Famous Test Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Test poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous test poems. These examples illustrate what a famous test poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
See also:
by
John Wilmot
Well Sir, 'tis granted, I said Dryden's Rhimes,
Were stoln, unequal, nay dull many times:
What foolish Patron, is there found of his,
So blindly partial, to deny me this?
But that his Plays, Embroider'd up and downe,
With Witt, and Learning, justly pleas'd the Towne,
In the same paper, I as freely owne:
Yet haveing this allow'd, the...Read more of this...
by
G K Chesterton
Impetuously I sprang from bed,
Long before lunch was up,
That I might drain the dizzy dew
From the day's first golden cup.
In swift devouring ecstasy
Each toil in turn was done;
I had done lying on the lawn
Three minutes after one.
For me, as Mr. Wordsworth says,
The duties shine like stars;
I formed my uncle's character,
Decreasing his cigars.
But could my kind engross me? No!
Stern Art-what...Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
I have no brief for gambling, nay
The notion I express
That money earned 's the only way
To pay for happiness.
With cards and dice I do not hold;
By betting I've been bit:
Conclusion: to get honest gold
You've got to sweat for it.
Though there be evil in strong drink
It's brought me heaps of fun;
And now, with some reserve,...Read more of this...
by
Ogden Nash
In fourteen hundred and ninety-two,
Someone sailed the ocean blue.
Somebody borrowed the fare in Spain
For a business trip on the bounding main,
And to prove to the people, by actual test,
You could get to the East by sailing West.
Somebody said, Sail on! Sail on!
And studied China and China's lingo,
And cried from the bow, There's China now!
And promptly bumped into San Domingo.
Somebody...Read more of this...
by
Carl Sandburg
STROLLING along
By the teeming docks,
I watch the ships put out.
Black ships that heave and lunge
And move like mastodons
Arising from lethargic sleep.
The fathomed harbor
Calls them not nor dares
Them to a strain of action,
But outward, on and outward,
Sounding low-reverberating calls,
Shaggy in the half-lit distance,
They pass the pointed headland,
View the wide, far-lifting wilderness
And leap with cumulative speed
To test the challenge of the...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
Revolution is the Pod
Systems rattle from
When the Winds of Will are stirred
Excellent is Bloom
But except its Russet Base
Every Summer be
The Entomber of itself,
So of Liberty --
Left inactive on the Stalk
All its Purple fled
Revolution shakes it for
Test if it be dead....Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
Best Gains -- must have the Losses' Test --
To constitute them -- Gains --...Read more of this...
by
William Butler Yeats
I
Around me the images of thirty years:
An ambush; pilgrims at the water-side;
Casement upon trial, half hidden by the bars,
Guarded; Griffith staring in hysterical pride;
Kevin O'Higgins' countenance that wears
A gentle questioning look that cannot hide
A soul incapable of remorse or rest;
A revolutionary soldier kneeling to be blessed;
II
An Abbot or Archbishop with an upraised hand
Blessing the Tricolour. 'This is not,'...Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
To Dawson Town came Percy Brown from London on the Thames.
A pane of glass was in his eye, and stockings on his stems.
Upon the shoulder of his coat a leather pad he wore,
To rest his deadly rifle when it wasn't seeking gore;
The which it must have often been, for Major Percy Brown,
According to his story was a hunter of...Read more of this...
by
Mother Goose
If you are to be a gentleman,
As I suppose you'll be,
You'll neither laugh nor smile,
For a tickling of the knee....Read more of this...
by
Andrew Barton Paterson
What! you don't like him; well, maybe -- we all have our fancies, of course:
Brumby to look at, you reckon? Well, no; he's a thoroughbred horse;
Sired by a son of old Panic -- look at his ears and his head --
Lop-eared and Roman-nosed, ain't he? -- well, that's how the Panics are bred.
Gluttonous, ugly and...Read more of this...
by
Lewis Carroll
"How shall I be a poet?
How shall I write in rhyme?
You told me once the very wish
Partook of the sublime:
Then tell me how. Don't put me off
With your 'another time'."
The old man smiled to see him,
To hear his sudden sally;
He liked the lad to speak his mind
Enthusiastically,
And thought, "There's no hum-drum in him,
Nor any shilly-shally."
"And would you be a...Read more of this...
by
George (Lord) Byron
When Friendship or Love
Our sympathies move;
When Truth, in a glance, should appear,
The lips may beguile,
With a dimple or smile,
But the test of affection's a Tear:
Too oft is a smile
But the hypocrite's wile,
To mask detestation, or fear;
Give me the soft sigh,
Whilst the soultelling eye
Is dimm'd, for a time, with a Tear:
Mild Charity's glow,
To us mortals below,
Shows the soul from barbarity...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
Not that We did, shall be the test
When Act and Will are done
But what Our Lord infers We would
Had We diviner been --...Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
You've heard of Julot the apache, and Gigolette, his mome. . . .
Montmartre was their hunting-ground, but Belville was their home.
A little chap just like a boy, with smudgy black mustache, --
Yet there was nothing juvenile in Julot the apache.
From head to heel as tough as steel, as nimble as a cat,
With every trick of twist and kick, a...Read more of this...
by
Paul Laurence Dunbar
So we, who 've supped the self-same cup,
To-night must lay our friendship by;
Your wrath has burned your judgment up,
Hot breath has blown the ashes high.
You say that you are wronged—ah, well,
I count that friendship poor, at best
A bauble, a mere bagatelle,
That cannot stand so slight a test.
I fain would still have been your friend,
[Pg 41]And talked and laughed...Read more of this...
by
William Topaz McGonagall
Ye lovers of the picturesque, away, away!
To beautiful Comrie and have a holiday;
Aud bask in the sunahine and inhale the fragrant air
Emanating from the woodlands and shrubberies there.
The charming village of Comrie is most lovely to be seen,
Especially in the summer season when the trees are green;
And near by is Loch Earn and its waters sparkling clear,
And as...Read more of this...
by
Paul Laurence Dunbar
Ef you's only got de powah fe' to blow a little whistle,
Keep ermong de people wid de whistles.
Ef you don't, you'll fin' out sho'tly dat you's th'owed yo' fines' feelin'
In a place dat's all a bed o' thistles.
'Tain't no use a-goin' now, ez sho's you bo'n,
A-squeakin' of yo' whistle 'g'inst a gread big ho'n.
Ef you ain't got but a teenchy...Read more of this...
by
Howard Nemerov
This morning, between two branches of a tree
Beside the door, epeira once again
Has spun and signed his tapestry and trap.
I test his early-warning system and
It works, he scrambles forth in sable with
The yellow hieroglyph that no one knows
The meaning of. And I remember now
How yesterday at dusk the nighthawks came
Back as they do about this time each year,
Grey squadrons...Read more of this...
by
Ogden Nash
I test my bath before I sit,
And I'm always moved to wonderment
That what chills the finger not a bit
Is so frigid upon the fundament....Read more of this...
by
James A Emanuel
Repeatedly, that sturdy stump in me
bears up like stone,
beneath some ritual I see:
the blinding axe
swings up, holds,
that moment of its weightlessness
inscrutable
till I confirm the arm is mine;
I will it, grip,
feel moist the swelling handle,
the shudder rude,
the difference fallen.
Toward that chopping block
I carry in me woodthings—
infectious undergrowth
pretending upwards
through each stem and branch of me—
all so certain of themselves
they practice, like...Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
I just think that dreams are best,
Just to sit and fancy things;
Give your gold no acid test,
Try not how your silver rings;
Fancy women pure and good,
Fancy men upright and true:
Fortressed in your solitude,
Let Life be a dream to you.
For I think that Thought is all;
Truth's a minion of the mind;
Love's ideal comes at...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
The Test of Love -- is Death --
Our Lord -- "so loved" -- it saith --
What Largest Lover -- hath
Another -- doth --
If smaller Patience -- be --
Through less Infinity --
If Bravo, sometimes swerve --
Through fainter Nerve --
Accept its Most --
And overlook -- the Dust --
Last -- Least --
The Cross' -- Request --...Read more of this...
by
Anne Kingsmill Finch
WITH such a Pulse, with such disorder'd Veins,
Such lab'ring Breath, as thy Disease constrains;
With failing Eyes, that scarce the Light endure,
(So long unclos'd, they've watch'd thy doubtful Cure)
To his Hephaestion Alexander writes,
To soothe thy Days, and wing thy sleepless Nights,
I send thee Love: Oh! that I could impart,
As well my vital Spirits...Read more of this...
by
Joaquin Miller
AH! there be souls none understand;
Like clouds, they cannot touch the land.
Unanchored ships, they blow and blow,
Sail to and fro, and then go down
In unknown seas that none shall know,
Without one ripple of renown.
Call these not fools, the test of worth
Is not the hold you have of earth.
Ay, there be gentlest...Read more of this...
Dont forget to view our wonderful member Test poems.