Famous Tests Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Tests poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous tests poems. These examples illustrate what a famous tests poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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...now the current wisdom:
bright hope, the power of wishing you're well.
He's just so tired, though nothing
shows in any tests, Nothing,
the doctor says, detectable:
the doctor doesn't hear what I de,
that trickling, steadily rising nothing
that makes him sleep all say,
vanish into fever's tranced afternoons,
and I swear sometimes
when I put my head to his chest
I can hear the virus humming
like a refrigerator.
Which is what makes me think
you can take your positive attitud...Read more of this...
by
Doty, Mark
...,
And sinks into my throat her tiger's tooth,
Stealing my breath of life, I will confess
I love this cultured hell that tests my youth!
Her vigor flows like tides into my blood,
Giving me strength erect against her hate.
Her bigness sweeps my being like a flood.
Yet as a rebel fronts a king in state,
I stand within her walls with not a shred
Of terror, malice, not a word of jeer.
Darkly I gaze into the days ahead,
And see her might and granite wonders there,
Beneath the touch...Read more of this...
by
McKay, Claude
...n,
an old spear-fighter, he who remembers it all,
the shafted killing of men—his own heart is grim—
Misery-minded he tests out some young warrior
in the intentions of his breast, of his mind,
waking a warlike bale, and speaking these words: (ll. 2032-46)
[XXIX.]
“’Can’t you, my friend, recognize the sword,
which your father bore to the battle,
beneath his war-mask, for the very last time,
his beloved blade, where the Danes dinged him down,
ruling the war-...Read more of this...
by
Anonymous,
...old who has all in mind
that spear-death of men, {28c} -- he is stern of mood,
heavy at heart, -- in the hero young
tests the temper and tries the soul
and war-hate wakens, with words like these: --
Canst thou not, comrade, ken that sword
which to the fray thy father carried
in his final feud, ’neath the fighting-mask,
dearest of blades, when the Danish slew him
and wielded the war-place on Withergild’s fall,
after havoc of heroes, those hardy Scyldings?
Now, the ...Read more of this...
by
Anonymous,
...spital.
Every century or so, the way
we'd measure it, a chief doc brings a pack
of students round. They run some simple tests:
surge current through the tumor, batter it
with mallets, push a wood-plane across its
pebbled hide and watch a scurf of tumor-
pelt kink loose from it, impale it, strafe it
with lye and napalm. There might be nothing
left in there but a still space surrounded
by a carapace. "This one is nearly
dead," the chief doc says. "What's the cure for that?"
The...Read more of this...
by
Matthews, William
...busy Many who brays
art is if anything fun.
I say the subject was given as of old,
prescribed the technical treatment, tests really tests
were set by the masters & graded.
I say the paralyzed fear lest one's not one
is back with us forever, worsts & bests
spring for the public, faded....Read more of this...
by
Berryman, John
...back
Question each face; a man with a hammer steals
Stooping from coach to coach; with clang and clack
Touches and tests and listens to the wheels.
Guard sounds a warning whistle points to the clock 15
With brandished flag and on his folded flock
Claps the last door: the monster grunts: ¡®Enough!¡¯
Tightening his load of links with pant and puff.
Under the arch then forth into blue day
Glide the processional windows on their way 20
And glimpse the stately folk wh...Read more of this...
by
Sassoon, Siegfried
...re, that is, they are themselves accepted,
And boys the minute they get out of college.
I can't help thinking those are tests to go by.
And she has one I don't know what to call him,
Who comes from Philadelphia every year
With a great flock of chickens of rare breeds
He wants to give the educational
Advantages of growing almost wild
Under the watchful eye of hawk and eagle
Dorkings because they're spoken of by Chaucer,
Sussex because they're spoken of by Herrick.
She has a...Read more of this...
by
Frost, Robert
...ironical, rolling orb!
Master of all, and matter of fact!—at last I accept your terms;
Bringing to practical, vulgar tests, of all my ideal dreams,
And of me, as lover and hero....Read more of this...
by
Whitman, Walt
...e has a spider's eye
To find out some appropriate pain -
Aye, though all passion's in the glance -
For every nerve, and tests a lover
With cruelties of Choice and Chance;
And when at last that murder's over
Maybe the bride-bed brings despair,
For each an imagined image brings
And finds a real image there;
Yet the world ends when these two things,
Though several, are a single light,
When oil and wick are burned in one;
Therefore a blessed moon last night
Gave Sheba to her Solo...Read more of this...
by
Yeats, William Butler
...lengthened shadow of a man
Is history, said Emerson
Who had not seen the silhouette
Of Sweeney straddled in the sun.)
Tests the razor on his leg
Waiting until the shriek subsides.
The epileptic on the bed
Curves backward, clutching at her sides.
The ladies of the corridor
Find themselves involved, disgraced,
Call witness to their principles
And deprecate the lack of taste
Observing that hysteria
Might easily be misunderstood;
Mrs. Turner intimates
It does the house no sor...Read more of this...
by
Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)
...ALL submit to them, where they sit, inner, secure, unapproachable to analysis, in the
Soul;
Not traditions—not the outer authorities are the judges—they are the judges of
outer
authorities, and of all traditions;
They corroborate as they go, only whatever corroborates themselves, and touches
themselves;
For all that, they have it forever in themselv...Read more of this...
by
Whitman, Walt
...?
295 Hence the reverberations in the words
296 Of his first central hymns, the celebrants
297 Of rankest trivia, tests of the strength
298 Of his aesthetic, his philosophy,
299 The more invidious, the more desired.
300 The florist asking aid from cabbages,
301 The rich man going bare, the paladin
302 Afraid, the blind man as astronomer,
303 The appointed power unwielded from disdain.
304 His western voyage ended and began.
305 The torment of fastidious ...Read more of this...
by
Stevens, Wallace
...the chest pains for weeks,
but doctors don't make house
calls to the North Pole,
he's let his Blue Cross lapse,
blood tests make him faint,
hospital gown always flap
open, waiting rooms upset
his stomach, and it's only
indigestion anyway, he thinks,
until, feeding the reindeer,
he feels as if a monster fist
has grabbed his heart and won't
stop squeezing. He can't
breathe, and the beautiful white
world he loves goes black,
and he drops on his jelly belly
in the snow and ...Read more of this...
by
Webb, Charles
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