Famous Twenty First Poems by Famous Poets

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

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A Fairly Sad Tale

...I think that I shall never know
Why I am thus, and I am so.
Around me, other girls inspire
In men the rush and roar of fire,
The sweet transparency of glass,
The tenderness of April grass,
The durability of granite;
But me- I don't know how to plan it.
The lads I've met in Cupid's deadlock
Were- shall we say?- born out of wedlock.
They broke my heart, they...Read more of this...
by Parker, Dorothy


Caliban upon Setebos or Natural Theology in the Island

..."Thou thoughtest that I was altogether such a one as thyself." 
(David, Psalms 50.21) 
['Will sprawl, now that the heat of day is best, 
Flat on his belly in the pit's much mire, 
With elbows wide, fists clenched to prop his chin. 
And, while he kicks both feet in the cool slush, 
And feels about his spine small eft-things course, 
Run in and out each arm,...Read more of this...
by Browning, Robert

Christmas party at the South Danbury Church

...December twenty-first
we gather at the white Church festooned 
red and green, the tree flashing 
green-red lights beside the altar.
After the children of Sunday School 
recite Scripture, sing songs,
and scrape out solos,
they retire to dress for the finale,
to perform the pageant 
again: Mary and Joseph kneeling 
cradleside, Three Kings,
shepherds and shep...Read more of this...
by Hall, Donald

Nursery Rhyme For A Twenty-First Birthday

...You cannot see the walls that divide your hand
From his or hers or mine when you think you touch it.

You cannot see the walls because they are glass,
And glass is nothing until you try to pass it.

Beat on it if you like, but not too hard,
For glass will break you even while you break it.

Shout, and the sound will be broken and driven backwards,
For glas...Read more of this...
by Tessimond, A S J

The Execution of James Graham Marquis of Montrose

...'Twas in the year of 1650, and on the twenty-first of May,
The city of Edinburgh was put into a state of dismay
By the noise of drums and trumpets, which on the air arose,
That the great sound attracted the notice of Montrose. 

Who enquired at the Captain of the guard the cause of it,
Then the officer told him, as he thought most fit,
That the Parliament ...Read more of this...
by McGonagall, William Topaz


The Great Adventure of Max Breuck

...1
A yellow band of light upon the street
Pours from an open door, and makes a wide
Pathway of bright gold across a sheet
Of calm and liquid moonshine. From inside
Come shouts and streams of laughter, and a snatch
Of song, soon drowned and lost again in mirth,
The clip of tankards on a table top,
And stir of booted heels. Against the patch
Of candle-light a...Read more of this...
by Lowell, Amy

The Quality Of Sprawl

...Sprawl is the quality
of the man who cut down his Rolls-Royce
into a farm utility truck, and sprawl
is what the company lacked when it made repeated efforts
to buy the vehicle back and repair its image. 

Sprawl is doing your farm work by aeroplane, roughly,
or driving a hitchhiker that extra hundred miles home.
It is the rococo of being your own still cen...Read more of this...
by Murray, Les

Twenty-First. Night. Monday

...Twenty-first. Night. Monday.
Silhouette of the capitol in darkness.
Some good-for-nothing -- who knows why --
made up the tale that love exists on earth.

People believe it, maybe from laziness
or boredom, and live accordingly:
they wait eagerly for meetings, fear parting,
and when they sing, they sing about love.

But the secret reveals itself to some,
an...Read more of this...
by Akhmatova, Anna

White Flock

...Copyright Anna Akhmatova
Copyright English translation by Ilya Shambat (ilya_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 ...Read more of this...
by Akhmatova, Anna

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