Famous Bead Poems by Famous Poets

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

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133. The Brigs of Ayr

...rig” was buskit in a braw new coat,
That he, at Lon’on, frae ane Adams got;
In ’s hand five taper staves as smooth ’s a bead,
Wi’ virls and whirlygigums at the head.
The Goth was stalking round with anxious search,
Spying the time-worn flaws in every arch;
It chanc’d his new-come neibor took his e’e,
And e’en a vexed and angry heart had he!
Wi’ thieveless sneer to see his modish mien,
He, down the water, gies him this guid-e’en:—


AULD BRIG“I doubt na, frien’, ye’ll think ye...Read more of this...
by Burns, Robert


A proper trewe idyll of camelot

...atte-fysshe hath when that he ben on dead
And boyled a goodly time and served with capers on his head;
A rayless eye, a bead-like eye, whose famisht aspect shows
It hungereth for ye verdant banks whereon ye wild time grows;
An eye that hawketh up and down for evereche kind of game,
And, when he doth espy ye which, he tumbleth to ye same.

Now when he kenned Sir Launcelot in armor clad, he quod,
"Another put-a-nickel-in-and-see-me-work, be god!"
But when that he was ware a man...Read more of this...
by Field, Eugene

All Night

...ts for its liberation, 
and the match on the table packs its head 
with anticipation of light. 
The faucet sweats out a bead of water, 
which gathers strength for the free fall, 
while the lettuce in the refrigerator 
succumbs to its brown killer. 
And in the novel I put down 
before I fall asleep, 
the paneled walls of a room 
are condemned to stand and wait 
for tomorrow, when I'll get to the page 
where the prisoner finds the secret door 
and steps into air and the scent o...Read more of this...
by Mueller, Lisel

An Aquarium

...n.
Shadows and polished surfaces,
Facets of mauve and purple,
A constant modulation of values.
Shaft-shaped,
With green bead eyes;
Thick-nosed,
Heliotrope-coloured;
Swift spots of chrysolite and coral;
In the midst of green, pearl, amethyst irradiations.
Outside,
A willow-tree flickers
With little white jerks,
And long blue waves
Rise steadily beyond the outer islands....Read more of this...
by Lowell, Amy

Eloisa to Abelard

...atin lamp in sighs for thee,
Thy image steals between my God and me,
Thy voice I seem in ev'ry hymn to hear,
With ev'ry bead I drop too soft a tear.
When from the censer clouds of fragrance roll,
And swelling organs lift the rising soul,
One thought of thee puts all the pomp to flight,
Priests, tapers, temples, swim before my sight:
In seas of flame my plunging soul is drown'd,
While altars blaze, and angels tremble round.

While prostrate here in humble grief I lie,
Kind, vi...Read more of this...
by Pope, Alexander


Endymion: Book II

...than vile:
Yet, for him there's refreshment even in toil;
Another city doth he set about,
Free from the smallest pebble-bead of doubt
That he will seize on trickling honey-combs:
Alas, he finds them dry; and then he foams,
And onward to another city speeds.
But this is human life: the war, the deeds,
The disappointment, the anxiety,
Imagination's struggles, far and nigh,
All human; bearing in themselves this good,
That they are sill the air, the subtle food,
To make us feel e...Read more of this...
by Keats, John

For The Year Of The Insane

...ot know your words. 
The black rosary with its silver Christ 
lies unblessed in my hand 
for I am the unbeliever. 
Each bead is round and hard between my fingers, 
a small black angel. 
O Mary, permit me this grace, 
this crossing over, 
although I am ugly, 
submerged in my own past 
and my own madness. 
Although there are chairs 
I lie on the floor. 
Only my hands are alive, 
touching beads. 
Word for word, I stumble. 
A beginner, I feel your mouth touch mine. 

I count bead...Read more of this...
by Sexton, Anne

Lara

...ft, though better were its loss; 
For when one near display'd the absolving cross, 
And proffer'd to his touch the holy bead, 
Of which his parting soul might own the need, 
He look'd upon it with an eye profane, 
And smiled — Heaven pardon! if 'twere with disdain; 
And Kaled, though he spoke not, nor withdrew 
From Lara's face his fix'd despairing view, 
With brow repulsive, and with gesture swift, 
Flung back the hand which held the sacred gift, 
As if such but disturb'd th...Read more of this...
by Byron, George (Lord)

Last Instructions to a Painter

...Where Pilgrim Palmer travelled in exile 
With the bull's horn to measure his own head 
And on Pasipha?'s tomb to drop a bead. 
But Morice learn'd dem?nstrates, by the post, 
This Isle of Candy was on Essex' coast. 

Fresh messengers still the sad news assure; 
More timorous now we are than first secure. 
False terrors our believing fears devise, 
And the French army one from Calais spies. 
Bennet and May and those of shorter reach 
Change all for guineas, and a crown for each...Read more of this...
by Marvell, Andrew

Lord Let Me Live

...long,
 That I may sing in sunny sort,
And prove with my exultant song
 The longest life is all to short:
Aye, even in a bead of dew
 To shrine in beauty--YOU....Read more of this...
by Service, Robert William

Monadnoc

...rowest
How the chemic eddies play
Pole to pole, and what they say,
And that these gray crags
Not on crags are hung,
But beads are of a rosary
On prayer and music strung;
And, credulous, through the granite seeming
Seest the smile of Reason beaming;
Can thy style-discerning eye
The hidden-working Builder spy,
Who builds, yet makes no chips, no din,
With hammer soft as snow-flake's flight;
Knowest thou this?
O pilgrim, wandering not amiss!
Already my rocks lie light,
And soon m...Read more of this...
by Emerson, Ralph Waldo

Saul

...
Soft and grave, but in mild settled will, on my brow: thro' my hair
The large fingers were pushed, and he bent back my bead, with kind power---
All my face back, intent to peruse it, as men do a flower.
Thus held he me there with his great eyes that scrutinized mine---
And oh, all my heart how it loved him! but where was the sign?
I yearned---``Could I help thee, my father, inventing a bliss,
``I would add, to that life of the past, both the future and this;
``I would give t...Read more of this...
by Browning, Robert

Song of Myself

...traps on the creek that helps fill the Huron;
The squaw, wrapt in her yellow-hemm’d cloth, is offering moccasins and
 bead-bags for sale; 
The connoisseur peers along the exhibition-gallery with half-shut eyes bent
 sideways; 
As the deck-hands make fast the steamboat, the plank is thrown for the
 shore-going passengers; 
The young sister holds out the skein, while the elder sister winds it off in a
 ball, and stops now and then for the knots; 
The one-year wife is r...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt

Song of the Broad-Axe

...side and
 inside,
The tools lying around, the great auger and little auger, the adze, bolt, line, square,
 gouge,
 and
 bead-plane. 

10
The shapes arise! 
The shape measur’d, saw’d, jack’d, join’d, stain’d, 
The coffin-shape for the dead to lie within in his shroud; 
The shape got out in posts, in the bedstead posts, in the posts of the bride’s bed;
The shape of the little trough, the shape of the rockers beneath, the shape of the babe’s
 cradle;

The shape of the floor-plan...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt

The Generations of Men

...eased. But see how wet I am." 
"Yes, you must go; we can't stay here for ever. 
But wait until I give you a hand up. 
A bead of silver water more or less 
Strung on your hair won't hurt your summer looks. 
I wanted to try something with the noise 
That the brook raises in the empty valley. 
We have seen visions--now consult the voices. 
Something I must have learned riding in trains 
When I was young. I used the roar 
To set the voices speaking out of it, 
Speaking or singing...Read more of this...
by Frost, Robert

The Lady of the Lake

...p peal's commanding tone
     Should wake, in yonder islet lone,
     A sainted hermit from his cell,
     To drop a bead with every knell!
     And bugle, lute, and bell, and all,
     Should each bewildered stranger call
     To friendly feast and lighted hall.
     XVI.

     'Blithe were it then to wander here!
     But now—beshrew yon nimble deer—
     Like that same hermit's, thin and spare,
     The copse must give my evening fare;
     Some mossy bank my ...Read more of this...
by Scott, Sir Walter

The Progress of Spring

...unfolding woodbine leaves 
O'er his uncertain shadow droops the day. 
She comes! The loosen'd rivulets run; 
The frost-bead melts upon her golden hair; 
Her mantle, slowly greening in the Sun, 
Now wraps her close, now arching leaves her bar 
To breaths of balmier air; 

Up leaps the lark, gone wild to welcome her, 
About her glance the ****, and shriek the jays, 
Before her skims the jubilant woodpecker, 
The linnet's bosom blushes at her gaze, 
While round her brows a wood...Read more of this...
by Tennyson, Alfred Lord

The Son Of The Evening Star

...ened!
Over it the Star of Evening
Melts and trembles through the purple, 
Hangs suspended in the twilight. 
No; it is a bead of wampum 
On the robes of the Great Spirit 
As he passes through the twilight, 
Walks in silence through the heavens.
This with joy beheld Iagoo 
And he said in haste: "Behold it! 
See the sacred Star of Evening! 
You shall hear a tale of wonder, 
Hear the story of Osseo, 
Son of the Evening Star, Osseo!
"Once, in days no more remembered,
Ages nearer t...Read more of this...
by Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth

The Star-Apple Kingdom

...ngo, 
ora pro nobis, intercede for us, Sancta Lucia 
of no eyes," and when the circular chaplet 
reached the last black bead of Sancta Trinidad 
they began again, their knees drilled into stone, 
where Colon had begun, with San Salvador's bead, 
beads of black colonies round the necks of Indians. 
And while they prayed for an economic miracle, 
ulcers formed on the municipal portraits, 
the hotels went up, and the casinos and brothels, 
and the empires of tobacco, sugar, and ...Read more of this...
by Walcott, Derek

The Talking Oak

...
Would twist his girdle tight, and pat 
The girls upon the cheek, 

"Ere yet, in scorn of Peter's-pence, 
And number'd bead, and shrift, 
Bluff Harry broke into the spence 
And turn'd the cowls adrift: 

"And I have seen some score of those 
Fresh faces that would thrive 
When his man-minded offset rose 
To chase the deer at five; 

"And all that from the town would stroll, 
Till that wild wind made work 
In which the gloomy brewer's soul 
Went by me, like a stork: 

"The sl...Read more of this...
by Tennyson, Alfred Lord

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