Get Your Premium Membership

Famous Worth Poems by Famous Poets

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

See also:

by Shakespeare, William
...eseech'd,
With the annexions of fair gems enrich'd,
And deep-brain'd sonnets that did amplify
Each stone's dear nature, worth, and quality.

''The diamond,--why, 'twas beautiful and hard,
Whereto his invised properties did tend;
The deep-green emerald, in whose fresh regard
Weak sights their sickly radiance do amend;
The heaven-hued sapphire and the opal blend
With objects manifold: each several stone,
With wit well blazon'd, smiled or made some moan.

''Lo, all these...Read more of this...



by Brackenridge, Hugh Henry
...we view, 
And hail with voice expressive of the heart, 
Patrons and sons of this illustrious hall. 
This hall more worthy of its rising fame 
Than hall on mountain or romantic hill, 
Where Druid bards sang to the hero's praise, 
While round their woods and barren heaths was heard 
The shrill calm echo of th' enchanting shell. 
Than all those halls and lordly palaces 
Where in the days of chivalry, each knight, 
And baron brave in military pride 
Shone in the brass an...Read more of this...

by Kipling, Rudyard
...urt you, 
If all men count with you, but none too much: 
If you can fill the unforgiving minute 
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run, 
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it, 
And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son! ...Read more of this...

by Alighieri, Dante
...rdon; still beyond, more high, 
 Holier than opens to such souls as I, 
 The Heavens uprear; but if thou wilt, is one 
 Worthier, and she shall guide thee there, where none 
 Who did the Lord of those fair realms deny 
 May enter. There in his city He dwells, and there 
 Rules and pervades in every part, and calls 
 His chosen ever within the sacred walls. 
 O happiest, they!" 
 I answered, "By that Go 
 Thou didst not know, I do thine aid entreat, 
 And guidance, tha...Read more of this...

by Byron, George (Lord)
...could scarcely scan, 
Nor glean experience from his fellow-man; 
But what he had beheld he shunn'd to show, 
As hardly worth a stranger's care to know; 
If still more prying such inquiry grew, 
His brow fell darker, and his words more few. 

VII. 

Not unrejoiced to see him once again, 
Warm was his welcome to the haunts of men; 
Born of high lineage, link'd in high command, 
He mingled with the magnates of his land; 
Join'd the carousals of the great and gay, 
And s...Read more of this...



by Frost, Robert
...wooden?
It made the world seem so mysterious.
The S'ciety for Psychical Research
Was cognizant. Her husband was worth millions.
I think he owned some shares in Harvard College.)

New Hampshire used to have at Salem
A company we called the White Corpuscles,
Whose duty was at any hour of night
To rush in sheets and fool's caps where they smelled
A thing the least bit doubtfully perscented
And give someone the Skipper Ireson's Ride.

One each of everything as...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...more? 
'Here, happy creature, fair angelick Eve! 
'Partake thou also; happy though thou art, 
'Happier thou mayest be, worthier canst not be: 
'Taste this, and be henceforth among the Gods 
'Thyself a Goddess, not to earth confined, 
'But sometimes in the air, as we, sometimes 
'Ascend to Heaven, by merit thine, and see 
'What life the Gods live there, and such live thou!' 
So saying, he drew nigh, and to me held, 
Even to my mouth of that same fruit held part 
Which he had ...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...> 
Thus he resolved, but first from inward grief 
His bursting passion into plaints thus poured. 
More justly, seat worthier of Gods, as built 
With second thoughts, reforming what was old! 
O Earth, how like to Heaven, if not preferred 
For what God, after better, worse would build? 
Terrestrial Heaven, danced round by other Heavens 
That shine, yet bear their bright officious lamps, 
Light above light, for thee alone, as seems, 
In thee concentring all their precious be...Read more of this...

by Chesterton, G K
...earls.

"A dancing sparkle, a doubtful star,
On the waste wind whirled and driven;
But it seems to sing of a wilder worth,
A time discrowned of doom and birth,
And the kingdom of the poor on earth
Come, as it is in heaven.

"But even though such days endure,
How shall it profit her?
Who shall go groaning to the grave,
With many a meek and mighty slave,
Field-breaker and fisher on the wave,
And woodman and waggoner.

"Bake ye the big world all again
A cake with kin...Read more of this...

by Byron, George (Lord)
...oubt this wayward boy 
Will one day work me more annoy: 
I never loved him from his birth, 
And — but his arm is little worth, 
And scarcely in the chase could cope 
With timid fawn or antelope, 
Far less would venture into strife 
Where man contends for fame and life — 
I would not trust that look or tone: 
No — nor the blood so near my own. 

That blood — he hath not heard — no more — 
I'll watch him closer than before. 
He is an Arab to my sight, [5] 
Or Christian ...Read more of this...

by Bradstreet, Anne
...then ambitious thoughts were low enough.
2.23 My high-born soul so straitly was confin'd
2.24 That its own worth it did not know nor mind.
2.25 This little house of flesh did spacious count,
2.26 Through ignorance, all troubles did surmount,
2.27 Yet this advantage had mine ignorance,
2.28 Freedom from Envy and from Arrogance.
2.29 How to be rich, or great, I did not cark,
2.30 A Baron or a Duke ne'r made my mark,
2.31 Nor stud...Read more of this...

by Bridges, Robert Seymour
...at my fancy fed upon?
Now not my life's contrition for my fault
Can blot that day, nor work me recompence,
Tho' I might worthily thy worth exalt,
Making thee long amends for short offence. 
For surely nowhere, love, if not in thee
Are grace and truth and beauty to be found;
And all my praise of these can only be
A praise of thee, howe'er by thee disown'd:
While still thou must be mine tho' far removed,
And I for one offence no more beloved. 

13
Now since to me altho'...Read more of this...

by Wordsworth, William
...  Poor Betty! in this sad distemper,  The doctor's self would hardly spare,  Unworthy things she talked and wild,  Even he, of cattle the most mild,  The pony had his share.   And now she's got into the town,  And to the doctor's door she hies;  'Tis silence all on every side;  The town so long, the town so wide,  Is silent as the s...Read more of this...

by Chaucer, Geoffrey
...el* 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,
And all his host, in armes him beside.

And certes, if it n'ere* too long to hear, *were not
I would have told you fully the mannere,
How wonnen* was the regne of Feminie,  *won
By Theseus, and by his chivalry;
And of the greate battle for the nonce
Betwixt Athenes and the Amazons;
And how assieged was Hippolyta,
The faire ...Read more of this...

by Scott, Sir Walter
...Some feeble echoing of thine earlier lay:
     Though harsh and faint, and soon to die away,
        And all unworthy of thy nobler strain,
     Yet if one heart throb higher at its sway,
        The wizard note has not been touched in vain.
     Then silent be no more! Enchantress, wake again!
     I.

     The stag at eve had drunk his fill,
     Where danced the moon on Monan's rill,
     And deep his midnight lair had made
     In lone Glenartney's hazel...Read more of this...

by Thomson, James
...ceive,
What never mingled with the Vulgar's Dream:
Then wake the tender Pang, the pitying Tear, 
The Sigh for suffering Worth, the Wish prefer'd
For Humankind, the Joy to see them bless'd,
And all the Social Off-spring of the Heart!

OH! bear me then to high, embowering, Shades;
To twilight Groves, and visionary Vales; 
To weeping Grottos, and to hoary Caves;
Where Angel-Forms are seen, and Voices heard,
Sigh'd in low Whispers, that abstract the Soul,
From outward Sense, far ...Read more of this...

by Byron, George (Lord)
...,' by his present patrons. Hence all this 'skimble-scamble stuff' about 'Satanic,' and so forth. However, it is worthy of him — 'qualis ab incepto.' 

If there is anything obnoxious to the political opinions of a portion of the public in the following poem, they may thank Mr. Southey. He might have written hexameters, as he has written everything else, for aught that the writer cared — had they been upon another subject. But to attempt to canonise a mo...Read more of this...

by Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)
...do; and I recommend it (apart from the great interest of the book
itself) to any who think such elucidation of the poem worth the trouble. To
another work of anthropology I am indebted in general, one which has influenced
our generation profoundly; I mean The Golden Bough; I have used especially the
two volumes Adonis, Attis, Osiris. Anyone who is acquainted with
these works will immediately recognise in the poem certain references to
vegetation ceremonies.
 Ma...Read more of this...

by Miller, Alice Duer
...than this.'
A curious background surely for a kiss—
Our first— Westminster Bridge at break of day—
Settings by Wordsworth, as John used to say.

XII 
Why do we fall in love? I do believe 
 That virtue is the magnet, the small vein 
Of ore, the spark, the torch that we receive 
 At birth, and that we render back again. 
That drop of godhood, like a precious stone, 
 May shine the brightest in the tiniest flake. 
Lavished on saints, to sinners not unknown; 
 In ...Read more of this...

by Shelley, Percy Bysshe
...d Truth, had hunted from the earth
All those bright natures which adorned its prime,
And left us nothing to believe in, worth
The pains of putting into learn?d rhyme,
A Lady Witch there lived on Atlas mountain
Within a cavern by a secret fountain.

Her mother was one of the Atlantides.
The all-beholding Sun had ne'er beholden
In his wide voyage o'er continents and seas
So fair a creature, as she lay enfolden
In the warm shadow of her loveliness;
He kissed her with his...Read more of this...

Dont forget to view our wonderful member Worth poems.


Book: Shattered Sighs