Famous Worthless Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Worthless poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous worthless poems. These examples illustrate what a famous worthless poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Charlotte Bronte
I leave the office, take the stairs,
in time to mail a letter
before 3 in the afternoon--the last dispatch.
The red, white and blue air mail
falls past the slot for foreign mail
and hits bottom with a sound
that tells me my letter is alone.
They will have to bring in a plane
from a place of coastline and beaches,
from a climate of fresh figs...Read more of this...
by
Amir Khosrow
Was lovable when little (or lit),
but was worthless when grown up (or extinguished)
Khusro has told you his name,
solve this riddle or get out of town....Read more of this...
by
Emily Brontë
No coward soul is mine,
No trembler in the world's storm-troubled sphere:
I see Heaven's glories shine,
And faith shines equal, arming me from fear.
O God within my breast,
Almighty, ever-present Deity!
Life—that in me has rest,
As I—undying Life—have power in Thee!
Vain are the thousand creeds
That move men's hearts: unutterably vain;
Worthless as withered weeds,
Or idlest froth amid the boundless main,
To waken doubt in one
Holding...Read more of this...
by
Emily Brontë
NO coward soul is mine,
No trembler in the world's storm-troubled sphere:
I see Heaven's glories shine,
And faith shines equal, arming me from fear.
O God within my breast,
Almighty, ever-present Deity!
Life--that in me has rest,
As I--undying Life--have power in Thee!
Vain are the thousand creeds
That move men's hearts: unutterably vain;
Worthless as wither'd weeds,...Read more of this...
by
Robert Burns
ALL villain as I am—a damn?d wretch,
A hardened, stubborn, unrepenting villain,
Still my heart melts at human wretchedness;
And with sincere but unavailing sighs
I view the helpless children of distress:
With tears indignant I behold the oppressor
Rejoicing in the honest man’s destruction,
Whose unsubmitting heart was all his crime.—
Ev’n you, ye hapless crew! I pity you;
Ye, whom the seeming good think sin to...Read more of this...
by
Badger Clark
My love was swift and slender
As an antelope at play,
And her eyes were gray and tender
As the east at break o' day,
And I sure was shaky hearted
And her flower face was pale
On that silver night we parted,
...Read more of this...
by
Odysseus Elytis
Translation from Greek: Marios Dikaiakos
I know that all this is worthless and that the language
I speak doesn't have an alphabet
Since the sun and the waves are a syllabic script
which can be deciphered only in the years of sorrow and exile
And the motherland a fresco with successive overlays
frankish or slavic which, should you try to restore,
you are immediately sent to prison...Read more of this...
by
Edna St. Vincent Millay
White with daisies and red with sorrel
And empty, empty under the sky!—
Life is a quest and love a quarrel—
Here is a place for me to lie.
Daisies spring from damned seeds,
And this red fire that here I see
Is a worthless crop of crimson weeds,
Cursed by farmers thriftily.
But here, unhated for an hour,
The sorrel runs in ragged flame,
The daisy stands, a...Read more of this...
by
Francesco Petrarch
[Pg 81] SONNET LVIII. Quando giunse a Simon l' alto concetto. HE DESIRES ONLY THAT MEMMI HAD BEEN ABLE TO IMPART SPEECH TO HIS PORTRAIT OF LAURA. When, at my word, the high thought fired his mind,Within that master-hand which placed the pen,Had but the painter, in his fair work,...Read more of this...
by
Francesco Petrarch
CANZONE XIX. S' il dissi mai, ch' i' venga in odio a quella. HE VEHEMENTLY REBUTS THE CHARGE OF LOVING ANOTHER. Perdie! I said it not,Nor never thought to do:As well as I, ye wotI have no power thereto.And if I did, the lotThat first did me enchainMay never...Read more of this...
by
Rudyard Kipling
I closed and drew for my love's sake
That now is false to me,
And I slew the Reiver of Tarrant Moss
And set Dumeny free.
They have gone down, they have gone down,
They are standing all arow--
Twenty knights in the peat-water,
That never struck a blow!
Their armour shall not dull nor rust,
Their flesh shall not decay,
For Tarrant Moss holds them in trust,
Until the...Read more of this...
by
Jack Gilbert
The Poles rode out from Warsaw against the German
Tanks on horses. Rode knowing, in sunlight, with sabers,
A magnitude of beauty that allows me no peace.
And yet this poem would lessen that day. Question
The bravery. Say it's not courage. Call it a passion.
Would say courage isn't that. Not at its best.
It was impossib1e, and...Read more of this...
by
Francesco Petrarch
SONNET XXXVII. Il mio avversario, in cui veder solete. LAURA AT HER LOOKING-GLASS. My foe, in whom you see your own bright eyes,Adored by Love and Heaven with honour due,With beauties not its own enamours you,Sweeter and happier than in mortal guise.Me, by its counsel, lady, from your breast,My chosen...Read more of this...
by
John Berryman
What is the boy now, who has lost his ball,
What, what is he to do? I saw it go
Merrily bouncing, down the street, and then
Merrily over—there it is in the water!
No use to say 'O there are other balls':
An ultimate shaking grief fixes the boy
As he stands rigid, trembling, staring down
All his young days into the harbour where
His ball...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
To disappear enhances --
The Man that runs away
Is tinctured for an instant
With Immortality
But yesterday a Vagrant --
Today in Memory lain
With superstitious value
We tamper with "Again"
But "Never" far as Honor
Withdraws the Worthless thing
And impotent to cherish
We hasten to adorn --
Of Death the sternest function
That just as we discern
The Excellence defies us --
Securest gathered then
The Fruit perverse to plucking,
But leaning to...Read more of this...
by
Robert Burns
WHILE at the stook the shearers cow’r
To shun the bitter blaudin’ show’r,
Or in gulravage rinnin scowr
To pass the time,
To you I dedicate the hour
In idle rhyme.
My musie, tir’d wi’ mony a sonnet
On gown, an’ ban’, an’ douse black bonnet,
Is grown right eerie now she’s done it,
Lest they should blame her,
An’ rouse their holy thunder on it
...Read more of this...
by
John Berryman
She mentioned 'worthless' & he took it in,
degraded Henry, at the ebb of love-”
O at the end of love-”
in undershorts, with visitors, whereof
we can say their childlessness is ending. Love
finally took over,
after their two adopted: she has a month to go
and Henry has (perhaps) many months to go
until another Spring
wakens another Henry, with far to go;
far to go, pal.
My...Read more of this...
by
Victor Hugo
("Une terre au flanc maigre.")
{Bk. III. xi., October, 1840.}
A clod with rugged, meagre, rust-stained, weather-worried face,
Where care-filled creatures tug and delve to keep a worthless race;
And glean, begrudgedly, by all their unremitting toil,
Sour, scanty bread and fevered water from the ungrateful soil;
Made harder by their gloom...Read more of this...
by
Robert Southey
Poussin! most pleasantly thy pictur'd scenes
Beguile the lonely hour; I sit and gaze
With lingering eye, till charmed FANCY makes
The lovely landscape live, and the rapt soul
From the foul haunts of herded humankind
Flies far away with spirit speed, and tastes
The untainted air, that with the lively hue
Of health and happiness illumes the cheek
Of mountain LIBERTY. My willing soul
All eager follows...Read more of this...
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...
by
Elinor Wylie
First Traveller: What's that lying in the dust?
Second Traveller: A crooked stick.
First Traveller: What's it worth, if you can trust to arithmetic?
Second Traveller: Isn't this a riddle?
First Traveller: No, a trick.
Second Traveller:It's worthless, leave it where it lies.
First Traveller: Wait; count ten;
Rub a little dust upon your eyes;
Now, look again.
Second...Read more of this...
by
Robert Burns
LATE crippl’d of an arm, and now a leg,
About to beg a pass for leave to beg;
Dull, listless, teas’d, dejected, and deprest
(Nature is adverse to a cripple’s rest);
Will generous Graham list to his Poet’s wail?
(It soothes poor Misery, hearkening to her tale)
And hear him curse the light he first survey’d,
And doubly curse the luckless rhyming trade?
Thou, Nature! partial...Read more of this...
by
Ehsan Sehgal
"Many call girls deserve respect and honour for their fairness and truth than those who flirt, cheat, lie, pretend and claim to be noble and notable, actually they are the worthless garbage of a society."
Ehsan Sehgal...Read more of this...
by
Alec Derwent (A D) Hope
What pleasures have great princes? These: to know
Themselves reputed mad with pride or power;
To speak few words -- few words and short bring low
This ancient house, that city with flame devour;
To make old men, their father's enemies,
Drunk on the vintage of the former age;
To have great painters show their mistresses
Naked to the succeeding time; engage
The cunning...Read more of this...
by
Isaac Watts
God's sovereignty and goodness.
O Lord, our heav'nly King,
Thy name is all divine;
Thy glories round the earth are spread,
And o'er the heav'ns they shine.
When to thy works on high
I raise my wondering eyes,
And see the moon, complete in light,
Adorn the darksome skies
When I survey the stars,
And all their shining forms,
Lord, what is man, that worthless thing,
Akin to dust and worms?
Lord,...Read more of this...
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