Get Your Premium Membership

Famous Gossip Poems by Famous Poets

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

See also:

by Lanier, Sidney
...reen -- live oaks' round heads,
Busy with jays for thoughts -- grays, whites and reds
Of pranked woodpeckers that ne'er gossip out,
But alway tap at doors and gad about --
Robins and mocking-birds that all day long
Athwart straight sunshine weave cross-threads of song,
Shuttles of music -- clouds of mosses gray
That rain me rains of pleasant thoughts alway
From a low sky of leaves -- faint yearning psalms
Of endless metre breathing through the palms
That crowd and lean and ga...Read more of this...



by Raine, Craig
...ing you out--
given you an in-tray and an out?

How did I ever fall for a paper-clip?
How could I ever listen to office gossip
even in bed and find it so intelligent?
Was is straight biological bent?

I suppose you go jogging together?
Tackle the Ridgeway in nasty weather?
Face force 55 gales and chat about prep
or how you bested that Birmingham rep?

He must be mad with excitement.
So must you. What an incitement
to lust all those press-ups must be.
Or is it just...Read more of this...

by Jarrell, Randall
...eir eyes, on their Father, were monumental marble. 
Then they smiled like two old women, bussed each other, 
Said, "Gossip, gossip"; and, lapped in each other's looks, 
Mirror for Mirror, drank a cup of tea. 

Of cambric tea. But there is a reality 
Under the good silk of the good sisters' 
Good ball gowns. She knew... Hard-breasted, naked-eyed, 
She pushed her silk feet into glass, and rose within 
A gown of imaginary gauze. The shy prince dra...Read more of this...

by Ginsberg, Allen
...'m straight but loved him he 
 loved me"
"I felt more love from him at 19 than ever from anyone"
"We'd lie under covers gossip, read my poetry, hug & kiss belly to belly 
 arms round each other"
"I'd always get into his bed with underwear on & by morning my 
 skivvies would be on the floor"
"Japanese, always wanted take it up my bum with a master"
"We'd talk all night about Kerouac & Cassady sit Buddhalike then 
 sleep in his captain's bed."
"He seemed to need so much aff...Read more of this...

by Tennyson, Alfred Lord
..., and everyway,
Like one who does his duty by his own,
Made himself theirs; and tho' for Annie's sake,
Fearing the lazy gossip of the port,
He oft denied his heart his dearest wish,
And seldom crost her threshold, yet he sent
Gifts by the children, garden-herbs and fruit,
The late and early roses from his wall,
Or conies from the down, and now and then,
With some pretext of fineness in the meal
To save the offence of charitable, flour
From his tall mill that whistled on the w...Read more of this...



by Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
...aidens sat in snow-white caps and in kirtles
Scarlet and blue and green, with distaffs spinning the golden
Flax for the gossiping looms, whose noisy shuttles within doors
Mingled their sound with the whir of the wheels and the songs of the maidens,
Solemnly down the street came the parish priest, and the children
Paused in their play to kiss the hand he extended to bless them.
Reverend walked he among them; and up rose matrons and maidens,
Hailing his slow approach with w...Read more of this...

by Silverstein, Shel
...e I spoke the language of the flowers,
Once I understood each word the caterpillar said,
Once I smiled in secret at the gossip of the starlings,
And shared a conversation with the housefly
in my bed.
Once I heard and answered all the questions
of the crickets,
And joined the crying of each falling dying
flake of snow,
Once I spoke the language of the flowers. . . .
How did it go?
How did it go?...Read more of this...

by Lanier, Sidney
...each me, --
And there, oh there
As ye hang with your myriad palms upturned in the air,
Pray me a myriad prayer.

My gossip, the owl, -- is it thou
That out of the leaves of the low-hanging bough,
As I pass to the beach, art stirred?
Dumb woods, have ye uttered a bird?

* * * * *

Reverend Marsh, low-couched along the sea,
Old chemist, rapt in alchemy,
Distilling silence, -- lo,
That which our father-age had died to know --
The menstruum that dissolves all matter -- thou
H...Read more of this...

by Drinkwater, John
...fond old argument to move
My wisdom to docility again;
When to my prouder heart they set the pride
Of custom and the gossip of the street,
And show me figures of myself beside
A self diminished at their judgment seat;
Then do I sit as in a drowsy pew
To hear a priest expounding th' heavenly will,
Defiling wonder that he never knew
With stolen words of measured good and ill;
For to the love that knows their counselling,
Out of my love contempt alone I bring.
X ...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...e what I hear into myself—to let sounds contribute toward me.

I hear bravuras of birds, bustle of growing wheat, gossip of flames, clack of
 sticks cooking my meals; 
I hear the sound I love, the sound of the human voice; 
I hear all sounds running together, combined, fused or following; 

Sounds of the city, and sounds out of the city—sounds of the day and night;

Talkative young ones to those that like them—the loud laugh of work-people
 at their meals;
The ...Read more of this...

by Kipling, Rudyard
...ere whetted and -- then came I
To Mahbub Ali the muleteer,
Patching his bridles and counting his gear,
Crammed with the gossip of half a year.
But Mahbub Ali the kindly said,
"Better is speech when the belly is fed."
So we plunged the hand to the mid-wrist deep
In a cinnamon stew of the fat-tailed sheep,
And he who never hath tasted the food,
By Allah! he knoweth not bad from good.

We cleansed our beards of the mutton-grease,
We lay on the mats and were filled wi...Read more of this...

by Keats, John
...e's that old Lord Maurice, not a whit
 More tame for his gray hairs--Alas me! flit!
 Flit like a ghost away."--"Ah, Gossip dear,
 We're safe enough; here in this arm-chair sit,
 And tell me how"--"Good Saints! not here, not here;
Follow me, child, or else these stones will be thy bier."

 He follow'd through a lowly arched way,
 Brushing the cobwebs with his lofty plume,
 And as she mutter'd "Well-a--well-a-day!"
 He found him in a little moonlight room,
 Pale, lattic...Read more of this...

by Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...it is not often I grieve;
I am oftener sitting at home in my father's farm at eve:
And the neighbors come and laugh and gossip, and so do I;
I find myself often laughing at things that have long gone by. 

XXIV.
To be sure the preacher says, our sins should make us sad:
But mine is a time of peace, and there is Grace to be had;
And God, not man, is the Judge of us all when life shall cease;
And in this Book, little Annie, the message is one of Peace. 

XXV.
An...Read more of this...

by Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...face of theirs 
As well as ever shepherd knew his sheep, 
And every homely secret in their hearts, 
Delight myself with gossip and old wives, 
And ills and aches, and teethings, lyings-in, 
And mirthful sayings, children of the place, 
That have no meaning half a league away: 
Or lulling random squabbles when they rise, 
Chafferings and chatterings at the market-cross, 
Rejoice, small man, in this small world of mine, 
Yea, even in their hens and in their eggs-- 
O brother, s...Read more of this...

by Alcott, Louisa May
...nd clear, 
"Stay in the puddle, foolish bird, 
That is your proper sphere," 

The ducks and hens said, one and all, 
In gossip by the pool, 
"Our children never play such pranks; 
My dear, that fowl's a fool." 

The owls came out and flew about, 
Hooting above the rest, 
"No useful egg was ever hatched 
From transcendental nest." 

Good little goslings at their play 
And well-conducted chicks 
Were taught to think poor goosey's flights 
Were naughty, ill-bred tricks.<...Read more of this...

by Robinson, Mary Darby
...gn'd
To prove the coyest Maiden, kind.
A magic bough, which DRUIDS old
Its sacred mysteries enroll'd;
And which, or gossip Fame's a liar,
Still warms the soul with vivid fire;
Still promises a store of bliss
While bigots snatch their Idol's kiss.

This MISTLETOE was doom'd to be
The talisman of Destiny;
Beneath its ample boughs we're told
Full many a timid Swain grew bold;
Full many a roguish eye askance
Beheld it with impatient glance,
And many a ruddy cheek confest,...Read more of this...

by Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...Girls, 
Knowledge is now no more a fountain sealed: 
Drink deep, until the habits of the slave, 
The sins of emptiness, gossip and spite 
And slander, die. Better not be at all 
Than not be noble. Leave us: you may go: 
Today the Lady Psyche will harangue 
The fresh arrivals of the week before; 
For they press in from all the provinces, 
And fill the hive.' 
She spoke, and bowing waved 
Dismissal: back again we crost the court 
To Lady Psyche's: as we entered in, ...Read more of this...

by Levis, Larry
...ce which no longer had any purpose,
But held itself aloof, I thought, the way
A deaf aunt might, from opinions, styles, gossip.
I liked it there. It was completely lifeless,
Sad & clear in what seemed always a perfect, 
Windless noon. I saw it first as a child,
Looking down at it from that as yet 
Unvandalized, makeshift studio.
I remember leaning my right cheek against
A striped beach ball so that Mr. Hirata--
Who was Japanese, who would be sent the next ...Read more of this...

by Chaucer, Geoffrey
...t rown'st* thou with our maid? benedicite, *whisperest
Sir olde lechour, let thy japes* be. *tricks
And if I have a gossip, or a friend
(Withoute guilt), thou chidest as a fiend,
If that I walk or play unto his house.
Thou comest home as drunken as a mouse,
And preachest on thy bench, with evil prefe:* *proof
Thou say'st to me, it is a great mischief
To wed a poore woman, for costage:* *expense
And if that she be rich, of high parage;* * birth 11
Then say'st thou, tha...Read more of this...

by Ginsberg, Allen
..., those who sit drinking
 in hotel lobbies to persuade,
and separate listed, those who drop Amphetamine with
 military, gossip, argue, and persuade
suggesting policy naming language proposing strategy, this
 done for fee as ambassadors to Pentagon, consul-
 tants to military, paid by their industry:
and these are the names of the generals & captains mili-
 tary, who know thus work for war goods manufactur-
 ers;
and above these, listed, the names of the banks, combines,
 inve...Read more of this...

Dont forget to view our wonderful member Gossip poems.


Book: Reflection on the Important Things