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Famous Stop Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Plath, Sylvia
...es, to rules, to rules.

Is this the one for the annunciation?
My god, what a laugh!'

But it shimmers, it does not stop, and I think it wants me.
I would not mind if it were bones, or a pearl button.

I do not want much of a present, anyway, this year.
After all I am alive only by accident.

I would have killed myself gladly that time any possible way.
Now there are these veils, shimmering like curtains,

The diaphanous satins of a January window
Whit...Read more of this...



by Shakespeare, William
...se his mettle from his rider takes:
Proud of subjection, noble by the sway,
What rounds, what bounds, what course, what stop
he makes!'
And controversy hence a question takes,
Whether the horse by him became his deed,
Or he his manage by the well-doing steed.

'But quickly on this side the verdict went:
His real habitude gave life and grace
To appertainings and to ornament,
Accomplish'd in himself, not in his case:
All aids, themselves made fairer by their place,
Came for...Read more of this...

by Dickinson, Emily
...Because I could not stop for Death-- 
He kindly stopped for me-- 
The Carriage held but just Ourselves-- 
And Immortality. 

We slowly drove--He knew no haste 
And I had put away 
My labor and my leisure too, 
For His Civility-- 

We passed the School, where Children strove 
At Recess--in the Ring-- 
We passed the Fields of Gazing Grain-- 
We passed the Setting...Read more of this...

by Walker, Alice
...Live frugally
On surprise.
become a stranger
To need of pity
Or, if compassion be freely
Given out
Take only enough
Stop short of urge to plead
Then purge away the need.

Wish for nothing larger
Than your own small heart
Or greater than a star;
Tame wild disappointment
With caress unmoved and cold
Make of it a parka
For your soul.

Discover the reason why
So tiny human midget
Exists at all
So scared unwise
But expect nothing. Live frugally
On surprise....Read more of this...

by Keats, John
...l tree tops; and in less time
Than shoots the slanted hail-storm, down he dropt
Towards the ground; but rested not, nor stopt
One moment from his home: only the sward
He with his wand light touch'd, and heavenward
Swifter than sight was gone--even before
The teeming earth a sudden witness bore
Of his swift magic. Diving swans appear
Above the crystal circlings white and clear;
And catch the cheated eye in wild surprise,
How they can dive in sight and unseen rise--
So from...Read more of this...



by Shakur, Tupac
...cult to carry on.
If I had an ear to confide in,
I would cry among my treasured friend,
but who do you know that stops that long,
to help another carry on.
The world moves fast and it would rather pass by.
Then to stop and see what makes one cry,
so painful and sad.
And sometimes...
I Cry
and no one cares about why. ...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
..., each on its rounding course to the beach,
 enclosing
 the mossbonkers;
The net is drawn in by a windlass by those who stop ashore, 
Some of the fishermen lounge in their boats—others stand negligently ankle-deep in the
 water,
 pois’d on strong legs; 
The boats are partly drawn up—the water slaps against them; 
On the sand, in heaps and winrows, well out from the water, lie the green-back’d spotted
 mossbonkers. 

9
I see the despondent red man in the west, lingering ab...Read more of this...

by Frost, Robert
...ess men. You’ve got us so ashamed
Of being men we can’t look at a good fight
Between two boys and not feel bound to stop it.
Let the man freeze an ear or two, I say.—
He’s here. I leave him all to you. Go in
And save his life.— All right, come in, Meserve.
Sit down, sit down. How did you find the horses?”

“Fine, fine.”

“And ready for some more? My wife here
Says it won’t do. You’ve got to give it up.”

“Won’t you to please me? Ple...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...rth
 much? 
Have you practis’d so long to learn to read? 
Have you felt so proud to get at the meaning of poems? 

Stop this day and night with me, and you shall possess the origin of all poems;
You shall possess the good of the earth and sun—(there are millions of suns
 left;) 
You shall no longer take things at second or third hand, nor look through the
 eyes of the dead, nor feed on the spectres in books; 
You shall not look through my eyes either, nor take thing...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...ght hand and left hand, 
The picture alive, every part in its best light, 
The music falling in where it is wanted, and stopping where it is not wanted,
The cheerful voice of the public road—the gay fresh sentiment of the road. 

O highway I travel! O public road! do you say to me, Do not leave me? 
Do you say, Venture not? If you leave me, you are lost? 
Do you say, I am already prepared—I am well-beaten and undenied—adhere to me? 

O public road! I say back, I am not af...Read more of this...

by Hughes, Langston
...the wind done scattered.
 Snow has friz me,
 Sun has baked me,

Looks like between 'em they done
 Tried to make me

Stop laughin', stop lovin', stop livin'--
 But I don't care!
 I'm still here!...Read more of this...

by Sexton, Anne
...
And I who have,
each year of my life,
spoken to the tooth fairy,
believing in her,
even when I was her,
am helpless to stop your daisies from dying,
although your voice cries into the telephone:
Marry me! Marry me!
and my voice speaks onto these keys tonight:
The love is in dark trouble!
The love is starting to die,
right now--
we are in the process of it.
The empty process of it.

I see two deaths,
and the two men plod toward the mortuary of my heart,
and though I w...Read more of this...

by Masefield, John
...nd 
When my two seconds, Ed and Jimmy, 
Had sixty seconds help to gimme. 
But in the ninth, with pain and knocks 
I stopped: I couldn't fight nor box. 
Bill missed his swing, the light was tricky, 
But I went down, and stayed down, dicky. 
"Get up," cried Jim. I said, "I will." 
Then all the gang yelled, "Out him, bill. 
Out him." Bill rushed . . . and Clink, Clink, Clink. 
Time! And Jim's knee, and rum to drink. 
And round the ...Read more of this...

by Wordsworth, William
...nd Betty's most especial charge,  Was, "Johnny! Johnny! mind that you  Come home again, nor stop at all,  Come home again, whate'er befal,  My Johnny do, I pray you do."   To this did Johnny answer make,  Both with his head, and with his hand,  And proudly shook the bridle too,  And then! his words were not a few,  Which Betty well could und...Read more of this...

by Scott, Sir Walter
...Forgive, forgive, Fidelity!
     Perchance the maiden smiled to see
     Yon parting lingerer wave adieu,
     And stop and turn to wave anew;
     And, lovely ladies, ere your ire
     Condemn the heroine of my lyre,
     Show me the fair would scorn to spy
     And prize such conquest of her eve!
     VI.

     While yet he loitered on the spot,
     It seemed as Ellen marked him not;
     But when he turned him to the glade,
     One courteous parting sign s...Read more of this...

by Bukowski, Charles
...r handbag. I thought she was reaching for her handkerchief. She
came out with a long hatpin. Before I could stop her she had run this long hatpin through
her nose, sideways, just above the nostrils. I felt disgust and horror. She looked at me
and laughed, "Now do you think me pretty? What do you think now, man?" I pulled
the hatpin out and held my handkerchief over the bleeding. Several people, including the
bartender, had seen the act. The bartend...Read more of this...

by Carroll, Lewis
...me slow reluctant truth. 

Till, like a silent water-mill,
When summer suns have dried the rill,
She reached a full stop, and was still. 

Dead calm succeeded to the fuss,
As when the loaded omnibus
Has reached the railway terminus: 

When, for the tumult of the street,
Is heard the engine's stifled beat,
The velvet tread of porters' feet. 

With glance that ever sought the ground,
She moved her lips without a sound,
And every now and then she frowned. 

He ga...Read more of this...

by Byron, George (Lord)
...rray: 
And Michael rose ere he could get a word 
Of all his founder'd verses under way. 
And cried, 'For God's sake stop, my friend! 'twere best — 
Non Di, non homines —- you know the rest.' 

XCII 

A general bustle spread throughout the throng. 
Which seem'd to hold all verse in detestation; 
The angels had of course enough of song 
When upon service; and the generation 
Of ghosts had heard too much in life, not long 
Before, to profit by a new occasion; 
The mo...Read more of this...

by Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)
...ding
A little life with dried tubers.
Summer surprised us, coming over the Starnbergersee
With a shower of rain; we stopped in the colonnade,
And went on in sunlight, into the Hofgarten, 
And drank coffee, and talked for an hour.
Bin gar keine Russin, stamm' aus Litauen, echt deutsch.
And when we were children, staying at the archduke's,
My cousin's, he took me out on a sled,
And I was frightened. He said, Marie,
Marie, hold on tight. And down we went....Read more of this...

by Miller, Alice Duer
...The war of 1812 seems to me
About as just as a war could be.
How could we help but come to grips
With a nation that stopped and searched our ships,
And took off our seamen for no other reason
Except that they needed crews that season.
I can get angry still at the tale
Of their letting the Alabama sail,
And Palmerston being insolent
To Lincoln and Seward over the Trent.
All very long ago, you'll say,
But whenever I go up Boston-way,
I drive through Concord—that nec...Read more of this...

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