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Famous Though Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Shakespeare, William
...orrow's wind and rain.

Upon her head a platted hive of straw,
Which fortified her visage from the sun,
Whereon the thought might think sometime it saw
The carcass of beauty spent and done:
Time had not scythed all that youth begun,
Nor youth all quit; but, spite of heaven's fell rage,
Some beauty peep'd through lattice of sear'd age.

Oft did she heave her napkin to her eyne,
Which on it had conceited characters,
Laundering the silken figures in the brine
That season...Read more of this...



by Dickinson, Emily
...hat Sense was breaking through—

And when they all were seated,
A Service, like a Drum—
Kept beating—beating—till I thought
My Mind was going numb

And then I heard them lift a Box
And creak across my Soul
With those same Boots of Lead, again,
Then Space—began to toll,

As all the Heavens were a Bell,
And Being, but an Ear,
And I, and Silence, some strange Race
Wrecked, solitary, here—

And then a Plank in Reason, broke,
And I dropped down, and down—
And hi...Read more of this...

by Sandburg, Carl
...went to famous executives who boss the work of
thousands of men.
They all shook their heads and gave me a smile as though
I was trying to fool with them
And then one Sunday afternoon I wandered out along
the Desplaines river
And I saw a crowd of Hungarians under the trees with
their women and children 
and a keg of beer and an
accordion....Read more of this...

by Wilde, Oscar
...autumn's gaudy livery whose gold
Her jealous brother pilfers, but is true
To the green doublet; bitter is the wind, as though it blew

From Saturn's cave; a few thin wisps of hay
Lie on the sharp black hedges, where the wain
Dragged the sweet pillage of a summer's day
From the low meadows up the narrow lane;
Upon the half-thawed snow the bleating sheep
Press close against the hurdles, and the shivering house-dogs creep

From the shut stable to the frozen stream
And back agai...Read more of this...

by Keats, John
...om his place;
But there came one, who with a kindred hand
Touch'd his wide shoulders, after bending low
With reverence, though to one who knew it not.
She was a Goddess of the infant world;
By her in stature the tall Amazon
Had stood a pigmy's height: she would have ta'en
Achilles by the hair and bent his neck;
Or with a finger stay'd Ixion's wheel.
Her face was large as that of Memphian sphinx,
Pedestal'd haply in a palace court,
When sages look'd to Egypt for their ...Read more of this...



by Alighieri, Dante
...ank, thinned, and ceased. A blinding splendour hot 
 Flushed the great height toward which my footsteps fell, 
 And though it kindled from the nether hell, 
 Or from the Star that all men leads, alike 
 It showed me where the great dawn-glories strike 
 The wide east, and the utmost peaks of snow. 

 How first I entered on that path astray, 
 Beset with sleep, I know not. This I know. 
 When gained my feet the upward, lighted way, 
 I backward gazed, as one th...Read more of this...

by Byron, George (Lord)
...gnise, yet almost deem 
The present dubious, or the past a dream. 

He lives, nor yet is past his manhood's prime, 
Though sear'd by toil, and something touch'd by time; 
His faults, whate'er they were, if scarce forgot, 
Might be untaught him by his varied lot; 
Nor good nor ill of late were known, his name 
Might yet uphold his patrimonial fame. 
His soul in youth was haughty, but his sins 
No more than pleasure from the stripling wins; 
And such, if not yet harden'...Read more of this...

by Frost, Robert
...t Cole’s. I’m late.
I called you up to say Good-night from here
Before I went to say Good-morning there.—
I thought I would.— I know, but, Lett—I know—
I could, but what’s the sense? The rest won’t be
So bad.— Give me an hour for it.— Ho, ho,
Three hours to here! But that was all up hill;
The rest is down.— Why no, no, not a wallow:
They kept their heads and took their time to it
Like darlings, both of them. They’re in the barn.—
My dear, I...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...e policeman travels his beat—the
 gate-keeper marks who pass; 
The young fellow drives the express-wagon—(I love him, though I do not know
 him;) 
The half-breed straps on his light boots to complete in the race; 
The western turkey-shooting draws old and young—some lean on their rifles,
 some sit on logs, 
Out from the crowd steps the marksman, takes his position, levels his piece;
The groups of newly-come immigrants cover the wharf or levee; 
As the woolly-pates ho...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...onceiv’d in the open air, and all great poems also; 
I think I could stop here myself, and do miracles; 
(My judgments, thoughts, I henceforth try by the open air, the road;)
I think whatever I shall meet on the road I shall like, and whoever beholds me shall like
 me; 
I think whoever I see must be happy. 

5
From this hour, freedom! 
From this hour I ordain myself loos’d of limits and imaginary lines, 
Going where I list, my own master, total and absolute,
Listening to ...Read more of this...

by Chesterton, G K
...ht
Walked where they fought the unknown fight
And saw black trees on the battle-height,
Black thorn on Ethandune?
And I thought, "I will go with you,
As man with God has gone,
And wander with a wandering star,
The wandering heart of things that are,
The fiery cross of love and war
That like yourself, goes on."

O go you onward; where you are
Shall honour and laughter be,
Past purpled forest and pearled foam,
God's winged pavilion free to roam,
Your face, that is a wanderi...Read more of this...

by Carroll, Lewis
...hat by wiser talk are unbeguiled.
Ah, happy he who owns that tenderest joy,
 The heart-love of a child!

Away, fond thoughts, and vex my soul no more!
 Work claims my wakeful nights, my busy days--
Albeit bright memories of that sunlit shore
 Yet haunt my dreaming gaze!


PREFACE


If--and the thing is wildly possible--the charge of writing nonsense were ever brought against the author of this brief but instructive poem, it would be based, I feel convinced, on the line (i...Read more of this...

by Wordsworth, William
...  Which Betty well could understand.   And now that Johnny is just going,  Though Betty's in a mighty flurry,  She gently pats the pony's side,  On which her idiot boy must ride,  And seems no longer in a hurry.   But when the pony moved his legs,  Oh! then for the poor idiot boy!  For joy he cannot hold the bridle,  For joy his...Read more of this...

by Poe, Edgar Allan
...n this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling 
By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore,¡ª 
"Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou," I said, "art sure no craven, 45 
Ghastly grim and ancient Raven wandering from the Nightly shore: 
Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night's Plutonian shore!" 
Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore." 

Much I marvelled this ungainly fowl to hear discourse so plainly, 
Though its answer little meaning¡ªlittle ...Read more of this...

by Frost, Robert
...
Then took the other, as just as fair, 
And having perhaps the better claim 
Because it was grassy and wanted wear; 
Though as for that, the passing there 
Had worn them really about the same, 

And both that morning equally lay 
In leaves no step had trodden black. 
Oh, I marked the first for another day! 
Yet knowing how way leads on to way 
I doubted if I should ever come back. 

I shall be telling this with a sigh 
Somewhere ages and ages hence: 
Two...Read more of this...

by Carroll, Lewis
...knowledge find increase.
Say 'Men are Men, and Geese are Geese.'" 

He moaned: he knew not what to say.
The thought "That I could get away!"
Strove with the thought "But I must stay. 

"To dine!" she shrieked in dragon-wrath.
"To swallow wines all foam and froth!
To simper at a table-cloth! 

"Say, can thy noble spirit stoop
To join the gormandising troup
Who find a solace in the soup? 

"Canst thou desire or pie or puff?
Thy well-bred manners were enough,...Read more of this...

by Shelley, Percy Bysshe
...heir father rose, to bear
Their portion of the toil which he of old
Took as his own & then imposed on them;
But I, whom thoughts which must remain untold
Had kept as wakeful as the stars that gem
The cone of night, now they were laid asleep,
Stretched my faint limbs beneath the hoary stem
Which an old chestnut flung athwart the steep
Of a green Apennine: before me fled
The night; behind me rose the day; the Deep
Was at my feet, & Heaven above my head
When a strange trance ove...Read more of this...

by Byron, George (Lord)
...this new 'Vision,' his public career will not be more favourably transmitted by history. Of his private virtues (although a little expense to the nation) there can be no doubt. 

With regard to the supernatural personages treated of, I can only say that I know as much about them, and (as an honest man) have a better right to talk of them than Robert Southey. I have also treated them more tolerantly. The way in which that poor insane creature, the Laureate, de...Read more of this...

by Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)
...se days.
 Unreal City, 
Under the brown fog of a winter dawn,
A crowd flowed over London Bridge, so many,
I had not thought death had undone so many.
Sighs, short and infrequent, were exhaled,
And each man fixed his eyes before his feet.
Flowed up the hill and down King William Street,
To where Saint Mary Woolnoth kept the hours
With a dead sound on the final stroke of nine.
There I saw one I knew, and stopped him, crying "Stetson!
"You who were with me in the...Read more of this...

by Akhmatova, Anna
...lya_shambat@yahoo.com)
Origin: http://www.geocities.com/ilya_shambat/akhmatova.html

 * I * 

We thought we were beggars, we thought we had nothing at all
But then when we started to lose one thing after another,
Each day became
A memorial day --
And then we made songs
Of great divine generosity
And of our former riches.


Unification

I'll leave your quiet yard and your white house -
Let life be empty and with light complete.
I'l...Read more of this...

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Book: Shattered Sighs