Famous Twice Poems by Famous Poets

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

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On No Work Of Words

by Dylan Thomas
 On no work of words now for three lean months in the
 bloody
Belly of the rich year and the big purse of my body
I bitterly take to task my poverty and craft:

To take to give is all, return what is hungrily given
Puffing the pounds of manna up through the dew to heaven,
The lovely gift of the gab bangs back...Read more of this...

The Animals

by Edwin Muir
 They do not live in the world, 
Are not in time and space. 
From birth to death hurled 
No word do they have, not one 
To plant a foot upon, 
Were never in any place. 

For with names the world was called 
Out of the empty air, 
With names was built and walled, 
Line and circle and square, 
Dust...Read more of this...

I never lost as much but twice

by Emily Dickinson
 I never lost as much but twice,
And that was in the sod.
Twice have I stood a beggar
Before the door of God!

Angels -- twice descending
Reimbursed my store --
Burglar! Banker -- Father!
I am poor once more!...Read more of this...

My life closed twice before its close --

by Emily Dickinson
 My life closed twice before its close --
It yet remains to see
If Immortality unveil
A third event to me

So huge, so hopeless to conceive
As these that twice befell.
Parting is all we know of heaven,
And all we need of hell....Read more of this...

Truth

by George William Russell
 THE HERO first thought it
To him ’twas a deed:
To those who retaught it,
A chain on their speed.


The fire that we kindled,
A beacon by night,
When darkness has dwindled
Grows pale in the light.


For life has no glory
Stays long in one dwelling,
And time has no story
That’s true twice in telling.


And only the teaching
That never was spoken
Is worthy thy reaching,
The fountain unbroken....Read more of this...

Purple -- is fashionable twice --

by Emily Dickinson
 Purple -- is fashionable twice --
This season of the year,
And when a soul perceives itself
To be an Emperor....Read more of this...

Four Quartets 2: East Coker

by T S (Thomas Stearns) Eliot
 I

In my beginning is my end. In succession
Houses rise and fall, crumble, are extended,
Are removed, destroyed, restored, or in their place
Is an open field, or a factory, or a by-pass.
Old stone to new building, old timber to new fires,
Old fires to ashes, and ashes to the earth
Which is already flesh, fur and faeces,
Bone of man and beast, cornstalk and...Read more of this...

Twice a Week the Winter Thorough

by A E Housman
 Twice a week the winter thorough 
Here stood I to keep the goal: 
Football then was fighting sorrow 
For the young man's soul. 

Now in Maytime to the wicket 
Out I march with bat and pad: 
See the son of grief at cricket 
Trying to be glad. 

Try I will; no harm in trying: 
Wonder 'tis how little mirth...Read more of this...

In This Place (An American Lyric)

by Amanda Gorman
There’s a poem in this place—
in the footfalls in the halls
in the quiet beat of the seats.
It is here, at the curtain of day,
where America writes a lyric
you must whisper to say.

There’s a poem in this place—
in the heavy grace,
the lined face of this noble building,
collections burned and reborn twice.

There’s a poem in Boston’s Copley Square
where protest chants
tear through the...Read more of this...

The Dream of Eugene Aram

by Thomas Hood
 'Twas in the prime of summer-time 
An evening calm and cool, 
And four-and-twenty happy boys 
Came bounding out of school: 
There were some that ran and some that leapt, 
Like troutlets in a pool.

Away they sped with gamesome minds, 
And souls untouched by sin; 
To a level mead they came, and there 
They drave the wickets in: 
Pleasantly shone...Read more of this...

The Great Yellow River Inundation in China

by William Topaz McGonagall
 'Twas in the year of 1887, and on the 28th of September,
Which many people of Honan, in China, will long remember;
Especially those that survived the mighty deluge,
That fled to the mountains, and tops of trees, for refuge. 

The river burst its embankments suddenly at dead of night,
And the rushing torrent swept all before it left and right;
All over the...Read more of this...

I Dreamed My Genesis

by Dylan Thomas
 I dreamed my genesis in sweat of sleep, breaking
Through the rotating shell, strong
As motor muscle on the drill, driving
Through vision and the girdered nerve.

From limbs that had the measure of the worm, shuffled
Off from the creasing flesh, filed
Through all the irons in the grass, metal
Of suns in the man-melting night.

Heir to the scalding veins that hold love's drop, costly
A...Read more of this...

Twice Shy

by Seamus Heaney
 Her scarf a la Bardot, 
In suede flats for the walk, 
She came with me one evening
For air and friendly talk.
We crossed the quiet river, 
Took the embankment walk.

Traffic holding its breath, 
Sky a tense diaphragm: 
Dusk hung like a backcloth
That shook where a swan swam, 
Tremulous as a hawk
Hanging deadly, calm.

A vacuum of need
Collapsed each hunting heart
But tremulously...Read more of this...

Raising The Flag

by Robert William Service
 Behold! the Spanish flag they're raising
Before the Palace courtyard gate;
To watch its progress bold and blazing
Two hundred patient people wait.
Though bandsmen play the anthem bravely
The silken emblem seems to lag;
Two hundred people watch it gravely -
But only two salute the flag.

Fine-clad and arrogant of manner
The twain are like dark dons of old,
And to that high and haughty banner
Uplifted palms...Read more of this...

Fire and Ice

by Robert Frost
 Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favour fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice....Read more of this...

Twice

by Christina Rossetti
 I took my heart in my hand 
(O my love, O my love), 
I said: Let me fall or stand, 
Let me live or die, 
But this once hear me speak- 
(O my love, O my love)- 
Yet a woman's words are weak; 
You should speak, not I.

You took my heart in your hand 
With a friendly smile, 
With...Read more of this...

Seven

by Robert William Service
 If on water and sweet bread
Seven years I'll add to life,
For me will no blood be shed,
No lamb know the evil knife;
Excellently will I dine
On a crust and Adam's wine.

If a bed in monkish cell
Well mean old of age to me,
Let me in a convent dwell,
And from fellow men be free;
Let my mellow sunset days
Pass in piety and praise.

For...Read more of this...

Twice had Summer her fair Verdure

by Emily Dickinson
 Twice had Summer her fair Verdure
Proffered to the Plain --
Twice a Winter's silver Fracture
On the Rivers been --

Two full Autumns for the Squirrel
Bounteous prepared --
Nature, Had'st thou not a Berry
For thy wandering Bird?...Read more of this...

My weary life, that lives unsatisfied

by Fernando Pessoa
My weary life, that lives unsatisfied

On the foiled off-brink of being e'er but this,

To whom the power to will hath been denied

And the will to renounce doth also miss;

My sated life, with having nothing sated,

In the motion of moving poisèd aye,

Within its dreams from its own dreams abated--

This life let the Gods change or take away.

For this endless succession of...Read more of this...

Wanting To Die

by Anne Sexton
 Since you ask, most days I cannot remember.
I walk in my clothing, unmarked by that voyage.
Then the most unnameable lust returns.

Even then I have nothing against life.
I know well the grass blades you mention
the furniture you have placed under the sun.

But suicides have a special language.
Like carpenters they want to know which tools.
They never ask why build.

Twice I have...Read more of this...

Milton's Appeal To Cromwell

by Victor Hugo
 ("Non! je n'y puis tenir.") 
 
 {CROMWELL, Act III. sc. iv.} 


 Stay! I no longer can contain myself, 
 But cry you: Look on John, who bares his mind 
 To Oliver—to Cromwell, Milton speaks! 
 Despite a kindling eye and marvel deep 
 A voice is lifted up without your leave; 
 For I was never...Read more of this...

Preface to Hunting of the Snark

by Lewis Carroll
 PREFACE

If---and the thing is wildly possible---the charge of writing 
nonsense were ever brought against the author of this brief but 
instructive poem, it would be based, I feel convinced, on the line 

``Then the bowsprit got mixed with the rudder sometimes'' 

In view of this painful possibility, I will not (as I might) appeal 
indignantly to my other writings...Read more of this...

Dream Song 4: Filling her compact and delicious body

by John Berryman
 Filling her compact & delicious body
with chicken páprika, she glanced at me
twice.
Fainting with interest, I hungered back
and only the fact of her husband & four other people
kept me from springing on her

or falling at her little feet and crying
'You are the hottest one for years of night
Henry's dazed eyes
have enjoyed, Brilliance.' I advanced upon
(despairing) my spumoni.-”Sir Bones: is stuffed,
de...Read more of this...

Mad Maria

by Robert William Service
 Mad Maria in the Square
Sits upon a wicker chair.
When the keeper asks the price
Mad Maria counts her lice.
No pesito can she pay,
So he shrugs and goes away;
Hopes she'll pay him with her prayers,
Shabby keeper of the chairs.

Mad Maria counts her lice,
Cracks them once and cracks them twice,
Combs them from her sunny hair;
People stop to turn and stare.
Innocent in thought...Read more of this...

Two -- were immortal twice --

by Emily Dickinson
 Two -- were immortal twice --
The privilege of few --
Eternity -- obtained -- in Time --
Reversed Divinity --

That our ignoble Eyes
The quality conceive
Of Paradise superlative --
Through their Comparative....Read more of this...

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