Famous Successes Poems by Famous Poets

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

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The Second Elegy

by Rainer Maria Rilke
Every angel is terrifying. And yet alas
I invoked you almost deadly birds of the soul
knowing about you. Where are the days of Tobias
when one of you veiling his radiance stood at the front door  
slightly disguised for the journey no longer appalling;
(a young man like the one who curiously peeked through the window).
But if the archangel now perilous from...Read more of this...

How Could You Not

by Galway Kinnell
 -- for Jane kenyon


It is a day after many days of storms.
Having been washed and washed, the air glitters;
small heaped cumuli blow across the sky; a shower
visible against the firs douses the crocuses.
We knew it would happen one day this week.
Now, when I learn you have died, I go
to the open door and look across at New Hampshire
and see...Read more of this...

Completion

by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
 When I shall meet God’s generous dispensers
Of all the riches in the heavenly store, 
Those lesser gods, who act as Recompensers
For loneliness and loss upon this shore, 
Methinks abashed, and somewhat hesitating, 
My soul its wish and longing will declare, 
Lest they reply: ‘Here are no bounties waiting: 
We gave on earth, your portion and your share.’

Then shall I...Read more of this...

Keep A-pluggin' Away

by Paul Laurence Dunbar
I 've a humble little motto
That is homely, though it 's true,—
Keep a-pluggin' away.
It's a thing when I 've an object
That I always try to do,—
Keep a-pluggin' away.
When you 've rising storms to quell,
When opposing waters swell,
It will never fail to tell,—
Keep a-pluggin' away.
If the hills are high before
And the paths are hard to climb,
Keep a-pluggin' away.
And remember that successes
Come...Read more of this...

Albert Schirding

by Edgar Lee Masters
 Jonas Keene thought his lot a hard one
Because his children were all failures.
But I know of a fate more trying than that:
It is to be a failure while your children are successes.
For I raised a brood of eagles
Who flew away at last, leaving me
A crow on the abandoned bough.
Then, with the ambition to prefix Honorable to my name,
And thus...Read more of this...

Upon The Hill And Grove At Bill-borow

by Andrew Marvell
 To the Lord Fairfax.

See how the arched Earth does here
Rise in a perfect Hemisphere!
The stiffest Compass could not strike
A line more circular and like;
Nor softest Pensel draw a Brow.
So equal as this Hill does bow.
It seems as for a Model laid,
And that the World by it was made.

Here learn ye Mountains more unjust,
Which to abrupter greatness thrust,
That do with...Read more of this...

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