Famous Subjects Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Subjects poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous subjects poems. These examples illustrate what a famous subjects poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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...Shews all was done; I'll therefore let it go.
184 But now I come to speak of my disaster.
185 Contention's grown 'twixt Subjects and their Master,
186 They worded it so long they fell to blows,
187 That thousands lay on heaps. Here bleeds my woes.
188 I that no wars so many years have known
189 Am now destroy'd and slaughter'd by mine own.
190 But could the field alone this strife decide,
191 One battle, two, or three I might abide,
192 But these may be beginnings of more woe...Read more of this...
by
Bradstreet, Anne
...which you aspire,
By docking the tails of the two prepositions
I' the style o' the bards you so greatly admire.
As for subjects of verse, they are only too plenty
For ringing the changes on metrical chimes;
A maiden, a moonbeam, a lover of twenty
Have filled that great basket with bushels of rhymes.
Let me show you a picture--'t is far from irrelevant--
By a famous old hand in the arts of design;
'T is only a photographed sketch of an elephant,--
The name of the draughtsma...Read more of this...
by
Holmes, Oliver Wendell
...eople on the street look up at us
All envious. We are a king and queen,
Our royal carriage is a motor bus,
We watch our subjects with a haughty joy. . . .
How still you are! Have you been hard at work
And are you tired to-night? It is so long
Since I have seen you -- four whole days, I think.
My heart is crowded full of foolish thoughts
Like early flowers in an April meadow,
And I must give them to you, all of them,
Before they fade. The people I have met,
The play I saw, the...Read more of this...
by
Teasdale, Sara
...ss I contemn;
But manly force becomes the diadem.
'Tis true, he grants the people all they crave;
And more perhaps than subjects ought to have:
For lavish grants suppose a monarch tame,
And more his goodness than his wit proclaim.
But when should people strive their bonds to break,
If not when kings are negligent or weak?
Let him give on till he can give no more,
The thrifty Sanhedrin shall keep him poor:
And every shekel which he can receive,
Shall cost a limb of his preroga...Read more of this...
by
Dryden, John
...le;
A vile Conceit in pompous Words exprest,
Is like a Clown in regal Purple drest;
For diff'rent Styles with diff'rent Subjects sort,
As several Garbs with Country, Town, and Court.
Some by Old Words to Fame have made Pretence;
Ancients in Phrase, meer Moderns in their Sense!
Such labour'd Nothings, in so strange a Style,
Amaze th'unlearn'd, and make the Learned Smile.
Unlucky, as Fungoso in the Play,
These Sparks with aukward Vanity display
What the Fine Gentleman wore Yest...Read more of this...
by
Pope, Alexander
...s sung?
Or the attraction of gravity, and the great laws and harmonious combinations, and the
fluids of
the
air, as subjects for the savans?
Or the brown land and the blue sea for maps and charts?
Or the stars to be put in constellations and named fancy names?
Or that the growth of seeds is for agricultural tables, or agriculture itself?
Old institutions—these arts, libraries, legends, collections, and the practice handed
along in
manufactures—will we rate them so h...Read more of this...
by
Whitman, Walt
...nd that you yourselves from this province
Be transported to other lands. God grant you may dwell there
Ever as faithful subjects, a happy and peaceable people!
Prisoners now I declare you; for such is his Majesty's pleasure!"
As, when the air is serene in the sultry solstice of summer,
Suddenly gathers a storm, and the deadly sling of the hailstones
Beats down the farmer's corn in the field and shatters his windows,
Hiding the sun, and strewing the ground with thatch from the...Read more of this...
by
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
...t,
And will have won, if he no more have lost;
They fight by others, but in person wrong,
And only are against their subjects strong;
Their other wars seem but a feigned cont?st,
This common enemy is still oppressed;
If conquerors, on them they turn their might;
If conquered, on them they wreak their spite:
They neither build the temple in their days,
Nor matter for succeeding founders raise;
Nor sacred prophecies consult within,
Much less themself to p?fect them b...Read more of this...
by
Marvell, Andrew
...ems to me
A thousand-fold more great and wonderful
Than if some knight of mine, risking his life,
My subject with my subjects under him,
Should make an onslaught single on a realm
Of robbers, though he slew them one by one,
And were himself nigh wounded to the death.'
So spake the King; low bowed the Prince, and felt
His work was neither great nor wonderful,
And past to Enid's tent; and thither came
The King's own leech to look into his hurt;
And Enid tended on hi...Read more of this...
by
Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...ective is extinct --
Prospective is the friend
Reserved for us to know
When Constancy is clarified
Of Curiosity --
Of subjects that resist
Redoubtablest is this
Where go we --
Go we anywhere
Creation after this?...Read more of this...
by
Dickinson, Emily
...she?
2.40 Her self Minerva caus'd them so to be.
2.41 Such Soldiers, and such Captains never seen,
2.42 As were the subjects of our (Pallas) Queen:
2.43 Her Sea-men through all straits the world did round,
2.44 Terra incognitæ might know her sound.
2.45 Her Drake came laded home with Spanish gold,
2.46 Her Essex took Cadiz, their Herculean hold.
2.47 But time would fail me, so my wit would too,
2.48 To tell of half she did, or she could do.
2.49 Semiramis to her is...Read more of this...
by
Bradstreet, Anne
...rd Of the die;
The wounded Charles was taught to fly
By day and night through field and flood,
Stained with his own and subjects' blood;
For thousands fell that flight to aid:
And not a voice was heard to upbraid
Ambition in his humbled hour,
When truth had nought to dread from power,
His horse was slain, and Gieta gave
His own - and died the Russians’ slave.
This too sinks after many a league
Of well sustained, but vain fatigue;
And in the depth of forests darkling,
The wat...Read more of this...
by
Byron, George (Lord)
...free. Therefore, since he permits
Within himself unworthy powers to reign
Over free reason, God, in judgement just,
Subjects him from without to violent lords;
Who oft as undeservedly enthrall
His outward freedom: Tyranny must be;
Though to the tyrant thereby no excuse.
Yet sometimes nations will decline so low
From virtue, which is reason, that no wrong,
But justice, and some fatal curse annexed,
Deprives them of their outward liberty;
Their inward lost: Witness ...Read more of this...
by
Milton, John
...of that which gives thee all thy might?
Spend'st thou thy fury on some worthless song,
Darkening thy power to lend base subjects light?
Return, forgetful Muse, and straight redeem
In gentle numbers time so idly spent;
Sing to the ear that doth thy lays esteem
And gives thy pen both skill and argument.
Rise, resty Muse, my love's sweet face survey,
If Time have any wrinkle graven there;
If any, be a satire to decay,
And make Time's spoils despised every where.
Give my love fam...Read more of this...
by
Shakespeare, William
...46 And poor Palatinate for every lost.
5.47 I've seen a Prince to live on others' lands,
5.48 A Royal one, by alms from Subjects' hands.
5.49 I've seen base men, advanc'd to great degree,
5.50 And worthy ones, put to extremity,
5.51 But not their Prince's love, nor state so high,
5.52 Could once reverse, their shameful destiny.
5.53 I've seen one stabb'd, another lose his head,
5.54 And others fly their Country through their dread.
5.55 I've seen, and so have ye, for 'tis but...Read more of this...
by
Bradstreet, Anne
...
Alas! what have I stolen from you? death:
Was ever grief like mine?
A king my title is, prefixt on high;
Yet by my subjects am condemn'd to die
A servile death in servile company;
Was ever grief like mine?
They gave me vinegar mingled with gall,
But more with malice: yet, when they did call,
With Manna, Angels' food, I fed them all:
Was ever grief like mine?
They part my garments, and by lot dispose
My coat, the type of love, which once cur'd those
Who sought for...Read more of this...
by
Herbert, George
...ord away now, by thy faith,
Touching such thing, lo, what the wise man saith:
'Within thy house be thou no lion;
To thy subjects do none oppression;
Nor make thou thine acquaintance for to flee.'
And yet, Thomas, eftsoones* charge I thee, *again
Beware from ire that in thy bosom sleeps,
Ware from the serpent, that so slily creeps
Under the grass, and stingeth subtilly.
Beware, my son, and hearken patiently,
That twenty thousand men have lost their lives
For striving with thei...Read more of this...
by
Chaucer, Geoffrey
...debate, -----"the King is speaking! Hush!"
Thus, with a restless heart, in every field
He sought renown, and found his subjects yield
As if he were a demi-god revealed.
But while he played the petty games of life
His kingdom fell a prey to inward strife;
Corruption through the court unheeded crept,
And on the seat of honour justice slept.
The strong trod down the weak; the helpless poor
Groaned under burdens grievous to endure.
The nation's wealth was spent in vain displ...Read more of this...
by
Dyke, Henry Van
...nal sun:
A better farmer ne'er brush'd dew from lawn,
A worse king never left a realm undone!
He died — but left his subjects still behind,
One half as mad — and t'other no less blind.
IX
He died! his death made no great stir on earth:
His burial made some pomp; there was profusion
Of velvet, gilding, brass, and no great dearth
Of aught but tears — save those shed by collusion.
For these things may be bought at their true worth;
Of elegy there was the due infusion...Read more of this...
by
Byron, George (Lord)
...ld.
"Yesterday I was a happy shepherd looking upon his head as a merciful king looks with pleasure upon his contented subjects. Today I am a slave standing before my wealth, my wealth which robbed me of the beauty of life I once knew.
"Forgive me, my Judge! I did not know that riches would put my life in fragments and lead me into the dungeons of harshness and stupidity. What I thought was glory is naught but an eternal inferno."
He gathered himself wearily and walked s...Read more of this...
by
Gibran, Kahlil
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