Famous Surprised Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Surprised poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous surprised poems. These examples illustrate what a famous surprised poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Emily Dickinson
A curious Cloud surprised the Sky,
'Twas like a sheet with Horns;
The sheet was Blue --
The Antlers Gray --
It almost touched the lawns.
So low it leaned -- then statelier drew --
And trailed like robes away,
A Queen adown a satin aisle
Had not the majesty....Read more of this...
by
Ellis Parker Butler
Whenas—(I love that “whenas” word—
It shows I am a poet, too,)
Q. Horace Flaccus gaily stirred
The welkin with his tra-la-loo,
He little thought one donkey’s back
Would carry thus a double load—
Father and son upon one jack,
Galumphing down the Tibur Road.
II
Old is the tale—Aesop’s, I think—
Of that famed miller and his son
Whose fortunes were so “on the...Read more of this...
by
D. H. Lawrence
Somewhere beneath that piano's superb sleek black
Must hide my mother's piano, little and brown with the back
That stood close to the wall, and the front's faded silk, both torn
And the keys with little hollows, that my mother's fingers had worn.
Softly, in the shadows, a woman is singing to me
Quietly, through the years I have crept back to see
A child...Read more of this...
by
Julia Ward Howe
The shell of objects inwardly consumed
Will stand, till some convulsive wind awakes;
Such sense hath Fire to waste the heart of things,
Nature, such love to hold the form she makes.
Thus, wasted joys will show their early bloom,
Yet crumble at the breath of a caress;
The golden fruitage hides the scathèd bough,
Snatch it, thou scatterest wide its emptiness.
For pleasure bidden, I went...Read more of this...
by
R S Thomas
'Listen, now, verse should be as natural
As the small tuber that feeds on muck
And grows slowly from obtuse soil
To the white flower of immortal beauty.'
'Natural, hell! What was it Chaucer
Said once about the long toil
That goes like blood to the poem's making?
Leave it to nature and the verse sprawls,
Limp as bindweed,...Read more of this...
by
Rg Gregory
now pay attention
(said the teacher)
and look up here
the children looked up
this is william shakespeare
four centuries up
on a pedestal
was shakespeare's head
he was what we call
a great man
the children got sore necks
looking up
and some began to look down
no no
you mustn't look down
(said the teacher)
apart from winston churchill
shakespeare was the greatest
englishman who ever lived
the children's eyes
drained to their feet
and their minds
played around...Read more of this...
by
Allen Ginsberg
When I die
I don't care what happens to my body
throw ashes in the air, scatter 'em in East River
bury an urn in Elizabeth New Jersey, B'nai Israel Cemetery
But l want a big funeral
St. Patrick's Cathedral, St. Mark's Church, the largest synagogue in
Manhattan
First, there's family, brother, nephews, spry aged Edith stepmother
96, Aunt Honey from old Newark,
Doctor...Read more of this...
by
Vernon Scannell
Unlovely city, to which few tourists come
With squinting cameras and alien hats;
Left under a cloud by those who love the sun
And can afford to marry – a cloud of bits
Of soot more myriad than gnats, a cloud
Of smoke and rain, an insubstantial threat
Whose colour is the pigment of long wrath,
I think of you, surprised to find my blood
Warmed by...Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
Because my eyes were none to bright
Strong spectacles I bought,
And lo! there sprang into my sight
A life beyond my thought:
A world of wonder and delight
My magic lenses brought.
Aye, sudden leaping in my sight
The far became the near;
Life unbelievably was bright,
And vividly was clear.
My heart was lifted with delight,
Then--then I shrank in fear.
For faces...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
I'm saying every day
"If I should be a Queen, tomorrow" --
I'd do this way --
And so I deck, a little,
If it be, I wake a Bourbon,
None on me, bend supercilious --
With "This was she --
Begged in the Market place --
Yesterday."
Court is a stately place --
I've heard men say --
So I loop my apron, against the Majesty
With bright Pins of...Read more of this...
by
Emile Verhaeren
How readily delight is aroused in her, with her eyes of fiery ecstasy, she who is gentle and resigned before life in so simple a fashion.
This evening, how a look surprised her fervour and a word transported her to the pure garden of gladness, where she was at once both queen and servant.
Humble of herself, but aglow with our two...Read more of this...
by
Philip Levine
A blue jay poses on a stake
meant to support an apple tree
newly planted. A strong wind
on this clear cold morning
barely ruffles his tail feathers.
When he turns his attention
toward me, I face his eyes
without blinking. A week ago
my wife called me to come see
this same bird chase a rat
into the...Read more of this...
by
Robert Bly
There is unknown dust that is near us
Waves breaking on shores just over the hill
Trees full of birds that we have never seen
Nets drawn with dark fish.
The evening arrives; we look up and it is there
It has come through the nets of the stars
Through the tissues of the grass
Walking quietly over the asylums of...Read more of this...
by
Anne Sexton
It is snowing and death bugs me
as stubborn as insomnia.
The fierce bubbles of chalk,
the little white lesions
settle on the street outside.
It is snowing and the ninety
year old woman who was combing
out her long white wraith hair
is gone, embalmed even now,
even tonight her arms are smooth
muskets at her side and nothing
issues from her but her last word - "Oh." Surprised...Read more of this...
by
Rg Gregory
the bluefish was surprised
i was there to greet it
this world it said is mine
it feeds on blueness
for the first time in my life
i felt i'd found my truth
bluefish i cried in joy
you are my deepest mirror
the bluefish gawped in pain
it saw no blue in me
i set about explaining
what we are we are not.....
the bluefish looked at me
in pity...Read more of this...
by
Aleister Crowley
"Aug." 10, 1911.
Full moon to-night; and six and twenty years
Since my full moon first broke from angel spheres!
A year of infinite love unwearying ---
No circling seasons, but perennial spring!
A year of triumph trampling through defeat,
The first made holy and the last made sweet
By this same love; a year of wealth and woe,
Joy, poverty, health, sickness --- all one glow
In...Read more of this...
by
Eugene Field
Thar showed up out'n Denver in the spring uv '81
A man who'd worked with Dana on the Noo York Sun.
His name wuz Cantell Whoppers, 'nd he wuz a sight ter view
Ez he walked inter the orfice 'nd inquired fer work ter do.
Thar warn't no places vacant then,--fer be it understood,
That wuz the time when talent flourished at that altitood;
But...Read more of this...
by
Isaac Watts
Persecutors punished.
Up from my youth, may Isr'el say,
Have I been nursed in tears;
My griefs were constant as the day,
And tedious as the years.
Up from my youth I bore the rage
Of all the sons of strife;
Oft they assailed my riper age,
But not destroyed my life.
Their cruel plow had torn my flesh
With furrows long and deep;
Hourly they vexed my wounds afresh,
Nor...Read more of this...
by
Margaret Atwood
In the secular night you wander around
alone in your house. It's two-thirty.
Everyone has deserted you,
or this is your story;
you remember it from being sixteen,
when the others were out somewhere, having a good time,
or so you suspected,
and you had to baby-sit.
You took a large scoop of vanilla ice-cream
and filled up the glass with grapejuice
and ginger ale, and put on Glenn...Read more of this...
by
Elizabeth Bishop
In Worcester, Massachusetts,
I went with Aunt Consuelo
to keep her dentist's appointment
and sat and waited for her
in the dentist's waiting room.
It was winter. It got dark
early. The waiting room
was full of grown-up people,
arctics and overcoats,
lamps and magazines.
My aunt was inside
what seemed like a long time
and while I waited and read
the National Geographic
(I could read) and carefully
studied the photographs:
the inside...Read more of this...
by
Robert Burns
There were three kings into the east,
Three kings both great and high,
An' they hae sworn a solemn oath
John Barleycorn should die.
They took a plough and ploughed him down,
Put clods upon his head;
An' they hae sworn a solemn oath
John Barleycorn was dead.
But the cheerfu' spring came kindly on,
And show'rs began to fall;
John Barleycorn got up again,
And sore surprised them all.
The...Read more of this...
by
Henry Lawson
"Was I at Eureka?" His figure was drawn to a youthful height,
And a flood of proud recollections made the fire in his grey eyes bright;
With pleasure they lighted and glisten'd, tho' the digger was grizzled and old,
And we gathered about him and listen'd while the tale of Eureka he told.
"Ah, those were the days," said the digger, "twas a...Read more of this...
by
Maria Mazziotti Gillan
I watch you walk up our front path,
the entire right side of your body,
stiff and unbending, your leg,
dragging on the ground,
your arm not moving.
Six different times you ask me
the date of our daughter's wedding,
seem surprised each time,
forget who called, though you can name
obscure desert animals,
and every detail of events...Read more of this...
by
Billy Collins
I knew that James Whistler was part of the Paris scene,
but I was still surprised when I found the painting
of his mother at the Musée d'Orsay
among all the colored dots and mobile brushstrokes
of the French Impressionists.
And I was surprised to notice
after a few minutes of benign staring,
how that woman, stark in profile
and fixed forever in her chair,
began to resemble...Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
I told a truth, a tragic truth
That tore the sullen sky;
A million shuddered at my sooth
And anarchist was I.
Red righteousness was in my word
To winnow evil chaff;
Yet while I swung crusading sword
I heard the devil laugh.
I framed a lie, a rainbow lie
To glorify a thought;
And none was so surprised as I
When fast as...Read more of this...
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