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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Cantico del Sole

by Ezra Pound
 The thought of what America would be like
If the Classics had a wide circulation
 Troubles my sleep,
The thought of what America,
The thought of what America,The thought of what America would be like
If the Classics had a wide circulation
 Troubles my sleep.
Nunc dimittis, now lettest thou thy servant,
Now lettest thou thy servant
 Depart in peace.
The thought of what America,
The thought...Read more of this...

Sonnet XXXI

by Francesco Petrarch
SONNET XXXI. Ov' è la fronte che con picciol cenno. HE ENUMERATES AND EULOGISES THE GRACES OF LAURA.  Where is the brow whose gentlest beckonings ledMy raptured heart at will, now here, now there?Where the twin stars, lights of this lower sphere,Which o'er my darkling path their radiance shed?Where is true...Read more of this...

All things swept sole away

by Emily Dickinson
 All things swept sole away
This -- is immensity --...Read more of this...

A Hymn to the Name and Honour of the Admirable Saint Teresa

by Richard Crashaw
 LOVE, thou are absolute, sole Lord
Of life and death. To prove the word,
We'll now appeal to none of all
Those thy old soldiers, great and tall,
Ripe men of martyrdom, that could reach down
With strong arms their triumphant crown:
Such as could with lusty breath
Speak loud, unto the face of death,
Their great Lord's glorious name; to none
Of those whose spacious bosoms spread...Read more of this...

Whoever You are Holding Me now in Hand

by Walt Whitman
 WHOEVER you are, holding me now in hand, 
Without one thing, all will be useless, 
I give you fair warning, before you attempt me further, 
I am not what you supposed, but far different. 

Who is he that would become my follower?
Who would sign himself a candidate for my affections? 

The way is suspicious—the result uncertain, perhaps destructive; 
You...Read more of this...

There Is a Young Lady of the Station

by Lewis Carroll
There was a young lady of station,
"I love man!" was her sole exclamation;
But when men cried, "You flatter!"
She replied, "Oh, no matter!
Isle of Man, is the true explanation."...Read more of this...

Keeping Going

by Seamus Heaney
 The piper coming from far away is you
With a whitewash brush for a sporran
Wobbling round you, a kitchen chair
Upside down on your shoulder, your right arm
Pretending to tuck the bag beneath your elbow,
Your pop-eyes and big cheeks nearly bursting
With laughter, but keeping the drone going on
Interminably, between catches of breath.

*

The whitewash brush. An old blanched skirted thing
On the back...Read more of this...

Mulga Bills Bicycle

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 'Twas Mulga Bill, from Eaglehawk, that caught the cycling craze; 
He turned away the good old horse that served him many days; 
He dressed himself in cycling clothes, resplendent to be seen; 
He hurried off to town and bought a shining new machine; 
And as he wheeled it through the door, with air of lordly pride, 
The grinning shop...Read more of this...

Sonnet CLII

by Francesco Petrarch
SONNET CLII. Questa Fenice dell' aurata piuma. HE COMPARES HER TO THE PHŒNIX.  This wondrous Phœnix with the golden plumesForms without art so rare a ring to deckThat beautiful and soft and snowy neck,That every heart it melts, and mine consumes:Forms, too, a natural diadem which lightsThe air around, whence...Read more of this...

Sonnet 36: Let me confess that we two must be twain

by William Shakespeare
 Let me confess that we two must be twain,
Although our undivided loves are one;
So shall those blots that do with me remain,
Without thy help, by me be borne alone.
In our two loves there is but one respect,
Though in our lives a separable spite,
Which, though it alter not love's sole effect,
Yet doth it steal sweet hours from love's delight.
I may...Read more of this...

By Rugged Ways

by Paul Laurence Dunbar
By rugged ways and thro' the night
We struggle blindly toward the light;
And groping, stumbling, ever pray
For sight of long delaying day.
The cruel thorns beside the road
Stretch eager points our steps to goad,
And from the thickets all about
Detaining hands reach threatening out.
"Deliver us, oh, Lord," we cry,
Our hands uplifted to the sky.
No answer save the thunder's peal,
And onward, onward, still we...Read more of this...

Poem To Be Placed In A Bottle And Cast Out To Sea

by Barry Tebb
 for Ken Kesey and his merry pranksters in a bus called ‘Further...’





Dear _______ and here’s where the problem begins

For who shall I address this letter to?

Friends are few and very special, muses in the main

I must confess, the first I lost just fifty years ago.

Perhaps the best.



I searched for years and wrote en route

‘Bridge Over the Aire’ after that...Read more of this...

The Record

by Robert William Service
 Fearing that she might go one day
With some fine fellow of her choice,
I called her from her childish play,
And made a record of her voice.
And now that she is truly gone,
I hear it sweet and crystal clear
From out my wheezy gramophone:
 "I love you, Daddy dear."

Indeed it's true she went away,
But Oh she went all, all alone;
Into the dark...Read more of this...

To a Lock of Hair

by Sir Walter Scott
 Thy hue, dear pledge, is pure and bright
As in that well - remember'd night
When first thy mystic braid was wove,
And first my Agnes whisper'd love.

Since then how often hast thou prest
The torrid zone of this wild breast,
Whose wrath and hate have sworn to dwell
With the first sin that peopled hell;
A breast whose blood's a troubled ocean,
Each throb the earthquake's...Read more of this...

Recollection of the Arabian Nights

by Alfred Lord Tennyson
 WHEN the breeze of a joyful dawn blew free 
In the silken sail of infancy, 
The tide of time flow'd back with me, 
The forward-flowing tide of time; 
And many a sheeny summer-morn, 
Adown the Tigris I was borne, 
By Bagdat's shrines of fretted gold, 
High-walled gardens green and old; 
True Mussulman was I and sworn, 
For it was...Read more of this...

Mummys Curse

by Charles Simic
 Befriending an eccentric young woman
The sole resident of a secluded Victorian mansion.
She takes long walks in the evening rain,
And so do I, with my hair full of dead leaves.

In her former life, she was an opera singer.
She remembers the rich Neapolitan pastries,
Points to a bit of fresh whipped cream
Still left in the corner of her lower lip,
Tells me she...Read more of this...

The Mocking-Bird

by Sidney Lanier
 Superb and sole, upon a plumed spray
That o'er the general leafage boldly grew,
He summ'd the woods in song; or typic drew
The watch of hungry hawks, the lone dismay
Of languid doves when long their lovers stray,
And all birds' passion-plays that sprinkle dew
At morn in brake or bosky avenue.
Whate'er birds did or dreamed, this bird could say.
Then down he shot, bounced...Read more of this...

Leaves From Australian Forests - Dedication

by Henry Kendall
To her who, cast with me in trying days, 
Stood in the place of health and power and praise;- 
Who, when I thought all light was out, became 
A lamp of hope that put my fears to shame;- 
Who faced for love's sole sake the life austere 
That waits upon the man of letters here;- 
Who, unawares, her deep affection...Read more of this...

Parnells Funeral

by William Butler Yeats
 I

Under the Great Comedian's tomb the crowd.
A bundle of tempestuous cloud is blown
About the sky; where that is clear of cloud
Brightness remains; a brighter star shoots down;
What shudders run through all that animal blood?
What is this sacrifice? Can someone there
Recall the Cretan barb that pierced a star?

Rich foliage that the starlight glittered through,
A frenzied crowd, and where the branches...Read more of this...

Inspiration

by Henry David Thoreau
 Whate'er we leave to God, God does, 
And blesses us; 
The work we choose should be our own, 
God leaves alone. 
If with light head erect I sing, 
Though all the Muses lend their force, 
From my poor love of anything, 
The verse is weak and shallow as its source. 

But if with bended neck I grope 
Listening behind...Read more of this...

Sonnet XV

by Francesco Petrarch
SONNET XV. Piovonmi amare lagrime dal viso. HIS STATE WHEN LAURA IS PRESENT, AND WHEN SHE DEPARTS.  Down my cheeks bitter tears incessant rain,And my heart struggles with convulsive sighs,When, Laura, upon you I turn my eyes,For whom the world's allurements I disdain,But when I see that gentle smile again,That...Read more of this...

Who dares to take this life from me Knows no better

by T Wignesan
for Eric Mottram

"Nur wenn das Herz erschlossen,

Dann ist die Erde schön."

Goethe.

I

An important thing in living
Is to know when to go;
He who does not know this
Has not far to go,
Though death may come and go
When you do not know.


Come, give me your hand,
Together shoulder and cheek to shoulder
We'll go, sour kana in cheeks
And in the mornings cherry sticks
To gum: the infectious...Read more of this...

To the Grasshopper and the Cricket

by James Henry Leigh Hunt
 Green little vaulter in the sunny grass, 
Catching your heart up at the feel of June, 
Sole voice that's heard amidst the lazy noon, 
When even the bees lag at the summoning brass; 
And you, warm little housekeeper, who class 
With those who think the candles come too soon, 
Loving the fire, and with your tricksome tune 
Nick the...Read more of this...

Another Awkward Stage Of Convalescence

by Bob Hicok
 Drunk, I kissed the moon
where it stretched on the floor.
I'd removed happiness from a green bottle,
both sipped and gulped
just as a river changes its mind,
mostly there was a flood in my mouth

because I wanted to love the toaster
as soon as possible, and the toothbrush
with multi-level brissels
created by dental science, and the walls
holding pictures in front of their faces
to veil...Read more of this...

An Ancient To Ancients

by Thomas Hardy
 Where once we danced, where once we sang, 
Gentlemen, 
The floors are sunken, cobwebs hang, 
And cracks creep; worms have fed upon 
The doors. Yea, sprightlier times were then 
Than now, with harps and tabrets gone, 
Gentlemen! 

Where once we rowed, where once we sailed, 
Gentlemen, 
And damsels took the tiller, veiled 
Against too strong a stare (God wot...Read more of this...

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