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Famous Take On Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry
...t 'ave been what I've been --
 Me that 'ave gone where I've gone --
Me that 'ave seen what I've seen --
 'Ow can I ever take on
With awful old England again,
An' 'ouses both sides of the street,
And 'edges two sides of the lane,
And the parson an' gentry between,
An' touchin' my 'at when we meet --
 Me that 'ave been what I've been?

Me that 'ave watched 'arf a world
'Eave up all shiny with dew,
Kopje on kop to the sun,
An' as soon as the mist let 'em through
Our 'elios winki...Read more of this...
by Kipling, Rudyard



...d in the arching of two clover-stems
Where-through I gaze from off my hill, afar,
The spacious fields from me to Heaven take on
Tremors of change and new significance
To th' eye, as to the ear a simple tale
Begins to hint a parable's sense beneath.
The prospect widens, cuts all bounds of blue
Where horizontal limits bend, and spreads
Into a curious-hill'd and curious-valley'd Vast,
Endless before, behind, around; which seems
Th' incalculable Up-and-Down of Time
Made plain bef...Read more of this...
by Lanier, Sidney
...and strange
to help us read.

For the kimono woven,
dipped in dyes, unraveled
and loomed again

that the pattern might take on
a subtler shading
For the sonnet's

blown-glass sateen,
for bel canto,
for Faberge

For everything
which begins in limit
(where else might our work

begin?) and ends in grace,
or at least extravagance.
For the silk sleeves

of the puppet queen,
held at a ravishing angle
over her puppet lover slain,

for her lush vowels
mouthed by the plain man
hunche...Read more of this...
by Doty, Mark
...bend;
Or learn to read my own heart's folded scroll,
      And make self-rule my end?
Thought from without—O shall I take on trust,
  And life from others modelled steal or win;
Or shall I heave to light, and clear of rust
      My true life from within?
O, let me be myself! But where, O where,
  Under this heap of precedent, this mound
Of customs, modes, and maxims, cumbrance rare,
      Shall the Myself be found?
O thou Myself, thy fathers thee debarred
  None o...Read more of this...
by Ingelow, Jean
...ep and anxious silence; 
And, because we are still at last, those bronze lips slowly open, 
Those hollow and weary eyes take on a gleam of light. 

Slowly a patient, firm-syllabled voice cuts through the endless silence 
Like labouring oxen that drag a plow through the chaos of rude clay-fields: 
"I went forward as the light goes forward in early spring, 
But there were also many things which I left behind. 

"Tombs that were quiet; 
One, of a mother, whose brief light went o...Read more of this...
by Fletcher, John Gould



...ily, as sour small beer;
And make your feet from dreadful fray,
By native instinct run away.
Britain, depend on't, will take on her
T' assert her dignity and honor,
And ere she'd lose your share of pelf,
Destroy your country, and herself.
For has not North declared they fight
To gain substantial rev'nue by't,
Denied he'd ever deign to treat,
Till on your knees and at his feet?
And feel you not a trifling ague
From Van's "Delenda est Carthago?
For this now Britain has projecte...Read more of this...
by Trumbull, John
...What time the meanest brick and stone
Take on a beauty not their own,
And past the flaw of builded wood
Shines the intention whole and good,
And all the little homes of man
Rise to a dimmer, nobler span;
When colour's absence gives escape
To the deeper spirit of the shape,

-- Then earth's great architecture swells
Among her mountains and her fells
Under the moon to amplitude
Massive and primiti...Read more of this...
by Sackville-West, Vita
...Here are two pupils
whose moons of black
transform to cripples
all who look:

each lovely lady
who peers inside
take on the body
of a toad.

Within these mirrors
the world inverts:
the fond admirer's
burning darts

turn back to injure
the thrusting hand
and inflame to danger
the scarlet wound.

I sought my image
in the scorching glass,
for what fire could damage
a witch's face?

So I stared in that furnace
where beauties char
but found radiant Venus
reflected there....Read more of this...
by Plath, Sylvia
...their hands.
There is no let-up to the wind.
Blue bandannas are knotted at the ruddy chins.

Falltime and winter apples take on the smolder of the five-o’clock November sunset: falltime, leaves, bonfires, stubble, the old things go, and the earth is grizzled.
The land and the people hold memories, even among the anthills and the angleworms, among the toads and woodroaches—among gravestone writings rubbed out by the rain—they keep old things that never grow old.

The frost loo...Read more of this...
by Sandburg, Carl
...t I could attract her— 
This dull and futile flesh attract such fire? 
I,—with a trowel's dullness in hand and brain!— 
Take on some godlike aspect, rouse desire? 
Incredible! . . . delicious! . . . I will wear 
A brighter color of tie, arranged with care, 
I will delight in god as I comb my hair.

And the conquests of my bolder past return 
Like strains of music, some lost tune 
Recalled from youth and a happier time. 
I take my sweetheart's arm in the dusk once more; 
One m...Read more of this...
by Aiken, Conrad
...THESE are the tawny days: your face comes back.

The grapes take on purple: the sunsets redden early on the trellis.

The bashful mornings hurl gray mist on the stripes of sunrise.

Creep, silver on the field, the frost is welcome.

Run on, yellow balls on the hills, and you tawny pumpkin flowers, chasing your lines of orange.

Tawny days: and your face again....Read more of this...
by Sandburg, Carl
...ttle heart with anguish. Hark!
The tread of sandalled feet comes noiselessly.
The silence almost is a sound, and dreams
Take on the semblances of finite things;
So potent is the spell that what but seems
Elsewhere, is lifted here on Fancy's wings.
The little woodland theatre seems to wait,
All tremulous with hope and wistful joy,
For something that is sure to come at last,
Some deep emotion, satisfying, great.
It grows a living presence, bold and shy,
Cradling the future in a...Read more of this...
by Lowell, Amy
...Said Jock McBrown to Tam McSmith,
"A little bet I'm game to take on,
That I can scotch this Shakespeare myth
And prove Will just a stoodge for Bacon."

Said Tam McSmith to Jock McBrown,
"Ye gyke, I canna let ye rave on.
See here, I put a shilling down:
My betting's on the Bard of Avon."

Said Jock McBrown to Tam McSmith,
"Come on, ye'll pay a braw wee dramlet;
Bacon's my bet - the proof herewith . . .
He called his g...Read more of this...
by Service, Robert William
...oud clears away, 
You'll see a vision among the dust like a man and a mule combined -- 
It's the kind of thing you must take on trust for its outlines aren't defined, 
A thing that whirls like a spinning top and props like a three legged stool, 
And you find its a long-legged Queensland boy convincing an Army mule. 
And the rider sticks to the hybrid's hide like paper sticks to a wall, 
For a "magnoon" Waler is next to ride with every chance of a fall, 
It's a rough-house gam...Read more of this...
by Paterson, Andrew Barton
...nd I felt so scared I wanted to shout,
 And me skin fair prickled wiv fear;
And I sez: 'You coward! You 'ad no right
To take on the job of a man this night,'
Yet still I kept creepin' till ('orrid sight!)
 The trench of the 'Uns was near.

"It was all so dark, it was all so still;
Yet somethin' pushed me against me will;
'Ow I wanted to turn! Yet I crawled until
 I was seein' a dim light shine.
Then thinks I: 'I'll just go a little bit,
And see wot the doose I can make of it,...Read more of this...
by Service, Robert William
...l men wise for not believing?… 

Was Jesus born of a Virgin pure 
With narrow soul and looks demure? 
If He intended to take on sin 
The Mother should an harlot been, 
Just such a one as Magdalen, 
With seven devils in her pen. 
Or were Jew virgins still more curs’d, 
And more sucking devils nurs’d? 
Or what was it which He took on 
That He might bring salvation? 
A body subject to be tempted, 
From neither pain nor grief exempted; 
Or such a body as might not feel 
The passi...Read more of this...
by Blake, William
...p of a fish from its shadow
Makes the whole lake instantly tremble.
With my foot on the water, I feel
The moon outside

Take on the utmost of its power.
I rise and go our through the boats.
I set my broad sole upon silver,
On the skin of the sky, on the moonlight,
Stepping outward from earth onto water
In quest of the miracle

This village of children believed
That I could perform as I dived
For one who had sunk from my sight.
I saw his cropped haircut go under.
I leapt, and ...Read more of this...
by Dickey, James
...,
And I beat up the common sort
And think it is no shame.
The common breeds the common,
A lout begets a lout,
So when I take on half a score
I knock their heads about.

From mountain to mountain ride the fierce horsemen.

All Mannions come from Manannan,
Though rich on every shore
He never lay behind four walls
He had such character,
Nor ever made an iron red
Nor soldered pot or pan;
His roaring and his ranting
Best please a wandering man.

From mountain to mountain ride the ...Read more of this...
by Yeats, William Butler
...earth's waters make accord;
Teach how the crucifix may be
Carven from the laurel-tree,
Fruit of the Hesperides
Burnish take on Eden-trees,
The Muses' sacred grove be wet
With the red dew of Olivet,
And Sappho lay her burning brows
In white Cecilia's lap of snows!

Thy childhood must have felt the stings
Of too divine o'ershadowings;
Its odorous heart have been a blossom
That in darkness did unbosom,
Those fire-flies of God to invite,
Burning spirits, which by night
Bear upon...Read more of this...
by Thompson, Francis
...
Since Adam was a gardener.

“Still, whatsoever I find there, 
Forgive me if I do not share 
The knowing gloom that you take on 
Of one who doubted and is done: 
For chemistry meets every prayer.”

“Sometimes a rock will meet a plough,” 
Said Oliver; “but anyhow 
’Tis here we are, ’tis here we live, 
With each to take and each to give: 
There’s no room for a quarrel now.

“I leave you in all gentleness 
To science and a ripe success. 
Now God be with you, brother Oakes, 
With...Read more of this...
by Robinson, Edwin Arlington

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Book: Reflection on the Important Things