Free Translator Free Translator
Translators Dictionaries Courses Other
Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Poem   /pˈoʊəm/   Listen
Poem

noun
1.
A composition written in metrical feet forming rhythmical lines.  Synonym: verse form.



Related searches:



WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |





"Poem" Quotes from Famous Books



... the title of the poem [ To Melvin Gardner: Suicide ], on p. 19, to [ To Melvin Gardner: ]—in the text, but not in the table of Contents. This may have been done in deference to the family—attitudes on suicide were once quite different than now—but as it has been quite some time, and the original ...
— Songs, Merry and Sad • John Charles McNeill

... simplicity a depth of introspection and a fusion of nature with human feeling which is a new content in the imaginative presentation of human experience. In connection with Goethe's Leipzig period we gave a specimen of the best work he was then capable of producing; when we place beside it such a poem as the following, we are reminded of the saying of Emerson that "the soul's advances are not made by gradation ... but rather by ascension ...
— The Youth of Goethe • Peter Hume Brown

... trusting to chance and the star of his genius that the effect produced should be right and fine. He had no patience with chance effects. He wanted to know why and how. His was deliberate creative genius, and, before he began a story or poem, the thing itself was already alive in his brain, with the end in sight and the means of realizing that end in his conscious possession. Otherwise the effort was doomed to failure. On the other hand, he appreciated the chance effects in words and phrases that came lightly and easily into ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London

... any satisfactory definition of poetry is almost equalled by the difficulty of defining with precision any one of its kinds; and the epigram in Greek, while it always remained conditioned by being in its essence and origin an inscriptional poem, took in the later periods so wide a range of subject and treatment that it can perhaps only be limited by certain abstract conventions of length and metre. Sometimes it becomes in all but metrical form a lyric; sometimes it hardly rises ...
— Select Epigrams from the Greek Anthology • J. W. Mackail

... enterprise of forming one's literary taste is an enterprise of learning how best to use this means of life. People who don't want to live, people who would sooner hibernate than feel intensely, will be wise to eschew literature. They had better, to quote from the finest passage in a fine poem, "sit around and eat blackberries." The sight of a "common bush afire with God" might ...
— Literary Taste: How to Form It • Arnold Bennett

... A poem of thirty-two pages, devoted to setting forth the incidents of Concord and Lexington fights, in the Revolutionary days, and therefore very appropriate to our own time. The 'plan' is excellent; the incidents well devised, while many ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No. 2, August, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... his humble duty, and ventures to transmit the copy of Mr Leigh Hunt's poem, which he mentioned to your Majesty in his last letter. Lord Melbourne also sends the letter which Mr Leigh Hunt has taken the liberty of addressing to your Majesty, as well as that which he has addressed to Lord Melbourne. Lord Melbourne will inform ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume 1 (of 3), 1837-1843) • Queen Victoria

... gallery sat two or three rows of worshipers, who reminded Francesca of Browning's poem of St. John's Day at Rome. For they nudged and jostled each other; they whispered things; they even laughed over the things they whispered. But they were clad like those in the open part in the Talleth, and they sat book in hand, and from time to time ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner

... man in black. "A dangerous personage; that poem of his cuts both ways; and then there was Pulci, that Morgante of his cuts both ways, or rather one way, and that sheer against us; and then there was Aretino, who dealt so hard with the poveri frati; ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow

... bands and cuffs, and, by Lord Coke's orders, she appeared in that fashion at the place of execution. She was the widow of a physician, and had been eminently beautiful, as appears from the description of her in the poem called Overbury's Vision. There was produced in court a parcel of dolls or puppets belonging to this lady, some naked, some dressed, and which she used for exhibiting fashions upon. But, greatly to the horror of the spectators, who accounted these figures ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott

... now known as Nova Scotia, not only do we tread on historic ground, but we see in these days a landscape of more varied beauty than that which so delighted the gentlemen-adventurers of old France nearly three centuries ago. In this country, which the poem conceived by Longfellow amid the elms of Cambridge has made so famous, we see the rich lands reclaimed from the sea, which glistens a few miles to the north, and every day comes rushing up its estuaries. There to the north is dark, lofty Blomidon—whose name is probably a memorial of ...
— Canada • J. G. Bourinot

... never was anyone hurt spiritually or morally by the great French masterpiece of fiction. The man who can say the book is defiling, would draw defilement from the fount of Castaly. The Philadelphia school board has declared itself an aggregation of asses. "Les Miserables" is the greatest poem of divine humanity that this world has known since Shakespeare wrote "Lear." But I suppose "Lear," too, is immoral. I suppose everything is immoral, from "Oedipus, the Tyrant," to Hall Caine's "Christian," that teaches that ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann

... of the plan is ascribed to a mythical, or, at least, traditionary person, Ha-yo-went-ha, the Hiawatha of Longfellow's celebrated poem, who was present at this council and the central person in its management. In his communications with the council he used a wise man of the Onondagas, Da-ga-no-we'-da, as an interpreter and speaker to expound the structure and principles of the proposed confederacy. The ...
— Houses and House-Life of the American Aborigines • Lewis H. Morgan

... recently sentenced to write a poem. In other countries of course you commit a poem ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, January 21st, 1920 • Various

... know. "There's sense in that." he said approvingly. Peace was restored, and they would have reached Salisbury if they had not had some more beer. It unloosed the soldier's fancies, and again he spoke of old Em'ly, and recited the poem, with ...
— The Longest Journey • E. M. Forster

... that wonderful poem ending the second Book of the Hierarchy, and having finished ...
— St. George and St. Michael • George MacDonald

... of this first epic poem, under Yezdegird, is called a Dihkan by Firdusi. Dihkan, according to the Persian dictionaries, means (1) farmer, (2) historian; and the reason commonly assigned for this double meaning is, that the Persian farmers happened to be well read in history. Quatremere, however, has proved that ...
— Chips From A German Workshop - Volume I - Essays on the Science of Religion • Friedrich Max Mueller

... said the creature, 'knows that Spurius is no flatterer. I have not only published travels among the Palmyrenes, but I intend to publish a poem also—yes, a satire—and if it should be entitled "Woman's pride humbled," or "The downfall of false greatness" or "The gourd withered in a day," or "Mushrooms not oaks," or "Ants not elephants," what would there be wonderful in it?—or, if ...
— Aurelian - or, Rome in the Third Century • William Ware

... and berries and milk would be so nice," she said, emptying the contents of her pail into her hat, and boldly beginning her new task, while Rob stood by and repeated, at her command, the poem from Mother Goose: ...
— Little Men - Life at Plumfield With Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott

... and began to think the despised poem might amount to something after all. Jean had finished the dishes by this time and sat cross-legged with her chin in her hand, staring into the fire, as Alan read how the splendid stag pursued ...
— The Scotch Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins

... mechanical arts. How distinctly we can trace, in all these examples, the moulding influence of boyhood upon manhood! And how marked the correspondence between the early life of all these men and that of Nat! Thus it is that the beautiful poem of Longfellow, "The Village Blacksmith," is abundantly illustrated in the biography of both the living and the dead! A few of the ...
— The Bobbin Boy - or, How Nat Got His learning • William M. Thayer

... him, a man now forty-four, and bound by honour, if not by the Church, to Stella, one cannot doubt. At first, their relations seem to have been simply those of teacher and pupil, and this phase of the matter it is which is most particularly described in the famous poem, "Cadenus and Vanessa," written at Windsor in 1713, and first ...
— The Romance of Old New England Rooftrees • Mary Caroline Crawford

... imbecility of purpose that they suffered their kingdom to become the prey to marauders. Learning advanced but slowly, although there were some schools at Paris which, elicited a few authors; amongst the rest one named Abbon, who wrote a poem in latin upon the siege of Paris by the Normans, which was not otherwise other-worthy of remark than for its rarity at the epoch when it was written. Whilst the kings of France continued to reside in other cities, Paris was confided to the governments Counts, ...
— How to Enjoy Paris in 1842 • F. Herve

... put any number of stately wax candles out of countenance. There was no poverty in the room that night. But the people were too busy to know how cosy they were; till Fleda was ready to look up from her note and Hugh had gone twice carefully over the new poem,—when there was a sudden giving out of the pine splinters. New ones were supplied in eager haste and silence, and Hugh was beginning "The wind's voices" for the third time when a soft-whispered "Hugh!" across ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner

... it was the first time I had worn a really low dress. Oh, how uncomfortable I was! Every one paid me great attention. Rossini asked me to recite some poetry, and I consented willingly, glad and proud to be of some little importance. I chose Casimir Delavigne's poem, "L'Ame du Purgatoire." "That should be spoken with music as an accompaniment," exclaimed Rossini when I came to an end. Every one approved this idea, and Walewski said; "Mademoiselle will begin again, and ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt

... wed? I can't see. Now I'm brave enough among men. I'm not afraid of anything that walks, except Dorothy Andrews, and generally I'm not afraid of her. Stopping runaway teams and talking back to impudent policemen have been my delight. I've even been courageous enough to submit a poem in person to the editor of a comic weekly, and yet here this afternoon I'm all of a tremble. And for what reason? Just because I've co-come to ask Dorothy Andrews to change her name to Mrs. Bob Yardsley; as if that were such an unlikely ...
— The Bicyclers and Three Other Farces • John Kendrick Bangs

... Feudal Aristocracy," caught her attention. "Long Island," she learned, "is a poem itself to-day, even if it is suffering from cheap developments, the encroachment of tenantry, and the swarming of the commuters. It is too bad that this garden spot must be overrun, and indeed there has been ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance

... company until we enjoy the intimacy of the noblest, and know as we are known. Then: "May we not consider it a sign of sanity when we regard the human spirit as ... a poet, and art as a half written poem? Shall we not have a sorry disappointment if its conclusion is merely novel, and not the fulfilment and vindication of those great things gone before?"[9] For my own part, those appear to me the grandest characters who, on finding ...
— Albert Durer • T. Sturge Moore

... the twelfth Buddhist patriarch Asvaghosha. This learned ecclesiastic appears to have travelled about through different districts of India, patiently collecting the stories and traditions which related to the life of his master. These he wove into a Sanscrit poem, which three hundred years later was translated into Chinese, from which version our present translation is made. There can be no doubt that the author of the Sanscrit poem was a famous preacher and musician. Originally living in central India, he seems to have wandered ...
— Sacred Books of the East • Various

... moral earnestness, the spiritual passion of Whittier, are best illustrated in his "Lost Occasion," and "Ichabod." At length the newspapers of the North took up his work. For some years before the war broke out, scarcely a month passed by without a new poem of liberty by Whittier. Soon these poems that were published in the newspapers were recited in the schools by the children, quoted in the pulpits by the preachers, and used by the orators as feathers for their arrows. Once Wendell Phillips concluded an ...
— The Battle of Principles - A Study of the Heroism and Eloquence of the Anti-Slavery Conflict • Newell Dwight Hillis

... ready to supply; no sick man or woman languished for want of his assistance; and not even a beggar, unless a known impostor, went empty-handed from the Hall. Like the village pastor described in Goldsmith's poem ...
— McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey

... from a poem written by, i. 502; in the family of Washington at Cambridge, i. 616; eminence opposite Ticonderoga fortified on the recommendation of, ii. 254; secretary of John Jay on his mission to England ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing

... with Petrarch, that appeared short to them both, Boccaccio, pressed by business, departed about the beginning of April, 1359. The great novelist soon afterwards sent to Petrarch from Florence a beautiful copy of Dante's poem, written in his own hand, together with some indifferent Latin verses, in which he bestows the highest praises on the author of the Inferno. At that time, half the world believed that Petrarch was jealous of Dante's fame; and the rumour was rendered plausible by the circumstance—for which ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch

... every kind; and, after all, men are the best books. He became acquainted with the ambitions and hopes of the heart, the means used to accomplish ends, the springs of action and the seeds of thought. He was familiar with nature, with actual things, with common facts. He loved and appreciated the poem of the year, the drama of ...
— Our American Holidays: Lincoln's Birthday • Various

... its purple sense of solitude and void. Not that he liked the sensation, but that it was the most unearthly he had felt. He had not yet happened on Rudyard Kipling's "Mandalay," but he knew the poetry before he knew the poem, like millions of wanderers, who have perhaps alone felt the world exactly as it is. Nothing attracted him less than the idea of beginning a new education. The old one had been poor enough; any new one could only add to its ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams

... those associates were hardly jealous of his popularity at home, and wholly pleased with his popularity among foreigners. It was a clear gain to their cause to have Shelley writing his "Hellas," and dedicating the poem to Mavrocordatos, as "a token ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, G.C.B., Admiral of the Red, Rear-Admiral of the Fleet, Etc., Etc. • Thomas Cochrane, Earl of Dundonald

... to you, in prose, my feelings in writing that poem.... I describe myself as having been exalted to the highest pitch of delight by the joyousness and beauty of Nature; and then as depressed, even in the midst of those beautiful objects, to the lowest dejection and despair. ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth

... very prettily done. In its way it was a poem. But while his arms were still round her she looked towards the window, wondering whether he had seen her ride up to the door accompanied by the very youthful ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman

... In a famous poem of the late Lord Tennyson there is related a dramatic incident of a lady whose disinclination to cry, when such emotion would have been only natural, was overcome by the presentation to her of her child. A somewhat similar effect was produced upon our Prophet by the constable's presentation ...
— The Prophet of Berkeley Square • Robert Hichens

... reach maturity at all. What with the mackerel and the seagulls and the barristers, everybody seems to be against it. However, Walter, Rupert and Foch succeeded. Stephanie just missed. Walter and Rupert and Foch had jolly soft roes, a fact which is recorded in a cynical little poem by the precocious Foch, believed to be the only literary work of a whitebait now extant. We have only space here ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, September 15, 1920 • Various

... Existing Continental customs recognized as survivals of ancient beliefs. Instances. 'Directly related' to Attis-Adonis cult. Von Schroeder establishes parallel between existing Fertility procession and Rig-Veda poem. Identification of Life Principle with King. Prosperity of land dependent on king as representative of god. Celts. Greeks. Modern instances, the Shilluk Kings. Parallel between Shilluk King, Grail King and Vegetation Deity. ...
— From Ritual to Romance • Jessie L. Weston

... matters for art in so far as they affect its appearance and take shape as form and colour in the mind of the artist, informing the whole process of the painting, even to the brush strokes. As in a good poem, it is impossible to consider the poetic idea apart from the words that express it: they are ...
— The Practice and Science Of Drawing • Harold Speed

... The lyric poem is the musical expression of mental emotions by language. The essence of musical feeling consists in this, that we endeavour with complacency to dwell on, and even to perpetuate in our souls, a joyful or painful ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black

... never entered upon the duties of the sacred office. In 1724 he went to London, where he spent most of his subsequent life. He had shown some poetical talent when it boy; and, in 1826, he published "Winter," a part of a longer poem, entitled "The Seasons," the best known of all his works. He also wrote several plays for the stage; none of them, however, achieved any great success. In the last year of his life, he published his "Castle of Indolence," ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey

... commonplace to have interesting experiences," Miss Moore announced, "so, as I haven't anything to relate, with Mr. Clark's permission I'll read a poem;" and thereupon she read the verses she had found in ...
— The Spectacle Man - A Story of the Missing Bridge • Mary F. Leonard

... a very respectable performance. Indeed, poetry is by no means incompatible with ship-building—the late Chief Constructor of the Navy being, perhaps, as proud of his poetry as of his ships. Pett's poem was dedicated to the Lord High Admiral, Howard, Earl of Nottingham; and this may possibly have been the reason of the singular interest which he afterwards took in Phineas Pett, ...
— Men of Invention and Industry • Samuel Smiles

... into a labyrinth of shifts, into narratives as dull as they are grand, into straits that are utterly useless, and would make him disregard the pleasure of the heart in order to labour for the gratification of the ear. We must leave studied narrative for lofty subjects, and not compose an epic poem of the Adventures of Renaud d'Ast. Suppose the Author, who has put these tales into rhyme, had brought to bear on them all the care and preciseness required of him; not only would this care be observed, especially ...
— The Tales and Novels, Complete • Jean de La Fontaine

... silent about the events that befell our adventurers in this their adventurous travel, excepting the Stuyvesant manuscript, which gives the substance of a pleasant little heroic poem, written on the occasion by Dominie AEgidius Luyck,[58] who appears to have been the poet laureate of New Amsterdam. This inestimable manuscript assures us that it was a rare spectacle to behold the great Peter and his loyal follower ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving

... I discovered another Alfred who wrote verses—Alfred the Great, as we called him—one Alfred Tennyson, who had written a certain poem, among others, called "In Memoriam"—which I carried off to Barty's and read out aloud one wet Sunday evening, and the Sunday evening after, and other Sunday evenings; and other poems by the same hand: "Locksley Hall," "Ulysses," "The Lotos-Eaters," ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier

... babyish apprehension. She had brought down her dolls from her nursery, after tea, and ranged them on the sofa, while her father walked up and down the room, his hands in his pockets, his head thrown back, reciting something to himself, some poem, or stately fragment of antique oratory. He paused now and then as he passed her and laid his hand upon her head and smiled down at her. Then the lovely lady of the portrait,—just like the portrait in Imogen's recollection,—had come, all in white, with wonderful white shoulders, ...
— A Fountain Sealed • Anne Douglas Sedgwick

... of the British officers engaged in the expedition, and such was always the word of Thayendanegea (Brant's Indian name) himself. It will, moreover, be seen toward the close of the present work that after the publication of Campbell's 'Gertrude of Wyoming,' in which poem the Mohawk chieftain is denounced as 'the Monster Brant,' his son repaired to England, and in correspondence with the poet, successfully vindicated his father's memory from ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 2 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Edgerton Ryerson

... the depth of a man's knowledge of equity; by which I do not mean justice, but chancery law. But, though quite unable to understand how great a Chancellor Lord Eldon was, I am quite able to estimate how great a poet he was, also how great a wit. Here is a poem by that eminent person. Doubtless he regarded it as a wonder of happy versification, as well as instinct with the most convulsing fun. It is intended to set out in a metrical form the career of a certain judge, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 49, November, 1861 • Various

... the original of Mallet's Edition and Emma. In these verses are preserved the village record of the incident which suggested that poem. When Mallet published his ballad he subjoined an attestation of the facts, which may be found in Evans' Old Ballads, vol. ii. p. 237. Edit. 1784. Mallet alludes to the statement in the parish registry of Bowes, ...
— Ancient Poems, Ballads and Songs of England • Robert Bell

... tune, every breath is a boon; 'Tis poem enough to be living; Why fumble for phrase while magnificent June Her matchless recital is giving? Why not to the music and picturing come, And just with the manifest marvel sit dumb ...
— Our Boys - Entertaining Stories by Popular Authors • Various

... our whole scheme of values. What, then, is their own? What do they recognize as an end? This is an interesting point on which I have reflected much in the course of my travels. Sometimes I have thought it was wealth, sometimes power, sometimes activity. But a poem, or at least a production in metre, which I came across in the States, gave me a new idea upon the subject. On such a point I speak with great diffidence; but I am inclined to think that my author was right; that the real end which Americans set before themselves is Acceleration. ...
— A Modern Symposium • G. Lowes Dickinson

... editions de luxe: some bindings will be with blue ribbons, some with pink. All of them with flexible backs and gloriously illumined by the Master's brush. The authors' autographs will be on every copy to prove the collaboration, and every volume will be a poem in itself.... But there, Montague dear, I am ...
— The Voice on the Wire • Eustace Hale Ball

... anything will do well enough for the middle of a poem. If you can but get twenty good lines to place at the beginning for a taste, ...
— Miscellanies, Volume 2 (from Works, Volume 12) • Henry Fielding

... that wuz, and beautiful, very. The heavens wuz full of the writin' of God, writin' we can't read yet, and translate into our coarser language; and she, with her deep, beautiful eyes, a readin' it jest as plain as print, and puttin' in all the marks of punctuation. Readin' the marvellous poem of glory, with ...
— Sweet Cicely - Or Josiah Allen as a Politician • Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)

... discourse, until John Baptist, starting suddenly from his trance beheld that it was all a truth and no vision. Ernest was really about to enter the Netherlands, and with him the millennium. The pedant therefore proceeded to his desk, and straightway composed the very worst poem that had ever been written in any language, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... comes in, which Villars is always expecting, I propose to myself to read that poem with you. What's that? It ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge

... should stop short of anything that needs a glossary. He might learn from Chapman's version, however, that it is not the widest choice of archaic words, but intensity of conception and phrase, that gives a poem life, and keeps it living, in spite of grave defects. Where Chapman, in a famous passage, ("Odyssey," v. 612,) tells us, that, when Ulysses crawled ashore after his shipwreck, "the sea had soaked his heart through," ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various

... Machiavelli (1469-1527), whose Prince really founded the modern science of politics, and who taught the dangerous doctrine that a ruler, bent on exercising a benevolent despotism, is justified in employing any means to achieve his purpose; Ariosto (1474-1533), whose great poem Orlando Furioso displayed a powerful imagination no less than a rare and cultivated taste; and the unhappy mad Tasso (1544-1595), who in Jerusalem Delivered produced a bulky epic poem, adapting the manner of Virgil to a crusading subject, and in Aminta gave to his countrymen a delightful pastoral ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes

... he doesn't know how to live!" said Raymond in complacent pity. He himself, of course, had but to assemble all the bright-hued elements that awaited him a few months ahead to make his own life a poem, a song. ...
— On the Stairs • Henry B. Fuller

... tradition that he adopts concerning the fallen angels; the cosmography of Paradise Lost; its chronology; some difficulties and inconsistencies; Milton's spiritual beings, their physical embodiment; the poem no treasury of wisdom, but a world-drama; its inhumanity, and artificial elevation; the effect of Milton's simpler figures drawn from rural life; De Quincey's explanation of this effect; another explanation; ...
— Milton • Sir Walter Alexander Raleigh

... peculiar to the younger, which the elder lady had originally imitated as a mere whim, she grew in course of time to take a positive delight in. Among others were evening and morning prayers, dreaming over out-door scenes, learning a verse from some poem whilst dressing. ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy

... sacred volume, is characterized by religion, morality, and innocence. The discovery of this happy people, as unexpected as it was accidental, and all that regards their condition and history, partake so much of the romantic as to render the story not ill adapted for an epic poem. Lord Byron, indeed, has partially treated the subject; but by blending two incongruous stories, and leaving both of them imperfect, and by mixing up fact with fiction, has been less felicitous than usual; for, beautiful as many passages in his Island are, in a region where ...
— The Eventful History Of The Mutiny And Piratical Seizure - Of H.M.S. Bounty: Its Cause And Consequences • Sir John Barrow

... Chronicles 35:25, here means the book of the Lamentations of Jeremiah, still extant, which chiefly belongs to the destruction of Jerusalem under Nebuchadnezzar, or to any other like melancholy poem now lost, but extant in the days of Josephus, belonging peculiarly to Josiah, cannot now ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus

... important to make known to our readers the ancient superstitions, the vulgar or common opinions, and the prejudices of nations, to be able to refute them, and bring back the figures to truths, by freeing them from what poesy had added for the embellishment of the poem, and the ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet

... and the order in which each was put upon paper is of as little consequence as the place or time or date or the state of the weather. Wordsworth has been particular enough to let it be known, where he composed the last verse of a poem first. With some artists the writing is a mere copying from memory of what is completely elaborated in the whole or in long passages: Milton wrote thus, through a habit made necessary by his blindness; and so Mozart, whose incessant labors trained his genius in the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 20, June, 1859 • Various

... inhabitants of the city are right, and we may be the ghosts after all. Such things, you know, are only relative. Anyway," he continued, after a little pause, "I wish I knew that those ghosts were now reading the poem which I am ...
— A Chosen Few - Short Stories • Frank R. Stockton

... eulogist of Coleridge refused to allow the verses any merit. To Scott he addressed a series of questions—'Surely you must own that this is bad?' 'Surely you cannot call this anything but poor?' At length Coleridge quietly broke in, 'For Heaven's sake, leave Mr. Scott alone! I wrote the poem'" (p. 39). ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman

... poem that I did not repeat to her, and take her judgment upon it. I found its success with the public to be precisely in proportion to the impression it made upon her. She loved my verses, and judged them kindly, but did not ...
— Home Life of Great Authors • Hattie Tyng Griswold

... of the above songs is the so-called "Song of the Harper," of which two copies are known: the first is found in the papyrus Harris 500, already mentioned, and the second in a papyrus at Leyden. Extracts of this poem are also found on the walls of the tomb of Nefer-hetep at Thebes. The copy in the ...
— The Literature of the Ancient Egyptians • E. A. Wallis Budge

... arm with Christopher himself. It is a little singular that though we had a college magazine of our own, Motley rarely if ever wrote for it. I remember a translation from Goethe, 'The Ghost-Seer,' which he may have written for it, and a poem upon the White Mountains. Motley spoke at one of the college exhibitions an essay on Goethe so excellent that Mr. Joseph Cogswell sent it to Madam Goethe, who, after reading it, said, 'I wish to see the first book ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... had also to be bestowed on the world, and this could not be done unless they were printed. One day she sent a poem entitled Sappho and signed Corinna to the Illustrated Newspaper. With a beating heart she went out to post the letter herself, and as it dropped into the pillarbox, ...
— Married • August Strindberg

... Reasonableness of Men's having a Religion, or Worship of God;' yet, such was his inconsistency, that in spite of these works, and of one styled a 'Demonstration of the Deity,' written a short time before his death, he assisted Lord Rochester in his atheistic poem ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton

... command as Mr. Richard Swiveller. He lights up the Brass office 'with scraps of song and merriment,' and when he is taking Kit's mother home in a depressed state after the trial he does his best to entertain her with 'astonishing absurdities in the way of quotation from song and poem.' From the time of his introduction, when he 'obliged the company with a few bars of an intensely dismal air,' to when he expresses his gratitude to ...
— Charles Dickens and Music • James T. Lightwood

... astronomy. One day she gave notice, departed at the end of a month, left no address, and never applied for a character. Beneath the mattress of her bed was found a manuscript of poems. One of these, addressed to our satellite, is based on the scientific fact (of which I was not aware until I read her poem) that we see only one side of the moon. The ...
— Masques & Phases • Robert Ross

... achievements in verse; and to Antilochus, who had made some verses in his commendation, being pleased with them, he gave a hat full of silver; and when Antimachus of Colophon, and one Niceratus of Heraclea, competed with each other in a poem on the deeds of Lysander, he gave the garland to Niceratus; at which Antimachus, in vexation, suppressed his poem; but Plato, being then a young man, and admiring Antimachus for his poetry, consoled him for his defeat by telling him that it is the ignorant ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough

... of the world, full of information and sparkling with vivacity, stretched on a sick bed, and apprehending all the tedious languor of helpless decrepitude and deserted solitude.' His later years had been diversified by correspondence with Hannah More, who sent him her poem of the Bas Bleu, into which she had introduced his name. In 1786 she visited him at Strawberry Hill. He was then a martyr to the gout, but with spirits gay as ever: 'I never knew a man suffer pain with such entire patience,' was Hannah More's remark. His correspondence with ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton

... against the Clergy, written about 1528, is so plain-spoken, and goes so directly to the point of the matter, that it is difficult to find a presentable extract. The following lines on the bishops are among the most moderate in the poem:— ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude

... of the room was an unfinished water-colour drawing, propped up by a pile of richly gilded and ornamented books. The drawing, with its support, had been pushed back towards the middle of the table, to make way for a sheet or two of note-paper containing portions of a projected poem. And the presiding and inspiring genius of all this beautiful confusion was ...
— True to his Colours - The Life that Wears Best • Theodore P. Wilson

... frequently appear in the shape of death. The presence of death—infinite, menacing, for ever treacherously active—filled every interstice of the poem. The problem of existence was answered only by the enigma of annihilation. And it was a callous, inexorable death; blind, and groping its mysterious way with only chance to guide it; laying its hands preferentially on the youngest ...
— The Buried Temple • Maurice Maeterlinck

... into the great soul of Cromwell, and to make us see it; but it is infinitely lower than Titian's "Tribute Money," "Peter the Martyr," or the "Assumption." Tennyson's "Northern Farmer" is incomparably greater as a poem than Mr. Bailey's ambitious "Festus;" but the "Northern Farmer" is far below "Ulysses" or "Guinevere," because moving on a lower level, and recording the facts ...
— The Principles of Success in Literature • George Henry Lewes

... consequence of his attacks upon the Metelli he was thrown into prison. He obtained his release through the Tribunes, but was soon compelled to expiate a new offense by exile. He retired to Utica, where he died about B.C. 202. In his exile he wrote, in the Saturnian metre, an epic poem on the First Punic War, in which he introduced the celebrated legends connected with the foundation of Rome. This poem was extensively copied both by Ennius ...
— A Smaller History of Rome • William Smith and Eugene Lawrence

... and intellectual author of this poem is not an angler herself, yet I can quote the example of her lovely daughters to vindicate fly fishing from the charge of cruelty, and to prove that the most delicate and refined minds can take ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume XII., No. 324, July 26, 1828 • Various

... serving with unbending constancy a tyrant like John. It shone most clearly when in his old age he saved John's son from the consequences of his father's misdeeds. A happy accident has led to the discovery in our own days of the long poem, drawn up in commemoration of his career[1] at the instigation of his son. This important work has enabled us to enter into the marshal's character and spirit in much the same way as Joinville's History ...
— The History of England - From the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377) • T.F. Tout

... is not conclusive evidence that these quadrupeds existed in Germany at the time of the composition of that poem. It proves too much; for, a few lines above those just quoted, Sigfrid is said to have killed a lion, an animal which the most patriotic Teuton will hardly claim as a denizen ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh

... reminiscence of the secret tears she had wept over absurd things—of the funerals held for birds found dead—of the "Three Grains of Corn" poem which, when a child, elicited from her ...
— Ailsa Paige • Robert W. Chambers

... elegant' in thought, and in language 'inexpressibly beautiful,' while at the same time with the petty insolence which habitually marked his utterances concerning any who stood in rivalry with his hero, he referred to the Faithful Shepherdess as being 'insufferably tedious' as a poem, and held that as a drama 'its heaviness can only be equalled by its want of art.' Gifford's spleen, however, had evidently been aroused by Weber, who had declared the Sad Shepherd to be written 'in emulation of Fletcher's poem, but ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg

... from the narrative of the Venetian traveller may be fitly followed by a portion of Coleridge's remarkable dream-poem on the subject of Kublai's palace. The poet, having been reading from "Purchas's Pilgrimage" a brief description of the palace of the Great Khan,—not the one above described, but a pleasure-retreat in another section of his dominions,—fell asleep, and his dreams took the form of an extended poem ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 12 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris

... Evangeline.—This beautiful poem has been beautifully complimented by an artist-poet whose contributions enrich our pages, Thomas Buchanan Read, or, as he has been aptly characterized by a contemporary, "the Doric Read." The painting is worthy the subject, the artist, and the poet; and is one of the richest ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various

... has written his first poem, or, rather, his first two poems. The first one he slipped folded into my sewing-basket and I found it when I was looking for new buttons for Pauline Augusta's red ...
— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer

... leaving Alf and me alone. Alf held himself in reasonable restraint until the old people were gone, and then he broke out so violently that I really feared for his reason. And it was mainly my fault for I read him a passionate poem, the outcry of a maddened soul, and he swore that it had been written for him, that it was his, and I caught his spirit and fancied that he might have written it, for I believed then, as I believe now, that great things do not come ...
— The Jucklins - A Novel • Opie Read

... Gautier's arrival at Nohant had been quite a dramatic poem, half tragic and half comic. Absolute freedom was the rule of Nohant. Every one there read, wrote, or went to sleep according to his own will and pleasure. Gautier arrived in that frame of mind peculiar to the Parisian of former days. He considered ...
— George Sand, Some Aspects of Her Life and Writings • Rene Doumic

... both, mind you, stuck into every orthodox reader to be glorified before the eyes of childhood. I refer to that juvenile champion among idiots, the boy who stood on the burning deck, and to the ship's captain in the poem called The Tempest. Let us briefly consider the given facts as regards the latter: It was winter and it was midnight and a storm was on the deep, and the passengers were huddled in the cabin and not a soul would dare to sleep, and they were shuddering ...
— A Plea for Old Cap Collier • Irvin S. Cobb

... that,' she said acutely. 'If you wrote a poem you might think it was perfect, but you wouldn't absolutely know till you'd tried it on other people. So you ...
— THE MISSES MALLETT • E. H. YOUNG

... his ambition had not been satisfied by this his first great success. Lycidas was his own severest critic, and regarded himself as being rather at the starting-point than as at the goal. He had resolved on writing a poem, the fame of which should emulate that of the Iliad, and had chosen as the theme of his verse THE HEROISM OF VIRTUE. Lycidas would draw his pictures from history, choose his models from men, and not from the so-called ...
— Hebrew Heroes - A Tale Founded on Jewish History • AKA A.L.O.E. A.L.O.E., Charlotte Maria Tucker

... closely she has introduced every detail into her words. Most of the woodcuts are by German artists, Oscar Pletsch, Fedor Flinzer, and others; but the frontispiece is from an original sketch by Mr. Gordon Browne. In accordance with his special desire, it has only been used for Mrs. Ewing's poem, as the Convalescent was a little friend of the artist, who did not live to complete his recovery. The poem is the last that Mrs. Ewing wrote for children, and it was penned when she herself was enduring the discomforts of ...
— Verses for Children - and Songs for Music • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... and life, or awakened in him splendid visions of literary glory. Klopstock's Messias, combined with his own religious tendencies, had early turned him to sacred poetry: before the end of his fourteenth year, he had finished what he called an 'epic poem,' entitled Moses. The extraordinary popularity of Gerstenberg's Ugolino, and Goethe's Goetz von Berlichingen, next directed his attention to the drama; and as admiration in a mind like his, full of blind activity and nameless aspirings, ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle

... in a modest home at 707 H Street where, every Saturday evening, many litterateurs and prominent men of state were accustomed to gather and discuss the important literary and political problems of the day. John Pierpont read a poem at the first of these receptions and Grace Greenwood rendered some choice selections, while George William Curtis and other men of note contributed their share to the success of other similar occasions. These literary reunions are said to have been the first of their kind ...
— As I Remember - Recollections of American Society during the Nineteenth Century • Marian Gouverneur

... [38-4] The allegorical poem of The Howlat was composed about the middle of the fifteenth century. Of the personal history of the author no kind of information has been discovered. Printed by the ...
— Familiar Quotations • John Bartlett

... science, reports of new inventions, announcements respecting various details of business—in short, to practical matters. Sometimes a child writes a little tale of adventure, or a young Gy vents her amorous hopes or fears in a poem; but these effusions are of very little merit, and are seldom read except by children and maiden Gy-ei. The most interesting works of a purely literary character are those of explorations and travels into other regions of this ...
— The Coming Race • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... Vice—that of talking incoherent nonsense. There is a vigour in some parts quite unusual in these things, and many of the lines in Skelton's metre have some of his power, together with all his coarseness. The passage, pp. 84-86, may remind the reader of that remarkable poem, 'Elynour Rummyng.'" ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Volume I. • R. Dodsley

... I am," I answered. "You see, that poem of yours has been set to music, and I sing it; and you may imagine that I want to know what I am singing about. One must sing with an entirely different expression if one sings of gray cats or ...
— In the Courts of Memory 1858-1875. • L. de Hegermann-Lindencrone

... festival, to supply all the inhabitants, great and small [meste and least], with meat and drink. His offer was met very uncourteously by the garrison, and his benevolent intentions were in a great degree frustrated. The poem called "The Siege of Rouen" may now be read in the Archaeologia, vol. xxi, with an interesting introduction ...
— Henry of Monmouth, Volume 2 - Memoirs of Henry the Fifth • J. Endell Tyler

... studied the flawless symmetry of those magnificent wings and over it all the great solemn dome with its myriad gleaming eyes far up in the sky—and I wondered if God meant nothing big or significant to humanity when he breathed the dream of that poem in marble into the souls of our people! I can't believe it, dear. I stood and prayed while I dreamed. I saw in the ragged scaffolding and the big ugly crane swinging from its place in the sky the symbol of our crude beginnings—our ragged ...
— The Victim - A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis • Thomas Dixon

... proper place, if any, to introduce the poem of seventy-three short lines, calling itself an Ode to Society written in a state of perfect solitude, secluded from all mortal tread, as was our habitation at the Bagni ...
— Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany, Vol. I • Hester Lynch Piozzi

... shortly after leaving college show how intent he had been on making acquaintance with the best things in literature. He began also to scribble verse, and he wrote both poems and essays for college magazines. His class chose him their poet for Class Day, and he wrote his poem; but he was careless about conforming to college regulations respecting attendance at morning prayers; and for this was suspended from college the last term of his last year, and not allowed to come back to read his poem. "I have heard in later years," says Dr. Hale, ...
— The Vision of Sir Launfal - And Other Poems • James Russell Lowell

... Walks, with a long list of other books for children, which have considerable merit, would deserve a separate analysis, if literary criticism were our object. A critic once, with indefatigable ill-nature, picked out all the faults of a beautiful poem, and presented them to Apollo. The god ordered a bushel of his best Parnassian wheat to be carefully winnowed, and he presented the critic with the chaff. Our wish is to separate the small portion of what is useless, ...
— Practical Education, Volume I • Maria Edgeworth

... in his paintings, joined to such a laudable thirst of improvement, that we are persuaded, when he shall have obtained more experience and proper opportunities of viewing the productions of able masters, he will become truly eminent in his profession." This note accompanies a poem upon one of Mr. West's portraits which, the editor remarks, "We communicate with particular pleasure, when we consider that the lady who sat, the painter who guided the pencil, and the poet who so well describes the whole, are all natives of ...
— The Philadelphia Magazines and their Contributors 1741-1850 • Albert Smyth

... of Arc, by Southey;—a volume of poems with an introductory sonnet to Mary Wolstonecraft, and a poem, on the praise of woman, breathes ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas

... of Richard III.? Barnes and his father had got up quite a belief about a Newcome killed at Bosworth, along with King Richard, and hated Henry VII. as an enemy of their noble race. So all the parties were pretty well agreed. Lady Anne wrote rather a pretty little poem about welcoming the white Fawn to the Newcome bowers, and "Clara" was made to rhyme with "fairer," and "timid does and antlered deer to dot the glades of Chanticlere," quite in a picturesque way. Lady Kew pronounced that the poem ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray

... the door, "come here. Semion Ivanovitch promised to read to us his poem, and you must ...
— The Awakening - The Resurrection • Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy

... his poem about the "awesome amphitheatre nature wrought," and wondered if Marietta also recalled it and would quote some of ...
— Country Neighbors • Alice Brown

... In the September number of the Overland Monthly, 1870, of which magazine Mr. Harte was then editor, appeared "Plain Language from Truthful James," or "The Heathen Chinee," as the poem was afterwards called. A few weeks later, to my amazement, while turning the pages of Punch in the Mercantile Library, I came across "The Heathen Chinee;" an unique compliment so far as my recollection of Punch ...
— A Tramp Through the Bret Harte Country • Thomas Dykes Beasley

... poem here about "seven lovely Campbells" whose father's name was Archibald; it must mean us,—don't you think so?' And a very pretty boy about ten years of age, who had been poring for some time over Wordsworth's ...
— Holiday Tales • Florence Wilford

... found in camp a copy of a Southern newspaper; and, thinking it might amuse the company to read it, produced it. Ailsa, looking over his shoulder, noticed a poem called "Christmas," printed on the ...
— Ailsa Paige • Robert W. Chambers

... the clouds and lieth halting below. The apple which was rosy is become green, and the Dutchman who of late flew is now become ship's ballast. Nay, my poor ruin, thank me not for coming; 'tis the common debt the high oweth to the low, the sound to the broken, the poem to the prose; nay, 'tis the duty a knight oweth to ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed

... more especially instructive in respect of the almost unknown years of his youth; these most of all reveal his personality and are one of the finest illustrations that could be given of his life, a true poem of energy and ...
— Fabre, Poet of Science • Dr. G.V. (C.V.) Legros

... door reveals the darker bedroom, in which the lights are already turned on. A young married woman is sitting with her elbows on the table. She is reading a poem in a low voice; and from time to time a few words, spoken more loudly, mingle with the semi-silence of the other rooms. Bending under the lamp-shade, her brown hair is bathed in the light, while her profile is veiled ...
— The Choice of Life • Georgette Leblanc

... opened, and Hamilton entered the room, his hands full of papers, his face as gay and eager as if he were about to read to his audience a poem or a lively tale. Perhaps one secret of his ascendency over those who knew him best was that he never appeared to take himself seriously, even when his whole being radiated power and imperious determination. When he descended to the depths ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton

... and gasworks, and glaring posters of melodramas on hoardings, till it stopped suddenly at a real little old roadside inn, straight out of Dickens—"The Bald-faced Stag at Edgware." Edgware suggested John Gilpin, Gillie's favourite poem. ...
— The Limit • Ada Leverson

... description of Britain. Recent as it is, it is important; since some of the details are taken from the voyage of Himilco, a Carthaginian. He supplies us with a commentary upon the word Demeter, in the so-called Orphic poem—a commentary which will soon ...
— The Ethnology of the British Islands • Robert Gordon Latham

... name he has made through death imperishable, by linking it with a few lines of perfect music, {1} lent Landor "The Progress of Romance," a book published in 1785, by Clara Reeve, in which he found the description of an Arabian tale that suggested to him his poem of "Gebir." ...
— Gebir • Walter Savage Landor

... mean 'The Fight of the Paso del Mar,'" said Migwan. "The one where the two fight and tumble over into the sea. I wore the page that poem was on completely out of the book reading it so often, and wished and wished I had been there to ...
— The Campfire Girls on Ellen's Isle - The Trail of the Seven Cedars • Hildegard G. Frey



Words linked to "Poem" :   tanka, terza rima, canto, verse line, tone poem, prose poem, lay, literary work, Alcaic verse, lament, versicle, vers libre, haiku, rondel, abecedarius, line of verse, blank verse, literary composition, Alcaic, rondeau, ballad, rhyme, rime, elegy, epos, stanza, line of poetry, sonnet, epic poem, free verse, lyric, rhythmic pattern, ballade, epic, prosody, verse, symphonic poem, poetic rhythm, lyric poem, verse form, heroic poem



Copyright © 2024 Free-Translator.com