Famous Wrong Poems by Famous Poets

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

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The Wrong Way Home

by James Tate
 All night a door floated down the river.
It tried to remember little incidents of pleasure
from its former life, like the time the lovers
leaned against it kissing for hours
and whispering those famous words.
Later, there were harsh words and a shoe
was thrown and the door was slammed.
Comings and goings by the thousands,
the early mornings and late nights, years, years.
O they've got...Read more of this...

The Two Kings

by William Butler Yeats
 King Eochaid came at sundown to a wood
Westward of Tara. Hurrying to his queen
He had outridden his war-wasted men
That with empounded cattle trod the mire,
And where beech-trees had mixed a pale green light
With the ground-ivy's blue, he saw a stag
Whiter than curds, its eyes the tint of the sea.
Because it stood upon his path and seemed
More hands in height...Read more of this...

The Sewing-Girl

by Robert William Service
 The humble garret where I dwell
Is in that Quarter called the Latin;
It isn't spacious -- truth to tell,
There's hardly room to swing a cat in.
But what of that! It's there I fight
For food and fame, my Muse inviting,
And all the day and half the night
You'll find me writing, writing, writing.

Now, it was in the month of May
As, wrestling with...Read more of this...

The Song of Right and Wrong

by G K Chesterton
 Feast on wine or fast on water 
And your honour shall stand sure, 
God Almighty's son and daughter 
He the valiant, she the pure; 
If an angel out of heaven 
Brings you other things to drink, 
Thank him for his kind attentions, 
Go and pour them down the sink. 

Tea is like the East he grows in, 
A great...Read more of this...

The Wrong Way Home

by Edward Taylor
 All night a door floated down the river.
It tried to remember little incidents of pleasure
from its former life, like the time the lovers
leaned against it kissing for hours
and whispering those famous words.
Later, there were harsh words and a shoe
was thrown and the door was slammed.
Comings and goings by the thousands,
the early mornings and late nights, years, years.
O they've got...Read more of this...

The Hope Of My Heart

by John McCrae
 "Delicta juventutis et ignorantius ejus, quoesumus ne memineris, Domine."



I left, to earth, a little maiden fair,
With locks of gold, and eyes that shamed the light;
I prayed that God might have her in His care
And sight.

Earth's love was false; her voice, a siren's song;
(Sweet mother-earth was but a lying name)
The path she showed was but the path of wrong
And shame.

"Cast...Read more of this...

The Poor Children

by Victor Hugo
 Take heed of this small child of earth; 
He is great; he hath in him God most high. 
Children before their fleshly birth 
Are lights alive in the blue sky. 

In our light bitter world of wrong 
They come; God gives us them awhile. 
His speech is in their stammering tongue, 
And his forgiveness in their smile. 

Their sweet...Read more of this...

The Purse-Seine

by Robinson Jeffers
 Our sardine fishermen work at night in the dark
 of the moon; daylight or moonlight
They could not tell where to spread the net, 
 unable to see the phosphorescence of the 
 shoals of fish.
They work northward from Monterey, coasting 
 Santa Cruz; off New Year's Point or off 
 Pigeon Point
The look-out man will see some lakes of...Read more of this...

It was wrong to do this said the angel

by Stephen Crane
 "It was wrong to do this," said the angel.
"You should live like a flower,
Holding malice like a puppy,
Waging war like a lambkin."

"Not so," quoth the man
Who had no fear of spirits;
"It is only wrong for angels
Who can live like the flowers,
Holding malice like the puppies,
Waging war like the lambkins."...Read more of this...

A Word to Husbands

by Ogden Nash
 To keep your marriage brimming
With love in the loving cup,
Whenever you’re wrong, admit it;
Whenever you’re right, shut up....Read more of this...

An Ode in Time of Hesitation

by William Vaughn Moody
 After seeing at Boston the statue of Robert Gould Shaw, killed while storming Fort Wagner, July 18, 1863, at the head of the first enlisted ***** regiment, the Fifty-fourth Massachusetts.


I 

Before the solemn bronze Saint Gaudens made 
To thrill the heedless passer's heart with awe, 
And set here in the city's talk and trade 
To the good memory of...Read more of this...

It always felt to me -- a wrong

by Emily Dickinson
 It always felt to me -- a wrong
To that Old Moses -- done --
To let him see -- the Canaan --
Without the entering --

And tho' in soberer moments --
No Moses there can be
I'm satisfied -- the Romance
In point of injury --

Surpasses sharper stated --
Of Stephen -- or of Paul --
For these -- were only put to death --
While God's...Read more of this...

Easter 1916

by William Butler Yeats
 I have met them at close of day
Coming with vivid faces
From counter or desk among grey
Eighteenth-century houses.
I have passed with a nod of the head
Or polite meaningless words,
Or have lingered awhile and said
Polite meaningless words,
And thought before I had done
Of a mocking tale or a gibe
To please a companion
Around the fire at the club,
Being certain that they and I
But...Read more of this...

Like Truthless Dreams So Are My Joys Expired

by Sir Walter Raleigh
 Like truthless dreams, so are my joys expired, 
And past return are all my dandled days; 
My love misled, and fancy quite retired— 
Of all which passed the sorrow only stays. 

My lost delights, now clean from sight of land, 
Have left me all alone in unknown ways; 
My mind to woe, my life in fortune's hand— 
Of all...Read more of this...

The Peace Of Dives

by Rudyard Kipling
 The Word came down to Dives in Torment where he lay:
"Our World is full of wickedness, My Children maim and slay,
 "And the Saint and Seer and Prophet
 "Can make no better of it
"Than to sanctify and prophesy and pray.

"Rise up, rise up, thou Dives, and take again thy gold,
"And thy women and thy housen as they were to...Read more of this...

'Tis wrong with gloomy thoughts your mirth to drown, —

by Omar Khayyam
'Tis wrong with gloomy thoughts your mirth to drown,—
To let grief's millstone weigh your spirits down;
Since none can tell what is to be, 'tis best
With wine and love your heart's desires to crown....Read more of this...

Peter

by Marianne Moore
 Strong and slippery,
built for the midnight grass-party
confronted by four cats, he sleeps his time away--
the detached first claw on the foreleg corresponding
to the thumb, retracted to its tip; the small tuft of fronds
or katydid-legs above each eye numbering all units
in each group; the shadbones regularly set about the mouth
to droop or rise in unison like porcupine-quills.
He lets himself be...Read more of this...

'Tis wrong, according to the strict Koran,

by Omar Khayyam
'Tis wrong, according to the strict Koran,
To drink in Rajah, likewise in Sha'ban,
God and the Prophet claim those months as theirs;
Was Ramazan then made for thirsty man?...Read more of this...

The Unknown Citizen

by Wystan Hugh (W H) Auden
He was found by the Bureau of Statistics to beOne against whom there was no official complaint,And all the reports on his conduct agreeThat, in the modern sense of an old-fashioned word, he was asaint,For in everything he did he served the Greater Community.Except for the War till the day he retiredHe worked in a factory and never got fired,But...Read more of this...

Though drink is wrong, take care with whom you drink,

by Omar Khayyam
Though drink is wrong, take care with whom you drink,
And who you are that drink, and what you drink;
And drink at will, for, these three points observed,
Who but the very wise can ever drink?...Read more of this...

The Epic Of The Lion

by Victor Hugo
 ("Un lion avait pris un enfant.") 
 
 {XIII.} 


 A Lion in his jaws caught up a child— 
 Not harming it—and to the woodland, wild 
 With secret streams and lairs, bore off his prey— 
 The beast, as one might cull a bud in May. 
 It was a rosy boy, a king's own pride, 
...Read more of this...

An Inspiration

by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
 However the battle is ended,
Though proudly the victor comes
With fluttering flags and prancing nags
And echoing roll of drums.
Still truth proclaims this motto,
In letters of living light, -
No Question is ever settled,
Until it is settled right.

Though the heel of the strong oppressor
May grind the weak to dust,
And the voices of fame with one acclaim
May call him great and just,
Let those...Read more of this...

Upon Being Asked Why I Am Not Writing

by Barry Tebb
 Too much gone wrong – 

No Muse, no song....Read more of this...

Psalm 119 part 13

by Isaac Watts
 Holy fear, and tenderness of conscience.

ver. 10 

With my whole heart I've sought thy face:
O let me never stray
From thy commands, O God of grace,
Nor tread the sinner's way.

ver. 11 

Thy word I've hid within my heart
To keep my conscience clean,
And be an everlasting guard
From every rising sin.

ver. 63,53,158 

I'm a companion of the saints
Who fear and love the...Read more of this...

Sonnet CLXXXIII

by Francesco Petrarch
SONNET CLXXXIII. Il cantar novo e 'l pianger degli augelli. MORNING.  The birds' sweet wail, their renovated song,At break of morn, make all the vales resound;With lapse of crystal waters pouring round,In clear, swift runnels, the fresh shores among.She, whose pure passion knows nor guile nor wrong,With front of snow,...Read more of this...

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