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Famous The Works Poems by Famous Poets

These are examples of famous The Works 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 works poems. These examples illustrate what a famous the works poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).

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by Chesterton, G K
...mother will not call— I fancy that I heard from Mr. Gall 
That mushrooms could be cooked another way—

I never read the works of Juvenal— 
I think I will not hang myself to-day. 
The world will have another washing-day;

The decadents decay; the pedants pall; 
And H.G. Wells has found that children play,

And Bernard Shaw discovered that they squall,
Rationalists are growing rational— 
And through thick woods one finds a stream astray

So secret that the very ...Read more of this...



by Bryant, William Cullen
...Who rules them. Be it ours to meditate, 
In these calm shades, thy milder majesty, 
And to the beautiful order of the works 
Learn to conform the order of our lives. ...Read more of this...

by Tagore, Rabindranath
...I ask for a moment's indulgence to sit by thy side. The works 
that I have in hand I will finish afterwards. 

Away from the sight of thy face my heart knows no rest nor respite, 
and my work becomes an endless toil in a shoreless sea of toil. 

Today the summer has come at my window with its sighs and murmurs; and 
the bees are plying their minstrelsy at the court of the flowering grove. 

Now it...Read more of this...

by Gregory, Rg
...core
of every poem read and comment made
it's not the poem or the poet
being sifted to the seed but
poetry itself given the works

the most despised belittled
enervated creative cowcake
of them all in the public eye
prestigious when it doesn't matter
to the clapped-out powers and turned
away from when too awkward and 
impolitic to confront - ball
to be bounced from high art to low

when fights break out amongst the teachers
and shakespeare's wielded as a cane
as the rich old ...Read more of this...

by Nash, Ogden
...inns,
And the Japanese
With their formal grins.
The Tartars came,
And the Terrible Turks -
In a word, humanity shot the works.
And the country that should have been Cathay
Decided to be
The U.S.A.

And that, you may think, my friends, was that.
But it wasn't. Not by a fireman's hat.
Christopher C. was the cornerstone,
And well enough wasn't left alone.
For those who followed
When he was through,
They burned to discover something, too.Read more of this...



by Shelley, Percy Bysshe
...buds, or dreamless sleep
Holds every future leaf and flower; -the bound
With which from that detested trance they leap;
The works and ways of man, their death and birth,
And that of him, and all that his may be;
All things that move and breathe with toil and sound
Are born and die; revolve, subside, and swell.
Power dwells apart in its tranquility,
Remote, serene, and inaccessible:
And this, the naked countenance of earth,
On which I gaze, even these primeval mountains
Te...Read more of this...

by Ayres, Pam
...neath.
But now comes the reckonin’
It’s methey are beckonin’
Oh, I wish I’d looked after me teeth.

Taken from the The Works: The Classic Collection 2008.

© Pam Ayres 2012
Official Website
http://pamayres.com/...Read more of this...

by Browning, Robert
...and the wrong it does
They are safe in heaven with their backs to it,
The Michaels and Rafaels, you hum and buzz
Round the works of, you of the little wit!
Do their eyes contract to the earth's old scope,
Now that they see God face to face,
And have all attained to be poets, I hope?
'Tis their holiday now, in any case.

VIII.

Much they reck of your praise and you!
But the wronged great souls---can they be quit
Of a world where their work is all to do,
Where you styl...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...best 
Deserve the precious bane. And here let those 
Who boast in mortal things, and wondering tell 
Of Babel, and the works of Memphian kings, 
Learn how their greatest monuments of fame 
And strength, and art, are easily outdone 
By Spirits reprobate, and in an hour 
What in an age they, with incessant toil 
And hands innumerable, scarce perform. 
Nigh on the plain, in many cells prepared, 
That underneath had veins of liquid fire 
Sluiced from the lake, a second m...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...from the earth 
Up hither like aereal vapours flew 
Of all things transitory and vain, when sin 
With vanity had filled the works of men: 
Both all things vain, and all who in vain things 
Built their fond hopes of glory or lasting fame, 
Or happiness in this or the other life; 
All who have their reward on earth, the fruits 
Of painful superstition and blind zeal, 
Nought seeking but the praise of men, here find 
Fit retribution, empty as their deeds; 
All the unaccomplished...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...ot here 
To trouble holy rest; Heaven casts thee out 
From all her confines. Heaven, the seat of bliss, 
Brooks not the works of violence and war. 
Hence then, and evil go with thee along, 
Thy offspring, to the place of evil, Hell; 
Thou and thy wicked crew! there mingle broils, 
Ere this avenging sword begin thy doom, 
Or some more sudden vengeance, winged from God, 
Precipitate thee with augmented pain. 
So spake the Prince of Angels; to whom thus 
The Adversar...Read more of this...

by Shelley, Percy Bysshe
...t mighty birth
Which many a poet and a sage
Has aye foreseen--the happy age
When truth and love shall dwell below
Among the works and ways of men;
Which on this world not power but will
Even now is wanting to fulfil.

Among mankind what thence befell 
Of strife, how vain, is known too well;
When Liberty's dear pæan fell
'Mid murderous howls. To Lionel,
Though of great wealth and lineage high,
Yet through those dungeon walls there came
Thy thrilling light, O Liberty!
A...Read more of this...

by Sandburg, Carl
...e mix of steel.

 The birdmen drone
 in the blue; it is steel
 a motor sings and zooms.

Steel barb-wire around The Works.
Steel guns in the holsters of the guards at the gates of The Works.
Steel ore-boats bring the loads clawed from the earth by steel, lifted and lugged by arms of steel, sung on its way by the clanking clam-shells.
The runners now, the handlers now, are steel; they dig and clutch and haul; they hoist their automatic knuckles from job to ...Read more of this...

by Schiller, Friedrich von
...wise choice combined,
Thus the first art from Nature had its birth;
Into a garland then were nosegays twined,
And from the works that mortal hands had made,
A second, nobler art was now displayed.
The child of beauty, self-sufficient now,
That issued from your hands to perfect day,
Loses the chaplet that adorned its brow,
Soon as reality asserts its sway.
The column, yielding to proportion's chains,
Must with its sisters join in friendly link,
The hero in the hero-ba...Read more of this...

by Browning, Robert
...angle,
Where the bold sword-lily cuts the clear waters,
And the cup-lily couches with all the white daughters:
Such are the works they put their hand to,
The uses they turn and twist iron and sand to.
And these made the troop, which our Duke saw sally
Toward his castle from out of the valley,
Men and women, like new-hatched spiders,
Come out with the morning to greet our riders.
And up they wound till they reached the ditch,
Whereat all stopped save one, a witch
That ...Read more of this...

by Bridges, Robert Seymour
...mphs things of old,
And do I dead upon the living gaze?
Or rather doth the mind, that can behold
The wondrous beauty of the works and days,
Create the image that her thoughts enfold? 

19
Rejoice, ye dead, where'er your spirits dwell,
Rejoice that yet on earth your fame is bright;
And that your names, remember'd day and night,
Live on the lips of those that love you well.
'Tis ye that conquer'd have the powers of hell,
Each with the special grace of your delight:
Ye are t...Read more of this...

by Sassoon, Siegfried
...cky I’ve a turn 
For thinking, and remembering all that’s past. 
And now’s my hour, before I hobble to bed, 
To set the works a-wheezing, wind the clock 
That keeps the time of life with feeble tick 
Behind my bleared old face that stares and wonders. 

. . . . 
It’s ***** how, in the dark, comes back to mind 
Some morning of September. We’ve been digging 
In a steep sandy warren, riddled with holes, 
And I’ve just pulled the terrier out and left 
...Read more of this...

by Pope, Alexander
...it to Fate!
Steel cou'd the Labour of the Gods destroy,
And strike to Dust th' Imperial Tow'rs of Troy.
Steel cou'd the Works of mortal Pride confound,
And hew Triumphal Arches to the Ground.
What Wonder then, fair Nymph! thy Hairs shou'd feel
The conqu'ring Force of unresisted Steel?


Part 4

BUT anxious Cares the pensive Nymph opprest,
And secret Passions labour'd in her Breast.
Not youthful Kings in Battel seiz'd alive,
Not scornful Virgins who their Charms su...Read more of this...

by Shelley, Percy Bysshe
...lear phials, 'tis said
The living were not envied of the dead.

Her cave was stored with scrolls of strange device,
The works of some Saturnian Archimage,
Which taught the expiations at whose price
Men from the Gods might win that happy age
Too lightly lost, redeeming native vice,--
And which might quench the earth-consuming rage
Of gold and blood, till men should live and move
Harmonious as the sacred stars above:--

And how all things that seem untameable,
Not to be che...Read more of this...

by Matthew, John
...
For things deeper and enduring.

Don’t be a slave to the work,
Of smart slave-drivers in cubicles,
Instead explore the works of men,
Who have experienced the truths,
And distilled in their words, wisdoms,
Which may grate your ears now.

Like me, don’t be prey to sudden,
Rushes of anger that comes over cables,
And with emails and posts demolish,
Without thinking of consequences -
I have done that and am living to regret.

Don’t drink bottled and sealed lifestyles,...Read more of this...

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Book: Shattered Sighs