
Maro! the b...Read more of this...
by
Shelley, Percy Bysshe
.... . . ere the shock cease to tingle
One falls and then another in the path
Senseless, nor is the desolation single,
Yet ere I can say where the chariot hath
Past over them; nor other trace I find
But as of foam after the Ocean's wrath
Is spent upon the desert shore.--Behind,
Old men, and women foully disarrayed
Shake their grey hair in the insulting wind,
Limp in the dance & strain, with limbs decayed,
Seeking to reach the light which leaves them still
Farther...Read more of this...
by
Akhmatova, Anna
...
Will finish Muse's suntanned arm.
x x x
Just like a cold noreaster
At first she'll sting,
And then a single salty tear
The heart will wring.
The evil heart will pity
Something and then regret.
But this light-headed sadness
It will not forget.
I only sow. To harvest.
Others will come. And yes!
The lovely group of harvesters
May true God bless.
And that more perfectly I could
Give to you gratitude,
Allow me to giv...Read more of this...
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