Famous Small Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Small poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous small poems. These examples illustrate what a famous small poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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...that saw him did enchant the mind,
For on his visage was in little drawn
What largeness thinks in Paradise was sawn.
'Small show of man was yet upon his chin;
His phoenix down began but to appear
Like unshorn velvet on that termless skin
Whose bare out-bragg'd the web it seem'd to wear:
Yet show'd his visage by that cost more dear;
And nice affections wavering stood in doubt
If best were as it was, or best without.
'His qualities were beauteous as his form,
For maiden-tong...Read more of this...
by
Shakespeare, William
...,
all the bench-boards were bedewed with gore,
the hall dripping with death. I had fewer loyal men,
my brave company smaller, when that killing seized them.
Sit now at my feasting and unseal your moderate mind,
your joyful victories for men, just as your heart urges you.” (ll. 480-90)
Then were benches cleared for the Geatish kindred
gathered together in the beer-hall.
There the strong-spirited went to sit,
mindful of their might. A thane attended to his office,
w...Read more of this...
by
Anonymous,
...nd would it feel as big—
When I could take it in my hand—
As hovering—seen—through fog—
And then—the size of this "small" life—
The Sages—call it small—
Swelled—like Horizons—in my vest—
And I sneered—softly—"small"!
280
I felt a Funeral, in my Brain,
And Mourners to and fro
Kept treading—treading—till it seemed
That Sense was breaking through—
And when they all were seated,
A Service, like a Drum—
Kept beating—beating—till I thought
My Mind was going n...Read more of this...
by
Dickinson, Emily
...held most dear and was the crown
Of far Eurotas, and passed on, nor knew
How God had staked an evil net for him
In the small bay at Salamis, - and yet, the page grows dim,
Its cadenced Greek delights me not, I feel
With such a goodly time too out of tune
To love it much: for like the Dial's wheel
That from its blinded darkness strikes the noon
Yet never sees the sun, so do my eyes
Restlessly follow that which from my cheated vision flies.
O for one grand unselfish simple l...Read more of this...
by
Wilde, Oscar
...
Here
she ceased,
And I gave answer to that dear command,
'Lady, alone through whom the whole race of those
The smallest Heaven the moon's short orbits hold
Excels in its creation, not thy least,
Thy lightest wish in this dark realm were told
Vainly. But show me why the Heavens unclose
To loose thee from them, and thyself content
Couldst thus continue in such strange descent
From that most Spacious Place for which ye burn,
And while ye further left, woul...Read more of this...
by
Alighieri, Dante
...ike a mettlesome young man.
In winter I take my eel-basket and eel-spear and travel out on foot on the ice—I have
a
small axe to cut holes in the ice;
Behold me, well-clothed, going gaily, or returning in the afternoon—my brood of tough
boys
accompaning me,
My brood of grown and part-grown boys, who love to be with no one else so well as they
love to
be with me,
By day to work with me, and by night to sleep with me.
Or, another time, in warm weather, out in a boat...Read more of this...
by
Whitman, Walt
...e doing out a night like this?
Why can’t he stay at home?”
“He had to preach.”
“It’s no night to be out.”
“He may be small,
He may be good, but one thing’s sure, he’s tough.”
“And strong of stale tobacco.”
“He’ll pull through.’
“You only say so. Not another house
Or shelter to put into from this place
To theirs. I’m going to call his wife again.”
“Wait and he may. Let’s see what he will do.
Let’s see if he will think of her again.
But then I doubt he’s thinking of himse...Read more of this...
by
Frost, Robert
...and old men?
And 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 in...Read more of this...
by
Whitman, Walt
...men; they are the greatest
women.
Over that which hinder’d them—over that which retarded—passing impediments large or small,
Committers of crimes, committers of many beautiful virtues,
Enjoyers of calms of seas, and storms of seas,
Sailors of many a ship, walkers of many a mile of land,
Habitués of many distant countries, habitués of far-distant dwellings,
Trusters of men and women, observers of cities, solitary toilers,
Pausers and contemplators of tufts, blossoms, sh...Read more of this...
by
Whitman, Walt
...turn.
Gored on the Norman gonfalon
The Golden Dragon died:
We shall not wake with ballad strings
The good time of the smaller things,
We shall not see the holy kings
Ride down by Severn side.
Stiff, strange, and quaintly coloured
As the broidery of Bayeux
The England of that dawn remains,
And this of Alfred and the Danes
Seems like the tales a whole tribe feigns
Too English to be true.
Of a good king on an island
That ruled once on a time;
And as he walked by an apple tre...Read more of this...
by
Chesterton, G K
...ancient nature was all new and gay,
Light as the fashion that doth last enthrall,--
Ah mighty nature, when my heart was small,
Nor dream'd what fearful searchings underlay
The flowers and leafy ecstasy of May,
The breathing summer sloth, the scented fall:
Could I forget, then were the fight not hard,
Press'd in the mêlée of accursed things,
Having such help in love and such reward:
But that 'tis I who once--'tis this that stings--
Once dwelt within the gate that angels guard...Read more of this...
by
Bridges, Robert Seymour
...His intimate friends called him "Candle-ends,"
And his enemies "Toasted-cheese."
"His form in ungainly--his intellect small--"
(So the Bellman would often remark)
"But his courage is perfect! And that, after all,
Is the thing that one needs with a Snark."
He would joke with hy{ae}nas, returning their stare
With an impudent wag of the head:
And he once went a walk, paw-in-paw, with a bear,
"Just to keep up its spirits," he said.
He came as a Baker: but owned, when too ...Read more of this...
by
Carroll, Lewis
...d, Would surely be a tedious tale. In high and low, above, below, In great and small, in round and square, In tree and tower was Johnny seen, In bush and brake, in black and green, 'Twas Johnny, Johnny, every where. She's past the bridge that's in the dale, And now the thought torments her sore, Johnny perhaps his horse forsook, To hunt the moon that's...Read more of this...
by
Wordsworth, William
...fusedly bound in memory's ties,
Entangling, as they rush along,
The war-march with the funeral song?—
Small ground is now for boding fear;
Obscure, but safe, we rest us here.
My sire, in native virtue great,
Resigning lordship, lands, and state,
Not then to fortune more resigned
Than yonder oak might give the wind;
The graceful foliage storms may reeve,
'Fine noble stem they cannot grieve.
For me'—she stooped, ...Read more of this...
by
Scott, Sir Walter
...I keep on dying again.
Veins collapse, opening like the
Small fists of sleeping
Children.
Memory of old tombs,
Rotting flesh and worms do
Not convince me against
The challenge. The years
And cold defeat live deep in
Lines along my face.
They dull my eyes, yet
I keep on dying,
Because I love to live....Read more of this...
by
Angelou, Maya
...r charnel.--Others more
Humble, like falcons sate upon the fist
Of common men, and round their heads did soar,
"Or like small gnats & flies, as thick as mist
On evening marshes, thronged about the brow
Of lawyer, statesman, priest & theorist,
"And others like discoloured flakes of snow
On fairest bosoms & the sunniest hair
Fell, and were melted by the youthful glow
"Which they extinguished; for like tears, they were
A veil to those from whose faint lids they rained
In drops o...Read more of this...
by
Shelley, Percy Bysshe
...etter; for not one am I
Of those who think damnation better still:
I hardly know too if not quite alone am I
In this small hope of bettering future ill
By circumscribing, with some slight restriction,
The eternity of hell's hot jurisdiction.
XIV
I know this is unpopular; I know
'Tis blasphemous; I know one may be damned
For hoping no one else may ever be so;
I know my catechism; I know we're caromed
With the best doctrines till we quite o'erflow;
I know that all...Read more of this...
by
Byron, George (Lord)
...rceived the scene, and foretold the rest -
I too awaited the expected guest.
He, the young man carbuncular, arrives,
A small house agent's clerk, with one bold stare,
One of the low on whom assurance sits
As a silk hat on a Bradford millionaire.
The time is now propitious, as he guesses,
The meal is ended, she is bored and tired,
Endeavours to engage her in caresses
Which still are unreproved, if undesired.
Flushed and decided, he assaults at once;
Exploring hands encounter ...Read more of this...
by
Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)
...not help smiling at what it is I know.
Leaves and petals attend me. I am ready.
SECOND VOICE:
When I first saw it, the small red seep, I did not believe it.
I watched the men walk about me in the office. They were so flat!
There was something about them like cardboard, and now I had caught it,
That flat, flat, flatness from which ideas, destructions,
Bulldozers, guillotines, white chambers of shrieks proceed,
Endlessly proceed--and the cold angels, the abstractions.
I sat at...Read more of this...
by
Plath, Sylvia
...e glory of rays.
x x x
"Where is your gypsy boy, tall one,
That over black kerchief did weep,
Where is your small first child
What memory of him do you keep?"
"Mother's role is a sweet torture,
I was not worthy of it.
The gate dissolved into white heaven,
Magdalene took the kid.
"Each day for me is happy and jolly,
I got lost in a too-long spring,
Only arms pine away for a burden
Only his cries in my sleep ring.
"The heart will be restless and wear...Read more of this...
by
Akhmatova, Anna
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