Famous Wonderful Poems by Famous Poets

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

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There was an Old Person of Sparta

by Edward Lear
There was an Old Person of Sparta,Who had twenty-five sons and one "darter;"He fed them on Snails, and weighed them in scales,That wonderful Person of Sparta. ...Read more of this...

A Runnable Stag

by John Davidson
 When the pods went pop on the broom, green broom, 
And apples began to be golden-skinn'd, 
We harbour'd a stag in the Priory coomb, 
And we feather'd his trail up-wind, up-wind, 
We feather'd his trail up-wind- 
A stag of warrant, a stag, a stag, 
A runnable stag, a kingly crop, 
Brow, bay and tray and three on top, 
A...Read more of this...

The Puritans Ballad

by Elinor Wylie
 My love came up from Barnegat, 
The sea was in his eyes; 
He trod as softly as a cat 
And told me terrible lies.

His hair was yellow as new-cut pine 
In shavings curled and feathered; 
I thought how silver it would shine 
By cruel winters weathered.

But he was in his twentieth year, 
Ths time I'm speaking of; 
We were...Read more of this...

Choriambics -- II

by Rupert Brooke
 Here the flame that was ash, shrine that was void,
lost in the haunted wood,
I have tended and loved, year upon year, I in the solitude
Waiting, quiet and glad-eyed in the dark, knowing that once a gleam
Glowed and went through the wood. Still I abode strong in a golden dream,
Unrecaptured.
For I, I that had faith, knew that a face would...Read more of this...

Unnamed Lands

by Walt Whitman
 NATIONS ten thousand years before These States, and many times ten thousand years before
 These
 States; 
Garner’d clusters of ages, that men and women like us grew up and travel’d their
 course, and pass’d on; 
What vast-built cities—what orderly republics—what pastoral tribes and nomads; 
What histories, rulers, heroes, perhaps transcending all others; 
What laws, customs, wealth, arts, traditions;
What sort...Read more of this...

The Twenty Hoss-Power Shay

by Ellis Parker Butler
 You have heard of the wonderful one-hoss shay
That was built in such a logical way
It ran a hundred years to a day.
And then, of a sudden, it up and bust,
And all that was left was a mound of dust?
Holmes—O. W.—told it well
In a rhyme of his—what there was to tell—
But the one-hoss shay wasn’t “one, two, three”
With a vehicle...Read more of this...

Wynken Blynken and Nod

by Eugene Field
 Wynken, Blynken, and Nod one night
Sailed off in a wooden shoe,--
Sailed on a river of crystal light
Into a sea of dew.
"Where are you going, and what do you wish?"
The old moon asked the three.
"We have come to fish for the herring-fish
That live in this beautiful sea;
Nets of silver and gold have we,"
Said Wynken,
Blynken,
And Nod.

The old moon laughed and sang...Read more of this...

Hymn to Proserpine (After the Proclamation of the Christian

by Algernon Charles Swinburne
 Vicisti, Galilæe
I have lived long enough, having seen one thing, that love hath an end;
Goddess and maiden and queen, be near me now and befriend.
Thou art more than the day or the morrow, the seasons that laugh or that weep;
For these give joy and sorrow; but thou, Proserpina, sleep.
Sweet is the treading of wine, and sweet the feet of...Read more of this...

The White Bees

by Henry Van Dyke
 I 

LEGEND 

Long ago Apollo called to Aristæus, 
youngest of the shepherds,
Saying, "I will make you keeper of my bees." 
Golden were the hives, and golden was the honey;
golden, too, the music,
Where the honey-makers hummed among the trees. 

Happy Aristæus loitered in the garden, wandered
in the orchard,
Careless and contented, indolent and free; 
Lightly took his labour, lightly took his...Read more of this...

The Hideous Chair

by Erin Belieu
 This hideous,
upholstered in gift-wrap fabric, chromed
in places, design possibility

for the future canned ham.
Its genius
wonderful, circa I993.

I've assumed a great many things:
the perversity of choices, affairs
I did or did not have.

But let the record show
that I was happy.

O let the hideous chair

stand! For the Chinese apothecary
with his roots and fluids;
for Paoul at the bank;

for the young woman in Bailey's Drug,
expert...Read more of this...

One of the Shepherds

by Lucy Maud Montgomery
 We were out on the hills that night 
To watch our sheep; 
Drowsily by the fire we lay 
Where the waning flame did flicker and leap, 
And some were weary and half asleep, 
And some talked low of their flocks and the fright 
Of a lion that day. 

But I had drawn from the others apart; 
I was only...Read more of this...

The Deacons Masterpiece Or The Wonderful One-Hoss Shay: A Logical Story

by Oliver Wendell Holmes
 Have you heard of the wonderful one-hoss shay, 
That was built in such a logical way
It ran a hundred years to a day,
And then, of a sudden, it -- ah, but stay,
I'll tell you what happened without delay,
Scaring the parson into fits,
Frightening people out of their wits, --
Have you ever heard of that, I say?

Seventeen hundred and fifty-five.
Georgius Secundus...Read more of this...

Speaking Of Operations

by Ellis Parker Butler
 I know something wonderfulwonderful;
So strange it will quite startle you;
So strange and absurd and unusual
It seems it can hardly be true!

I know something wonderfulwonderful;
You’ll hardly believe it can be—
You know my appendix? Well, honest,
I’ve still got it inside of me!...Read more of this...

No Rival Like the Past

by Adela Florence Cory Nicolson
   Why above others was I so blessed
      And honoured? to be chosen one
   To hold you, sleeping, against my breast,
      As now I may hold your only son.

   Twelve months ago; that wonderful night!
      You gave your life...Read more of this...

Song at Sunset

by Walt Whitman
 SPLENDOR of ended day, floating and filling me! 
Hour prophetic—hour resuming the past! 
Inflating my throat—you, divine average! 
You, Earth and Life, till the last ray gleams, I sing. 

Open mouth of my Soul, uttering gladness,
Eyes of my Soul, seeing perfection, 
Natural life of me, faithfully praising things; 
Corroborating forever the triumph of things. 

Illustrious every one! 
Illustrious what...Read more of this...

The Deacons Masterpiece Or The Wonderful One-Hoss Shay: A Logical Story

by Oliver Wendell Holmes
 Have you heard of the wonderful one-hoss shay, 
That was built in such a logical way
It ran a hundred years to a day,
And then, of a sudden, it -- ah, but stay,
I'll tell you what happened without delay,
Scaring the parson into fits,
Frightening people out of their wits, --
Have you ever heard of that, I say?

Seventeen hundred and fifty-five.
Georgius Secundus...Read more of this...

Roses And Rue

by Oscar Wilde
 (To L. L.)

Could we dig up this long-buried treasure,
Were it worth the pleasure,
We never could learn love's song,
We are parted too long.

Could the passionate past that is fled
Call back its dead,
Could we live it all over again,
Were it worth the pain!

I remember we used to meet
By an ivied seat,
And you warbled each pretty word
With the air of a bird;

And...Read more of this...

The Wonderer

by Robert William Service
 I wish that I could understand
The moving marvel of my Hand;
I watch my fingers turn and twist,
The supple bending of my wrist,
The dainty touch of finger-tip,
The steel intensity of grip;
A tool of exquisite design,
With pride I think: "It's mine! It's mine!"

Then there's the wonder of my Eyes,
Where hills and houses, seas and skies,
In waves of light converge and pass,
And...Read more of this...

Sonnet

by Amy Levy
 Most wonderful and strange it seems, that I
Who but a little time ago was tost
High on the waves of passion and of pain,
With aching heat and wildly throbbing brain,
Who peered into the darkness, deeming vain
All things there found if but One thing were lost,
Thus calm and still and silent here should lie,
Watching and waiting, --waiting passively.

The dark has faded,...Read more of this...

Young Fellow My Lad

by Robert William Service
 "Where are you going, Young Fellow My Lad,
 On this glittering morn of May?"
"I'm going to join the Colours, Dad;
 They're looking for men, they say."
"But you're only a boy, Young Fellow My Lad;
 You aren't obliged to go."
"I'm seventeen and a quarter, Dad,
 And ever so strong, you know."

 * * * *

"So you're off to France, Young...Read more of this...

Bridge-Guard in the Karroo

by Rudyard Kipling
 1901 ". . . and will supply details to guard the Blood River Bridge." District Orders-Lines of Communication, South African War.
Sudden the desert changes,
 The raw glare softens and clings,
Till the aching Oudtshoorn ranges
 Stand up like the thrones of Kings --

Ramparts of slaughter and peril --
 Blazing, amazing, aglow --
'Twixt the sky-line's belting beryl
 And the wine-dark flats...Read more of this...

127. Stanzas on Naething

by Robert Burns
 TO you, sir, this summons I’ve sent,
 Pray, whip till the pownie is freathing;
But if you demand what I want,
 I honestly answer you—naething.


Ne’er scorn a poor Poet like me,
 For idly just living and breathing,
While people of every degree
 Are busy employed about—naething.


Poor Centum-per-centum may fast,
 And grumble his hurdies their claithing,
He’ll find, when the balance is cast,
...Read more of this...

Song of the Fifth River

by Rudyard Kipling
 "The Treasure and the Low"--Puck of Pook's Hills.
Where first by Eden Tree
The Four Great Rivers ran,
To each was appointed a Man
Her Prince and Ruler to be.

But after this was ordained
(The ancient legends' tell),
There came dark Israel,
For whom no River remained.

Then He Whom the Rivers obey
Said to him: "Fling on the ground
A handful of yellow clay,
And a Fifth Great River...Read more of this...

Requiem

by Anna Akhmatova
 Not under foreign skies
 Nor under foreign wings protected -
 I shared all this with my own people
 There, where misfortune had abandoned us.
 [1961]

INSTEAD OF A PREFACE

During the frightening years of the Yezhov terror, I
spent seventeen months waiting in prison queues in
Leningrad. One day, somehow, someone 'picked me out'.
On that occasion there was a woman standing behind me,
her...Read more of this...

The Boys

by Oliver Wendell Holmes
 HAS there any old fellow got mixed with the boys?
If there has, take him out, without making a noise.
Hang the Almanac's cheat and the Catalogue's spite!
Old Time is a liar! We're twenty to-night!

We're twenty! We're twenty! Who says we are more?
He's tipsy,-- young jackanapes!-- show him the door!
"Gray temples at twenty?"-- Yes ! white if we please;
Where the snow-flakes...Read more of this...

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