Famous Wished Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Mirage

by Amy Lowell
 How is it that, being gone, you fill my days,
And all the long nights are made glad by thee?
No loneliness is this, nor misery,
But great content that these should be the ways
Whereby the Fancy, dreaming as she strays,
Makes bright and present what she would would be.
And who shall say if the reality
Is not with dreams so pregnant. For delays
And...Read more of this...

Hero

by Siegfried Sassoon
 'Jack fell as he'd have wished,' the Mother said,
And folded up the letter that she'd read. 
'The Colonel writes so nicely.' Something broke
In the tired voice that quavered to a choke.
She half looked up. 'We mothers are so proud
Of our dead soldiers.' Then her face was bowed.

Quietly the Brother Officer went out.
He'd told the poor old dear some gallant...Read more of this...

The Raven

by Edgar Allan Poe
Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore—
    While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
“’Tis some visitor,” I muttered, “tapping at my chamber door—
        ...Read more of this...

Sonnet 56: Sweet love renew thy force be it not said

by William Shakespeare
 Sweet love, renew thy force! Be it not said
Thy edge should blunter be than appetite,
Which but today by feeding is allayed,
Tomorrow sharpened in his former might.
So, love, be thou, although today thou fill
Thy hungry eyes, even till they wink with fulness,
Tomorrow see again, and do not kill
The spirit of love with a perpetual dullness.
Let this sad interim like the...Read more of this...

The Ballad Of Hard-Luck Henry

by Robert William Service
 Now wouldn't you expect to find a man an awful crank
That's staked out nigh three hundred claims, and every one a blank;
That's followed every fool stampede, and seen the rise and fall
Of camps where men got gold in chunks and he got none at all;
That's prospected a bit of ground and sold it for a song
To see it yield...Read more of this...

The 'don'ts' and 'zeros'

by Dimitris P Kraniotis
 The night
that strangled
the endless moments
I had wished
to live,
passed by
without my lighting up
the candle
I had longed
to warm up
all the “don’ts” and “zeros”....Read more of this...

The Return of Albert

by Marriott Edgar
 You've 'eard 'ow young Albert Ramsbottom,
In the Zoo up at Blackpool one year,
With a stick and 'orse's 'ead 'andle,
Gave a lion a poke in the ear.

The name of the lion was Wallace,
The poke in the ear made 'im wild;
And before you could say 'Bob's your Uncle,'
'E'd up and 'e'd swallered the child.

'E were sorry the moment 'e'd done it,
With...Read more of this...

I don't remember the word I wished to say

by Osip Mandelstam
 I don’t remember the word I wished to say.
The blind swallow returns to the hall of shadow,
on shorn wings, with the translucent ones to play.
The song of night is sung without memory, though.

No birds. No blossoms on the dried flowers.
The manes of night’s horses are translucent.
An empty boat drifts on the naked river.
Lost among grasshoppers the word’s quiescent.

It swells...Read more of this...

Did Not

by Thomas Moore
 'Twas a new feeling - something more
Than we had dared to own before,
Which then we hid not;
We saw it in each other's eye,
And wished, in every half-breathed sigh,
To speak, but did not.

She felt my lips' impassioned touch - 
'Twas the first time I dared so much,
And yet she chid not;
But whispered o'er my burning brow,
'Oh, do you doubt I...Read more of this...

Piano Practice

by Rainer Maria Rilke
 The summer hums. The afternoon fatigues;
she breathed her crisp white dress distractedly
and put into it that sharply etched etude
her impatience for a reality

that could come: tomorrow, this evening--,
that perhaps was there, was just kept hidden;
and at the window, tall and having everything,
she suddenly could feel the pampered park.

With that she broke off; gazed outside, locked
her hands together; wished for...Read more of this...

Minstrels

by William Wordsworth
The minstrels played their Christmas tune
To-night beneath my cottage-eaves;
While, smitten by a lofty moon,
The encircling laurels, thick with leaves,
Gave back a rich and dazzling sheen,
That overpowered their natural green.

Through hill and valley every breeze
Had sunk to rest with folded wings:
Keen was the air, but could not freeze,
Nor check, the music of the strings;
So stout and hardy were the band
That scraped...Read more of this...

Tim Turpin

by Thomas Hood
 Tim Turpin he was gravel-blind,
And ne'er had seen the skies :
For Nature, when his head was made,
Forgot to dot his eyes. 

So, like a Christmas pedagogue,
Poor Tim was forced to do -
Look out for pupils; for he had
A vacancy for two.

There's some have specs to help their sight
Of objects dim and small : 
But Tim had specks within his...Read more of this...

In a Garden

by Amy Lowell
 Gushing from the mouths of stone men
To spread at ease under the sky
In granite-lipped basins,
Where iris dabble their feet
And rustle to a passing wind,
The water fills the garden with its rushing,
In the midst of the quiet of close-clipped lawns.
Damp smell the ferns in tunnels of stone,
Where trickle and plash the fountains,
Marble fountains, yellowed with much water.
Splashing down moss-tarnished steps
It...Read more of this...

Daisy Fraser

by Edgar Lee Masters
 Did you ever hear of Editor Whedon
Giving to the public treasury any of the money he received
For supporting candidated for office?
Or for writing up the canning factory
To get people to invest?
Or for suppressing the facts about the bank,
When it was rotten and ready to break?
Did you ever hear of the Circuit Judge
Helping anyone except the "Q" railroad,
Or the bankers?...Read more of this...

126. Lines written on a Bank-note

by Robert Burns
 WAE worth thy power, thou cursed leaf!
Fell source o’ a’ my woe and grief!
For lack o’ thee I’ve lost my lass!
For lack o’ thee I scrimp my glass!
I see the children of affliction
Unaided, through thy curst restriction:
I’ve seen the oppressor’s cruel smile
Amid his hapless victim’s spoil;
And for thy potence vainly wished,
To crush the villain in the dust:
For lack o’...Read more of this...

If from the commencement Thou hadst wished to make

by Omar Khayyam
If from the commencement Thou hadst wished to make
me known to myself, why later, hast Thou separated me
from this myself? If from the first day Thy intention
was to abandon me, why hast Thou thrown me, all
amazed, into the midst of the world?...Read more of this...

Without this -- there is nought --

by Emily Dickinson
 Without this -- there is nought --
All other Riches be
As is the Twitter of a Bird --
Heard opposite the Sea --

I could not care -- to gain
A lesser than the Whole --
For did not this include themself --
As Seams -- include the Ball?

I wished a way might be
My Heart to subdivide --
'Twould magnify -- the Gratitude --
And not reduce...Read more of this...

Phantasmagoria CANTO IV ( Hys Nouryture )

by Lewis Carroll
 "OH, when I was a little Ghost, 
A merry time had we! 
Each seated on his favourite post, 
We chumped and chawed the buttered toast 
They gave us for our tea." 

"That story is in print!" I cried. 
"Don't say it's not, because 
It's known as well as Bradshaw's Guide!" 
(The Ghost uneasily replied 
He hardly thought it was)....Read more of this...

Saints Have Adored the Lofty Soul of You

by Charles Sorley
 Saints have adored the lofty soul of you.
Poets have whitened at your high renown.
We stand among the many millions who
Do hourly wait to pass your pathway down.
You, so familiar, once were strange: we tried
To live as of your presence unaware.
But now in every road on every side
We see your straight and steadfast signpost there.

I think it like that signpost...Read more of this...

Karma

by Edwin Arlington Robinson
 Christmas was in the air and all was well
With him, but for a few confusing flaws
In divers of God's images. Because
A friend of his would neither buy nor sell,
Was he to answer for the axe that fell?
He pondered; and the reason for it was,
Partly, a slowly freezing Santa Claus
Upon the corner, with his beard and bell.

Acknowledging an improvident surprise,
He...Read more of this...

The Child's Grave

by Edmund Blunden
I came to the churchyard where pretty Joy lies
On a morning in April, a rare sunny day;
Such bloom rose around, and so many birds' cries
That I sang for delight as I followed the way.

I sang for delight in the ripening of spring,
For dandelions even were suns come to earth;
Not a moment went by but a new lark took wing
To wait...Read more of this...

Going to him! Happy letter!

by Emily Dickinson
"Going to him! Happy letter! Tell him--
Tell him the page I didn't write;
Tell him I only said the syntax,
And left the verb and the pronoun out.

Tell him just how the fingers hurried
Then how they waded, slow, slow, slow-
And then you wished you had eyes in your pages,
So you could see what moved them so.

"Tell him it wasn't a practised writer,
You...Read more of this...

Madmen

by Billy Collins
 They say you can jinx a poem
if you talk about it before it is done.
If you let it out too early, they warn,
your poem will fly away,
and this time they are absolutely right.

Take the night I mentioned to you
I wanted to write about the madmen,
as the newspapers so blithely call them,
who attack art, not in reviews,
but with breadknives and...Read more of this...

A Letter From the Front

by Sir Henry Newbolt
 I was out early to-day, spying about 
From the top of a haystack -- such a lovely morning -- 
And when I mounted again to canter back 
I saw across a field in the broad sunlight 
A young Gunner Subaltern, stalking along 
With a rook-rifle held at the read, and -- would you believe it? -- 
A domestic cat,...Read more of this...

The Hunter Of Reigate

by Mother Goose
A man went a-hunting at Reigate,
And wished to leap over a high gate.
  Says the owner, "Go round,
  With your gun and your hound,
For you never shall leap over my gate."...Read more of this...

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