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Famous Work On Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Laurence Dunbar, Paul
...ures of unrest.[Pg 66]
My chin sinks down upon my breast;
I cannot work on such a day,
But only sit and dream and drowse.
...Read more of this...



by Dunmore, Helen
...at walls and surfaces which are not mine — 
all this, not yet. Give me your hand,

that small one without a mark of work on it,
the one that's strange to the washing-up bowl
and doesn't know Fairy Liquid for whiskey.
Not yet the moment of your arrival in taxis
at daring destinations, or your being alone at stations
with the skirts of your fashionable clothes flapping
and no money for the telephone.

Not yet the moment when I can give you nothing
so well-folded it ...Read more of this...

by Emerson, Ralph Waldo
...ave society,
We cannot spare variety.
Hear you, then, celestial fellows!
Fits not to be over zealous;
Steads not to work on the clean jump,
Nor wine nor brains perpetual pump;

Men and gods are too extense,—
Could you slacken and condense?
Your rank overgrowths reduce,
Till your kinds abound with juice;
Earth crowded cries, "Too many men,"—
My counsel is, Kill nine in ten,
And bestow the shares of all
On the remnant decimal.
Add their nine lives to this cat;
Stuff the...Read more of this...

by Thomas, Edward
...nt nothing more...Have many gone
From here? ' 'Yes.' 'Many lost? ' 'Yes, a good few.
Only two teams work on the farm this year.
One of my mates is dead. The second day
In France they killed him. It was back in March, 
The very night of the blizzard, too. Now if
He had stayed here we should have moved the tree.'
'And I should not have sat here. Everything
Would have been different. For it would have been
Another world.' 'Ay, ...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...only with that faith that leaves the best untold. 

16
Say on, sayers! 
Delve! mould! pile the words of the earth!
Work on—(it is materials you must bring, not breaths;) 
Work on, age after age! nothing is to be lost; 
It may have to wait long, but it will certainly come in use; 
When the materials are all prepared, the architects shall appear. 

I swear to you the architects shall appear without fail! I announce them and lead them;
I swear to you they will understan...Read more of this...



by Herbert, George
...can shoot,
And can hit from far.

Who can 'scape his bow?
That which wrought on thee,
Brought thee low,
Needs must work on me.

Throw away they rod;
Though man frailties hath,
Thou art God:
Throw away thy wrath....Read more of this...

by Kipling, Rudyard
...rtered safe out 'ere,
An' you're sent to penny-fights an' Aldershot it;
But when it comes to slaughter
You will do your work on water,
An' you'll lick the bloomin' boots of 'im that's got it.
Now in Injia's sunny clime,
Where I used to spend my time
A-servin' of 'Er Majesty the Queen,
Of all them blackfaced crew
The finest man I knew
Was our regimental bhisti, Gunga Din.
 He was "Din! Din! Din!
 You limpin' lump o' brick-dust, Gunga Din!
 Hi! slippery hitherao!
 Water...Read more of this...

by Kipling, Rudyard
...rtered safe out 'ere,
An' you're sent to penny-fights an' Aldershot it;
But when it comes to slaughter
You will do your work on water,
An' you'll lick the bloomin' boots of 'im that's got it.
Now in Injia's sunny clime,
Where I used to spend my time
A-servin' of 'Er Majesty the Queen,
Of all them blackfaced crew
The finest man I knew
Was our regimental bhisti, Gunga Din.
 He was "Din! Din! Din!
 You limpin' lump o' brick-dust, Gunga Din!
 Hi! slippery hitherao!
 Water...Read more of this...

by Browning, Elizabeth Barrett
...meadows all the day
And gathered there the nosegay that you see
Singing within myself as bird or bee
When such do field-work on a morn of May.
But, now I look upon my flowers, decay
Has met them in my hands more fatally
Because more warmly clasped,--and sobs are free
To come instead of songs. What do you say,
Sweet counsellors, dear friends ? that I should go
Back straightway to the fields and gather more ?
Another, sooth, may do it, but not I !
My heart is very tired...Read more of this...

by Raleigh, Sir Walter
...ll
That tolls all into heaven or hell;
And this is Love, as I hear tell.

Yet what is Love, I prithee, say?
It is a work on holiday,
It is December matched with May,
When lusty bloods in fresh array
Hear ten months after of the play;
And this is Love, as I hear say.

Yet what is Love, good shepherd, sain?
It is a sunshine mixed with rain,
It is a toothache or like pain,
It is a game where none hath gain;
The lass saith no, yet would full fain;
And this is Love, as I h...Read more of this...

by Hudgins, Andrew
...jerk who wanders out on air
and then looks down. Below his feet, he sees
eternity, and suddenly his shoes
no longer work on nothingness, and down
he goes. As I fall past, remember me....Read more of this...

by Yeats, William Butler
...earned in waiting.

Shepherd. You cannot but have seen
That he alone had gathered up no gear,
Set carpenters to work on no wide table,
On no long bench nor lofty milking-shed
As others will, when first they take possession,
But left the house as in his father's time
As though he knew himself, as it were, a cuckoo,
No settled man. And now that he is gone
There's nothing of him left but half a score
Of sorrowful, austere, sweet, lofty pipe tunes.

Goatherd. ...Read more of this...

by Browning, Elizabeth Barrett
...children, weeping faster,
"He is speechless as a stone:
And they tell us, of His image is the master
Who commands us to work on.
Go to!" say the children,—"up in heaven,
Dark, wheel-like, turning clouds are all we find.
Do not mock us; grief has made us unbelieving— 
We look up for God, but tears have made us blind."
Do you hear the children weeping and disproving,
O my brothers, what ye preach?
For God's possible is taught by His world's loving,
And the children ...Read more of this...

by Donne, John
...
When they shall find your picture in my heart,
You think a sudden damp of love
Will through all their senses move,
And work on them as me, and so prefer
Your murder to the name of massacre.

Poor victories! But if you dare be brave,
And pleasure in your conquest have,
First kill th' enormous giant, your Disdain,
And let th' enchantress Honour next be slain,
And like a Goth and Vandal rise,
Deface records and histories
Of your own arts and triumphs over men,
And, without ...Read more of this...

by Masefield, John
...t, unless he scent it, 
But weekly doles of 'leven shilling 
To make a grown man strong and willing, 
To do the hardest work on earth 
And feed his wife when she gives birth, 
And feed his little children's bones. 
I tell you, man, the Devil groans. 
With all your main and all your might 
You back what is against what's right; 
You let the Squire do things like these, 
You back him in't and give him ease, 
You take his hand and drink his wine, 
And he's a hog, but you...Read more of this...

by Sexton, Anne
...and forest
where the misplanted Norwegian trees
refused to root, their thick synthetic
roots barging out of the dirt to work on the air,
we held hands and walked on our knees.
Actually, there was no one there.

For fourty years this experimental
woodland grew, shaft by shaft in perfect rows
where its stub branches held and its spokes fell.
It was a place of parallel trees, their lives
filed out in exile where we walked too alien to know
our sameness and how our sa...Read more of this...

by Kipling, Rudyard
...in Benmore
For docket, duftar, and for office drudge,
 That you usurp our smoothest dancing floor?
Must babus do their work on polished teak?
 Are ball-rooms fittest for the ink you spill?
Was there no other cheaper house to seek?
 You might have left them all at Strawberry Hill.

We never harmed you! Innocent our guise,
 Dainty our shining feet, our voices low;
And we revolved to divers melodies,
 And we were happy but a year ago.
To-night, the moon that watched our...Read more of this...

by Laurence Dunbar, Paul
...little strain,
Ten taps upon my window-pane,
And chirps again, and hops along,
To call my notice to its song;
But I work on, nor heed its lay,
Till, in neglect, it flies away.
So birds of peace and hope and love
Come fluttering earthward from above,
To settle on life's window-sills,
And ease our load of earthly ills;
But we, in traffic's rush and din
Too deep engaged to let them in,
With deadened heart and sense plod on,
Nor know our loss till they are gone.
...Read more of this...

by Laurence Dunbar, Paul
...'her'—no tellin'[Pg 44]—
He offers ez a jest reward, this precious work on spellin'."
A little blue-backed spellin'-book with fancy scarlet trimmin';
We boys devoured it with our eyes—so did the girls an' women.
He held it up where all could see, then on the table set it,
An' ev'ry speller in the house felt mortal bound to get it.
At his command we fell in line, prepared to do our dooty,
Outspell the rest an' set 'em ...Read more of this...

by Harrison, Tony
...r.

Yer've given yerself toffee, ****. Who needs
yer fucking poufy words. Ah write mi own.
Ah've got mi work on show all ovver Leeds 
like this UNITED 'ere on some sod's stone.

'OK!' (thinking I had him trapped) 'OK!'
'If you're so proud of it, then sign your name
when next you're full of HARP and armed with spray,
next time you take this short cut from the game.'

He took the can, contemptuous, unhurried
and cleared the nozzle and prepared to sign
th...Read more of this...

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