Famous Write Poems by Famous Poets

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

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A Birthday

...ess, since I was sense
And spirit too of that same excellence.

So thus we solved the earth's revolving riddle:
I could write verse, and you could play the fiddle,
While, as for love, the sun went through the signs,
And not a star but told him how love twines
A wreath for every decanate, degree,
Minute and second, linked eternally
In chains of flowers that never fading are,
Each one as sempiternal as a star.

Let me go back to your last birthday. Then
I was already your one m...Read more of this...
by Crowley, Aleister


An Essay On Criticism

...To tire our Patience, than mis-lead our Sense:
Some few in that, but Numbers err in this,
Ten Censure wrong for one who Writes amiss;
A Fool might once himself alone expose,
Now One in Verse makes many more in Prose.

'Tis with our Judgments as our Watches, none
Go just alike, yet each believes his own.
In Poets as true Genius is but rare,
True Taste as seldom is the Critick's Share;
Both must alike from Heav'n derive their Light,
These born to Judge, as well as those to Writ...Read more of this...
by Pope, Alexander

As I Sat Alone by Blue Ontario's Shores

...made here in the spirit of other lands, are so much poison in The States.


(How dare such insects as we see assume to write poems for America? 
For our victorious armies, and the offspring following the armies?)

Piety and conformity to them that like! 
Peace, obesity, allegiance, to them that like! 
I am he who tauntingly compels men, women, nations, 
Crying, Leap from your seats, and contend for your lives! 

I am he who walks the States with a barb’d tongue, questioning ...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt

Avons Harvest

..., you understand,” she said, 
“Because the dictionary always lives here.
He’s not a man of books, yet he can read, 
And write. He learned it all at school.”—He smiled, 
And answered with a fervor that rang then 
Superfluous: “Had I learned a little more 
At school, it might have been as well for me.”
And I remember now that he paused then, 
Leaving a silence that one had to break. 
But this was long ago, and there was now 
No laughing in that house. We were alone 
This time, ...Read more of this...
by Robinson, Edwin Arlington

Freedoms Plow

...s it was promises.
The people say it is promises-that will come true.
The people do not always say things out loud,
Nor write them down on paper.
The people often hold
Great thoughts in their deepest hearts
And sometimes only blunderingly express them,
Haltingly and stumblingly say them,
And faultily put them into practice.
The people do not always understand each other.
But there is, somewhere there,
Always the trying to understand,
And the trying to say,
"You are a man. Tog...Read more of this...
by Hughes, Langston


I Write My Mother a Poem

...
shot in Colorado, and my mother is wearing a root beer 
mustache. Her eyes are unfocused, everything's root beer. 
I write root beer, root beer, to make her happy.

from Breathing In, Breathing Out, Anhinga Press, 2002
© 2000, Fleda Brown
(first published in The Southern Review, 36 [2000])
...Read more of this...
by Brown, Fleda

Last Instructions to a Painter

...Williams, the accountants' bane; 
And Lovelace young, of chimney-men the cane. 
Old Waller, trumpet-general, swore he'd write 
This combat truer than the naval fight. 
How'rd on's birth, wit, strength, courage much presumes 
And in his breast wears many Montezumes. 
These and some more with single valour stay 
The adverse troops, and hold them all at bay. 
Each thinks his person represents the whole, 
And with that thought does multiply his soul, 
Believes himself an army, th...Read more of this...
by Marvell, Andrew

New Hampshire

...inspiration,
Who in the name of fluid inspiration,
But in the best style of bad salesmanship,
Angrily tried to male me write a protest
(In verse I think) against the Volstead Act.
He didn't even offer me a drink
Until I asked for one to steady him.
This is called having an idea to sell.

It never could have happened in New Hampshire.

The only person really soiled with trade
I ever stumbled on in old New Hampshire
Was someone who had just come back ashamed
From selling thing...Read more of this...
by Frost, Robert

Nostalgia

...roken code.

The 1790's will never come again. Childhood was big.
People would take walks to the very tops of hills
and write down what they saw in their journals without speaking.
Our collars were high and our hats were extremely soft.
We would surprise each other with alphabets made of twigs.
It was a wonderful time to be alive, or even dead.

I am very fond of the period between 1815 and 1821.
Europe trembled while we sat still for our portraits.
And I would love to return...Read more of this...
by Collins, Billy

Still I Rise

...You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
'Cause I walk like I've got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still ...Read more of this...
by Angelou, Maya

The Everlasting Gospel

...
As she heard by Eden’s flood: 
‘Good and Evil are no more! 
Sinai’s trumpets cease to roar! 
Cease, finger of God, to write! 
The Heavens are not clean in Thy sight. 
Thou art good, and Thou alone; 
Nor may the sinner cast one stone. 
To be good only, is to be 
A God or else a Pharisee. 
Thou Angel of the Presence Divine, 
That didst create this Body of Mine, 
Wherefore hast thou writ these laws 
And created Hell’s dark jaws? 
My Presence I will take from thee: 
A cold lepe...Read more of this...
by Blake, William

The Growth of Love

...e world comes not to an end. 

51
O my uncared-for songs, what are ye worth,
That in my secret book with so much care
I write you, this one here and that one there,
Marking the time and order of your birth?
How, with a fancy so unkind to mirth,
A sense so hard, a style so worn and bare,
Look ye for any welcome anywhere
From any shelf or heart-home on the earth? 
Should others ask you this, say then I yearn'd
To write you such as once, when I was young,
Finding I should have l...Read more of this...
by Bridges, Robert Seymour

The Knights Tale

...when that one was dead, soothly to sayn,
His fellow went and sought him down in hell:
But of that story list me not to write.
Duke Perithous loved well Arcite,
And had him known at Thebes year by year:
And finally at request and prayere
Of Perithous, withoute ranson
Duke Theseus him let out of prison,
Freely to go, where him list over all,
In such a guise, as I you tellen shall
This was the forword*, plainly to indite, *promise
Betwixte Theseus and him Arcite:
That if so wer...Read more of this...
by Chaucer, Geoffrey

The Lady of the Lake

...do, by heaven!—come Roderick Dhu
     And of his clan the boldest two
     And let me but till morning rest,
     I write the falsehood on their crest.'
     If by the blaze I mark aright
     Thou bear'st the belt and spur of Knight.'
     'Then by these tokens mayst thou know
     Each proud oppressor's mortal foe.'
     'Enough, enough; sit down and share
     A soldier's couch, a soldier's fare.'
     XXXI..

     He gave him of his Highland cheer,
     The ...Read more of this...
by Scott, Sir Walter

The Man of Laws Tale

...as of love so false.
Hypermnestra, Penelop', Alcest',
Your wifehood he commendeth with the best.
But certainly no worde writeth he
Of *thilke wick'* example of Canace, *that wicked*
That loved her own brother sinfully;
(Of all such cursed stories I say, Fy),
Or else of Tyrius Apollonius,
How that the cursed king Antiochus
Bereft his daughter of her maidenhead;
That is so horrible a tale to read,
When he her threw upon the pavement.
And therefore he, *of full avisement*, *deli...Read more of this...
by Chaucer, Geoffrey

The Story Of Our Lives

...the chapters
I lean back and push the book aside
because the book says
it is what I am doing.
I lean back and begin to write about the book.
I write that I wish to move beyond the book.
Beyond my life into another life.
I put the pen down.
The book says: "He put the pen down
and turned and watched her reading
the part about herself falling in love."
The book is more accurate than we can imagine.
I lean back and watch you read
about the man across the street.
They built a hou...Read more of this...
by Strand, Mark

The Vision of Judgment

...such a School, is he not sufficiently armed against it by his own intense vanity? The truth is, that there are certain writers whom Mr. S. imagines, like Scrub, to have 'talked of him; for they have laughed consumedly.' 

I think I know enough of most of the writers to whom he is supposed to allude, to assert, that they, in their individual capacities, have done more good, in the charities of life, to their fellow-creatures, in any one year, than Mr. Southey has done harm to...Read more of this...
by Byron, George (Lord)

The White Cliffs

...the spheres they hear? 
Is it the prelude to that noble play, 
The drama of Joined Lives? Ah, they forget 
They cannot write their parts; the bell has rung, 
The curtain rises and the stage is set 
For tragedy-they were in love and young. 

V
We went to the Tower,
We went to the Zoo, 
We saw every flower 
In the gardens at Kew. 
We saw King Charles a-prancing
On his long-tailed horse, 
And thought him more entrancing
Than better kings, of course. 
At a strange early hour, 
I...Read more of this...
by Miller, Alice Duer

The Witch Of Atlas

...ile they were still arraying
In liveries ever new the rapid, blind,
And fleeting generations of mankind.

And she would write strange dreams upon the brain
Of those who were less beautiful, and make
All harsh and crooked purposes more vain
Than in the desert is the serpent's wake
Which the sand covers. All his evil gain
The miser, in such dreams, would rise and shake
Into a beggar's lap; the lying scribe
Would his own lies betray without a bribe.

The priests would write an e...Read more of this...
by Shelley, Percy Bysshe

White Flock

...sing of the past times
He killed my bird colored white.

He said, in the lighthouse at sundown:
"Love me, laugh and write poetry!"
And I buried the joyous songbird
Behind a round well near a tree.

I promised that I would not mourn her.
But my heart turned to stone without choice,
And it seems to me that everywhere
And always I'll hear her sweet voice.



x x x

True love's memory, You are heavy!
In your smoke I sing and burn,
And the rest -- is only fire...Read more of this...
by Akhmatova, Anna

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