Famous Specimen Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Specimen poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous specimen poems. These examples illustrate what a famous specimen poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
See also:
by
Bowers, Edgar
...s mules pulled our station wagon
Out of the gluey mire, earth’s rust. Then, here
And there, back from the road, the specimen
Shrubs and small trees my father planted, some
Taller than we were, some in bloom, some berried,
And some we still brought water to. We always
Paused at the weed-filled hole beside the beech
That, one year, brought forth beech nuts by the thousands,
A hole still reminiscent of the man
Chewing tobacco in among his whiskers
My father happened on, ...Read more of this...
by
Poe, Edgar Allan
...which those butterflies
Of Earth, who seek the skies,
And so come down again,
(Never-contented things!)
Have brought a specimen
Upon their quivering wings....Read more of this...
by
Lawrence, D. H.
...table, eminently presentable--
shall I make you a present of him?
Isn't he handsome? Isn't he healthy? Isn't he a fine specimen?
Doesn't he look the fresh clean Englishman, outside?
Isn't it God's own image? tramping his thirty miles a day
after partridges, or a little rubber ball?
wouldn't you like to be like that, well off, and quite the
thing
Oh, but wait!
Let him meet a new emotion, let him be faced with another
man's need,
let him come home to a bit of moral difficul...Read more of this...
by
Butler, Ellis Parker
...’ve met with in my born days—
Funniest talker, anyways,
When it comes to repartee—
That’s the humor catches me!
Like a specimen? Huh! Well,
Take, for instance, his umbrell;
Wouldn’t think, until he spoke,
He could turn that to a joke;
Mark Twain couldn’t, bet you that!
That’s where Meeker beats Mark flat!
Just imagine three or four
Fellers in Jim Beemer’s store—
‘Long comes Meeker, and some feller
Says, “See Meeker’s bum umbreller.”
Quick as lightning Meeker ‘d yell:
“D...Read more of this...
by
Frost, Robert
...ags" in San Francisco.
Ob, it was terrible as well could be.
We both of us turned over in our graves.
Just specimens is all New Hampshire has,
One each of everything as in a showcase,
Which naturally she doesn't care to sell.
She had one President. (Pronounce him Purse,
And make the most of it for better or worse.
He's your one chance to score against the state.)
She had one Daniel Webster. He was all
The Daniel Webster ever was or shall be.<...Read more of this...
by
von Goethe, Johann Wolfgang
...RHYMED DISTICHS.
[The Distichs, of which these are given as a
specimen, are about forty in number.]
WHO trusts in God,
Fears not His rod.
THIS truth may be by all believed:
Whom God deceives, is well deceived.
HOW? when? and where?--No answer comes from high;
Thou wait'st for the Because, and yet thou ask'st not Why?
IF the whole is ever to gladden thee,
That whole in the smallest thing thou must see.Read more of this...
by
Service, Robert William
...r my catalogues I pore and pore;
I recognize rare items with delight,
Nothing I read but philatelic lore;
And when some specimen of choice I buy,
In all the world there's none more glad than I.
Behold my gem, my British penny black;
To pay its price I starved myself a year;
And many a night my dinner I would lack,
But when I bought it, oh, what radiant cheer!
Hitler made war that day - I did not care,
So long as my collection he would spare.
Look - my triangular Cap...Read more of this...
by
von Goethe, Johann Wolfgang
...ly numerous, but scarcely any of them could be translated
into English. Those here given are merely presented as a specimen.
GOD gave to mortals birth,
In his own image too;
Then came Himself to earth,
A mortal kind and true.
1821.*
BARBARIANS oft endeavour
Gods for themselves to make
But they're more hideous ever
Than dragon or than snake.
1821.*
WHAT shall I teach thee, the very first thing?--
Fain would I learn o'er my shadow to spring!
...Read more of this...
by
Lowell, Amy
...there was nothing
like grog."
It seems they sing,
Even though coppering is not an easy thing.
What a splendid specimen of humanity is a true British workman,
Say the people of the Three Towns,
As they walk about the dockyard
To the sound of the evening church-bells.
And so artistic, too, each one tells his neighbour.
What immense taste and labour!
Miss Jessie Prime, in a pink silk bonnet,
Titters with delight as her eyes fall upon it,
When she steps lightly ...Read more of this...
by
Byron, George (Lord)
...therwise he will get himself into new dilemmas. These apostate jacobins furnish rich rejoinders. Let him take a specimen. Mr. Southey laudeth grievously 'one Mr. Landor,' who cultivates much prevate renown in the shape of Latin verses; and not long ago, the poet laureate dedicated to him, it appeareth, one of his fugitive lyrics, upon the strength of a poem called 'Gebir.' Who could suppose, that in this same Gebir the aforesaid Savage Landor (for such...Read more of this...
Dont forget to view our wonderful member Specimen poems.