# Most Famous (English language) Poems

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-famous-english-language-poems/300246>\
**Category:** Cafe Society\
**Created:** [April 20, 2005, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-famous-english-language-poems/300246 "2005-04-20T16:04:28Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 3

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**Author:** ![Kolak\_of\_Twilo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kolak_of_twilo/32/73_2.png) [@Kolak\_of\_Twilo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kolak_of_Twilo)\
**Post date:** [April 22, 2005, 8:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-famous-english-language-poems/300246/41 "2005-04-22T08:20:22Z")

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e.e. cummings - "[**nobody loses all the time**](http://www.poemhunter.com/p/m/poem.asp?poet=6588&poem=26671). it always makes me smile.

i’m  
serious.

go read it  
if  
you  
don’t  
believe me.

The greatest poem written in English in the 20th century is [T **he Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock**](http://www.bartleby.com/198/1.html) by T.S. Eliot. I know. Hyperbolic statement on my part. Still, it is amazing.

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**Author:** ![roger\_thornhill](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/d9b06d/32.png) [@roger\_thornhill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/roger_thornhill)\
**Post date:** [April 22, 2005, 9:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-famous-english-language-poems/300246/42 "2005-04-22T09:17:29Z")

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Not the most famous poem, not even Wordsworth’s best known sonnet, but I like it:

**The world is too much with us**

The World is too much with us; late and soon,  
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers:  
Little we see in Nature that is ours;  
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!  
This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon,   
The winds that will be howling at all hours  
And are up-gather’d now like sleeping flowers,  
For this, for everything, we are out of tune;  
It moves us not.—Great God! I’d rather be  
A pagan suckled in a creed outworn,—   
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,  
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;  
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;  
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathèd horn.

Great title - goes a bit downhill after that, I fear.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Rilchiam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/2bfe46/32.png) [@Rilchiam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rilchiam)\
**Post date:** [April 30, 2005, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-famous-english-language-poems/300246/43 "2005-04-30T17:08:30Z")

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The fog comes  
on little cat feet.

It sits looking  
over harbor and city  
on silent haunches  
and then moves on.

—Carl Sandburg

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