Famous Titled Poems by Famous Poets

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

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It always felt to me -- a wrong

by Emily Dickinson
 It always felt to me -- a wrong
To that Old Moses -- done --
To let him see -- the Canaan --
Without the entering --

And tho' in soberer moments --
No Moses there can be
I'm satisfied -- the Romance
In point of injury --

Surpasses sharper stated --
Of Stephen -- or of Paul --
For these -- were only put to death --
While God's...Read more of this...

530. Song—Yonder pomp of costly fashion

by Robert Burns
 MARK yonder pomp of costly fashion
 Round the wealthy, titled bride:
But when compar’d with real passion,
 Poor is all that princely pride.
 Mark yonder, &c. (four lines repeated).


 What are the showy treasures,
 What are the noisy pleasures?
The gay, gaudy glare of vanity and art:
 The polish’d jewels’ blaze
 May draw the wond’ring gaze;
 And courtly grandeur bright
 The...Read more of this...

504. Apology to Mr. Syme for not dining with him

by Robert Burns
 NO more of your guests, be they titled or not,
 And cookery the first in the nation;
Who is proof to thy personal converse and wit,
 Is proof to all other temptation....Read more of this...

Manuelzinho

by Elizabeth Bishop
 Half squatter, half tenant (no rent)—
a sort of inheritance; white,
in your thirties now, and supposed
to supply me with vegetables,
but you don't; or you won't; or you can't
get the idea through your brain—
the world's worst gardener since Cain.
Titled above me, your gardens
ravish my eyes. You edge
the beds of silver cabbages
with red carnations, and lettuces
mix with alyssum. And then
umbrella ants arrive,
or...Read more of this...

365. Lines on Fergusson the Poet

by Robert Burns
 ILL-FATED genius! Heaven-taught Fergusson!
 What heart that feels and will not yield a tear,
To think Life’s sun did set e’er well begun
 To shed its influence on thy bright career.


O why should truest Worth and Genius pine
 Beneath the iron grasp of Want and Woe,
While titled knaves and idiot-Greatness shine
 In all the splendour Fortune can bestow?...Read more of this...

January 1795

by Mary Darby Robinson
 Pavement slipp'ry, people sneezing,
Lords in ermine, beggars freezing ;
Titled gluttons dainties carving,
Genius in a garret starving.

Lofty mansions, warm and spacious ;
Courtiers clinging and voracious ;
Misers scarce the wretched heeding ;
Gallant soldiers fighting, bleeding.

Wives who laugh at passive spouses ;
Theatres, and meeting-houses ;
Balls, where simp'ring misses languish ;
Hospitals, and groans of anguish.

Arts and sciences bewailing ;
Commerce drooping, credit failing ;
Placemen...Read more of this...

Twin idols

by Eugene Field
 There are two phrases, you must know,
So potent (yet so small)
That wheresoe'er a man may go
He needs none else at all;
No servile guide to lead the way
Nor lackey at his heel,
If he be learned enough to say
"Comme bien" and "Wie viel."

The sleek, pomaded Parleyvoo
Will air his sweetest airs
And quote the highest rates when you
"Comme bien" for his wares;
And, though...Read more of this...

'Tis passing strange, those titled noblemen

by Omar Khayyam
'Tis passing strange, those titled noblemen
Find their own lives a burden sore, but when
They meet with poorer men, not slaves to sense,
They scarcely deign to reckon them as men....Read more of this...

Poetical Essay

by Percy Bysshe Shelley
 Extract from Poetical Essay by Percy Bysshe Shelley


Millions to fight compell'd, to fight or die
In mangled heaps on War's red altar lie . . . 
When the legal murders swell the lists of pride;
When glory's views the titled idiot guide


Lost Shelley poem found after 200 years
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-2267433,00.html...Read more of this...

Study In Orange And White

by Billy Collins
 I knew that James Whistler was part of the Paris scene,
but I was still surprised when I found the painting
of his mother at the Musée d'Orsay
among all the colored dots and mobile brushstrokes
of the French Impressionists.

And I was surprised to notice
after a few minutes of benign staring,
how that woman, stark in profile
and fixed forever in her chair,
began to resemble...Read more of this...

Bill and Joe

by Oliver Wendell Holmes
 COME, dear old comrade, you and I
Will steal an hour from days gone by,
The shining days when life was new,
And all was bright with morning dew,
The lusty days of long ago,
When you were Bill and I was Joe.

Your name may flaunt a titled trail
Proud as a cockerel's rainbow tail,
And mine as brief appendix wear
As Tam O'Shanter's luckless mare;
To-day, old...Read more of this...

Dream Song 3: A Stimulant for an Old Beast

by John Berryman
 Acacia, burnt myrrh, velvet, pricky stings.
-”I'm not so young but not so very old,
said screwed-up lovely 23.
A final sense of being right out in the cold,
unkissed.
(-”My psychiatrist can lick your psychiatrist.) Women get under 
 things.

All these old criminals sooner or later
have had it. I've been reading old journals.
Gottwald & Co., out of business now.
Thick chests quit. Double agent,...Read more of this...

The Ballad of G. R. Dibbs

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...

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