Famous Valued Poems by Famous Poets

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

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The Black Cottage

by Robert Frost
 We chanced in passing by that afternoon 
To catch it in a sort of special picture 
Among tar-banded ancient cherry trees, 
Set well back from the road in rank lodged grass, 
The little cottage we were speaking of, 
A front with just a door between two windows, 
Fresh painted by the shower a velvet black. 
We paused, the minister...Read more of this...

Canzone XVIII

by Francesco Petrarch
CANZONE XVIII. Qual più diversa e nova. HE COMPARES HIMSELF TO ALL THAT IS MOST STRANGE IN CREATION.  Whate'er most wild and newWas ever found in any foreign land,If viewed and valued true,Most likens me 'neath Love's transforming hand.Whence the bright day breaks through,Alone and consortless, a bird there flies,Read more of this...

Foes

by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
 Thank Fate for foes! I hold mine dear 
As valued friends. He cannot know 
The zest of life who runneth here 
His earthly race without a foe.

I saw a prize, "Run," cried my friend; 
"'T is thine to claim without a doubt." 
But ere I half-way reached the end, 
I felt my strength was giving out.

My foe looked on...Read more of this...

The Two Men

by Thomas Hardy
 THERE were two youths of equal age,
Wit, station, strength, and parentage;
They studied at the self-same schools,
And shaped their thoughts by common rules.

One pondered on the life of man,
His hopes, his endings, and began
To rate the Market's sordid war
As something scarce worth living for.

"I'll brace to higher aims," said he,
"I'll further Truth and Purity;
Thereby to mend and mortal lot
And sweeten...Read more of this...

The New Freethinker

by G K Chesterton
 John Grubby who was short and stout 
And troubled with religious doubt, 
Refused about the age of three 
To sit upon the curate's knee; 
(For so the eternal strife must rage 
Between the spirit of the age 
And Dogma, which, as is well known, 
Does simply hate to be outgrown). 
Grubby, the young idea that shoots, 
Outgrew the ages...Read more of this...

The Vanity of All Worldly Things

by Anne Bradstreet
 As he said vanity, so vain say I,
Oh! Vanity, O vain all under sky;
Where is the man can say, "Lo, I have found
On brittle earth a consolation sound"?
What isn't in honor to be set on high?
No, they like beasts and sons of men shall die,
And whilst they live, how oft doth turn their fate;
He's now a captive that was...Read more of this...

Come Send Round the Wine

by Thomas Moore
 Come, send round the wine, and leave points of belief 
To simpleton sages and reasoning fools; 
This moment's a flower too fair and brief 
To be wither'd and stain'd by the dust of the schools. 
Your glass may be purple, and mine may be blue, 
But, while they are fill'd from the same bright bowl, 
The fool who would...Read more of this...

The Wrangler

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
 ONE day a shameless and impudent wight
Went into a shop full of steel wares bright,
Arranged with art upon ev'ry shelf.
He fancied they were all meant for himself;
And so, while the patient owner stood by,
The shining goods needs must handle and try,
And valued,--for how should a fool better know?--
The bad things high, and the good ones low,
And all with an...Read more of this...

Phillis Or the Progress of Love

by Jonathan Swift
 Desponding Phillis was endu'd 
With ev'ry Talent of a Prude, 
She trembled when a Man drew near; 
Salute her, and she turn'd her Ear: 
If o'er against her you were plac't 
She durst not look above your Wa[i]st; 
She'd rather take you to her Bed 
Than let you see her dress her Head; 
In Church you heard her thro'...Read more of this...

Leonora

by Edwin Arlington Robinson
 They have made for Leonora this low dwelling in the ground, 
And with cedar they have woven the four walls round. 
Like a little dryad hiding she’ll be wrapped all in green, 
Better kept and longer valued than by ways that would have been. 

They will come with many roses in the early afternoon,
They will come with pinks and...Read more of this...

Sonnet XXIII

by Francesco Petrarch
SONNET XXIII. Quand' io veggio dal ciel scender l' Aurora. MORN RENDERS HIS GRIEF MORE POIGNANT.  When from the heavens I see Aurora beam,With rosy-tinctured cheek and golden hair,Love bids my face the hue of sadness wear:"There Laura dwells!" I with a sigh exclaim.Thou knowest well the hour that shall redeem,Read more of this...

Mistress Gurtons Cat

by Mary Darby Robinson
 Old MISTRESS GURTON had a Cat,
A Tabby, loveliest of the race,
Sleek as a doe, and tame, and fat
With velvet paws, and whisker'd face;
The Doves of VENUS not so fair,
Nor JUNO'S Peacocks half so grand
As MISTRESS GURTON'S Tabby rare,
The proudest of the purring band;
So dignified in all her paces--
She seem'd, a pupil of the Graces!
There never was a finer creature
In...Read more of this...

from Flying Home

by Galway Kinnell
3 
As this plane dragged 
its track of used ozone half the world long 
thrusts some four hundred of us 
toward places where actual known people 
live and may wait, 
we diminish down in our seats, 
disappeared into novels of lives clearer than ours, 
and yet we do not forget for a moment 
the life down there, the doorway each...Read more of this...

The Musagetes

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
 IN the deepest nights of Winter
To the Muses kind oft cried I:
"Not a ray of morn is gleaming,
Not a sign of daylight breaking;
Bring, then, at the fitting moment,
Bring the lamp's soft glimm'ring lustre,
'Stead of Phoebus and Aurora,
To enliven my still labours!"
Yet they left me in my slumbers,
Dull and unrefreshing, lying,
And to each late-waken'd morning
Follow'd days devoid of profit.

When at...Read more of this...

A Tale of the Miser and the Poet

by Anne Kingsmill Finch
 A WIT, transported with Inditing, 
Unpay'd, unprais'd, yet ever Writing; 
Who, for all Fights and Fav'rite Friends, 
Had Poems at his Fingers Ends; 
For new Events was still providing; 
Yet now desirous to be riding, 
He pack'd-up ev'ry Ode and Ditty 
And in Vacation left the City; 
So rapt with Figures, and Allusions, 
With secret Passions, sweet Confusions; 
With...Read more of this...

The Spinner

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
 As I calmly sat and span,

Toiling with all zeal,
Lo! a young and handsome man

Pass'd my spinning-wheel.

And he praised,--what harm was there?--

Sweet the things he said--
Praised my flax-resembling hair,

And the even thread.

He with this was not content,

But must needs do more;
And in twain the thread was rent,

Though 'twas safe before.

And the flax's stonelike weight

Needed to be told;
But no longer was...Read more of this...

Liberty Needs Glasses

by Tupac Shakur
excuse me but lady liberty needs glasses
and so does mrs justice by her side
both the broads r blind as bats
stumbling thru the system
justice bumbed into mutulu and
trippin on geronimo pratt
but stepped right over oliver
and his crooked partner ronnie
justice stubbed her big toe on mandela
and liberty was misquoted by the indians
slavery was a learning phase
forgotten with out a verdict
while justice is...Read more of this...

Ars Poetica?

by Czeslaw Milosz
 I have always aspired to a more spacious form
that would be free from the claims of poetry or prose
and would let us understand each other without exposing
the author or reader to sublime agonies.

In the very essence of poetry there is something indecent:
a thing is brought forth which we didn't know we had in us,
so we blink our eyes, as...Read more of this...

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