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Famous Sole Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Aiken, Conrad
...ter crammed and creviced, crannied full,
storied and stored as the ripe honeycomb
with other faith than this. As of sole pride
and holy loneliness, the intrinsic face
worn by the always changing shape between
end and beginning, birth and death.
How moves that line of daring on the map?
Where was it yesterday, or where this morning
when thunder struck at seven, and in the bay
the meteor made its dive, and shed its wings,
and with them one more Icarus? Where struck
that...Read more of this...



by Yeats, William Butler
...p I could not tell
Whether of her or God he thought the most,
But think that his mind's eye,
When upward turned, on one sole image fell;
And that a slight companionable ghost,
Wild with divinity,
Had so lit up the whole
Immense miraculous house
The Bible promised us,
It seemed a gold-fish swimming in a bowl.

On Florence Emery I call the next,
Who finding the first wrinkles on a face
Admired and beautiful,
And knowing that the future would be vexed
With 'minished beauty, ...Read more of this...

by Pope, Alexander
...y himself abus'd, or disabus'd; 
Created half to rise, and half to fall; 
Great lord of all things, yet a prey to all; 
Sole judge of Truth, in endless Error hurl'd: 
The glory, jest, and riddle of the world!



ENDNOTES: 

1[His friend, Henry St. John, Lord Bolingbroke] 
2[to wander] 
3[hidden areas] 
4[explain or defend] 
5[silvery fields, i.e., the heavens] 
6[the planet Jupiter] 
7[ancient Egyptians sometimes worshipped oxen] 
8[the highest level of angels] 
9...Read more of this...

by Hugo, Victor
...o perch upon the swivel-gun, nor heed 
 Its murmuring growl when pecking in their greed 
 The mulberries ripe. With insolence the thorn 
 Thrives on the desolation so forlorn. 
 But winter brings revenges; then the Keep 
 Wakes all vindictive from its seeming sleep, 
 Hurls down the heavy rain, night after night, 
 Thanking the season's all-resistless might; 
 And, when the gutters choke, its gargoyles four 
 From granite mouths in anger spit and pour 
 Upon the hat...Read more of this...

by Thoreau, Henry David
...I think awhile of Love, and while I think, 
Love is to me a world, 
Sole meat and sweetest drink, 
And close connecting link 
Tween heaven and earth. 
I only know it is, not how or why, 
My greatest happiness; 
However hard I try, 
Not if I were to die, 
Can I explain. 

I fain would ask my friend how it can be, 
But when the time arrives, 
Then Love is more lovely 
Than anything to me, 
And so I'm dumb. 

For if...Read more of this...



by Coleridge, Samuel Taylor
...
Lies on my low-burnt fire, and quivers not;
Only that film, which fluttered on the grate,
Still flutters there, the sole unquiet thing.
Methinks, its motion in this hush of nature
Gives it dim sympathies with me who live,
Making it a companionable form,
Whose puny flaps and freaks the idling Spirit
By its own moods interprets, every where
Echo or mirror seeking of itself,
And makes a toy of Thought.

But O! how oft,
How oft, at school, with most believin...Read more of this...

by Keats, John
...rilous seas, in faery lands forlorn. 70 

Forlorn! the very word is like a bell 
To toll me back from thee to my sole self! 
Adieu! the fancy cannot cheat so well 
As she is famed to do, deceiving elf. 
Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades 75 
Past the near meadows, over the still stream, 
Up the hill-side; and now 'tis buried deep 
In the next valley-glades: 
Was it a vision, or a waking dream? 
Fled is that music:¡ªdo I wake or sleep? 80 ...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...
To wage by force or guile eternal war, 
Irreconcilable to our grand Foe, 
Who now triumphs, and in th' excess of joy 
Sole reigning holds the tyranny of Heaven." 
 So spake th' apostate Angel, though in pain, 
Vaunting aloud, but racked with deep despair; 
And him thus answered soon his bold compeer:-- 
 "O Prince, O Chief of many throned Powers 
That led th' embattled Seraphim to war 
Under thy conduct, and, in dreadful deeds 
Fearless, endangered Heaven's perpetual Ki...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...le curb, reserved 
His captive multitude. For he, to be sure, 
In height or depth, still first and last will reign 
Sole king, and of his kingdom lose no part 
By our revolt, but over Hell extend 
His empire, and with iron sceptre rule 
Us here, as with his golden those in Heaven. 
What sit we then projecting peace and war? 
War hath determined us and foiled with loss 
Irreparable; terms of peace yet none 
Vouchsafed or sought; for what peace will be given 
To us ensl...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...tower: 
Then, much revolving, thus in sighs began. 
O thou, that, with surpassing glory crowned, 
Lookest from thy sole dominion like the God 
Of this new world; at whose sight all the stars 
Hide their diminished heads; to thee I call, 
But with no friendly voice, and add thy name, 
Of Sun! to tell thee how I hate thy beams, 
That bring to my remembrance from what state 
I fell, how glorious once above thy sphere; 
Till pride and worse ambition threw me down 
Warring in...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...ng liquid sweet. 
Such whispering waked her, but with startled eye 
On Adam, whom embracing, thus she spake. 
O sole in whom my thoughts find all repose, 
My glory, my perfection! glad I see 
Thy face, and morn returned; for I this night 
(Such night till this I never passed) have dreamed, 
If dreamed, not, as I oft am wont, of thee, 
Works of day past, or morrow's next design, 
But of offence and trouble, which my mind 
Knew never till this irksome night: Methought, ...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...soon 
Follow, as to him linked in weal or woe; 
In woe then; that destruction wide may range: 
To me shall be the glory sole among 
The infernal Powers, in one day to have marred 
What he, Almighty styled, six nights and days 
Continued making; and who knows how long 
Before had been contriving? though perhaps 
Not longer than since I, in one night, freed 
From servitude inglorious well nigh half 
The angelick name, and thinner left the throng 
Of his adorers: He, to be aveng...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...dise descend; 
There dwell, and reign in bliss; thence on the earth 
Dominion exercise and in the air, 
Chiefly on Man, sole lord of all declared; 
Him first make sure your thrall, and lastly kill. 
My substitutes I send ye, and create 
Plenipotent on earth, of matchless might 
Issuing from me: on your joint vigour now 
My hold of this new kingdom all depends, 
Through Sin to Death exposed by my exploit. 
If your joint power prevail, the affairs of Hell 
No detriment ...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...ds,
The breath of Heav'n fresh-blowing, pure and sweet, 
With day-spring born; here leave me to respire.
This day a solemn Feast the people hold
To Dagon thir Sea-Idol, and forbid
Laborious works, unwillingly this rest
Thir Superstition yields me; hence with leave
Retiring from the popular noise, I seek
This unfrequented place to find some ease,
Ease to the body some, none to the mind
From restless thoughts, that like a deadly swarm
Of Hornets arm'd, no sooner found alone...Read more of this...

by Lanier, Sidney
...e from the penal pressure of the laws)
I find it fair.

"The tears I weep by day and bitter night,
Opinion! for thy sole salt vintage fall.
-- As morn by morn I rise with fresh delight,
Time through my casement cheerily doth call
`Nature is new, 'tis birthday every day,
Come feast with me, let no man say me nay,
Whate'er befall.'

"So fare I forth to feast: I sit beside
Some brother bright: but, ere good-morrow's passed,
Burly Opinion wedging in hath cried
`Thou s...Read more of this...

by Byron, George (Lord)
...d Night's descending shadows hide 
That field with blood bedew'd in vain, 
The desert of old Priam's pride; 
The tombs, sole relics of his reign, 
All — save immortal dreams that could beguile 
The blind old man of Scio's rocky isle! 

III. 

Oh! yet — for there my steps have been! 
These feet have press'd the sacred shore, 
These limbs that buoyant wave hath borne — 
Minstrel! with thee to muse, to mourn, 
To trace again those fields of yore, 
Believing every hillock gre...Read more of this...

by Wordsworth, William
...BR>  Dwells in the hall of Ivor;  Men, dogs, and horses, all are dead;  He is the sole survivor.   His hunting feats have him bereft  Of his right eye, as you may see:  And then, what limbs those feats have left  To poor old Simon Lee!  He has no son, he has no child,  His wife, an aged woman,  Lives with him, near the waterfall,&n...Read more of this...

by Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...gallery made his horse 
Caracole; then bowed his homage, bluntly saying, 
`Fair damsels, each to him who worships each 
Sole Queen of Beauty and of love, behold 
This day my Queen of Beauty is not here.' 
And most of these were mute, some angered, one 
Murmuring, `All courtesy is dead,' and one, 
`The glory of our Round Table is no more.' 

Then fell thick rain, plume droopt and mantle clung, 
And pettish cries awoke, and the wan day 
Went glooming down in wet and wea...Read more of this...

by Thomson, James
..., and sad; with all his rising Train,
Vapours, and Clouds, and Storms: Be these my Theme,
These, that exalt the Soul to solemn Thought,
And heavenly musing. Welcome kindred Glooms! 
Wish'd, wint'ry, Horrors, hail! -- With frequent Foot,
Pleas'd, have I, in my cheerful Morn of Life,
When, nurs'd by careless Solitude, I liv'd,
And sung of Nature with unceasing Joy,
Pleas'd, have I wander'd thro' your rough Domains; 
Trod the pure, virgin, Snows, my self as pure:
Heard the W...Read more of this...

by Byron, George (Lord)
...revel: 
Though he himself had sharpen'd every sword, 
It almost quench'd his innate thirst of evil. 
(Here Satan's sole good work deserves insertion — 
'Tis, that he has both generals in reveration.) 

VII

Let's skip a few short years of hollow peace, 
Which peopled earth no better, hell as wont, 
And heaven none — they form the tyrant's lease, 
With nothing but new names subscribed upon't; 
'Twill one day finish: meantime they increase, 
'With seven heads and ten h...Read more of this...

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