Famous Method Poems by Famous Poets

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

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83. The Cotter's Saturday Night

...ile circling Time moves round in an eternal sphere


Compar’d with this, how poor Religion’s pride,
 In all the pomp of method, and of art;
When men display to congregations wide
 Devotion’s ev’ry grace, except the heart!
 The Power, incens’d, the pageant will desert,
The pompous strain, the sacerdotal stole;
 But haply, in some cottage far apart,
May hear, well-pleas’d, the language of the soul;
And in His Book of Life the inmates poor enroll.


Then homeward all take off th...Read more of this...
by Burns, Robert


A Panegyric To Sir Lewis Pemberton

...rth, than allow
By cruse and measure; thus devoting wine,
As the Canary isles were thine;
But with that wisdom and that method, as
No one that's there his guilty glass
Drinks of distemper, or has cause to cry
Repentance to his liberty.
No, thou know'st orders, ethics, and hast read
All oeconomics, know'st to lead
A house-dance neatly, and canst truly show
How far a figure ought to go,
Forward or backward, side-ward, and what pace
Can give, and what retract a grace;
What gestu...Read more of this...
by Herrick, Robert

An Essay On Criticism

...s most true Mettle when you check his Course.

Those RULES of old discover'd, not devis'd,
Are Nature still, but Nature Methodiz'd;
Nature, like Liberty, is but restrain'd
By the same Laws which first herself ordain'd.

Hear how learn'd Greece her useful Rules indites,
When to repress, and when indulge our Flights:
High on Parnassus' Top her Sons she show'd,
And pointed out those arduous Paths they trod,
Held from afar, aloft, th' Immortal Prize,
And urg'd the rest by equal S...Read more of this...
by Pope, Alexander

Army Headquarters

...e had an ear.

He clubbed his wretched company a dozen times a day;
He used to quit his charger in a parabolic way;
His method of saluting was the joy of all beholders,
But Ahasuerus Jenkins had a head upon his shoulders.

He took two months at Simla when the year was at the spring,
And underneath the deodars eternally did sing.
He warbled like a bul-bul but particularly at
Cornelia Agrippina, who was musical and fat.

She controlled a humble husband, who, in turn, controlled...Read more of this...
by Kipling, Rudyard

Cartographies of Silence

...nd child's fingers 

or the newborn infant's mouth
violent with hunger 

No one can give me, I have long ago
taken this method 

whether of bran pouring from the loose-woven sack
or of the bunsen-flame turned low and blue 

If from time to time I envy
the pure annunciation to the eye 

the visio beatifica
if from time to time I long to turn 

like the Eleusinian hierophant
holding up a single ear of grain 

for the return to the concrete and everlasting world
what in fact I k...Read more of this...
by Rich, Adrienne


Fit the Fifth ( Hunting of the Snark )

..., 
By Nine Hundred and Ninety Two: 
Then subtract Seventeen, and the answer must be 
Exactly and perfectly true. 

"The method employed I would gladly explain, 
While I have it so clear in my head, 
If I had but the time and you had but the brain-- 
But much yet remains to be said. 

"In one moment I've seen what has hitherto been 
Enveloped in absolute mystery, 
And without extra charge I will give you at large 
A Lesson in Natural History." 

In his genial way he proceeded ...Read more of this...
by Carroll, Lewis

Fit the Third ( Hunting of the Snark )

...hope;
You may threaten its life with a railway-share;
You may charm it with smiles and soap--'" 

("That's exactly the method," the Bellman bold
In a hasty parenthesis cried,
"That's exactly the way I have always been told
That the capture of Snarks should be tried!") 

"'But oh, beamish nephew, beware of the day,
If your Snark be a Boojum! For then
You will softly and suddenly vanish away,
And never be met with again!" 

"It is this, it is this that oppresses my soul,
When ...Read more of this...
by Carroll, Lewis

Garden Francies

...ar mark still to be seen?

VI.

Where I find her not, beauties vanish;
Whither I follow ber, beauties flee;
Is there no method to tell her in Spanish
June's twice June since she breathed it with me?
Come, bud, show me the least of her traces,
Treasure my lady's lightest footfall!
---Ah, you may flout and turn up your faces---
Roses, you are not so fair after all!


II. SIBRANDUS SCHAFNABURGENSIS.

Plague take all your pedants, say I!
He who wrote what I hold in my hand,
Centu...Read more of this...
by Browning, Robert

Gilbert

..., I fear, that precious fame
Is too much compromised.'
An inward trouble dims his eye,
Some riddle he would solve;
Some method to unloose a knot,
His anxious thoughts revolve. 

He, pensive, leans against a tree,
A leafy evergreen,
The boughs, the moonlight, intercept, 
And hide him like a screen;
He starts­the tree shakes with his tremor, 
Yet nothing near him pass'd,
He hurries up the garden alley, 
In strangely sudden haste. 

With shaking hand, he lifts the latchet, 
Step...Read more of this...
by Bronte, Charlotte

Jubilate Agno: Fragment B Part 3

...preparation of Mandragora is good for the gout. 

For the Bark was a communication from God and is sovereign. 

For the method of curing an ague by terror is exaction. 

For Exaction is the most accursed of all things, because it brought the Lord to the cross, his betrayers and murderers being such from their exaction. 

For an Ague is the terror of the body, when the blessing of God is withheld for a season. 

For benevolence is the best remedy in the first place and the bar...Read more of this...
by Smart, Christopher

Mesmerism

...I.

All I believed is true!
I am able yet
All I want, to get
By a method as strange as new:
Dare I trust the same to you?

II.

If at night, when doors are shut,
And the wood-worm picks,
And the death-watch ticks,
And the bar has a flag of smut,
And a cat's in the water-butt---

III.

And the socket floats and flares,
And the house-beams groan,
And a foot unknown
Is surmised on the garret-stairs,
And the locks slip unaware...Read more of this...
by Browning, Robert

MFingal - Canto III

...,
As hides grow harder when they're curried.
No man e'er felt the halter draw,
With good opinion of the law;
Or held in method orthodox
His love of justice, in the stocks;
Or fail'd to lose by sheriff's shears
At once his loyalty and ears.
Have you made Murray look less big,
Or smoked old Williams to a Whig?
Did our mobb'd Ol'ver quit his station,
Or heed his vows of resignation?
Has Rivington, in dread of stripes,
Ceased lying since you stole his types?
And can you think my ...Read more of this...
by Trumbull, John

Old Pardon the Son of Reprieve

...Than even the first, I believe; 
Oh, he was the daddy, the master, 
Was Pardon, the son of Reprieve. 
He showed 'em the method of travel -- 
The boy sat still as a stone -- 
They never could see him for gravel; 
He came in hard-held, and alone. 

* * * * * * * 

But he's old -- and his eyes are grown hollow 
Like me, with my thatch of the snow; 
When he dies, then I hope I may follow, 
And go where the racehorses go. 
I don't want no harping nor singing -- 
Such things with m...Read more of this...
by Paterson, Andrew Barton

Our New Horse

...an that don't race is a duffer, 
Let's have one more run for the mug. 

"Why, everything races, no matter 
Whatever its method may be: 
The waterfowl hold a regatta; 
The possums run heats up a tree; 
The emus are constantly sprinting 
A handicap out on the plain; 
It seems that all nature is hinting 
'Tis ime to be at it again. 

"The cockatoo parrots are talking 
Of races to far-away lands; 
The native companions are walking 
A go-as-you-please on the sands; 
The little foa...Read more of this...
by Paterson, Andrew Barton

Paradise Regained: The Fourth Book

...nd may again.
Therefore, to know what more thou art than man,
Worth naming the Son of God by voice from Heaven,
Another method I must now begin." 
 So saying, he caught him up, and, without wing
Of hippogrif, bore through the air sublime,
Over the wilderness and o'er the plain,
Till underneath them fair Jerusalem,
The Holy City, lifted high her towers,
And higher yet the glorious Temple reared
Her pile, far off appearing like a mount
Of alablaster, topt with golden spires:
Th...Read more of this...
by Milton, John

Part 2 of Trout Fishing in America

...ANOTHER METHOD

 OF MAKING WALNUT CATSUP





And this is a very small cookbook for Trout Fishing in America

as if Trout Fishing in America were a rich gourmet and

Trout Fishing in America had Maria Callas for a girlfriend

and they ate together on a marble table with beautiful candles.



Compote of Apples



Take a dozen of golden pippins, pare them

nicely and ...Read more of this...
by Brautigan, Richard

The Flight Of The Duchess

...nce on hot ploughshares like a Turk dervise,
But, unable to pay proper duty where owing it,
Was reduced to that pitiful method of showing it:
For though the moment I began setting
His saddle on my own nag of Berold's begetting,
(Not that I meant to be obtrusive)
She stopped me, while his rug was shifting,
By a single rapid finger's lifting,
And, with a gesture kind but conclusive,
And a little shake of the head, refused me,---
I say, although she never used me,
Yet when she w...Read more of this...
by Browning, Robert

The Four Ages of Man

...on mildly told:
1.54 That he was young, before he grew so old.
1.55 To do as he, the rest full soon assents,
1.56 Their method was that of the Elements,
1.57 That each should tell what of himself he knew,
1.58 Both good and bad, but yet no more then's true.
1.59 With heed now stood, three ages of frail man,
1.60 To hear the child, who crying, thus began.

Childhood. 

2.1 Ah me! conceiv'd in sin, and born in sorrow,
2.2 A nothing, here to day, but gone to morrow,
2.3 Whose me...Read more of this...
by Bradstreet, Anne

The Hunting Of The Snark

...hope;
You may threaten its life with a railway-share;
 You may charm it with smiles and soap--' "

("That's exactly the method," the Bellman bold
 In a hasty parenthesis cried,
"That's exactly the way I have always been told
 That the capture of Snarks should be tried!")

" 'But oh, beamish nephew, beware of the day,
 If your Snark be a Boojum! For then
You will softly and suddenly vanish away,
 And never be met with again!'

"It is this, it is this that oppresses my soul,
 W...Read more of this...
by Carroll, Lewis

The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

...the notion that man has a body distinct from his
soul, is to be expunged; this I shall do, by printing in the
infernal method, by corrosives, which in Hell are salutary and
medicinal, melting apparent surfaces away, and displaying the
infinite which was hid.
If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would
appear to man as it is: infinite.
For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things thro'
narrow chinks of his cavern.


PLATE 15
A Memorable Fancy

I was i...Read more of this...
by Blake, William

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