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Famous The English Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Walcott, Derek
...I turn, divided to the vein?
I who have cursed
The drunken officer of British rule, how choose
Between this Africa and the English tongue I love?
Betray them both, or give back what they give?
How can I face such slaughter and be cool?
How can I turn from Africa and live?...Read more of this...



by Sidney, Sir Philip
...I 

Hauing this day my horse, my hand, my launce
Guided so well that I obtain'd the prize,
Both by the iudgement of the English eyes
And of some sent from that sweet enemy Fraunce;
Horsemen my skill in horsemanship aduaunce,
Towne folkes my strength; a daintier iudge applies
His praise to sleight which from good vse doth rise;
Some luckie wits impute it but to chance;
Others, because of both sides I doe take
My blood from them who did excell in this,
Thinke Nature...Read more of this...

by Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
...geline brought him,
And with a coal from the embers had lighted, he slowly continued:--
"Four days now are passed since the English ships at their anchors
Ride in the Gaspereau's mouth, with their cannon pointed against us.
What their design may be is unknown; but all are commanded
On the morrow to meet in the church, where his Majesty's mandate
Will be proclaimed as law in the land. Alas! in the mean time
Many surmises of evil alarm the hearts of the people."
The...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...processes;
It is greater than wealth—it is greater than buildings, ships, religions, paintings,
 music. 

Great is the English speech—what speech is so great as the English? 
Great is the English brood—what brood has so vast a destiny as the English? 
It is the mother of the brood that must rule the earth with the new rule; 
The new rule shall rule as the Soul rules, and as the love, justice, equality in the Soul
 rule.

Great is Law—great are the few old land-marks ...Read more of this...

by Pound, Ezra
...served her eyes;
Still, at the Tate, they teach
Cophetua to rhapsodize;

Thin like brook-water,
With a vacant gaze.
The English Rubaiyat was still-born
In those days.

The thin, clear gaze, the same
Still darts out faun-like from the half-ruin'd face,
Questing and passive ....
"Ah, poor Jenny's case" ...

Bewildered that a world
Shows no surprise
At her last maquero's 
Adulteries.

"Siena Mi Fe', Disfecemi Maremma" 

Among the pickled f...Read more of this...



by Kumin, Maxine
...You have forty-nine days between
death and rebirth if you're a Buddhist.
Even the smallest soul could swim
the English Channel in that time
or climb, like a ten-month-old child,
every step of the Washington Monument
to travel across, up, down, over or through
--you won't know till you get there which to do.

He laid on me for a few seconds
said Roscoe Black, who lived to tell
about his skirmish with a grizzly bear
in Glacier Park.He laid on me not doing a...Read more of this...

by Marvell, Andrew
...his old veins with fresh blood, fresh delight. 
Like am'rous victors he begins to shave, 
And his new face looks in the English wave. 
His sporting navy all about him swim 
And witness their complacence in their trim. 
Their streaming silks play through the weather fair 
And with inveigling colours court the air, 
While the red flags breathe on their topmasts high 
Terror and war, but want an enemy. 
Among the shrouds the seamen sit and sing, 
And wanton boys ...Read more of this...

by Wordsworth, William
...bsp; And on the green-wood stone,  She talked and sung the woods among;  And it was in the English tongue.   "Sweet babe! they say that I am mad,  But nay, my heart is far too glad;  And I am happy when I sing  Full many a sad and doleful thing:  Then, lovely baby, do not fear!  I pray thee have no fear of me,  But, safe as in a cradle, her...Read more of this...

by Tebb, Barry
...ELEGY FOR DAVID GASCOYNE -

The best poem I’ve had by post in forty years

And Jeremy’s best to date in my estimate -

The English APOLLINAIRE - your ZONE, your SONG

OF THE BADLY LOVED - sitting in a cafe in South End Green

I send you this poem, Jeremy, sight unseen,

A new year’s gift to you, pushing through

To star galaxies still unmapped and to you, BW,

Sonneteer of silence, huddled in the fourth month

Of your outdoor vigil, measuring in blood, tears and rain

Your s...Read more of this...

by Browning, Robert
...ll,
The tempera grow alive and tinglish;
Their pictures are left to the mercies still
Of dealers and stealers, Jews and the English,
Who, seeing mere money's worth in their prize,
Will sell it to somebody calm as Zeno
At naked High Art, and in ecstasies
Before some clay-cold vile Carlino!

***.

No matter for these! But Giotto, you,
Have you allowed, as the town-tongues babble it,---
Oh, never! it shall not be counted true---
That a certain precious little tablet
Which Bu...Read more of this...

by Kipling, Rudyard
...cepting shall ask no vows,
 Nor the Sea our love, nor our lover the Sky.
When we return to our Father's House
 Only the English shall wonder why!...Read more of this...

by Kipling, Rudyard
...ule-bells tinkling through.
Day long the warder ocean
 That keeps us from our kin,
And once a month our levee
 When the English mail comes in.

You'll find us up and waiting
 To treat you at the bar;
You'll find us less exclusive
 Than the average English are.
We'll meet you with a carriage,
 Too glad to show you round,
But -- we do not lunch on steamers,
 For they are English ground.

We sail o' nights to England
 And join our smiling Boards --
Our wives go i...Read more of this...

by Kipling, Rudyard
...poor little street-bred people that vapour and fume and brag,
They are lifting their heads in the stillness to yelp at the English Flag!

Must we borrow a clout from the Boer -- to plaster anew with dirt?
An Irish liar's bandage, or an English coward's shirt?
We may not speak of England; her Flag's to sell or share.
What is the Flag of England? Winds of the World, declare!

The North Wind blew: -- "From Bergen my steel-shod vanguards go;
I chase your lazy whalers home fr...Read more of this...

by Masefield, John
...will deal with you, my man." 
"Not yet, "said I, "not yet they won't; 
And now you'll hear me, like or don't. 
The English Church both is and was 
A subsidy of Caiaphas. 
I don't believe in Prayer or Bible, 
They're lies all through, and you're a libel, 
A libel on the Devil's plan 
When first he miscreated man. 
You mumble through a formal code 
To get which martyrs burned and blowed. 

I look on martyrs as mistakes, 
But still they burned for it at stak...Read more of this...

by García Lorca, Federico
...ed with silvery swarms.
High atop the mountain peaks
the sentinels are weeping;
they guard the tall white towers
of the English consulate.
And gypsies of the water
for their pleasure erect
little castles of conch shells
and arbors of greening pine.

Playing her parchment moon
Precosia comes.
The wind sees her and rises,
the wind that never slumbers.
Naked Saint Christopher swells,
watching the girl as he plays
with tongues of celestial bells
on an invisibl...Read more of this...

by Scott, Sir Walter
...shook the head,
     To see his hair with silver spread,
     And winked aside, and told each son
     Of feats upon the English done,
     Ere Douglas of the stalwart hand
     Was exiled from his native land.
     The women praised his stately form,
     Though wrecked by many a winter's storm;
     The youth with awe and wonder saw
     His strength surpassing Nature's law.
     Thus judged, as is their wont, the crowd
     Till murmurs rose to clamours loud.
 ...Read more of this...

by Kipling, Rudyard
...e rides off Finisterre.
And since he is damned for a gallows-thief by you and better than you,
We hold it meet that the English fleet should know that we hold him true."
The skipper called to the tall taffrail: -- "And what is that to me?
Did ever you hear of a Yankee brig that rifled a Seventy-three?
Do I loom so large from your quarter-deck that I lift like a ship o' the Line?
He has learned to run from a shotted gun and harry such craft as mine.
There is never ...Read more of this...

by Pound, Ezra
...oes his malice,
Daring ado, ...
So that all men shall honour him after
And his laud beyond them remain 'mid the English,
Aye, for ever, a lasting life's-blast,
Delight mid the doughty.
Days little durable,
And all arrogance of earthen riches,
There come now no kings nor Cæsars
Nor gold-giving lords like those gone.
Howe'er in mirth most magnified,
Whoe'er lived in life most lordliest,
Drear all this excellence, delights undurable!
Waneth the watch, but the...Read more of this...

by Miller, Alice Duer
...ngland, and still as a stranger, 
Here is my home and I still am alone. 
Now in her hour of trial and danger, 
Only the English are really her own. 

II 
It happened the first evening I was there. 
Some one was giving a ball in Belgrave Square.
At Belgrave Square, that most Victorian spot.—
Lives there a novel-reader who has not 
At some time wept for those delightful girls, 
Daughters of dukes, prime ministers and earls, 
In bonnets, berthas, bustles, but...Read more of this...

by Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
...is boon companions
Sang these ditties.

Once Prince Frederick's Guard
Sang them in their smoky barracks;--
Suddenly the English cannon
Joined the chorus!

Peasants in the field,
Sailors on the roaring ocean,
Students, tradesmen, pale mechanics,
All have sung them.

Thou hast been their friend;
They, alas! have left thee friendless!
Yet at least by one warm fireside
Art thou welcome.

And, as swallows build
In these wide, old-fashioned chimneys,
So thy twittering s...Read more of this...

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