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Famous Bale Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Whitman, Walt
...ulously draped over, now and hence for what it is,
 boldly laid bare, 
Open’d by thee to heaven’s light, for benefit or bale.

Not for success alone; 
Not to fair-sail unintermitted always; 
The storm shall dash thy face—the murk of war, and worse than war, shall cover thee
 all
 over; 
(Wert capable of war—its tug and trials? Be capable of peace, its trials; 
For the tug and mortal strain of nations come at last in peace—not war;)
In many a smiling mask death shall appro...Read more of this...



by Spenser, Edmund
...nes all heedlesse of his dearest hale,
Full greedily into the heard he thrust:
To slaughter them, and work their finall bale,
Least that his tolye should of their troups be brust.
Wide wounds emongst them many a one he made,
Now with his sharp borespeare, now with his blade.

His care was all how he them all might kill,
That none might scape (so partiall vnto none)
Ill mynd so much to mynd anothers ill, 
As to become vnmyndfull of his owne.
But pardon that vnto th...Read more of this...

by Spenser, Edmund
...nes all heedlesse of his dearest hale,
Full greedily into the heard he thrust:
To slaughter them, and work their finall bale,
Least that his tolye should of their troups be brust.
Wide wounds emongst them many a one he made,
Now with his sharp borespeare, now with his blade.

His care was all how he them all might kill,
That none might scape (so partiall vnto none)
Ill mynd so much to mynd anothers ill, 
As to become vnmyndfull of his owne.
But pardon that vnto th...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
..., the oakum-chisel, the caulking-iron—the kettle of boiling vault-cement, and
 the
 fire
 under the kettle, 
The cotton-bale, the stevedore’s hook, the saw and buck of the sawyer, the mould of
 the
 moulder, the working-knife of the butcher, the ice-saw, and all the work with ice, 
The implements for daguerreotyping—the tools of the rigger, grappler, sail-maker,
 block-maker, 
Goods of gutta-percha, papier-maché, colors, brushes, brush-making, glazier’s
 implements,

O you ro...Read more of this...

by Coleridge, Samuel Taylor
...ke her gentle vows;
Her slender palms together prest,
Heaving sometimes on her breast;
Her face resigned to bliss or bale-
Her face, oh, call it fair not pale,
And both blue eyes more bright than clear.
Each about to have a tear.
With open eyes (ah, woe is me!)
Asleep, and dreaming fearfully,
Fearfully dreaming, yet, I wis,
Dreaming that alone, which is-
O sorrow and shame! Can this be she,
The lady, who knelt at the old oak tree?
And lo! the worker of th...Read more of this...



by Service, Robert William
...'s song.

Colder it grew and colder, till the last heat left the earth,
 And there in the great stark stillness the bale fires glinted and gleamed,
And the Wild all around exulted and shook with a devilish mirth,
 And life was far and forgotten, the ghost of a joy once dreamed.

Death! And one who defied it, a man of the Mounted Police;
 Fought it there to a standstill long after hope was gone;
Grinned through his bitter anguish, fought without let or cease,
 Sufferin...Read more of this...

by Kipling, Rudyard
...t from her burthened beach.

They count their ships full tale --
 Their corn and oil and wine,
Derrick and loom and bale,
 And rampart's gun-flecked line;
City by City they hail:
 "Hast aught to match with mine?"

And the men that breed from them
 They traffic up and down,
But cling to their cities' hem
 As a child to their mother's gown.

When they talk with the stranger bands,
 Dazed and newly alone;
When they walk in the stranger lands,
 By roaring streets unknown;...Read more of this...

by Kipling, Rudyard
...t from her burthened beach.

They count their ships full tale --
 Their corn and oil and wine,
Derrick and loom and bale,
 And rampart's gun-flecked line;
City by City they hail:
 "Hast aught to match with mine?"

And the men that breed from them
 They traffic up and down,
But cling to their cities' hem
 As a child to their mother's gown.

When they talk with the stranger bands,
 Dazed and newly alone;
When they walk in the stranger lands,
 By roaring streets unknown;...Read more of this...

by Keats, John
...and arbour roses;
My kingdom's at its death, and just it is
That I should die with it: so in all this
We miscal grief, bale, sorrow, heartbreak, woe,
What is there to plain of? By Titan's foe
I am but rightly serv'd." So saying, he
Tripp'd lightly on, in sort of deathful glee;
Laughing at the clear stream and setting sun,
As though they jests had been: nor had he done
His laugh at nature's holy countenance,
Until that grove appear'd, as if perchance,
And then his tongue ...Read more of this...

by Spenser, Edmund
...ll dight your bowres, sith she is dead 
That was the Lady of your holy-dayes? 25 
Let now your blisse be turn¨¨d into bale, 
And into plaints convert your joyous playes, 
And with the same fill every hill and dale. 

For I will walke this wandring pilgrimage, 
Throughout the world from one to other end, 30 
And in affliction wast my better age: 
My bread shall be the anguish of my mind, 
My drink the teares which fro mine eyed do raine, 
My bed the ground that ...Read more of this...

by Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)
...y were,
And thaygh the glyterande golde glent vpon endez,
Bot for to sauen hymself, when suffer hym byhoued,
To byde bale withoute dabate of bronde hym to were
other knyffe.
Bi that the bolde mon boun
Wynnez theroute bilyue,
Alle the meyny of renoun
He thonkkez ofte ful ryue.
Thenne watz Gryngolet graythe, that gret watz and huge,
And hade ben soiourned sauerly and in a siker wyse,
Hym lyst prik for poynt, that proude hors thenne.

The wyyghe wynnez h...Read more of this...

by Meredith, George
...fe to catch.

Here's where the lads of the village cricket:
I was a lad not wide from here:
Couldn't I whip off the bale from the wicket?
Like an old world those days appear!
Donkey, sheep, geese, and thatch'd ale-house--I know them!
They are old friends of my halts, and seem,
Somehow, as if kind thanks I owe them:
Juggling don't hinder the heart's esteem.

Juggling's no sin, for we must have victual:
Nature allows us to bait for the fool.
Holding one's own makes ...Read more of this...

by Kipling, Rudyard
...r way of thinking,
Now you can do as you will,
While we try to save her from sinking
And hold her head to it still.
Bale her and keep her moving,
Or she'll break her back in the trough. . . .
Who said the weather's improving,
Or the swells are taking off?

Sodden, and chafed and aching,
Gone in the loins and knees--
No matter--the day is breaking,
And there's far less weight to the seas!
Up mast, and finish baling--
In oar, and out with mead--
The rest wil...Read more of this...

by Kipling, Rudyard
...ur kafilas wind through the Khyber Pass.
Lean are the camels but fat the frails,
Light are the purses but heavy the bales,
As the snowbound trade of the North comes down
To the market-square of Peshawur town.

In a turquoise twilight, crisp and chill,
A kafila camped at the foot of the hill.
Then blue smoke-haze of the cooking rose,
And tent-peg answered to hammer-nose;
And the picketed ponies, shag and wild,
Strained at their ropes as the feed was piled;
And the ...Read more of this...

by Paterson, Andrew Barton
...the Manager, and vanished into space. 
But when the wool return came back, ah me, what sighs and groans! 
For every bale of Maori wool was loaded up with stones! 
Yes -- thumping great New Zealand rocks among the wool they found; 
On every rock the bank had lent just eighteen-pence a pound. 
And now the Bold Bank Manager, with trouble on his brow, 
Is searching vainly for the chief from Rooti-iti-au....Read more of this...

by Kipling, Rudyard
...hath stood through the loaded hour
 Ere, roaring like the gale,
The Harrild and the Hoe devour
 Their league-long paper-bale,
And has lit his pipe in the morning calm
 That follows the midnight stress--
He hath sold his heart to the old Black Art
 We call the daily Press.

Who once hath dealt in the widest game
 That all of a man can play,
No later love, no larger fame
 Will lure him long away.
As the war-horse snuffeth the battle afar,
 The entered Soul, no less,
He ...Read more of this...

by Kipling, Rudyard
...at nest beneath the Line,
He has stripped my rails of the shaddock-frails and the green unripened pine;
He has taken my bale of dammer and spice I won beyond the seas,
He has taken my grinning heathen gods -- and what should he want o' these?
My foremast would not mend his boom, my deckhouse patch his boats;
He has whittled the two, this Yank Yahoo, to peddle for shoe-peg oats.
I could not fight for the failing light and a rough beam-sea beside,
But I hulled him once for ...Read more of this...

by Lanier, Sidney
...tired of head:
We're all for love," the violins said.
"Of what avail the rigorous tale
Of bill for coin and box for bale?
Grant thee, O Trade! thine uttermost hope:
Level red gold with blue sky-slope,
And base it deep as devils grope:
When all's done, what hast thou won
Of the only sweet that's under the sun?
Ay, canst thou buy a single sigh
Of true love's least, least ecstasy?"
Then, with a bridegroom's heart-beats trembling,
All the mightier strings assembling
Ranged th...Read more of this...

by Bronte, Charlotte
...ting's peace-embittering fear, 
Is warned, our hearts to come not near; 
For fate admits my soul's decree, 
In bliss or bale­to go with thee !...Read more of this...

by Chaucer, Geoffrey
...and eek hir fingres longe and smale
She wrong ful ofte, and bad god on hir rewe,
And with the deeth to doon bote on hir bale.
Hir hewe, whylom bright, that tho was pale, 
Bar witnes of hir wo and hir constreynte;
And thus she spak, sobbinge, in hir compleynte:

'Alas!' quod she, 'out of this regioun
I, woful wrecche and infortuned wight,
And born in corsed constellacioun, 
Mot goon, and thus departen fro my knight;
Wo worth, allas! That ilke dayes light
On which I saw him...Read more of this...

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Book: Shattered Sighs