Famous Wanted Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Wanted poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous wanted poems. These examples illustrate what a famous wanted poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Crowley, Aleister
...- what evil star
Makes you so competent and popular?
How have I raised this harpy-hag of Hell's
Malice --- that you are wanted somewhere else?
I wish you were like me a man forbid,
Banned, outcast, nice society well rid
Of the pair of us --- then who would interfere
With us? --- my darling, you would now be here!
But no! we must fight on, win through, succeed,
Earn the grudged praise that never comes to meed,
Lash dogs to kennel, trample snakes, put bit
In the mule-mouths th...Read more of this...
by
Whitman, Walt
...nd for your lives!
I am he who walks the States with a barb’d tongue, questioning every one I meet;
Who are you, that wanted only to be told what you knew before?
Who are you, that wanted only a book to join you in your nonsense?
(With pangs and cries, as thine own, O bearer of many children!
These clamors wild, to a race of pride I give.)
O lands! would you be freer than all that has ever been before?
If you would be freer than all that has been before, come list...Read more of this...
by
McGough, Roger
...i wanted one life
you wanted another
we couldn't have our cake
so we ate eachother....Read more of this...
by
Frost, Robert
...r>' I said it too: 'Yes, for her name.'
She nodded. So we're sure there's no mistake.
I don't know what she wanted it to mean,
But it seems like some word she left to bid you
Be a good girl—be like a maple tree.
How like a maple tree's for us to guess.
Or for a little girl to guess sometime.
Not now—at least I shouldn't try too hard now.
By and by I will tell you all I know
About the different trees, and something, too,
About your mother that perha...Read more of this...
by
Soto, Gary
...ing a saleslady
Down a narrow aisle of goods.
I turned to the candies
Tiered like bleachers,
And asked what she wanted -
Light in her eyes, a smile
Starting at the corners
Of her mouth. I fingered
A nickle in my pocket,
And when she lifted a chocolate
That cost a dime,
I didn't say anything.
I took the nickle from
My pocket, then an orange,
And set them quietly on
The counter. When I looked up,
The lady's eyes met mine,
And held them, knowing
...Read more of this...
by
Milton, John
...doring, and began
Their orisons, each morning duly paid
In various style; for neither various style
Nor holy rapture wanted they to praise
Their Maker, in fit strains pronounced, or sung
Unmeditated; such prompt eloquence
Flowed from their lips, in prose or numerous verse,
More tuneable than needed lute or harp
To add more sweetness; and they thus began.
These are thy glorious works, Parent of good,
Almighty! Thine this universal frame,
Thus wonderous fair; Thy...Read more of this...
by
Milton, John
...d at length, ere long I might perceive
Strange alteration in me, to degree
Of reason in my inward powers; and speech
Wanted not long; though to this shape retained.
Thenceforth to speculations high or deep
I turned my thoughts, and with capacious mind
Considered all things visible in Heaven,
Or Earth, or Middle; all things fair and good:
But all that fair and good in thy divine
Semblance, and in thy beauty's heavenly ray,
United I beheld; no fair to thine
Equiv...Read more of this...
by
Milton, John
...ction, without taint
Of sin, or legal debt;
For with his own Laws he can best dispence.
He would not else who never wanted means,
Nor in respect of the enemy just cause
To set his people free,
Have prompted this Heroic Nazarite,
Against his vow of strictest purity,
To seek in marriage that fallacious Bride,
Unclean, unchaste.
Down Reason then, at least vain reasonings down,
Though Reason here aver
That moral verdit quits her of unclean :
Unchaste was subsequent, her ...Read more of this...
by
Ashbery, John
...according to
Stringent laws, and that things
Do get done in this way, but never the things
We set out to accomplish and wanted so desperately
To see come into being. Parmigianino
Must have realized this as he worked at his
Life-obstructing task. One is forced to read
The perfectly plausible accomplishment of a purpose
Into the smooth, perhaps even bland (but so
Enigmatic) finish. Is there anything
To be serious about beyond this otherness
That gets included in the...Read more of this...
by
Whitman, Walt
...expanding right hand and left hand,
The picture alive, every part in its best light,
The music falling in where it is wanted, and stopping where it is not wanted,
The cheerful voice of the public road—the gay fresh sentiment of the road.
O highway I travel! O public road! do you say to me, Do not leave me?
Do you say, Venture not? If you leave me, you are lost?
Do you say, I am already prepared—I am well-beaten and undenied—adhere to me?
O public road! I say back,...Read more of this...
by
Masefield, John
...room was full of men and stink
Of bad cigars and heavy drink.
Riley was nodding to the floor
And gurgling as he wanted more.
His mouth was wide, his face was pale,
His swollen face was sweating ale;
And one of those assembled Greeks
Had corked black crosses on his cheeks.
Thomas was having words with Goss,
He "wouldn't pay, the fight was cross."
And Goss told Tom that "cross or no,
The bets go as the verdicts go,
By all I've ever heard or read of....Read more of this...
by
Wordsworth, William
...bound: And homeless near a thousand homes I stood, And near a thousand tables pined, and wanted food. By grief enfeebled was I turned adrift, Helpless as sailor cast on desert rock; Nor morsel to my mouth that day did lift, Nor dared my hand at any door to knock. I lay, where with his drowsy mates, the cock From the cross timber of an out-house hung...Read more of this...
by
Browning, Robert
...
Than a shine lit up the face so shady,
And its smirk returned with a novel meaning---
For it struck him, the babe just wanted weaning;
If one gave her a taste of what life was and sorrow,
She, foolish to-day, would be wiser tomorrow;
And who so fit a teacher of trouble
As this sordid crone bent well-nigh double?
So, glancing at her wolf-skin vesture,
(If such it was, for they grow so hirsute
That their own fleece serves for natural fur-suit)
He was contrasting, 'twas plain f...Read more of this...
by
Bradstreet, Anne
....24 If not, yet wealth, Nobility can gain.
4.25 For time, for place, likewise for each relation,
4.26 I wanted not my ready allegation.
4.27 Yet all my powers for self-ends are not spent,
4.28 For hundreds bless me for my bounty sent,
4.29 Whose loins I've cloth'd, and bellies I have fed,
4.30 With mine own fleece, and with my household bread.
4.31 Yea, justice I have done, was I in place,
4.32 To cheer the good and wicked to de...Read more of this...
by
Frost, Robert
...ndergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that, the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I marked the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ag...Read more of this...
by
Tebb, Barry
...hought I needed a mate
For a Platonic cave, a companion for the Martello tower in Dublin Bay,
Whatever it was I never wanted you to go but go you did to stay.
The one became the two again, you shed your ring, we had our son to share.
I read instead of writing, psycho-analysis became a faith of sorts,
A pastime then a passion I kept on with even when my muse returned
Demanding me in dreams. Our children grew, then you wrote, too, by candle
In the dark or b...Read more of this...
by
Strand, Mark
...as I read,
knowing that what I feel is often the crude
and unsuccessful form of a story
that may never be told.
"He wanted to see her naked and vulnerable,
to see her in the refuse, the discarded
plots of old dreams, the costumes and masks
of unattainable states.
It was as if he were drawn
irresistably to failure."
It was hard to keep reading.
I was tired and wanted to give up.
The book seemed aware of this.
It hinted at changing the subject.
I wai...Read more of this...
by
Shelley, Percy Bysshe
...& prison & theatre
When Freedom left those who upon the free
Had bound a yoke which soon they stooped to bear.
Nor wanted here the true similitude
Of a triumphal pageant, for where'er
The chariot rolled a captive multitude
Was driven; althose who had grown old in power
Or misery,--all who have their age subdued,
By action or by suffering, and whose hour
Was drained to its last sand in weal or woe,
So that the trunk survived both fruit & flower;
All those whose fame or in...Read more of this...
by
Miller, Alice Duer
...and wretched,
And never unaware
Of John more cold and wretched
In a trench out there.
XXIX
All that long winter I wanted so much to complain,
But my mother-in-Iaw, as far as I could see,
Felt no such impulse, though she was always in pain,
An, as the winter fogs grew thick,
Took to walking with a stick,
Heavily.
Those bubble-like eyes grew black
Whenever she rose from a chair—
Rose and fell back,
Unable to bear
The sure agonizing
Torture of rising.
Her hands,...Read more of this...
by
Akhmatova, Anna
...g did I ask of her
To wait for winter with me,
But she said, "The grave is here,
How can you breathe, you see?"
I wanted to give her a dove
That is whiter than all the rest
But the bird herself flew above
After my graceful guest.
Looking at her I was silent,
I loved her alone
And like gates into her country
In the sky stood the dawn.
x x x
I have ceased and desisted from smiling
The frosty wind chills lips - say so long
To one hope of whic...Read more of this...
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