Famous Ails Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Ode On The Insurrection In Candia

by Algernon Charles Swinburne
 STR. 1

I laid my laurel-leaf
At the white feet of grief,
Seeing how with covered face and plumeless wings,
With unreverted head
Veiled, as who mourns his dead,
Lay Freedom couched between the thrones of kings,
A wearied lion without lair,
And bleeding from base wounds, and vexed with alien air.

STR. 2

Who was it, who, put poison to thy mouth,
Who lulled with craft or chant thy...Read more of this...

Gehazi

by Rudyard Kipling
 1915

Whence comest thou, Gehazi,
 So reverend to behold,
In scarlet and in ermines
 And chain of England's gold?"

"From following after Naaman
 To tell him all is well,
Whereby my zeal hath made me
 A Judge in Israel."

Well done; well done, Gehazi!
 Stretch forth thy ready hand,
Thou barely 'scaped from judgment,
 Take oath to judge the land
Unswayed by gift of money
 Or...Read more of this...

A Marching Song

by Algernon Charles Swinburne
 We mix from many lands,
We march for very far;
In hearts and lips and hands
Our staffs and weapons are;
The light we walk in darkens sun and moon and star.

It doth not flame and wane
With years and spheres that roll,
Storm cannot shake nor stain
The strength that makes it whole,
The fire that moulds and moves it of the sovereign soul.

We are they...Read more of this...

London in July

by Amy Levy
 What ails my senses thus to cheat?
What is it ails the place,
That all the people in the street
Should wear one woman's face?

The London trees are dusty-brown
Beneath the summer sky;
My love, she dwells in London town,
Nor leaves it in July.

O various and intricate maze,
Wide waste of square and street;
Where, missing through unnumbered days,
We twain at last may meet!

And who cries...Read more of this...

Grif of the Bloody Hand

by William Topaz McGonagall
 In an immense wood in the south of Kent,
There lived a band of robbers which caused the people discontent;
And the place they infested was called the Weald,
Where they robbed wayside travellers and left them dead on the field. 

Their leader was called Grif, of the Bloody Hand,
And so well skilled in sword practice there's few could him withstand;
And sometimes...Read more of this...

Upon A Wasp Chilled With Cold

by Edward Taylor
 The bear that breathes the northern blast
Did numb, torpedo-like, a wasp
Whose stiffened limbs encramped, lay bathing
In Sol's warm breath and shine as saving,
Which with her hands she chafes and stands
Rubbing her legs, shanks, thighs, and hands.
Her pretty toes, and fingers' ends
Nipped with this breath, she out extends
Unto the sun, in great desire
To warm her digits at that fire.
Doth hold...Read more of this...

87. The Twa Dogs

by Robert Burns
 ’TWAS 1 in that place o’ Scotland’s isle,
That bears the name o’ auld King Coil,
Upon a bonie day in June,
When wearin’ thro’ the afternoon,
Twa dogs, that were na thrang at hame,
Forgather’d ance upon a time.
 The first I’ll name, they ca’d him Caesar,
Was keepit for His Honor’s pleasure:
His hair, his size, his mouth, his lugs,
Shew’d he was nane o’...Read more of this...

Syrinx

by Amy Clampitt
 Like the foghorn that's all lung,
the wind chime that's all percussion,
like the wind itself, that's merely air
in a terrible fret, without so much
as a finger to articulate
what ails it, the aeolian
syrinx, that reed
in the throat of a bird,
when it comes to the shaping of
what we call consonants, is
too imprecise for consensus
about what it even seems to
be saying: is it...Read more of this...

A Swimmers Dream

by Algernon Charles Swinburne
 Somno mollior unda 

I 
Dawn is dim on the dark soft water, 
Soft and passionate, dark and sweet. 
Love's own self was the deep sea's daughter, 
Fair and flawless from face to feet, 
Hailed of all when the world was golden, 
Loved of lovers whose names beholden 
Thrill men's eyes as with light of olden 
Days more glad than...Read more of this...

Ave atque Vale (In memory of Charles Baudelaire)

by Algernon Charles Swinburne
 SHALL I strew on thee rose or rue or laurel, 
 Brother, on this that was the veil of thee? 
 Or quiet sea-flower moulded by the sea, 
Or simplest growth of meadow-sweet or sorrel, 
 Such as the summer-sleepy Dryads weave, 
 Waked up by snow-soft sudden rains at eve? 
Or wilt thou rather, as on earth before,...Read more of this...

132. Reply to a Trimming Epistle received from a Tailor

by Robert Burns
 WHAT ails ye now, ye lousie *****
To thresh my back at sic a pitch?
Losh, man! hae mercy wi’ your natch,
 Your bodkin’s bauld;
I didna suffer half sae much
 Frae Daddie Auld.


What tho’ at times, when I grow crouse,
I gie their wames a random pouse,
Is that enough for you to souse
 Your servant sae?
Gae mind your seam, ye prick-the-louse,
 An’...Read more of this...

Madam La Maquise

by Robert William Service
 Said Hongray de la Glaciere unto his proud Papa:
"I want to take a wife mon Père," The Marquis laughed: "Ha! Ha!
And whose, my son?" he slyly said; but Hongray with a frown
Cried, "Fi! Papa, I mean - to wed, I want to settle down."
The Marquis de la Glaciere responded with a smile;
"You're young my boy; I much prefer that...Read more of this...

The Last Of The Flock

by William Wordsworth
  In distant countries I have been,  And yet I have not often seen  A healthy man, a man full grown,  Weep in the public roads alone.  But such a one, on English ground,  And in the broad high-way, I met;  Along the broad high-way he came,  His cheeks with tears were wet.  Sturdy he seemed, though he was sad;  And in his arms a lamb he had.   He saw...Read more of this...

Roulette

by Robert William Service
 I'll wait until my money's gone
Before I take the sleeping pills;
Then when they find me in the dawn,
Remote from earthly ails and ills
They'll say: "She's broke, the foreign *****!"
And dump me in the common ditch.

So thought I, of all hope bereft,
And by my evil fate obsessed;
A thousand franks was all I'd left
Of that fair fortune I possessed.
...I throw it...Read more of this...

The Grocery

by Amy Lowell
 "Hullo, Alice!"
"Hullo, Leon!"
"Say, Alice, gi' me a couple
O' them two for five cigars,
Will yer?"
"Where's your nickel?"
"My! Ain't you close!
Can't trust a feller, can yer."
"Trust you! Why
What you owe this store
Would set you up in business.
I can't think why Father 'lows it."
"Yer Father's a sight more neighbourly
Than you be. That's a fact.
Besides, he knows I got a vote."
"A vote! Oh,...Read more of this...

Christopher Found

by Amy Levy
 I.

At last; so this is you, my dear!
How should I guess to find you here?
So long, so long, I sought in vain
In many cities, many lands,
With straining eyes and groping hands;
The people marvelled at my pain.
They said: "But sure, the woman's mad;
What ails her, we should like to know,
That she should be so wan and sad,
And silent through the...Read more of this...

In the Night

by Amy Levy
 Cruel? I think there never was a cheating
More cruel, thro' all the weary days than this!
This is no dream, my heart kept on repeating,
But sober certainty of waking bliss.

Dreams? O, I know their faces -- goodly seeming,
Vaporous, whirled on many-coloured wings;
I have had dreams before, this is no dreaming,
But daylight gladness that the daylight brings.

What ails my love; what...Read more of this...

The Fascination Of Whats Difficult

by William Butler Yeats
 The fascination of what's difficult
Has dried the sap out of my veins, and rent
Spontaneous joy and natural content
Out of my heart. There's something ails our colt
That must, as if it had not holy blood
Nor on Olympus leaped from cloud to cloud,
Shiver under the lash, strain, sweat and jolt
As though it dragged road-metal. My curse on plays
That have to be...Read more of this...

The Whistle Of Sandy McGraw

by Robert William Service
 You may talk o' your lutes and your dulcimers fine,
 Your harps and your tabors and cymbals and a',
But here in the trenches jist gie me for mine
 The wee penny whistle o' Sandy McGraw.
Oh, it's: "Sandy, ma lad, will you lilt us a tune?"
 And Sandy is willin' and trillin' like mad;
Sae silvery sweet that we a' throng...Read more of this...

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