Famous Sought After Poems by Famous Poets

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

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The Trail Of Ninety-Eight

by Robert William Service
 Gold! We leapt from our benches. Gold! We sprang from our stools.
Gold! We wheeled in the furrow, fired with the faith of fools.
Fearless, unfound, unfitted, far from the night and the cold,
Heard we the clarion summons, followed the master-lure--Gold!

Men from the sands of the Sunland; men from the woods of the West;
Men from the farms and the cities, into...Read more of this...

In the sweet spring a grassy bank I sought,

by Omar Khayyam
In the sweet spring a grassy bank I sought,
And thither wine, and a fair Houri brought;
And, though the people called me graceless dog,
Gave not to Paradise another thought!...Read more of this...

Ave Maria Gratia Plena

by Oscar Wilde
 Was this His coming! I had hoped to see
A scene of wondrous glory, as was told
Of some great God who in a rain of gold
Broke open bars and fell on Danae:
Or a dread vision as when Semele
Sickening for love and unappeased desire
Prayed to see God's clear body, and the fire
Caught her brown limbs and slew her utterly:
With such glad...Read more of this...

One Being Brought From Africa To America

by Phillis Wheatley
 'TWAS mercy brought me from my Pagan land,
Taught my benighted soul to understand
That there's a God, that there's a Saviour too:
Once I redemption neither sought now knew,
Some view our sable race with scornful eye,
'Their colour is a diabolic die.'
Remember, Christians, *******, black as Cain,
May be refin'd, and join th' angelic train....Read more of this...

The Book of Urizen: Chapter II

by William Blake
 1. Earth was not: nor globes of attraction
The will of the Immortal expanded
Or contracted his all flexible senses.
Death was not, but eternal life sprung

2. The sound of a trumpet the heavens 
Awoke & vast clouds of blood roll'd
Round the dim rocks of Urizen, so nam'd
That solitary one in Immensity

3. Shrill the trumpet: & myriads of Eternity,
Muster around the bleak...Read more of this...

Best Society

by Philip Larkin
 When I was a child, I thought,
Casually, that solitude
Never needed to be sought.
Something everybody had,
Like nakedness, it lay at hand,
Not specially right or specially wrong,
A plentiful and obvious thing
Not at all hard to understand.

Then, after twenty, it became
At once more difficult to get
And more desired - though all the same
More undesirable; for what
You are alone has, to achieve
The rank...Read more of this...

The Man from Iron Bark

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 It was the man from Ironbark who struck the Sydney town, 
He wandered over street and park, he wandered up and down. 
He loitered here he loitered there, till he was like to drop, 
Until at last in sheer despair he sought a barber's shop. 
"Ere! shave my beard and whiskers off, I'll be a man of mark, 
I'll...Read more of this...

Psalm 34 part 1

by Isaac Watts
 God's care of the saints; or, Deliverance by prayer.

Lord, I will bless thee all my days,
Thy praise shall dwell upon my tongue
My soul shall glory in thy grace,
While saints rejoice to hear the song.

Come, magnify the Lord with me,
Come, let us all exalt his name;
I sought th' eternal God, and he
Has not exposed my hope to shame.

I told him...Read more of this...

Lovest Thou Me?

by William Cowper
 (John, xxi.16)

Hark my soul! it is the Lord;
'Tis Thy Saviour, hear His word;
Jesus speaks and speaks to thee,
"Say poor sinner, lovst thou me?

"I deliver'd thee when bound,
And when bleeding, heal'd thy wound;
Sought thee wandering, set thee right,
Turn'd thy darkness into light.

"Can a woman's tender care
Cease towards the child she bare?
Yes, she may forgetful be,
Yet will I remember thee.

"Mine is...Read more of this...

Gacela of Unforseen Love

by Federico García Lorca
 No one understood the perfume
of the dark magnolia of your womb.
Nobody knew that you tormented
a hummingbird of love between your teeth.

A thousand Persian little horses fell asleep
in the plaza with moon of your forehead,
while through four nights I embraced
your waist, enemy of the snow.

Between plaster and jasmins, your glance
was a pale branch of seeds.
I sought in my heart to...Read more of this...

Sonnet CXVIII

by Francesco Petrarch
SONNET CXVIII. Nom d' atra e tempestosa onda marina. HE IS LED BY LOVE TO REASON.  No wearied mariner to port e'er fledFrom the dark billow, when some tempest's nigh,As from tumultuous gloomy thoughts I fly—Thoughts by the force of goading passion bred:Nor wrathful glance of heaven so surely spedDestruction...Read more of this...

Psalm 78 part 3

by Isaac Watts
 The punishment of luxury and intemperance.

When Isr'el sins, the Lord reproves
And fills their hearts with dread;
Yet he forgives the men he loves,
And sends them heav'nly bread.

He fed them with a lib'ral hand,
And made his treasures known;
He gave the midnight clouds command
To pour provision down.

The manna, like a morning shower,
Lay thick around their feet
The corn of heav'n, so light, so...Read more of this...

Athanasia

by Oscar Wilde
 To that gaunt House of Art which lacks for naught
Of all the great things men have saved from Time,
The withered body of a girl was brought
Dead ere the world's glad youth had touched its prime,
And seen by lonely Arabs lying hid
In the dim womb of some black pyramid.

But when they had unloosed the linen band
Which swathed the Egyptian's body,...Read more of this...

Henry James in the Heart of the City

by Erica Jong
 We have a small sculpture of Henry James on our terrace in New York City.

Nothing would surprise him.
The beast in the jungle was what he saw--
Edith Wharton's obfuscating older brother. . .

He fled the demons
of Manhattan
for fear they would devour
his inner ones
(the ones who wrote the books)
& silence the stifled screams
of his protagonists.

To Europe
like a wandering Jew--
WASP that he...Read more of this...

Oh Think Not I Am Faithful

by Edna St. Vincent Millay
 III

OH, THINK not I am faithful to a vow!
Faithless am I save to love's self alone.
Were you not lovely I would leave you now:
After the feet of beauty fly my own. 
Were you not still my hunger's rarest food,
And water ever to my wildest thirst,
I would desert you­think not but I would!­
And seek another as I sought you first....Read more of this...

Canzone XVII

by Francesco Petrarch
CANZONE XVII. Di pensier in pensier, di monte in monte. DISTANCE AND SOLITUDE.  From hill to hill I roam, from thought to thought,With Love my guide; the beaten path I fly,For there in vain the tranquil life is sought:If 'mid the waste well forth a lonely rill,Or deep embosom'd a low...Read more of this...

My Lady

by Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz
My Lady (Español)

    Perdite, señora, quiero
de mi silencio perdón,
si lo que ha sido atención
le hace parecer grosero.

    Y no me podrás culpar
si hasta aquí mi proceder,
por ocuparse en querer,
se ha olvidado de explicar.

    Que en mi amorosa pasión
no fue desuido, ni mengua,
quitar el uso a la lengua
por dárselo al corazón.

 ...Read more of this...

The Landing Of The Pilgrim Fathers

by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
 The breaking waves dashed high
On a stern and rock-bound coast,
And the woods, against a stormy sky,
Their giant branches tost;

And the heavy night hung dark
The hills and water o'er,
When a band of exiles moored their bark
On the wild New England shore.

Not as the conqueror comes,
They, the true-hearted, came;
Not with the roll of the stirring drums,
And the trumpet that sings of...Read more of this...

Russian Sonia

by Edgar Lee Masters
 I, born in Weimar
Of a mother who was French
And German father, a most learned professor,
Orphaned at fourteen years,
Became a dancer, known as Russian Sonia,
All up and down the boulevards of Paris,
Mistress betimes of sundry dukes and counts,
And later of poor artists and of poets.
At forty years, passée, I sought New York
And met old Patrick Hummer on the boat,
Red-faced and...Read more of this...

While in love's book I sought an augury;

by Omar Khayyam
While in love's book I sought an augury;
An ardent youth cried out in ecstasy,
«Who owns a sweetheart beauteous as the moon,
Might wish his moments long as years to be!»...Read more of this...

The Tuft of Flowers

by Robert Frost
 I went to turn the grass once after one
Who mowed it in the dew before the sun.
The dew was gone that made his blade so keen
Before I came to view the leveled scene.
I looked for him behind an isle of trees;
I listened for his whetstone on the breeze.
But he had gone his way, the grass all mown,
And I must...Read more of this...

Ere Sleep Comes Down To Soothe The Weary Eyes

by Paul Laurence Dunbar
Ere sleep comes down to soothe the weary eyes,Which all the day with ceaseless care have sought
The magic gold which from the seeker flies;
Ere dreams put on the gown and cap of thought,
And make the waking world a world of lies,—
Of lies most palpable, uncouth, forlorn,
That say life's full of aches and tears and sighs,—
Oh, how with more than dreams...Read more of this...

The Fire At Tranter Sweatleys

by Thomas Hardy
 They had long met o' Zundays--her true love and she-- 
 And at junketings, maypoles, and flings; 
But she bode wi' a thirtover uncle, and he 
Swore by noon and by night that her goodman should be 
Naibor Sweatley--a gaffer oft weak at the knee 
From taking o' sommat more cheerful than tea-- 
 Who tranted, and moved people's...Read more of this...

When Ida Puts Her Armor On

by Ellis Parker Butler
 The Cowboy had a sterling heart,
The Maiden was from Boston,
The Rancher saw his wealth depart—
The Steers were what he lost on.

The Villain was a banker’s limb,
His spats and cane were nifty;
The Maiden needs must marry him—
Her father was not thrifty.

The Sheepmen were as foul as pitch,
The Cowboy was a hero,
The gold mine made the hero rich,
The Villain’s score was...Read more of this...

Voices Of the Night

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
 PRELUDE.

Pleasant it was, when woods were green,
And winds were soft and low,
To lie amid some sylvan scene,
Where, the long drooping boughs between
Shadows dark and sunlight sheen
Alternate come and go;

Or where the denser grove receives
No sunlight from above
But the dark foliage interweaves
In one unbroken roof of leaves,
Underneath whose sloping eaves
The shadows hardly move.

Beneath some patriarchal tree
I lay upon the ground;
His...Read more of this...

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