Famous Wouldst Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Sonnet XCVI

by William Shakespeare
 Some say thy fault is youth, some wantonness;
Some say thy grace is youth and gentle sport;
Both grace and faults are loved of more and less;
Thou makest faults graces that to thee resort.
As on the finger of a throned queen
The basest jewel will be well esteem'd,
So are those errors that in thee are seen
To truths translated and for true things...Read more of this...

From Adonais 49-52

by Percy Bysshe Shelley
 49

Go thou to Rome,--at once the Paradise,
The grave, the city, and the wilderness;
And where its wrecks like shattered mountains rise,
And flowering weeds, and fragrant copses dress
The bones of Desolation's nakedness
Pass, till the spirit of the spot shall lead
Thy footsteps to a slope of green access
Where, like an infant's smile, over the dead
A light of laughing flowers along the grass...Read more of this...

Canzone II

by Francesco Petrarch
CANZONE II. Amor, se vuoi ch' i' torni al giogo antico. UNLESS LOVE CAN RESTORE HER TO LIFE, HE WILL NEVER AGAIN BE HIS SLAVE.  If thou wouldst have me, Love, thy slave again,One other proof, miraculous and new,Must yet be wrought by you,Ere, conquer'd, I resume my ancient chain—Lift my...Read more of this...

Melancholy -- To Laura

by Friedrich von Schiller
 Laura! a sunrise seems to break
Where'er thy happy looks may glow.
Joy sheds its roses o'er thy cheek,
Thy tears themselves do but bespeak
The rapture whence they flow;
Blest youth to whom those tears are given--
The tears that change his earth to heaven;
His best reward those melting eyes--
For him new suns are in the skies!

Thy soul--a crystal river passing,
Silver-clear, and sunbeam-glassing,
Mays into...Read more of this...

The Guardian-Angel

by Robert Browning
 A PICTURE AT FANO.

I.

Dear and great Angel, wouldst thou only leave
That child, when thou hast done with him, for me!
Let me sit all the day here, that when eve
Shall find performed thy special ministry,
And time come for departure, thou, suspending
Thy flight, mayst see another child for tending,
Another still, to quiet and retrieve.

II.

Then I shall feel thee step one step,...Read more of this...

Sonnet

by Paul Laurence Dunbar
Emblem of blasted hope and lost desire,
No finger ever traced thy yellow page
Save Time's. Thou hast not wrought to noble rage
The hearts thou wouldst have stirred. Not any fire
Save sad flames set to light a funeral pyre
Dost thou suggest. Nay,—impotent in age,
Unsought, thou holdst a corner of the stage
And ceasest even dumbly to aspire.
How different was the thought of him...Read more of this...

Love Turned to Hatred

by Sir John Suckling
 I will not love one minute more, I swear!
No, not a minute! Not a sigh or tear
Thou gett'st from me, or one kind look again,
Though thou shouldst court me to 't, and wouldst begin.
I will not think of thee but as men do
Of debts and sins; and then I'll curse thee too.
For thy sake woman shall be now to...Read more of this...

Sonnet - To Science

by Edgar Allan Poe
 Science! true daughter of Old Time thou art!
 Who alterest all things with thy peering eyes.
Why preyest thou thus upon the poet's heart,
 Vulture, whose wings are dull realities?
How should he love thee? or how deem thee wise,
 Who wouldst not leave him in his wandering
To seek for treasure in the jewelled skies,
 Albeit he soared with an undaunted...Read more of this...

Inspiration

by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
 Not like a daring, bold, aggressive boy, 
Is inspiration, eager to pursue, 
But rather like a maiden, fond, yet coy, 
Who gives herself to him who best doth woo.

Once she may smile, or thrice, thy soul to fire, 
In passing by, but when she turns her face, 
Thou must persist and seek her with desire, 
If thou wouldst win...Read more of this...

The Count Of Hapsburg

by Friedrich von Schiller
 At Aix-la-Chapelle, in imperial array,
In its halls renowned in old story,
At the coronation banquet so gay
King Rudolf was sitting in glory.
The meats were served up by the Palsgrave of Rhine,
The Bohemian poured out the bright sparkling wine,
And all the Electors, the seven,
Stood waiting around the world-governing one,
As the chorus of stars encircle the sun,
That honor might duly be given.

And...Read more of this...

Elegy I: Jealousy

by John Donne
 Fond woman, which wouldst have thy husband die,
And yet complain'st of his great jealousy;
If swol'n with poison, he lay in his last bed,
His body with a sere-bark covered,
Drawing his breath, as thick and short, as can
The nimblest crocheting musician,
Ready with loathsome vomiting to spew
His soul out of one hell, into a new,
Made deaf with his poor kindred's howling cries,
Begging...Read more of this...

Brignall Banks

by Sir Walter Scott
 O, Brignall banks are wild and fair, 
And Greta woods are green, 
And you may gather garlands there, 
Would grace a summer queen: 
And as I rode by Dalton Hall, 
Beneath the turrets high, 
A Maiden on the castle wall 
Was singing merrily:— 

'O, Brignall banks are fresh and fair, 
And Greta woods are green! 
I'd rather rove with...Read more of this...

Translated from Geibel

by Amy Levy
 O say, thou wild, thou oft deceived heart,
What mean these noisy throbbings in my breast?
After thy long, unutterable woe
Wouldst thou not rest?

Fall'n from Life's tree the sweet rose-blossom lies,
And fragrant youth has fled. What made to seem
This earth as fair to thee as Paradise,
Was all a dream.

The blossom fell, the thorn was left to me;
Deep from the wound the...Read more of this...

Lover In All Shapes

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
 To be like a fish,
Brisk and quick, is my wish;
If thou cam'st with thy line.
Thou wouldst soon make me thine.
To be like a fish,
Brisk and quick, is my wish.

Oh, were I a steed!
Thou wouldst love me indeed.
Oh, were I a car
Fit to bear thee afar!
Oh, were I a steed!
Thou wouldst love me indeed.

I would I were gold
That thy fingers...Read more of this...

Opifex

by Thomas Edward Brown
 As I was carving images from clouds,
And tinting them with soft ethereal dyes
Pressed from the pulp of dreams, one comes, and cries:--
"Forbear!" and all my heaven with gloom enshrouds.

"Forbear!" Thou hast no tools wherewith to essay
The delicate waves of that elusive grain:
Wouldst have due recompense of vulgar pain?
The potter's wheel for thee, and some coarse clay!

"So work, if work...Read more of this...

The Fisherman

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
 THE waters rush'd, the waters rose,

A fisherman sat by,
While on his line in calm repose

He cast his patient eye.
And as he sat, and hearken'd there,

The flood was cleft in twain,
And, lo! a dripping mermaid fair

Sprang from the troubled main.

She sang to him, and spake the while:

"Why lurest thou my brood,
With human wit and human guile

From out their native flood?
Oh,...Read more of this...

Arise, O cup-bearer

by Hafez
Arise, O cup-bearer, & bring
Fresh wine for our enrapturing!
O minstrel, of our sorrow sing—
‘O joy of whose delight we dreamed,
O love that erst so easy seemed,
What toil is in thy travelling!’

How in the lov’d one’s tent can I
Have any rest or gaiety?
Ever anon the horsemen cry,
‘O lingering lover, fare thee well!’
Ever I hear the jingling bell
Of waiting steed & harnessry.

O...Read more of this...

By The River

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
 WHEN by the broad stream thou dost dwell,

Oft shallow is its sluggish flood;
Then, when thy fields thou tendest well,

It o'er them spreads its slime and mud.

The ships descend ere daylight wanes,

The prudent fisher upward goes;
Round reef and rock ice casts its chains,

And boys at will the pathway close.

To this attend, then, carefully,

And what thou wouldst, that execute!
Ne'er linger, ne'er...Read more of this...

Birth-Day Ode 03

by Robert Southey
 And wouldst thou seek the low abode
Where PEACE delights to dwell?
Pause Traveller on thy way of life!
With many a snare and peril rife
Is that long labyrinth of road:
Dark is the vale of years before
Pause Traveller on thy way!
Nor dare the dangerous path explore
Till old EXPERIENCE comes to lend his leading ray.

Not he who comes with lanthorn light
Shall guide thy...Read more of this...

The Students Serenade

by Anne Bronte
 I have slept upon my couch,
But my spirit did not rest,
For the labours of the day
Yet my weary soul opprest; 
And, before my dreaming eyes
Still the learned volumes lay,
And I could not close their leaves,
And I could not turn away. 

But I oped my eyes at last,
And I heard a muffled sound;
'Twas the night-breeze, come to say
That the snow...Read more of this...

Hymn of the Moravian Nuns of Bethlehem at the Consecration of Pulaskis Banner

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
 When the dying flame of day
Through the chancel shot its ray,
Far the glimmering tapers shed
Faint light on the cowled head;
And the censer burning swung,
Where, before the altar, hung
The crimson banner, that with prayer
Had been consecrated there.
And the nuns' sweet hymn was heard the while,
Sung low, in the dim, mysterious aisle.

"Take thy banner! May it wave
Proudly o'er the good and...Read more of this...

Love As A Landscape Painter

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
 ON a rocky peak once sat I early,
Gazing on the mist with eyes unmoving;
Stretch'd out like a pall of greyish texture,
All things round, and all above it cover'd.

Suddenly a boy appear'd beside me,
Saying "Friend, what meanest thou by gazing
On the vacant pall with such composure?
Hast thou lost for evermore all pleasure
Both in painting cunningly, and forming?"
On the child I...Read more of this...

Keep thyself from drinking wine in the company of a

by Omar Khayyam
Keep thyself from drinking wine in the company of a
boorish, violent character, having no mind or self-control,
for such a man knows only how to cause unpleasantness.
For the time, thou wouldst have to undergo the disorder
of his drunkenness, his vociferations, his folly. And the
next day, his prayers for excuse and pardon would come
to weary thy head....Read more of this...

Wisdom And Prudence

by Friedrich von Schiller
 Wouldst thou, my friend, mount up to the highest summit of wisdom,
Be not deterred by the fear, prudence thy course may deride
That shortsighted one sees but the bank that from thee is flying,
Not the one which ere long thou wilt attain with bold flight....Read more of this...

The Complaint of Lisa

by Algernon Charles Swinburne
 There is no woman living who draws breath 
So sad as I, though all things sadden her. 
There is not one upon life's weariest way 
Who is weary as I am weary of all but death. 
Toward whom I look as looks the sunflower 
All day with all his whole soul toward the sun; 
While in the sun's sight...Read more of this...

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