Famous Title Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Title poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous title poems. These examples illustrate what a famous title poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Barry Tebb
for Ken Kesey and his merry pranksters in a bus called ‘Further...’
Dear _______ and here’s where the problem begins
For who shall I address this letter to?
Friends are few and very special, muses in the main
I must confess, the first I lost just fifty years ago.
Perhaps the best.
I searched for years and wrote en route
‘Bridge Over the Aire’ after that...Read more of this...
by
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
THE stork who worms and frogs devours
That in our ponds reside,
Why should he dwell on high church-towers,
With which he's not allied?
Incessantly he chatters there,
And gives our ears no rest;
But neither old nor young can dare
To drive him from his nest.
I humbly ask it,--how can he
Give of his title proof,
Save by his happy tendency
To soil the church's roof?...Read more of this...
by
Ben Jonson
III. ? TO MY BOOKSELLER. Thou that mak'st gain thy end, and wisely well, Call'st a book good, or bad, as it doth sell, Use mine so too ; I give thee leave : but crave, For the luck's sake, it thus much favor have, To lie upon thy stall, till it be sought ; Not offer'd, as it made suit to...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
Title divine -- is mine!
The Wife -- without the Sign!
Acute Degree -- conferred on me --
Empress of Calvary!
Royal -- all but the Crown!
Betrothed -- without the swoon
God sends us Women --
When you -- hold -- Garnet to Garnet --
Gold -- to Gold --
Born -- Bridalled -- Shrouded --
In a Day --
Tri Victory
"My Husband" -- women say --
Stroking the Melody...Read more of this...
by
Oliver Wendell Holmes
GRANDMOTHER's mother: her age, I guess,
Thirteen summers, or something less;
Girlish bust, but womanly air;
Smooth, square forehead with uprolled hair;
Lips that lover has never kissed;
Taper fingers and slender wrist;
Hanging sleeves of stiff brocade;
So they painted the little maid.
On her hand a parrot green
Sits unmoving and broods serene.
Hold up the canvas full in view,--
Look! there's a rent the light shines through,
Dark...Read more of this...
by
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
THOUGHTS ON JESUS CHRIST'S DESCENT INTO HELL.
[THE remarkable Poem of which this is a literal
but faint representation, was written when Goethe was only sixteen
years old. It derives additional interest from the fact of its being
the very earliest piece of his that is preserved. The few other
pieces included by Goethe under the title of Religion and...Read more of this...
by
Friedrich von Schiller
She comes, she comes--the burden of the deeps!
Beneath her wails the universal sea!
With clanking chains and a new god, she sweeps,
And with a thousand thunders, unto thee!
The ocean-castles and the floating hosts--
Ne'er on their like looked the wild water!--Well
May man the monster name "Invincible."
O'er shuddering waves she gathers to thy coasts!
The horror that she spreads can claim
Just title to...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
Alone and in a Circumstance
Reluctant to be told
A spider on my reticence
Assiduously crawled
And so much more at Home than I
Immediately grew
I felt myself a visitor
And hurriedly withdrew
Revisiting my late abode
With articles of claim
I found it quietly assumed
As a Gymnasium
Where Tax asleep and Title off
The inmates of the Air
Perpetual presumption took
As each were special Heir --
If any strike me on...Read more of this...
by
Robert Seymour Bridges
The south-wind strengthens to a gale,
Across the moon the clouds fly fast,
The house is smitten as with a flail,
The chimney shudders to the blast.
On such a night, when Air has loosed
Its guardian grasp on blood and brain,
Old terrors then of god or ghost
Creep from their caves to life again;
And Reason kens he herits in
A haunted house. Tenants unknown
Assert their...Read more of this...
by
John Dryden
Consecrated to the Glorious Memory of His
Most Serene and Renowned Highness, Oliver,
Late Lord Protector of This Commonwealth, etc.
(Oliver Cromwell)
Written After the Celebration of his Funeral
1
And now 'tis time; for their officious haste,
Who would before have borne him to the sky,
Like eager Romans ere all rites were past
Did let too soon the sacred eagle fly....Read more of this...
by
George Herbert
Immortal love, authour of this great frame,
Sprung from that beautie which can never fade;
How hath man parcel’d out thy glorious name,
And thrown it on that dust which thou hast made,
While mortall love doth all the title gain!
Which siding with invention, they together
Bear all the sway, possessing heart and brain,
(Thy workmanship) and give thee share in neither.
Wit fancies beautie, beautie...Read more of this...
by
Rudyard Kipling
When Julius Fabricius, Sub-Prefect of the Weald,
In the days of Diocletian owned our Lower River-field,
He called to him Hobdenius-a Briton of the Clay,
Saying: "What about that River-piece for layin'' in to hay?"
And the aged Hobden answered: "I remember as a lad
My father told your father that she wanted dreenin' bad.
An' the more that you neeglect her the less you'll...Read more of this...
by
Charles Simic
I say to the lead
Why did you let yourself
Be cast into a bullet?
Have you forgotten the alchemists?
Have you given up hope
In turning into gold?
Nobody answers.
Lead. Bullet. With names
Such as these
The sleep is deep and long....Read more of this...
by
Edwin Arlington Robinson
“Gawaine, Gawaine, what look ye for to see,
So far beyond the faint edge of the world?
D’ye look to see the lady Vivian,
Pursued by divers ominous vile demons
That have another king more fierce than ours?
Or think ye that if ye look far enough
And hard enough into the feathery west
Ye’ll have a glimmer of the...Read more of this...
by
T S (Thomas Stearns) Eliot
GROWLTIGER was a Bravo Cat, who lived upon a barge;
In fact he was the roughest cat that ever roamed at large.
From Gravesend up to Oxford he pursued his evil aims,
Rejoicing in his title of "The Terror of the Thames."
His manners and appearance did not calculate to please;
His coat was torn and seedy, he was baggy at the knees;
One ear...Read more of this...
by
Helen Hunt Jackson
I never had a title-deed
To my estate. But little heed
Eyes give to me, when I walk by
My fields, to see who occupy.
Some clumsy men who lease and hire
And cut my trees to feed their fire,
Own all the land that I possess,
And tax my tenants to distress.
And if I say I had...Read more of this...
by
Andrew Barton Paterson
This is the story of G.R.D.,
Who went on a mission across the sea
To borrow some money for you and me.
This G. R. Dibbs was a stalwart man
Who was built on a most extensive plan,
And a regular staunch Republican.
But he fell in the hands of the Tory crew
Who said, "It's a shame that...Read more of this...
by
Friedrich von Schiller
Three errors there are, that forever are found
On the lips of the good, on the lips of the best;
But empty their meaning and hollow their sound--
And slight is the comfort they bring to the breast.
The fruits of existence escape from the clasp
Of the seeker who strives but those shadows to grasp--
So long as man dreams of some age in...Read more of this...
by
Thomas Hardy
Long have I framed weak phantasies of Thee,
O Willer masked and dumb!
Who makest Life become, -
As though by labouring all-unknowingly,
Like one whom reveries numb.
How much of consciousness informs Thy will
Thy biddings, as if blind,
Of death-inducing kind,
Nought shows to us ephemeral ones who fill
But moments...Read more of this...
by
Connie Wanek
Each picture is heartbreakingly banal,
a kitten and a ball of yarn,
a dog and bone.
The paper is cheap, easily torn.
A coloring book's authority is derived
from its heavy black lines
as unalterable as the ten commandments
within which minor decisions are possible:
the dog black and white,
the kitten gray.
Under the picture we find a few words,
a title, perhaps a narrative,
a psalm or sermon.
But nowhere...Read more of this...
by
Ben Jonson
II. ? TO MY BOOK. It will be look'd for, BOOK, when some but see Thy title, EPIGRAMS, and named of me, Thou shouldst be bold, licentious, full of gall, Wormwood, and sulphur, sharp, and tooth'd withal ; Become a petulent thing, hurl ink, and wit, As madmen stones ; not caring whom they hit. Deceive their malice, who could...Read more of this...
by
Charles Bukowski
They dont make it
the beautiful die in flame-
sucide pills,rat poison,rope what-
ever...
they rip their arms off,
throw themselves out of windows,
they pull their eyes out of the sockets,
reject love
reject hate
reject,reject.
they do'nt make it
the beautiful can't endure,
they are butterflies
they are doves
they are sparrows,
they dont make it.
onetall...Read more of this...
by
Anne Kingsmill Finch
VAIN Love, why do'st thou boast of Wings,
That cannot help thee to retire!
When such quick Flames Suspicion brings,
As do the Heart about thee fire.
Still Swift to come, but when to go
Thou shou'd'st be more–Alas! how Slow.
Lord of the World must surely be
But thy bare Title at the most;
Since Jealousy is Lord...Read more of this...
by
Amy Lowell
Look, Dear, how bright the moonlight is to-night!
See where it casts the shadow of that tree
Far out upon the grass. And every gust
Of light night wind comes laden with the scent
Of opening flowers which never bloom by day:
Night-scented stocks, and four-o'clocks, and that
Pale yellow disk, upreared on its tall stalk,
The evening primrose, comrade of the stars.
It seems as though...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
Ended, ere it begun --
The Title was scarcely told
When the Preface perished from Consciousness
The Story, unrevealed --
Had it been mine, to print!
Had it been yours, to read!
That it was not Our privilege
The interdict of God --...Read more of this...
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