Famous Touchstone Poems by Famous Poets

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

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An Argument

by Vachel Lindsay
 I. THE VOICE OF THE MAN IMPATIENT WITH VISIONS AND UTOPIAS

We find your soft Utopias as white
As new-cut bread, and dull as life in cells,
O, scribes who dare forget how wild we are
How human breasts adore alarum bells.
You house us in a hive of prigs and saints
Communal, frugal, clean and chaste by law.
I'd rather brood in bloody Elsinore
Or be...Read more of this...

The Touchstone

by William Allingham
 A man there came, whence none could tell, 
Bearing a Touchstone in his hand; 
And tested all things in the land 
By its unerring spell. 

Quick birth of transmutation smote 
The fair to foul, the foul to fair; 
Purple nor ermine did he spare, 
Nor scorn the dusty coat. 

Of heirloom jewels, prized so much, 
Were many changed to...Read more of this...

What launched that golden orb his course to run,

by Omar Khayyam
What launched that golden orb his course to run,
What wrecks his firm foundations, when 'tis done,
No man of science ever weighed with scales,
Nor made assay with touchstone, no, not one!...Read more of this...

Sonnet LX: Define My Weal

by Michael Drayton
 Define my weal, and tell the joys of Heav'n; 
Express my woes, and show the pains of Hell; 
Declare what fate unlucky stars have giv'n, 
And ask a world upon my life to dwell; 
Make known the faith that Fortune could not move; 
Compare myu worth with others' base desert; 
Let virtue be the touchstone of my love, 
So...Read more of this...

Bridge Over The Aire Book 3

by Barry Tebb
 THE KINGDOM OF MY HEART





1



The halcyon settled on the Aire of our days

Kingfisher-blue it broke my heart in two

Shall I forget you? Shall I forget you?



I am the mad poet first love

You never got over

You are my blue-eyed

Madonna virgin bride

I shall carve ‘MG loves BT’

On the bark of every 

Wind-bent tree in 

East End Park



2



The park itself will blossom

And...Read more of this...

Thought

by D. H. Lawrence
 Thought, I love thought.
But not the juggling and twisting of already existent ideas
I despise that self-important game.
Thought is the welling up of unknown life into consciousness,
Thought is the testing of statements on the touchstone of consciousness,
Thought is gazing onto the face of life, and reading what can be read,
Thought is pondering over experience, and coming to conclusion.
Thought is not...Read more of this...

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