Famous Surprising Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Surprising poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous surprising poems. These examples illustrate what a famous surprising poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Isaac Watts
Now plead my cause, Almighty God,
With all the sons of strife;
And fight against the men of blood,
Who fight against my life.
Draw out thy spear and stop their way,
Lift thine avenging rod;
But to my soul in mercv say,
"I am thy Savior God!"
They plant their snares to catch my feet,
And nets of mischief spread;
Plunge the destroyers in the pit
That their own...Read more of this...
by
Judith Sargent Murray
That minds are not alike, full well I know,
This truth each day's experience will show.
To heights surprising some great spirits soar,
With inborn strength mysterious depths explore;
Their eager gaze surveys the path of light,
Confessed it stood to Newton's piercing sight,
Deep science, like a bashful maid retires,
And but the ardent breast her worth inspires;
By perseverance the coy...Read more of this...
by
John Wilmot
Much wine had passed, with grave discourse
Of who fucks who, and who does worse
(Such as you usually do hear
From those that diet at the Bear),
When I, who still take care to see
Drunkenness relieved by lechery,
Went out into St. James's Park
To cool my head and fire my heart.
But though St. James has th' honor on 't,
'Tis consecrate to prick and...Read more of this...
by
Claude McKay
Alfonso is a handsome bronze-hued lad
Of subtly-changing and surprising parts;
His moods are storms that frighten and make glad,
His eyes were made to capture women's hearts.
Down in the glory-hole Alfonso sings
An olden song of wine and clinking glasses
And riotous rakes; magnificently flings
Gay kisses to imaginary lasses.
Alfonso's voice of mellow music thrills
Our...Read more of this...
by
Philip Larkin
Once i am sure there's nothing going on
I step inside letting the door thud shut.
Another church: matting seats and stone
and little books; sprawlings of flowers cut
For Sunday brownish now; some brass and stuff
Up at the holy end; the small neat organ;
And a tense musty unignorable silence
Brewed God knows how long. Hatless I take off
My cylce-clips in awkward revrence...Read more of this...
by
Aleister Crowley
I
The cloud my bed is tinged with blood and foam.
The vault yet blazes with the sun
Writhing above the West, brave hippodrome
Whose gladiators shock and shun
As the blue night devours them, crested comb
Of sleep's dead sea
That eats the shores of life, rings round eternity!
II
So, he is gone whose giant sword shed flame
Into my bowels; my blood's bewitched;
My brain's afloat with...Read more of this...
by
Andrew Barton Paterson
"I'll introduce a friend!" he said,
"And if you've got a vacant pen
You'd better take him in the shed
And start him shearing straight ahead;
He's one of these here quiet men.
"He never strikes -- that ain't his game;
No matter what the others try
He goes on shearing just the same.
I never rightly knew his...Read more of this...
by
Ruth Padel
We're talking different kinds of vulnerability here.
These icicles aren't going to last for ever
Suspended in the ultra violet rays of a Dumfries sun.
But here they hang, a frozen whirligig of lightning,
And the famous American sculptor
Who scrambles the world with his tripod
For strangeness au naturel, got sunset to fill them.
It's not comfortable, a double helix of opalescent...Read more of this...
by
Isaac Watts
Absent from the body, and present with the Lord.
2 Cor. 5:8.
Absent from flesh! O blissful thought!
What unknown joys this moment brings!
Freed from the mischiefs sin has brought,
From pains, and fears, and all their springs.
Absent from flesh! illustrious day!
Surprising scene! triumphant stroke
That rends the prison of my clay;
And I can feel my fetters broke.
Absent from flesh! then rise, my...Read more of this...
by
Marriott Edgar
Henry the Seventh of England
Wasn't out of the Royal top drawer,
The only connection of which he could boast,
He were King's nephew's brother-in-law.
It were after the Wars of the Roses
That he came to the front, as it were,
When on strength of his having slain Richard the Third
He put himself up as his heir.
T'were a bit of a blow to...Read more of this...
by
Isaac Watts
Adoption.
1 John 3:1ff; Gal. 4:6.
Behold what wondrous grace
The Father has bestowed
On sinners of a mortal race,
To call them sons of God!
'Tis no surprising thing
That we should be unknown;
The Jewish world knew not their king,
God's everlasting Son.
Nor doth it yet appear
How great we must be made;
But when we see our Savior here,
We shall be like our Head.
A hope so...Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
Zut! it's two o'clock.
See! the lights are jumping.
Finish up your bock,
Time we all were humping.
Waiters stack the chairs,
Pile them on the tables;
Let us to our lairs
Underneath the gables.
Up the old Boul' Mich'
Climb with steps erratic.
Steady . . . how I wish
I was in my attic!
Full am I with cheer;
In my heart the joy stirs;
Couldn't be the beer,
Must have been...Read more of this...
by
John Betjeman
High dormers are rising
So sharp and surprising,
And ponticum edges
The driveways of gravel;
Stone houses from ledges
Look down on ravines.
The vision can travel
From gable to gable,
Italianate mansion
And turretted stable,
A sylvan expansion
So varied and jolly
Where laurel and holly
Commingle their greens.
Serene on a Sunday
The sun glitters hotly
O'er mills that on Monday
With engines will hum.
By tramway excursion
To Dore and to Totley
In search of diversion
The...Read more of this...
by
Anne Kingsmill Finch
Give me, O indulgent Fate!
Give me yet before I die
A sweet, but absolute retreat,
'Mongst paths so lost and trees so high
That the world may ne'er invade
Through such windings and such shade
My unshaken liberty.
No intruders thither come
Who visit but to be from home!
None who their vain moments pass
Only studious of their glass;
News, that charm to list'ning ears,
That false alarm...Read more of this...
by
Isaac Watts
Submission and deliverance; or, Abraham offering up his son.
Gen. 22:6, etc.
Saints, at your heav'nly Father's word
Give up your comforts to the Lord;
He shall restore what you resign,
Or grant you blessings more divine.
So Abram with obedient hand
Led forth his son at God's command;
The wood, the fire, the knife, he took,
His arm prepared the dreadful stroke.
"Abram, forbear!" the angel cried,
Thy...Read more of this...
by
Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi
Again I am raging,
I am in such a state by your soul that every
bond you bind, I break, by your soul.
I am like heaven, like the moon, like a candle by your glow;
I am all reason, all love, all soul, by your soul. My joy is of your doing, my hangover of your thorn;
whatever side you turn your...Read more of this...
by
Isaac Watts
Surprising deliverance.
When God restored our captive state,
Joy was our song, and grace our theme;
The grace beyond our hopes so great
That joy appeared a painted dream.
The scoffer owns thy hand, and pays
Unwilling honors to thy name;
While we with pleasure shout thy praise,
With cheerful notes thy love proclaim.
When we review our dismal fears,
'Twas hard to think they'd vanish so;
With God we...Read more of this...
by
Sir Walter Raleigh
I was a Poet!
But I did not know it,
Neither did my Mother,
Nor my Sister nor my Brother.
The Rich were not aware of it;
The Poor took no care of it.
The Reverend Mr. Drewitt
Never knew it.
The High did not suspect it;
The Low could not detect it.
Aunt Sue
Said it was obviously untrue.
Uncle Ned
Said I was off my head:
(This from a Colonial
Was...Read more of this...
by
Robert Browning
An imaginary composer.]
I.
Hist, but a word, fair and soft!
Forth and be judged, Master Hugues!
Answer the question I've put you so oft:
What do you mean by your mountainous fugues?
See, we're alone in the loft,---
II.
I, the poor organist here,
Hugues, the composer of note,
Dead though, and done with, this many a year:
Let's have a colloquy, something to quote,
Make the world prick up...Read more of this...
by
Eamon Grennan
At her Junior High School graduation,
she sings alone
in front of the lot of us--
her voice soprano, surprising,
almost a woman's. It is
the Our Father in French,
the new language
making her strange, out there,
fully fledged and
ready for anything. Sitting
together -- her separated
mother and father -- we can
hear the racket of traffic
shaking the main streets
of Jersey City as she sings
Deliver us from evil,
and...Read more of this...
by
Isaac Watts
v.1-9
C. M.
Prayer and faith of persecuted saints.
Now plead my cause, Almighty God,
With all the sons of strife;
And fight against the men of blood,
Who fight against my life.
Draw out thy spear and stop their way,
Lift thine avenging rod;
But to my soul in mercy say,
"I am thy Savior God!"
They plant their snares to catch my feet,
And nets of mischief spread;
Plunge...Read more of this...
by
Billy Collins
In most self-portraits it is the face that dominates:
Cezanne is a pair of eyes swimming in brushstrokes,
Van Gogh stares out of a halo of swirling darkness,
Rembrant looks relieved as if he were taking a breather
from painting The Blinding of Sampson.
But in this one Goya stands well back from the mirror
and is seen posed in the clutter of his studio
addressing...Read more of this...
by
Isaac Watts
A state of nature and of grace.
1 Cor. 6:10,11.
Not the malicious or profane,
The wanton or the proud,
Nor thieves, nor sland'rers, shall obtain
Tue kingdom of our God.
Surprising grace! and such were we
By nature and by sin,
Heirs of immortal misery,
Unholy and unclean.
But we are washed in Jesus' blood,
We're pardoned through his name;
And the good Spirit of our God
Has sanctified our...Read more of this...
by
Isaac Watts
v.14-16,22-24
C. M.
Christ our strength and righteousness.
My Savior, my almighty Friend,
When I begin thy praise,
Where will the growing numbers end,
The numbers of thy grace?
Thou art my everlasting trust,
Thy goodness I adore;
And since I knew thy graces first,
I speak thy glories more.
My feet shall travel all the length
Of the celestial road,
And march with courage in thy strength,
To see my Father...Read more of this...
by
Edwin Arlington Robinson
In Tilbury Town did Old King Cole
A wise old age anticipate,
Desiring, with his pipe and bowl,
No Khan’s extravagant estate.
No crown annoyed his honest head,
No fiddlers three were called or needed;
For two disastrous heirs instead
Made music more than ever three did.
Bereft of her with whom his life
Was harmony without a flaw,
He took...Read more of this...
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