Famous Transplanted Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Ode to Beauty

by Ralph Waldo Emerson
 EXULTING BEAUTY,­phantom of an hour, 
Whose magic spells enchain the heart, 
Ah ! what avails thy fascinating pow'r, 
Thy thrilling smile, thy witching art ? 
Thy lip, where balmy nectar glows; 
Thy cheek, where round the damask rose 
A thousand nameless Graces move, 
Thy mildly speaking azure eyes, 
Thy golden hair, where cunning Love 
In many a mazy ringlet...Read more of this...

Prayer of Columbus

by Walt Whitman
 A BATTER’D, wreck’d old man, 
Thrown on this savage shore, far, far from home, 
Pent by the sea, and dark rebellious brows, twelve dreary months, 
Sore, stiff with many toils, sicken’d, and nigh to death, 
I take my way along the island’s edge,
Venting a heavy heart. 

I am too full of woe! 
Haply, I may not live another day;...Read more of this...

I had been hungry all the Years --

by Emily Dickinson
 I had been hungry, all the Years --
My Noon had Come -- to dine --
I trembling drew the Table near --
And touched the Curious Wine --

'Twas this on Tables I had seen --
When turning, hungry, Home
I looked in Windows, for the Wealth
I could not hope -- for Mine --

I did not know the ample Bread --
'Twas so unlike the...Read more of this...

In Memoriam A. H. H.: 82. I wage not any feud with death

by Alfred Lord Tennyson
 I wage not any feud with Death
For changes wrought on form and face;
No lower life that earth's embrace
May breed with him, can fright my faith.
Eternal process moving on,
From state to state the spirit walks;
And these are but the shatter'd stalks,
Or ruin'd chrysalis of one.
Nor blame I Death, because he bare
The use of virtue out of earth:
I know transplanted human...Read more of this...

The Happiest Day

by Linda Pastan
 It was early May, I think
a moment of lilac or dogwood
when so many promises are made
it hardly matters if a few are broken.
My mother and father still hovered
in the background, part of the scenery
like the houses I had grown up in,
and if they would be torn down later
that was something I knew
but didn't believe. Our children were asleep
or playing,...Read more of this...

Elegy XVIII: Loves Progress

by John Donne
 Who ever loves, if he do not propose
The right true end of love, he's one that goes
To sea for nothing but to make him sick.
Love is a bear-whelp born: if we o'erlick
Our love, and force it new strange shapes to take,
We err, and of a lump a monster make.
Were not a calf a monster that were grown
Faced like a...Read more of this...

Dickeyville Grotto

by Mark Doty
 The priest never used blueprints, but worked all
the many designs out of his head.


Father Wilerus,
transplanted Alsatian,
built around
this plain Wisconsin

redbrick church
a coral-reef en-
crustation--meant,
the brochure says,

to glorify America
and heaven simul-
taneously. Thus:
Mary and Columbus

and the Sacred Heart
equally enthroned
in a fantasia of quartz
and seashells, broken

dishes, stalactites
and stick-shift knobs--
no separation
of nature and art

for Father Wilerus!
He's built fabulous blooms
--bristling mosaic tiles
bunched into chipped,

permanent roses---
and more...Read more of this...

In Memoriam 82: I Wage Not Any Feud With Death

by Alfred Lord Tennyson
 I wage not any feud with Death
For changes wrought on form and face;
No lower life that earth's embrace
May breed with him, can fright my faith. 

Eternal process moving on,
From state to state the spirit walks;
And these are but the shatter'd stalks,
Or ruin'd chrysalis of one. 

Nor blame I Death, because he bare
The use of virtue out of earth:
I know...Read more of this...

Gustav Richter

by Edgar Lee Masters
 After a long day of work in my hot-houses
Sleep was sweet, but if you sleep on your left side
Your dreams may be abruptly ended.
I was among my flowers where some one
Seemed to be raising them on trial,
As if after-while to be transplanted
To a larger garden of freer air.
And I was disembodied vision
Amid a light, as it were the sun
Had...Read more of this...

Son-Days

by Henry Vaughan
 1 

Bright shadows of true Rest! some shoots of bliss, 
Heaven once a week; 
The next world's gladness prepossest in this; 
A day to seek; 
Eternity in time; the steps by which 
We Climb above all ages; Lamps that light 
Man through his heap of dark days; and the rich, 
And full redemption of the whole week's flight. 

2...Read more of this...

Josiah Tompkins

by Edgar Lee Masters
  I was well known and much beloved
And rich, as fortunes are reckoned
In Spoon River, where I had lived and worked.
That was the home for me,
Though all my children had flown afar—
Which is the way of Nature—all but one.
The boy, who was the baby, stayed at home,
To be my help in my failing years
And the solace of his mother.
But...Read more of this...

The Reaper and the Flowers

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
 There is a Reaper, whose name is Death,
And, with his sickle keen,
He reaps the bearded grain at a breath,
And the flowers that grow between.

"Shall I have naught that is fair?" saith he;
"Have naught but the bearded grain?
Though the breath of these flowers is sweet to me,
I will give them all back again."

He gazed at the flowers with tearful eyes,
He...Read more of this...

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