Famous Understood Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Understood poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous understood poems. These examples illustrate what a famous understood poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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...Of paled pearls and rubies red as blood;
Figuring that they their passions likewise lent me
Of grief and blushes, aptly understood
In bloodless white and the encrimson'd mood;
Effects of terror and dear modesty,
Encamp'd in hearts, but fighting outwardly.
''And, lo, behold these talents of their hair,
With twisted metal amorously impleach'd,
I have received from many a several fair,
Their kind acceptance weepingly beseech'd,
With the annexions of fair gems enrich'd,
And deep...Read more of this...
by
Shakespeare, William
...d Rome.
With Tyranny, then Superstition join'd,
As that the Body, this enslav'd the Mind;
Much was Believ'd, but little understood,
And to be dull was constru'd to be good;
A second Deluge Learning thus o'er-run,
And the Monks finish'd what the Goths begun.
At length, Erasmus, that great, injur'd Name,
(The Glory of the Priesthood, and the Shame!)
Stemm'd the wild Torrent of a barb'rous Age.
And drove those Holy Vandals off the Stage.
But see! each Muse, in Leo's Golden Day...Read more of this...
by
Pope, Alexander
...d, this voice, have nourish’d, rais’d, restored,
To life recalling many a prostrate form:)
—I am willing to wait to be understood by the growth of the taste of myself,
I reject none, I permit all.
(Say, O mother! have I not to your thought been faithful?
Have I not, through life, kept you and yours before me?)
15
I swear I begin to see the meaning of these things!
It is not the earth, it is not America, who is so great,
It is I who am great, or to be great—it is you u...Read more of this...
by
Whitman, Walt
....
All Nature is but Art, unknown to thee;
All Chance, Direction, which thou canst not see;
All Discord, Harmony, not understood;
All partial Evil, universal Good:
And, spite of Pride, in erring Reason's spite,
One truth is clear, "Whatever IS, is RIGHT."
Argument of the Second Epistle:
Of the Nature and State of Man, with respect to Himself, as an Individual. The business of Man not to pry into God, but
to study himself.
Know then thyself, presume not God to scan;
T...Read more of this...
by
Pope, Alexander
...f you will—but do not speak so loud;
Besides, such things as these," said fair Mahaud,
"In your condition are not understood."
"Well said," made answer Zeno, "'tis a place
Of wonders—I see serpents, and can trace
Vampires, and monsters swarming, that arise
In mist, through chinks, to meet the gazer's eyes."
Then Mahaud shuddered, and she said: "The wine
The Abbé made me drink as task of mine,
Will soon enwrap me in the soundest sleep—
Swear no...Read more of this...
by
Hugo, Victor
...Once I spoke the language of the flowers,
Once I understood each word the caterpillar said,
Once I smiled in secret at the gossip of the starlings,
And shared a conversation with the housefly
in my bed.
Once I heard and answered all the questions
of the crickets,
And joined the crying of each falling dying
flake of snow,
Once I spoke the language of the flowers. . . .
How did it go?
How did it go?...Read more of this...
by
Silverstein, Shel
...f his state; he answers not,
Scarce glances on him as on one forgot,
And turns to Kaled: — each remaining word,
They understood not, if distinctly heard;
His dying tones are in that other tongue,
To which some strange remembrance wildly clung.
They spake of other scenes, but what — is known
To Kaled, whom their meaning reach'd alone;
And he replied, though faintly, to their sound,
While gazed the rest in dumb amazement round:
They seem'd even then — that twain — unt...Read more of this...
by
Byron, George (Lord)
...cal.
I couldn't keep from asking impolitely,
Where bad he been and what had he been doing?
How did he get so? (Rich was understood.)
In dealing in "old rags" in San Francisco.
Ob, it was terrible as well could be.
We both of us turned over in our graves.
Just specimens is all New Hampshire has,
One each of everything as in a showcase,
Which naturally she doesn't care to sell.
She had one President. (Pronounce him Purse,
And make the most of it for better or worse.
He's your...Read more of this...
by
Frost, Robert
...of God excuse to have been
Enamoured at that sight; but in those hearts
Love unlibidinous reigned, nor jealousy
Was understood, the injured lover's hell.
Thus when with meats and drinks they had sufficed,
Not burdened nature, sudden mind arose
In Adam, not to let the occasion pass
Given him by this great conference to know
Of things above his world, and of their being
Who dwell in Heaven, whose excellence he saw
Transcend his own so far; whose radiant forms,
Divin...Read more of this...
by
Milton, John
...airer now
Than ever; bounty of this virtuous tree!
So said he, and forbore not glance or toy
Of amorous intent; well understood
Of Eve, whose eye darted contagious fire.
Her hand he seised; and to a shady bank,
Thick over-head with verdant roof imbowered,
He led her nothing loth; flowers were the couch,
Pansies, and violets, and asphodel,
And hyacinth; Earth's freshest softest lap.
There they their fill of love and love's disport
Took largely, of their mutual guilt...Read more of this...
by
Milton, John
...listening where the hapless pair
Sat in their sad discourse, and various plaint,
Thence gathered his own doom; which understood
Not instant, but of future time, with joy
And tidings fraught, to Hell he now returned;
And at the brink of Chaos, near the foot
Of this new wonderous pontifice, unhoped
Met, who to meet him came, his offspring dear.
Great joy was at their meeting, and at sight
Of that stupendious bridge his joy encreased.
Long he admiring stood, till Sin,...Read more of this...
by
Milton, John
...erience, not by talk,
How counterfeit a coin they are who friends
Bear in their Superscription (of the most
I would be understood) in prosperous days
They swarm, but in adverse withdraw their head
Not to be found, though sought. Wee see, O friends.
How many evils have enclos'd me round;
Yet that which was the worst now least afflicts me,
Blindness, for had I sight, confus'd with shame,
How could I once look up, or heave the head,
Who like a foolish Pilot have shipwrack't,
My...Read more of this...
by
Milton, John
...Of itself. It is inertia that once
Acknowledged saps all activity, secret or public:
Whispers of the word that can't be understood
But can be felt, a chill, a blight
Moving outward along the capes and peninsulas
Of your nervures and so to the archipelagoes
And to the bathed, aired secrecy of the open sea.
This is its negative side. Its positive side is
Making you notice life and the stresses
That only seemed to go away, but now,
As this new mode questions, are seen to be
Hast...Read more of this...
by
Ashbery, John
...lacue cut with a burnt stick at
night.
I know I am august;
I do not trouble my spirit to vindicate itself or be understood;
I see that the elementary laws never apologize;
(I reckon I behave no prouder than the level I plant my house by, after all.)
I exist as I am—that is enough;
If no other in the world be aware, I sit content;
And if each and all be aware, I sit content.
One world is aware, and by far the largest to me, and that is myself;
And whet...Read more of this...
by
Whitman, Walt
...me . . . ah, had it been a purse
Of silver, my friend, or gold that's worse,
Why, you see, as soon as I found myself
So understood,---that a true heart so may gain
Such a reward,---I should have gone home again,
Kissed Jacynth, and soberly drowned myself!
It was a little plait of hair
Such as friends in a convent make
To wear, each for the other's sake,---
This, see, which at my breast I wear,
Ever did (rather to Jacynth's grudgment),
And ever shall, till the Day of Judgment....Read more of this...
by
Browning, Robert
...good
Who lose in earnestness control of face,
Or reckon means, and rapt in effort base
Reach to their end by steps well understood.
Me whom thou sawest of late strive with the pains
Of one who spends his strength to rule his nerve,
--Even as a painter breathlessly who stains
His scarcely moving hand lest it should swerve--
Behold me, now that I have cast my chains,
Master of the art which for thy sake I serve.
2
For thou art mine: and now I am ashamed
To have uséd means to...Read more of this...
by
Bridges, Robert Seymour
...fant in its cradle than nurse unacted desires
Where man is not nature is barren.
Truth can never be told so as to be understood, and not be
believ'd.
Enough! or Too much
PLATE 11
The ancient Poets animated all sensible objects with Gods or
Geniuses calling them by the names and adorning them with the
properties of woods, rivers, mountains, lakes, cities, nations,
and whatever their enlarged & numerous senses could percieve.
And particularly they studied the genius of...Read more of this...
by
Blake, William
...face it, retracing childhood’s
Nightmare footsteps while you recalled the terror of countless
Nights and days until I understood the meaning of our parted ways.
V
If only we could go back to the cottage on the hill at Honley
Where the road sweeps gently under the bridge where trains never ran
Our voices still echoing round the cavernous walls the smooth moss clings to
And we are beyond the reach of the driving rain.
There is always the odd cottage no one can b...Read more of this...
by
Tebb, Barry
...d good arise; the portal past — he stood;
Before him the young cherubs and saints hoary —
(I say young, begging to be understood
By looks, not years; and should be very sorry
To state, they were not older than St. Peter,
But merely that they seem'd a little sweeter.
XXXI
The cherubs and the saints bow'd down before
That arch-angelic Hierarch, the first
Of essences angelical, who wore
The aspect of a god; but this ne'er nursed
Pride in his heavenly bosom, in whose...Read more of this...
by
Byron, George (Lord)
...
Those who are striving toward it are in fever,
But those that reach it struck with woe that lingers.
Now you have understood, why forever
My heart does not beat underneath your fingers.
x x x
All has been taken: strength as well as love.
Into the unloved town the corpse is thrown.
It does not love the sun. I fear, that blood
Inside of me already cold has grown.
I do not recognize sweet Muse's loving taste:
She looks ahead and does not let a word pass...Read more of this...
by
Akhmatova, Anna
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