Famous Arrears Poems by Famous Poets

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

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The Ballad Of The Black Fox Skin

by Robert William Service
 I

There was Claw-fingered Kitty and Windy Ike living the life of shame,
When unto them in the Long, Long Night came the man-who-had-no-name;
Bearing his prize of a black fox pelt, out of the Wild he came.

His cheeks were blanched as the flume-head foam when the brown spring freshets flow;
Deep in their dark, sin-calcined pits were his sombre eyes aglow;
They knew...Read more of this...

The False Gods

by Edwin Arlington Robinson
 “We are false and evanescent, and aware of our deceit, 
From the straw that is our vitals to the clay that is our feet. 
You may serve us if you must, and you shall have your wage of ashes,—
Though arrears due thereafter may be hard for you to meet. 

“You may swear that we are solid, you may say...Read more of this...

Old Trails

by Edwin Arlington Robinson
 (WASHINGTON SQUARE)


I met him, as one meets a ghost or two, 
Between the gray Arch and the old Hotel. 
“King Solomon was right, there’s nothing new,” 
Said he. “Behold a ruin who meant well.” 

He led me down familiar steps again, 
Appealingly, and set me in a chair. 
“My dreams have all come true to other men,” 
Said he;...Read more of this...

Hymn 65

by Isaac Watts
 The kingdoms of the world become the kingdoms of our Lord; or, The day of judgment.

Rev. 11:15-18. 

Let the seventh angel sound on high,
Let shouts be heard through all the sky;
Kings of the earth, with glad accord,
Give up your kingdoms to the Lord.

Almighty God, thy power assume,
Who wast, and art, and art to come:
Jesus, the Lamb who once was...Read more of this...

Leffingwell

by Edwin Arlington Robinson
 I—THE LURE

No, no,—forget your Cricket and your Ant, 
For I shall never set my name to theirs 
That now bespeak the very sons and heirs 
Incarnate of Queen Gossip and King Cant. 
The case of Leffingwell is mixed, I grant,
And futile Seems the burden that he bears; 
But are we sounding his forlorn affairs 
Who brand him parasite and...Read more of this...

Disabled

by Wilfred Owen
 He sat in a wheeled chair, waiting for dark,
And shivered in his ghastly suit of grey,
Legless, sewn short at elbow. Through the park
Voices of boys rang saddening like a hymn,
Voices of play and pleasure after day,
Till gathering sleep had mothered them from him.

About this time Town used to swing so gay
When glow-lamps budded in the light-blue trees
And girls glanced...Read more of this...

Two Octaves

by Edwin Arlington Robinson
 I

Not by the grief that stuns and overwhelms 
All outward recognition of revealed 
And righteous omnipresence are the days 
Of most of us affrighted and diseased, 
But rather by the common snarls of life 
That come to test us and to strengthen us 
In this the prentice-age of discontent, 
Rebelliousness, faint-heartedness, and shame. 


II

When through hot fog the fulgid...Read more of this...

Vickerys Mountain

by Edwin Arlington Robinson
 Blue in the west the mountain stands, 
And through the long twilight 
Vickery sits with folded hands, 
And Vickery’s eyes are bright. 

Bright, for he knows what no man else
On earth as yet may know: 
There’s a golden word that he never tells, 
And a gift that he will not show. 

He dreams of honor and wealth and fame,...Read more of this...

France the 18th year of These States

by Walt Whitman
 1
A GREAT year and place; 
A harsh, discordant, natal scream out-sounding, to touch the mother’s heart closer
 than
 any yet. 

I walk’d the shores of my Eastern Sea, 
Heard over the waves the little voice, 
Saw the divine infant, where she woke, mournfully wailing, amid the roar of cannon,
 curses,
 shouts, crash of falling buildings;
Was not so sick from...Read more of this...

Prospice

by Robert Browning
 Fear death?—to feel the fog in my throat,
The mist in my face,
When the snows begin, and the blasts denote
I am nearing the place,
The power of the night, the press of the storm,
The post of the foe;
Where he stands, the Arch Fear in a visible form,
Yet the strong man must go:
For the journey is done and the summit attained,
And the...Read more of this...

Nepenthe

by Henry Van Dyke
 Yes, it was like you to forget, 
And cancel in the welcome of your smile 
My deep arrears of debt,
And with the putting forth of both your hands 
To sweep away the bars my folly set
Between us -- bitter thoughts, and harsh demands, 
And reckless deeds that seemed untrue 
To love, when all the while
My heart was aching through...Read more of this...

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