Famous Winning Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Hymn 147

by Isaac Watts
 The names and titles of Christ. From several scriptures.

['Tis from the treasures of his word
I borrow titles for my Lord;
Nor art nor nature can supply
Sufficient forms of majesty.

Bright image of the Father's face,
Shining with undiminished rays;
Th' eternal God's eternal Son,
The heir and partner of his throne.]

The King of kings, the Lord most high,
Writes his own name upon his thigh
He...Read more of this...

Sonnet LXXXV

by Francesco Petrarch
SONNET LXXXV. Tennemi Amor anni ventuno ardendo. HE CONFESSES AND REGRETS HIS SINS, AND PRAYS GOD TO SAVE HIM FROM ETERNAL DEATH.  Love held me one and twenty years enchain'd,His flame was joy—for hope was in my grief!For ten more years I wept without relief,When Laura with my heart, to heaven attain'd.Read more of this...

The Bonnie Lass o Ruily

by William Topaz McGonagall
 'Twas in the village of Ruily there lived a bonnie lass
With red, pouting lips which few lasses could surpass,
And her eyes were as azure the blue sky,
Which caused Donald McNeill to heave many a love sigh 

Beyond the township of Ruily she never had been,
This pretty maid with tiny feet and aged eighteen;
And when Donald would ask her to...Read more of this...

Draw-gloves

by Robert Herrick
 At draw-gloves we'll play,
And prithee let's lay
A wager, and let it be this :
Who first to the sum
Of twenty shall come,
Shall have for his winning a kiss....Read more of this...

The Leaden Echo And The Golden Echo

by Gerard Manley Hopkins
 (Maidens' song from St. Winefred's Well) 


 THE LEADEN ECHO

How to kéep—is there ány any, is there none such, nowhere known some, bow or brooch or braid or brace, láce, latch or catch or key to keep
Back beauty, keep it, beauty, beauty, beauty, ... from vanishing away?
Ó is there no frowning of these wrinkles, rankéd wrinkles deep,
Dówn? no waving...Read more of this...

Sonnet CXLVIII

by Francesco Petrarch
SONNET CXLVIII. Amor fra l' orbe una leggiadra rete. HE COMPARES HIMSELF TO A BIRD CAUGHT IN A NET.  Love 'mid the grass beneath a laurel green—The plant divine which long my flame has fed,Whose shade for me less bright than sad is seen—A cunning net of gold and pearls had spread:Read more of this...

The Hill Maples

by Lucy Maud Montgomery
 Here on a hill of the occident stand we shoulder to shoulder,
Comrades tried and true through a mighty swath of the years!
Spring harps glad laughter through us, and ministrant rains of the autumn
Sing us again the songs of ancient dolor and tears. 

The glory of sunrise smites on our fair, free brows uplifted
When the silver-kirtled day steps over the...Read more of this...

The Front Tooth

by Robert William Service
 A-sittin' in the Bull and Pump
With double gins to keep us cheery
Says she to me, says Polly Crump"
"What makes ye look so sweet. me dearie?
As if ye'd gotten back yer youth . . . ."
Says I: "It's just me new front tooth."

Says Polly Crump: "A gummy grin
Don't help to make one's business active;
We gels wot gains our bread by...Read more of this...

To Ellen At The South

by Ralph Waldo Emerson
 The green grass is growing,
The morning wind is in it,
'Tis a tune worth the knowing,
Though it change every minute.

'Tis a tune of the spring,
Every year plays it over,
To the robin on the wing,
To the pausing lover.

O'er ten thousand thousand acres
Goes light the nimble zephyr,
The flowers, tiny feet of shakers,
Worship him ever.

Hark to the winning sound!
They summon thee, dearest,
Saying; "We...Read more of this...

Sonnet CLXXVI

by Francesco Petrarch
SONNET CLXXVI. Voglia mi sprona; Amor mi guida e scorge. HE DESCRIBES HIS STATE, SPECIFYING THE DATE OF HIS ATTACHMENT.  Passion impels me, Love escorts and leads,Pleasure attracts me, habits old enchain,Hope with its flatteries comforts me again,And, at my harass'd heart, with fond touch pleads.Poor wretch! it trusts her still,...Read more of this...

Sonnet LXXXVI

by Francesco Petrarch
SONNET LXXXVI. Lasso! quante fiate Amor m' assale. WHEN LOVE DISTURBS HIM, HE CALMS HIMSELF BY THINKING OF THE EYES AND WORDS OF LAURA.  Alas! how ceaselessly is urged Love's claim,By day, by night, a thousand times I turnWhere best I may behold the dear lights burnWhich have immortalized my bosom's flame.Read more of this...

The Boss of the Admiral Lynch

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 Did you ever hear tell of Chili? I was readin' the other day 
Of President Balmaceda and of how he was sent away. 
It seems that he didn't suit 'em -- they thought that they'd like a change, 
So they started an insurrection and chased him across the range. 
They seem to be restless people -- and, judging by...Read more of this...

Gastibelza

by Victor Hugo
 ("Gastibelza, l'homme à la carabine.") 
 
 {XXII., March, 1837.} 


 Gastibelza, with gun the measure beating, 
 Would often sing: 
 "Has one o' ye with sweet Sabine been meeting, 
 As, gay, ye bring 
 Your songs and steps which, by the music, 
 Are reconciled— 
 Oh! this chill wind across the mountain rushing 
 Will...Read more of this...

James Simmons R.i.p

by Barry Tebb
 You were the one I wanted most to know

So like yet unlike, like fire and snow,

The casual voice, the sharp invective,

The barbed wit, the lapsed Irish Protestant

Who never gave a ****, crossed the palms

Of the great and good with coins hot with contempt

For the fakers and the tricksters whose poetry

Deftly bent to fashion’s latest slant.



You wrote from the heart,...Read more of this...

from the Ansty Experience

by Rg Gregory
 (a)
they seek to celebrate the word
not to bring their knives out on a poem
dissecting it to find a heart
whose beat lies naked on a table
not to score in triumph on a line
no sensitive would put a nostril to
but simply to receive it as an
offering glimpsing the sacred there

poem probes the poet's once-intention
but each time said budges its truth
afresh (leaving...Read more of this...

The Supplanter: A Tale

by Thomas Hardy
 I 

He bends his travel-tarnished feet 
 To where she wastes in clay: 
From day-dawn until eve he fares 
 Along the wintry way; 
From day-dawn until eve repairs 
 Unto her mound to pray. 

II 

"Are these the gravestone shapes that meet 
 My forward-straining view? 
Or forms that cross a window-blind 
 In circle, knot, and queue:...Read more of this...

Sonnet CCVII

by Francesco Petrarch
SONNET CCVII. Due rose fresche, e colte in paradiso. THE TWO ROSES.  Two brilliant roses, fresh from Paradise,Which there, on May-day morn, in beauty sprungFair gift, and by a lover old and wiseEqually offer'd to two lovers young:At speech so tender and such winning guise,As transports from a savage might...Read more of this...

Ode to the Muse

by Mary Darby Robinson
 O, let me seize thy pen sublime
That paints, in melting dulcet rhyme, 
The glowing pow'r, the magic art, 
Th' extatic raptures of the Heart; 
Soft Beauty's timid smile serene,
The dimples of Love's sportive mien; 
The sweet descriptive tale to trace; 
To picture Nature's winning grace;
To steal the tear from Pity's eye; 
To catch the sympathetic sigh; 
O teach me,...Read more of this...

The Piano (Notebook Version)

by D. H. Lawrence
 Somewhere beneath that piano's superb sleek black
Must hide my mother's piano, little and brown with the back
That stood close to the wall, and the front's faded silk, both torn
And the keys with little hollows, that my mother's fingers had worn.
Softly, in the shadows, a woman is singing to me
Quietly, through the years I have crept back to see
A child...Read more of this...

The Ballad Of The Brand

by Robert William Service
 'Twas up in a land long famed for gold, where women were far and rare,
Tellus, the smith, had taken to wife a maiden amazingly fair;
Tellus, the brawny worker in iron, hairy and heavy of hand,
Saw her and loved her and bore her away from the tribe of a Southern land;
Deeming her worthy to queen his home and mother him...Read more of this...

A Song to David (excerpt)

by Christopher Smart
 Sweet is the dew that falls betimes,
And drops upon the leafy limes;
Sweet Hermon's fragrant air:
Sweet is the lily's silver bell,
And sweet the wakeful tapers smell
That watch for early pray'r.

Sweet the young nurse with love intense,
Which smiles o'er sleeping innocence;
Sweet when the lost arrive:
Sweet the musician's ardour beats,
While his vague mind's in quest of sweets,
The choicest flow'rs to hive.

Sweeter in...Read more of this...

Let Love Go On

by Carl Sandburg
 LET it go on; let the love of this hour be poured out till all the answers are made, the last dollar spent and the last blood gone.

Time runs with an ax and a hammer, time slides down the hallways with a pass-key and a master-key, and time gets by, time wins.

Let the love of this hour go on;...Read more of this...

Ariste

by Robert Southey
 Let ancient stories round the painter's art, 
Who stole from many a maid his Venus' charms, 
Till warm devotion fired each gazer's heart 
And every bosom bounded with alarms. 
He culled the beauties of his native isle, 
From some the blush of beauty's vermeil dyes, 
From some the lovely look, the winning smile, 
From some the languid lustre of...Read more of this...

70. Epistle to the Rev. John M'Math

by Robert Burns
 WHILE at the stook the shearers cow’r
To shun the bitter blaudin’ show’r,
Or in gulravage rinnin scowr
 To pass the time,
To you I dedicate the hour
 In idle rhyme.


My musie, tir’d wi’ mony a sonnet
On gown, an’ ban’, an’ douse black bonnet,
Is grown right eerie now she’s done it,
 Lest they should blame her,
An’ rouse their holy thunder on it
...Read more of this...

Upon Watts Picture Sic Transit

by John McCrae
 "What I spent I had; what I saved, I lost; what I gave, I have."

But yesterday the tourney, all the eager joy of life, 
The waving of the banners, and the rattle of the spears, 
The clash of sword and harness, and the madness of the strife; 
To-night begin the silence and the peace of endless years. 

( One...Read more of this...

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