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Famous Won Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Brackenridge, Hugh Henry
...oal and reach the glorious palm. 
He sang the pride of some ambitious chief, 
For olive crowns and wreaths of glory won; 
I sing the rise of that all glorious light, 
Whose sacred dawn the aged fathers saw 
By faith's clear eye, through many a cloud obscure 
And heavy mist between: they saw it beam 
From Judah's royal tribe, they saw it shine 
O'er Judah's happy land, and bade the hills, 
The rocky hills and barren vallies smile, 
The desert blossom and the wilds rejoice....Read more of this...



by Carroll, Lewis
...-a-day! 

O fair cold face! O form of grace,
For human passion madly yearning!
O weary air of dumb despair,
From marble won, to marble turning!
"Leave us not thus!" we fondly pray.
"We cannot let thee pass away!"
Ah, well-a-day! 


IV. 

My First is singular at best:
More plural is my Second:
My Third is far the pluralest -
So plural-plural, I protest
It scarcely can be reckoned! 

My First is followed by a bird:
My Second by believers
In magic art: my simple Third
Fo...Read more of this...

by Hughes, Langston
...our hand on the plow! Hold on!
If the house is not yet finished,
Don't be discouraged, builder!
If the fight is not yet won,
Don't be weary, soldier!
The plan and the pattern is here,
Woven from the beginning
Into the warp and woof of America:
 ALL MEN ARE CREATED EQUAL.
 NO MAN IS GOOD ENOUGH
 TO GOVERN ANOTHER MAN
 WITHOUT HIS CONSENT.
 BETTER DIE FREE,
 THAN TO LIVE SLAVES.
Who said those things? Americans!
Who owns those words? America!
Who is America? You, me...Read more of this...

by Keats, John
...eries;
And all its curtains of Aurorian clouds
Flush'd angerly: while sometimes eagles' wings,
Unseen before by Gods or wondering men,
Darken'd the place; and neighing steeds were heard
Not heard before by Gods or wondering men.
Also, when he would taste the spicy wreaths
Of incense, breath'd aloft from sacred hills,
Instead of sweets, his ample palate took
Savor of poisonous brass and metal sick:
And so, when harbor'd in the sleepy west,
After the full completion of fair...Read more of this...

by Alighieri, Dante
...rived? O glorious and far-guiding star! 
 Now may the love-led studious hours and long 
 In which I learnt how rich thy wonders are, 
 Master and Author mine of Light and Song, 
 Befriend me now, who knew thy voice, that few 
 Yet hearken. All the name my work hath won 
 Is thine of right, from whom I learned. To thee, 
 Abashed, I grant it. . . Why the mounting sun 
 No more I seek, ye scarce should ask, who see 
 The beast that turned me, nor faint hope ...Read more of this...



by Byron, George (Lord)
...in the busy hall, 
Bowls on the board, and banners on the wall; 
Far chequering o'er the pictured window, plays 
The unwonted fagots' hospitable blaze; 
And gay retainers gather round the hearth, 
With tongues all loudness, and with eyes all mirth. 

II. 

The chief of Lara is return'd again: 
And why had Lara cross'd the bounding main? 
Left by his sire, too young such loss to know, 
Lord of himself; — that heritage of woe, 
That fearful empire which the human breas...Read more of this...

by Wordsworth, William
... I calm'd her Tears; and she was calm,  And told her love with virgin Pride.  And so I won my Genevieve,    My bright and beauteous Bride! The MAD MOTHER.   Her eyes are wild, her head is bare,  The sun has burnt her coal-black hair,  Her eye-brows have a rusty stain,  And she came far from over the main.  She has a baby on he...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done, The ship has weather'd every rack, 
the prize we sought is won, The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting, 
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring; But O heart! heart! heart! 
O the bleeding drops of red, Where on the deck my Captain lies, Fallen cold and dead. 
O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells; Rise up- for you the flag is flung- for 
you the bugle t...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...rst, and called me Sin, and for a sign 
Portentous held me; but, familiar grown, 
I pleased, and with attractive graces won 
The most averse--thee chiefly, who, full oft 
Thyself in me thy perfect image viewing, 
Becam'st enamoured; and such joy thou took'st 
With me in secret that my womb conceived 
A growing burden. Meanwhile war arose, 
And fields were fought in Heaven: wherein remained 
(For what could else?) to our Almighty Foe 
Clear victory; to our part loss and ro...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...gh thereby worse to me redound: 
For only in destroying I find ease 
To my relentless thoughts; and, him destroyed, 
Or won to what may work his utter loss, 
For whom all this was made, all this will soon 
Follow, as to him linked in weal or woe; 
In woe then; that destruction wide may range: 
To me shall be the glory sole among 
The infernal Powers, in one day to have marred 
What he, Almighty styled, six nights and days 
Continued making; and who knows how long 
Before had ...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...tain rest, 
Looking with side-curved head, curious what will come next;
Both in and out of the game, and watching and wondering at it. 

Backward I see in my own days where I sweated through fog with linguists and
 contenders; 
I have no mockings or arguments—I witness and wait. 

5
I believe in you, my Soul—the other I am must not abase itself to you; 
And you must not be abased to the other.

Loafe with me on the grass—loose the stop from your throat...Read more of this...

by Sexton, Anne
...ing off all past years,
I took the bait
and was pulled upward, upward,
into the sky and was held by the sun--
the quick wonder of its yellow lap--
and became a woman who learned her own shin
and dug into her soul and found it full,
and you became a man who learned his won skin
and dug into his manhood, his humanhood
and found you were as real as a baker
or a seer
and we became a home,
up into the elbows of each other's soul,
without knowing--
an invisible purchase--
that inha...Read more of this...

by Byron, George (Lord)
...mind within, well skill'd to hide 
All but unconquerable pride, 
His pensive cheek and pondering brow 
Did more than he wont avow. 

III. 

"Let the chamber be clear'd." — The train disappear'd — 
"Now call me the chief of the Haram guard." 
With Giaffir is none but his only son, 
And the Nubian awaiting the sire's award. 
"Haroun — when all the crowd that wait 
Are pass'd beyond the outer gate, 
(Woe to the head whose eye beheld 
My child Zuleika's face u...Read more of this...

by Masefield, John
...time to us two boys). 
And while the seconds chafed and gloved me 
I thought of Nell's eyes when she loved me, 
And wondered how my tot would end, 
First Nell cast off and now my friend; 
And in the moonlight dim and wan 
I knew quite well my luck was gone; 
And looking round I felt a spite 
At all who'd come to see me fight; 
The five and forty human faces 
Inflamed by drink and going to races, 
Faces of men who'd never been 
Merry or true or live or clean; 
Who'd never ...Read more of this...

by Bradstreet, Anne
...
2.78 Strangely preserv'd, yet mind it not at all.
2.79 At home, abroad, my danger's manifold
2.80 That wonder 'tis, my glass till now doth hold.
2.81 I've done: unto my elders I give way,
2.82 For 'tis but little that a child can say.

Youth. 


3.1 My goodly clothing and beauteous skin
3.2 Declare some greater riches are within,
3.3 But what is best I'll first present to view,
3.4 And then the worst, in a more ugly hue,
3....Read more of this...

by Bridges, Robert Seymour
...d the summer's best,
The mystery of joy made manifest
In love's self-answering and awakening smile;
Whereby the lips in wonder reconcile
Passion with peace, and show desire at rest,--
A grace of silence by the Greek unguesst,
That bloom'd to immortalize the Tuscan style 
When first the angel-song that faith hath ken'd
Fancy pourtray'd, above recorded oath
Of Israel's God, or light of poem pen'd;
The very countenance of plighted troth
'Twixt heaven and earth, where in one mome...Read more of this...

by Carroll, Lewis
...ir disputes--
 And a Broker, to value their goods.

A Billiard-marker, whose skill was immense,
 Might perhaps have won more than his share--
But a Banker, engaged at enormous expense,
 Had the whole of their cash in his care.

There was also a Beaver, that paced on the deck,
 Or would sit making lace in the bow:
And had often (the Bellman said) saved them from wreck,
 Though none of the sailors knew how.

There was one who was famed for the number of things
 He f...Read more of this...

by Chaucer, Geoffrey
...ernor,
And in his time such a conqueror
That greater was there none under the sun.
Full many a riche country had he won.
What with his wisdom and his chivalry,
He conquer'd all the regne of Feminie,
That whilom was y-cleped Scythia;
And weddede the Queen Hippolyta
And brought her home with him to his country
With muchel* glory and great solemnity, *great
And eke her younge sister Emily,
And thus with vict'ry and with melody
Let I this worthy Duke to Athens ride,
An...Read more of this...

by Scott, Sir Walter
...ncient days of Caledon, 10
        Was thy voice mute amid the festal crowd,
     When lay of hopeless love, or glory won,
        Aroused the fearful or subdued the proud.
     At each according pause was heard aloud
        Thine ardent symphony sublime and high!
     Fair dames and crested chiefs attention bowed;
        For still the burden of thy minstrelsy
     Was Knighthood's dauntless deed, and Beauty's matchless eye.

     O, wake once more! how rude soe'e...Read more of this...

by Miller, Alice Duer
...have they not heard that we
Were those ***** colonists who would be free,
Who took our desperate chance, and fought and won
Under a colonist called Washington?

One does not lose one's birthright, it appears.
I had been English then for many years.

X 
We went down to Cambridge, 
Cambridge in the spring. 
In a brick court at twilight 
We heard the thrushes sing, 
And we went to evening service 
In the chapel of the King. 
The library of Trinity, 
The quadrangl...Read more of this...

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