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Famous Third Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Wilde, Oscar
...Narcissus, his own paramour,
Those are the fond and crimson lips no woman can allure.'

And when they nearer came a third one cried,
'It is young Dionysos who has hid
His spear and fawnskin by the river side
Weary of hunting with the Bassarid,
And wise indeed were we away to fly:
They live not long who on the gods immortal come to spy.'

So turned they back, and feared to look behind,
And told the timid swain how they had seen
Amid the reeds some woodland god reclined...Read more of this...



by Carroll, Lewis
..."We cannot let thee pass away!"
Ah, well-a-day! 


IV. 

My First is singular at best:
More plural is my Second:
My Third is far the pluralest -
So plural-plural, I protest
It scarcely can be reckoned! 

My First is followed by a bird:
My Second by believers
In magic art: my simple Third
Follows, too often, hopes absurd
And plausible deceivers. 

My First to get at wisdom tries -
A failure melancholy!
My Second men revered as wise:
My Third from heights of wisdom flie...Read more of this...

by Ginsberg, Allen
...woke on a sudden Manhattan, and 
 picked themselves up out of basements hung 
 over with heartless Tokay and horrors of Third 
 Avenue iron dreams & stumbled to unemploy- 
 ment offices, 
who walked all night with their shoes full of blood on 
 the snowbank docks waiting for a door in the 
 East River to open to a room full of steamheat 
 and opium, 
who created great suicidal dramas on the apartment 
 cliff-banks of the Hudson under the wartime 
 blue floodlight of the moon ...Read more of this...

by Alighieri, Dante
...Where the great Peter's follower rules. For he 
 Learned there the causes of his victory. 

 "And later to the third great Heaven was caught 
 The last Apostle, and thence returning brought 
 The proofs of our salvation. But, for me, 
 I am not &Aelig;neas, nay, nor Paul, to see 
 Unspeakable things that depths or heights can show, 
 And if this road for no sure end I go 
 What folly is mine? But any words are weak. 
 Thy wisdom further than the things I spea...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...like a starry zone his waist, and round 
Skirted his loins and thighs with downy gold 
And colours dipt in Heaven; the third his feet 
Shadowed from either heel with feathered mail, 
Sky-tinctured grain. Like Maia's son he stood, 
And shook his plumes, that heavenly fragrance filled 
The circuit wide. Straight knew him all the bands 
Of Angels under watch; and to his state, 
And to his message high, in honour rise; 
For on some message high they guessed him bound.Read more of this...



by Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...n can well forgive,
Hypocrisy, I saw it in him at once.
Is it so true that second thoughts are best?
Not first, and third, which are a riper first?
Too ripe, too late! they come too late for use.
Ah love, there surely lives in man and beast
Something divine to warn them of their foes:
And such a sense, when first I fronted him,
Said, "trust him not;" but after, when I came
To know him more, I lost it, knew him less;
Fought with what seem'd my own uncharity;
Sat at his...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...ssess the good of the earth and sun—(there are millions of suns
 left;) 
You shall no longer take things at second or third hand, nor look through the
 eyes of the dead, nor feed on the spectres in books; 
You shall not look through my eyes either, nor take things from me: 
You shall listen to all sides, and filter them from yourself. 

3
I have heard what the talkers were talking, the talk of the beginning and the
 end;
But I do not talk of the beginning or the...Read more of this...

by Chesterton, G K
...stone.

And the two wild peoples of the north
Stood fronting in the gloam,
And heard and knew each in its mind
The third great thunder on the wind,
The living walls that hedge mankind,
The walking walls of Rome.

Mark's were the mixed tribes of the west,
Of many a hue and strain,
Gurth, with rank hair like yellow grass,
And the Cornish fisher, Gorlias,
And Halmer, come from his first mass,
Lately baptized, a Dane.

But like one man in armour
Those hundreds trod t...Read more of this...

by Byron, George (Lord)
...r> See D'Herbelot, article Istakar. 

(20) "Musselim," a governor, the next in rank after a Pacha; a Waywode is the third; and then come the Agas. 

(21) "Egripo" — the Negropont. According to the proverb, the Turks of Egrip, the Jews of Salonica, and the Greeks of Athens are the worst of their respective races. 

(22) "Tchocadar," one of the attendants who precedes a man of authority. 

(23) The wrangling about this epithet, "the broad Hellespont," or the...Read more of this...

by Bradstreet, Anne
...r>
1.5 The second: frolic claims his pedigree;
1.6 From blood and air, for hot and moist is he.
1.7 The third of fire and choler is compos'd,
1.8 Vindicative, and quarrelsome dispos'd.
1.9 The last, of earth and heavy melancholy,
1.10 Solid, hating all lightness, and all folly.
1.11 Childhood was cloth'd in white, and given to show,
1.12 His spring was intermixed with some snow.
1.13 Upon his head a Garland Nature set:
1.Read more of this...

by Bridges, Robert Seymour
...name, knowing none would be heard
Or writ so oft in all the world as those,--
Dan Chaucer, mighty Shakespeare, then for third
The classic Milton, and to us arose
Shelley with liquid music in the world. 

5
The poets were good teachers, for they taught
Earth had this joy; but that 'twould ever be
That fortune should be perfected in me,
My heart of hope dared not engage the thought.
So I stood low, and now but to be caught
By any self-styled lords of the age with thee
V...Read more of this...

by Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...ymbol, gird the hall: 
And in the lowest beasts are slaying men, 
And in the second men are slaying beasts, 
And on the third are warriors, perfect men, 
And on the fourth are men with growing wings, 
And over all one statue in the mould 
Of Arthur, made by Merlin, with a crown, 
And peaked wings pointed to the Northern Star. 
And eastward fronts the statue, and the crown 
And both the wings are made of gold, and flame 
At sunrise till the people in far fields, 
Wasted so...Read more of this...

by Carroll, Lewis
...have gasped out "Rilchiam!"


CONTENTS

Fit the First. The Landing
Fit the Second. The Bellman's Speech
Fit the Third. The Baker's Tale
Fit the Fourth. The Hunting
Fit the Fifth. The Beaver's Lesson
Fit the Sixth. The Barrister's Dream
Fit the Seventh. The Banker's Fate
Fit the Eighth. The Vanishing


Fit the First.

THE LANDING


"Just the place for a Snark!" the Bellman cried,
 As he landed his crew with care;
Supporting each man on the t...Read more of this...

by Scott, Sir Walter
...of his weal to tell.
     The Minstrel heard the far halloo,
     And joyful from the shore withdrew.




CANTO THIRD.

The Gathering.

     I.

     Time rolls his ceaseless course. The race of yore,
          Who danced our infancy upon their knee,
     And told our marvelling boyhood legends store
          Of their strange ventures happed by land or sea,
     How are they blotted from the things that be!
          How few, all weak and withered of their...Read more of this...

by Blake, William
...was a Viper folding round the rock & the 
cave, and others adorning it with gold silver and precious
stones.
In the third chamber was an Eagle with wings and feathers of
air, he caused the inside of the cave to be infinite, around were
numbers of Eagle like men, who built palaces in the immense
cliffs.
In the fourth chamber were Lions of flaming fire raging around
& melting the metals into living fluids.
In the fifth chamber were Unnam'd forms, which cast the meta...Read more of this...

by Carroll, Lewis
...near, 

And why he had so long preferred
To hang upon her every word:
"In truth," he said, "it was absurd." 


The Third Voice 


NOT long this transport held its place:
Within a little moment's space
Quick tears were raining down his face 

His heart stood still, aghast with fear;
A wordless voice, nor far nor near,
He seemed to hear and not to hear. 

"Tears kindle not the doubtful spark.
If so, why not? Of this remark
The bearings are profoundly dark." 

"...Read more of this...

by Byron, George (Lord)
...into the infernal regions no less a person than the hero of his friend Mr. Southey's heaven, — yea, even George the Third! See also how personal Savage becometh, when he hath a mind. The following is his portrait of our late gracious sovereign: 

(Prince Gebir having descended into the infernal regions, the shades of his royal ancestors are, at his request, called up to his view; and he exclaims to
his ghostly guide) — 

'Aroar, what wretch that nearest us? what wretc...Read more of this...

by Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)
...Where the hermit-thrush sings in the pine trees
 Drip drop drip drop drop drop drop
 But there is no water
 Who is the third who walks always beside you? 
When I count, there are only you and I together
But when I look ahead up the white road
There is always another one walking beside you
Gliding wrapt in a brown mantle, hooded
I do not know whether a man or a woman
- But who is that on the other side of you?
 What is that sound high in the air
Murmur of maternal lamentation...Read more of this...

by Miller, Alice Duer
...s his breast—
That blue as deep as the southern sea,
Bluer than skies can ever be—
The Countess of Salisbury—Edward the Third—
No damn merit— the Duke— I heard
My own voice saying; 'Upon my word,
The garter!' and clapped my hands like a child.

Some one beside me turned and smiled,
And looking down at me said: "I fancy,
You're Bertie's Australian cousin Nancy.
He toId me to tell you that he'd be late 
At the Foreign Office and not to wait 
Supper for him, but to go wi...Read more of this...

by Plath, Sylvia
...death, this death?
As a child I loved a lichen-bitten name.
Is this the one sin then, this old dead love of death?

THIRD VOICE:
I remember the minute when I knew for sure.
The willows were chilling,
The face in the pool was beautiful, but not mine--
It had a consequential look, like everything else,
And all I could see was dangers: doves and words,
Stars and showers of gold--conceptions, conceptions!
I remember a white, cold wing

And the great swan, with its terribl...Read more of this...

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Book: Reflection on the Important Things