Famous Ask For Poems by Famous Poets

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

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They Ask Each Other Where They Came From

by Carl Sandburg
 AM I the river your white birds fly over?
Are you the green valley my silver channels roam?
The two of us a bowl of blue sky day time and a bowl of red stars night time?
 Who picked you
 out of the first great whirl of nothings
 and threw you here?...Read more of this...

You Ask Me Why Tho Ill at Ease

by Alfred Lord Tennyson
 You ask me, why, tho' ill at ease,
Within this region I subsist,
Whose spirits falter in the mist,
And languish for the purple seas.
It is the land that freemen till,
That sober-suited Freedom chose,
The land, where girt with friends or foes
A man may speak the thing he will;
A land of settled government,
A land of just and old renown,
Where Freedom slowly broadens down
From...Read more of this...

They ask but our Delight --

by Emily Dickinson
 They ask but our Delight --
The Darlings of the Soil
And grant us all their Countenance
For a penurious smile....Read more of this...

Of God we ask one favor

by Emily Dickinson
 Of God we ask one favor,
That we may be forgiven --
For what, he is presumed to know --
The Crime, from us, is hidden --
Immured the whole of Life
Within a magic Prison
We reprimand the Happiness
That too competes with Heaven....Read more of this...

You ask me what is this phantasmagoria of things here

by Omar Khayyam
You ask me what is this phantasmagoria of things here
below. To tell you the whole truth regarding it would
be too long: it is a fantastic image which comes out of
a vast sea, and which re-enters, later, the same vast sea.
337...Read more of this...

You ask what is this life so frail, so vain,

by Omar Khayyam
You ask what is this life so frail, so vain,
'Tis long to tell, yet will I make it plain;
'Tis but a breath blown from the vasty deeps,
And then blown back to those same deeps again!...Read more of this...

Ask not the chances of the time to be,

by Omar Khayyam
Ask not the chances of the time to be,
And for the past, 'tis vanished, as you see;
This ready-money breath set down as gain,
Future and past concern not you or me....Read more of this...

Ask Me No More

by Alfred Lord Tennyson
 Ask me no more: the moon may draw the sea; 
The cloud may stoop from heaven and take the shape, 
With fold to fold, of mountain or of cape; 
But O too fond, when have I answer'd thee? 
Ask me no more. 

Ask me no more: what answer should I give? 
I love not hollow cheek or faded eye:...Read more of this...

I ask of thee love nothing but relief

by Mary Elizabeth Coleridge
 I ask of thee, love, nothing but relief. 
Thou canst not bring the old days back again; 
For I was happy then, 
Not knowing heavenly joy, not knowing grief....Read more of this...

And ask ye why these sad tears stream?

by Alfred Lord Tennyson
 ‘Te somnia nostra reducunt.’
OVID.

And ask ye why these sad tears stream?
Why these wan eyes are dim with weeping?
I had a dream–a lovely dream,
Of her that in the grave is sleeping.

I saw her as ’twas yesterday,
The bloom upon her cheek still glowing;
And round her play’d a golden ray,
And on her brows were gay flowers blowing.

With angel-hand she swept a lyre,
A...Read more of this...

I Ask You

by Billy Collins
 What scene would I want to be enveloped in
more than this one,
an ordinary night at the kitchen table,
floral wallpaper pressing in,
white cabinets full of glass,
the telephone silent,
a pen tilted back in my hand?

It gives me time to think
about all that is going on outside--
leaves gathering in corners,
lichen greening the high grey rocks,
while over the dunes the world sails on,
huge,...Read more of this...

Of Tolling Bell I ask the cause?

by Emily Dickinson
 Of Tolling Bell I ask the cause?
"A Soul has gone to Heaven"
I'm answered in a lonesome tone --
Is Heaven then a Prison?

That Bells should ring till all should know
A Soul had gone to Heaven
Would seem to me the more the way
A Good News should be given....Read more of this...

Ask not (TU NE QUAESIERIS)

by Horace
   Ask not ('tis forbidden knowledge), what our destined term of years,
   Mine and yours; nor scan the tables of your Babylonish seers.
   Better far to bear the future, my Leuconoe, like the past,
   Whether Jove has many winters yet to give, or this our last;
   THIS, that makes the...Read more of this...

Neer Ask the Hour

by Thomas Moore
 Ne'er ask the hour -- what is it to us 
How Time deals out his treasures? 
The golden moments lent us thus 
Are not his coin, but Pleasure's. 
If counting them o'er could add to their blisses, 
I'd number each glorious second: 
But moments of joy are, like Lesbia's kisses, 
Too quick and sweet to be reckon'd. 
Then fill...Read more of this...

Should You Ask At Midnight

by Jennifer Reeser
 What would I do without your voice to wake me?
Cor ad cor loquitur, I’m loath to know.
Kitsch operas sound, unhesitant to shake me,
The sheers undrawn, the heavens hardly showing,
My camisole askew, of lace-trimmed black –
Not red, not white; not passionate or pure.
I raise the volume, and the voices crack—
Vanilla scores: accessible, obscure.
But what would I do without your certain...Read more of this...

The Princess: A Medley: Ask me no more

by Alfred Lord Tennyson
 Ask me no more: the moon may draw the sea;
The cloud may stoop from heaven and take the shape,
With fold to fold, of mountain or of cape;
But O too fond, when have I answer'd thee?
Ask me no more.
Ask me no more: what answer should I give?
I love not hollow cheek or faded eye:
Yet, O my friend, I will not...Read more of this...

If He were living -- dare I ask --

by Emily Dickinson
 If He were living -- dare I ask --
And how if He be dead --
And so around the Words I went --
Of meeting them -- afraid --

I hinted Changes -- Lapse of Time --
The Surfaces of Years --
I touched with Caution -- lest they crack --
And show me to my fears --

Reverted to adjoining Lives --
Adroitly turning out
Wherever I...Read more of this...

Ask Me No More

by Thomas Carew
 Ask me no more where Jove bestows,
When June is past, the fading rose;
For in your beauty's orient deep
These flowers, as in their causes, sleep.

Ask me no more whither do stray
The golden atoms of the day;
For in pure love heaven did prepare
Those powders to enrich your hair.

Ask me no more whither doth haste
The nightingale when May is past;
For in your...Read more of this...

Bessies Boil

by Robert William Service
 Says I to my Missis: "Ba goom, lass! you've something I see, on your mind."
Says she: "You are right, Sam, I've something. It 'appens it's on me be'ind.
A Boil as 'ud make Job jealous. It 'urts me no end when I sit."
Says I: "Go to 'ospittel, Missis. They might 'ave to coot it a bit."
Says she: "I just 'ate...Read more of this...

You Ask Why Sometimes I Say Stop

by Marge Piercy
 You ask why sometimes I say stop
why sometimes I cry no
while I shake with pleasure.
What do I fear, you ask,
why don't I always want to come
and come again to that molten
deep sea center where the nerves
fuse open and the brain
and body shine with a black wordless light
fluorescent and heaving like plankton.

If you turn over the old refuse
of sexual slang,...Read more of this...

Players Ask For A Blessing On The Psalteries And On Themselves

by William Butler Yeats
 Three Voices [together]. Hurry to bless the hands that play,
The mouths that speak, the notes and strings,
O masters of the glittering town!
O! lay the shrilly trumpet down,
Though drunken with the flags that sway
Over the ramparts and the towers,
And with the waving of your wings.

First Voice. Maybe they linger by the way.
One gathers up his purple gown;
One leans and mutters...Read more of this...

Lovers Gifts V: I Would Ask For Still More

by Rabindranath Tagore
 I would ask for still more, if I had the sky with all its stars,
and the world with its endless riches; but I would be content with
the smallest corner of this earth if only she were mine....Read more of this...

Hard Luck

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 I left the course, and by my side 
There walked a ruined tout -- 
A hungry creature, evil-eyed, 
Who poured this story out. 
"You see," he said, "there came a swell 
To Kensington today, 
And, if I picked the winners well, 
A crown at least he's pay. 

"I picked three winners straight, I did; 
I filled his purse with...Read more of this...

What I ask

by Dimitris P Kraniotis
 A ball of threads
my prayers
whisper
frightened.
Foolish “I” s
are choked
without you ever
knowing
what I ask....Read more of this...

Ask Me

by William Stafford
 Some time when the river is ice ask me
mistakes I have made. Ask me whether
what I have done is my life. Others
have come in their slow way into
my thought, and some have tried to help
or to hurt: ask me what difference
their strongest love or hate has made.

I will listen to what you say.
You and I can turn and look
at...Read more of this...

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