Famous Verses Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Verses poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous verses poems. These examples illustrate what a famous verses poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Burns, Robert
...olume. Seven of these he restored in printing his second edition, as noted on p. 174. The following are the verses which he left unpublished.]
Note 1. Duan, a term of Ossian’s for the different divisions of a digressive poem. See his Cath-Loda, vol. 2 of M’Pherson’s translation.—R. B. [back]
Note 2. The seven stanzas following this were first printed in the Edinburgh edition, 1787. Other stanzas, never published by Burns hims...Read more of this...
by
Holmes, Oliver Wendell
...andt a drawing or etching;
It is nothing at all, if you only know how.
Well; imagine you've printed your volume of verses:
Your forehead is wreathed with the garland of fame,
Your poems the eloquent school-boy rehearses,
Her album the school-girl presents for your name;
Each morning the post brings you autograph letters;
You'll answer them promptly,-- an hour isn't much
For the honor of sharing a page with your betters,
With magistrates, members of Congress, and such.Read more of this...
by
Martí, José
...A sincere man am I
From the land where palm trees grow,
And I want before I die
My soul's verses to bestow.
I'm a traveler to all parts,
And a newcomer to none:
I am art among the arts,
With the mountains I am one.
I know how to name and class
All the strange flowers that grow;
I know every blade of grass,
Fatal lie and sublime woe.
I have seen through dead of night
Upon my head softly fall,
Rays formed of the purest ...Read more of this...
by
Mayakovsky, Vladimir
...smut.
In parade deploying
the armies of my pages,
I shall inspect
the regiments in line.
Heavy as lead,
my verses at attention stand,
ready for death
and for immortal fame.
The poems are rigid,
pressing muzzle
to muzzle their gaping
pointed titles.
The favorite
of all the armed forces
the cavalry of witticisms
ready
to launch a wild hallooing charge,
reins its chargers still,
raising
the pointed lances of the rhymes.
and all
these troops arm...Read more of this...
by
Tebb, Barry
...e choice not chance
At sixteen I decided to be a poet,
Writing another’s love poems,
Earning my first praise. My verses
Were appalling until I learned
From Eliot and Alvarez - praise
Where praise is due.
10
The caf? staff are chatting in subdued tones,
Wearing white, wondering if they’ll survive
The winter, so do I; at fifty-four I must decide
For poetry, my sons educated just, one at Balliol
One at the Royal College, I have cast my lot
With Lady Luck...Read more of this...
by
Larkin, Philip
...ew--
Cleaned or restored? someone would know: I don't.
Mounting the lectern I peruse a few
hectoring large-scale verses and pronouce
Here endeth much more loudly than I'd meant
The echoes snigger briefly. Back at the door
I sign the book donate an Irish sixpence
Reflect the place was not worth stopping for.
Yet stop I did: in fact I often do
And always end much at a loss like this
Wondering what to look for; wondering too
When churches fall complet...Read more of this...
by
Lowell, Amy
...one or two would flutter prone and lie Spotting the smooth-clipped
grass. The days went by
Threaded with talk and verses. Green
leaves pushed Through blossoms stubbornly.
Gervase, unconscious of dishonesty,
Fell into strong and watchful loving, free
He thought, since always would his lips be hushed.
XXVII
But lips do not stay silent at command, And
Gervase strove in vain to order his.
Luckily Eunice did not understand That he but read himself
aloud, ...Read more of this...
by
Spenser, Edmund
...ders lie
Under deep ruins, with huge walls opprest,
But not your praise, the which shall never die
Through your fair verses, ne in ashes rest;
If so be shrilling voice of wight alive
May reach from hence to depth of darkest hell,
Then let those deep Abysses open rive,
That ye may understand my shreiking yell.
Thrice having seen under the heavens' vail
Your tomb's devoted compass over all,
Thrice unto you with loud voice I appeal,
And for your antique fury here ...Read more of this...
by
Whitman, Walt
...sounding loud and clear!
Away with old romance!
Away with novels, plots, and plays of foreign courts!
Away with love-verses, sugar’d in rhyme—the intrigues, amours of idlers,
Fitted for only banquets of the night, where dancers to late music slide;
The unhealthy pleasures, extravagant dissipations of the few,
With perfumes, heat and wine, beneath the dazzling chandeliers.
9
To you, ye Reverent, sane Sisters,
To this resplendent day, the present scene,
These eyes ...Read more of this...
by
Bridges, Robert Seymour
...
Baffled but not dishearten'd she took flight
Scheming new tactics: Love came home with me,
And prompts my measured verses as I write.
57
In autumn moonlight, when the white air wan
Is fragrant in the wake of summer hence,
'Tis sweet to sit entranced, and muse thereon
In melancholy and godlike indolence:
When the proud spirit, lull'd by mortal prime
To fond pretence of immortality,
Vieweth all moments from the birth of time,
All things whate'er have been or yet shal...Read more of this...
by
Aiken, Conrad
...on her wrist, still almost swinging? . . .
The secret was denied,
He chose his favorite pen and drew these verses,
And slept; and as he slept
A dream came into his heart, his lover entered,
And chided him, and wept.
And in the morning, waking, he remembered,
And thought the dream was strange.
Why did his darkened lover rise from the garden?
He turned, and felt a change,
As if a someone hidden smiled and watched him . . .
Yet there was only s...Read more of this...
by
Khayyam, Omar
...om the sown,
Where name of Slave and Sultan is forgot --
And Peace is Mahmud on his Golden Throne!
XII.
A Book of Verses underneath the Bough,
A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread, -- and Thou
Beside me singing in the Wilderness --
Oh, Wilderness were Paradise enow!
XIII.
Some for the Glories of This World; and some
Sigh for the Prophet's Paradise to come;
Ah, take the Cash, and let the Promise go,
Nor heed the rumble of a distant Drum!
XIV.
Were it not Folly, Spi...Read more of this...
by
Byron, George (Lord)
.... Mr. Southey laudeth grievously 'one Mr. Landor,' who cultivates much prevate renown in the shape of Latin verses; and not long ago, the poet laureate dedicated to him, it appeareth, one of his fugitive lyrics, upon the strength of a poem called 'Gebir.' Who could suppose, that in this same Gebir the aforesaid Savage Landor (for such is his grim cognomen) putteth into the infernal regions no less a person than the hero of his friend Mr. Southey's heaven, ...Read more of this...
by
Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)
...DEAD
Line 20. Cf. Ezekiel 2:1.
23. Cf. Ecclesiastes 12:5.
31. V. Tristan und Isolde, i, verses 5-8.
42. Id. iii, verse 24.
46. I am not familiar with the exact constitution of the Tarot
pack
of cards, from which I have obviously departed to suit my own convenience.
The Hanged Man, a member of the traditional pack, fits my purpose
in two ways: because he is associated in my mind with the Hanged God
of Frazer, and because ...Read more of this...
by
Chaucer, Geoffrey
...in the Merchant's Tale there is
internal proof that it was told after the jolly Dame's. Several
manuscripts contain verses designed to serve as a connexion;
but they are evidently not Chaucer's, and it is unnecessary to
give them here. Of this Prologue, which may fairly be regarded
as a distinct autobiographical tale, Tyrwhitt says: "The
extraordinary length of it, as well as the vein of pleasantry that
runs through it, is very suitable to the character of the speaker...Read more of this...
by
Shelley, Percy Bysshe
...sue
Your happiness for thus alone 15
Can Ariel ever find his own.
From Prospero's enchanted cell
As the mighty verses tell
To the throne of Naples he
Lit you o'er the trackless sea 20
Flitting on your prow before
Like a living meteor.
When you die the silent Moon
In her interlunar swoon
Is not sadder in her cell 25
Than deserted Ariel:¡ª
When you live again on earth
Like an unseen Star of birth
Ariel guides you o'er the sea
Of life from you...Read more of this...
by
Hugo, Victor
...en left yourselves to please
This morning but a moment here
'Mid papers tinted by my mind
You took some embryo verses near—
Half formed, but fully well designed
To open out. Your hearts desire
Was but to throw them on the fire,
Then watch the tinder, for the sight
Of shining sparks that twinkle bright
As little boats that sail at night,
Or like the window lights that spring
From out the dark at evening.
'Twas all, and you were well conte...Read more of this...
by
Harrison, Tony
...t of her 'diurnal courses'
before repeating her creation of black coal?
If, having come this far, somebody reads
these verses, and he/she wants to understand,
face this grave on Beeston Hill, your back to Leeds,
and read the chiselled epitaph I've planned:
Beneath your feet's a poet, then a pit.
Poetry supporter, if you're here to find
How poems can grow from (beat you to it!) ****
find the beef, the beer, the bread, then look behind....Read more of this...
by
Swift, Jonathan
...As Rochefoucauld his maxims drew
From nature, I believe 'em true:
They argue no corrupted mind
In him; the fault is in mankind.
This maxim more than all the rest
Is thought too base for human breast:
"In all distresses of our friends,
We first consult our private ends;
While nature, kindly bent to ease us,
Points out some circumstance to please us.Read more of this...
by
Akhmatova, Anna
...eren't you that, on to my lips pressing,
Prayed of love, and for love did wish,
Would it weren't you that with golden verses
Immortalized my anguish
Over future I do secret magic
If the evening is truly blue,
And I divine a second meeting,
Unavoidable meeting with you.
x x x
How spacious are these squares,
How resonant bridges and stark!
Heavy, peaceful, and starless
Is the covering of the dark.
And we walk on the fresh snow
As if we were m...Read more of this...
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