Famous Begging Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Begging poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous begging poems. These examples illustrate what a famous begging poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Barry Tebb
It is time after thirty years
We had our Poetry Renaissance
Rise, Children of Albion, rise!
It is time after nightmares of sleep
When we walked the streets of inner cities
Our poems among the burnt-out houses
And cars, whispering compassion
To the addicts shaking and the homeless
Waking and those who have come apart
In the nowhere of today
Begging in stations
Sleeping in boxes.
It is time to find
Our...Read more of this...
by
Dorothy Parker
My hand, a little raised, might press a star-
Where I may look, the frosted peaks are spun,
So shaped before Olympus was begun,
Spanned each to each, now, by a silver bar.
Thus to face Beauty have I traveled far,
But now, as if around my heart were run
Hard, lacing fingers, so I stand undone.
Of all my tears, the bitterest these are.
Who humbly...Read more of this...
by
Katherine Mansfield
The Half-Soled-Boots-With-Toecaps-Child
Walked out into the street
And splashed in all the pubbles till
She had such shocking feet
The Patent-Leather-Slipper-Child
Stayed quietly in the house
And sat upon the fender stool
As still as any mouse.
The Half-Soled-Boots-With-Toecaps-Child
Her hands were black as ink;
She would come running through the house
And begging for a drink.
The Patent-Leather-Slipper-Child
Her hands were white as snow;
She did not like to play around,
She only...Read more of this...
by
Nancy Willard
Who is this fish, still wearing its wealth,
flat on my drainboard, dead asleep,
its suit of mail proof only against the stream?
What is it to live in a stream,
to dwell forever in a tunnel of cold,
never to leave your shining birthsuit,
never to spend your inheritance of thin coins?
And who is the stream, who lolls all day
in an unmade bed, living...Read more of this...
by
Sidney Lanier
Fair is the wedded reign of Night and Day.
Each rules a half of earth with different sway,
Exchanging kingdoms, East and West, alway.
Like the round pearl that Egypt drunk in wine,
The sun half sinks i' the brimming, rosy brine:
The wild Night drinks all up: how her eyes shine!
Now the swift sail of straining life is furled,
And through the stillness of...Read more of this...
by
Wendell Berry
You will be walking some night
in the comfortable dark of your yard
and suddenly a great light will shine
round about you, and behind you
will be a wall you never saw before.
It will be clear to you suddenly
that you were about to escape,
and that you are guilty: you misread
the complex instructions, you are not
a member, you lost your card
or never had...Read more of this...
by
Anne Kingsmill Finch
NO better Dog e'er kept his Master's Door
Than honest Snarl, who spar'd nor Rich nor Poor;
But gave the Alarm, when any one drew nigh,
Nor let pretended Friends pass fearless by:
For which reprov'd, as better Fed than Taught,
He rightly thus expostulates the Fault.
To keep the House from Rascals was my Charge;
The Task was...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
There comes an hour when begging stops,
When the long interceding lips
Perceive their prayer is vain.
"Thou shalt not" is a kinder sword
Than from a disappointing God
"Disciple, call again."...Read more of this...
by
William Topaz McGonagall
Alas! Beautiful Summer now hath fled,
And the face of Nature doth seem dead,
And the leaves are withered, and falling off the trees,
By the nipping and chilling autumnal breeze.
The pleasures of the little birds are all fled,
And with the cold many of them will be found dead,
Because the leaves of the trees are scattered in the blast,
And makes...Read more of this...
by
D. H. Lawrence
Slowly the moon is rising out of the ruddy haze,
Divesting herself of her golden shift, and so
Emerging white and exquisite; and I in amaze
See in the sky before me, a woman I did not know
I loved, but there she goes and her beauty hurts my heart;
I follow her down the night, begging her not to depart....Read more of this...
by
Vachel Lindsay
Even the shrewd and bitter,
Gnarled by the old world's greed,
Cherished the stranger softly
Seeing his utter need.
Shelter and patient hearing,
These were their gifts to him,
To the minstrel, grimly begging
As the sunset-fire grew dim.
The rich said "You are welcome."
Yea, even the rich were good.
How strange that in their feasting
His songs...Read more of this...
by
Richard Wilbur
When you come, as you soon must, to the streets of our city,
Mad-eyed from stating the obvious,
Not proclaiming our fall but begging us
In God's name to have self-pity,
Spare us all word of the weapons, their force and range,
The long numbers that rocket the mind;
Our slow, unreckoning hearts will be left behind,
Unable to fear what is too strange.
Nor shall you...Read more of this...
by
Victor Hugo
("La femelle! elle est morte.")
{Bk. I. xiii., Jersey, February, 1853.}
Mother birdie stiff and cold,
Puss has hushed the other's singing;
Winds go whistling o'er the wold,—
Empty nest in sport a-flinging.
Poor little birdies!
Faithless shepherd strayed afar,
Playful dog the gadflies catching;
Wolves bound boldly...Read more of this...
by
Marilyn L Taylor
Straight-spined girl—yes, you of the glinting earrings,
amber skin and sinuous hair: what happened?
you’ve no business lunching with sticky children
here at McDonald’s.
Are they yours? How old were you when you had them?
You are far too dazzling to be their mother,
though I hear them spluttering Mommy Mommy
over the Muzak.
Do you plan to squander your precious twenties
wiping ketchup dripping from little fingers,
drowning...Read more of this...
by
John Berryman
Shh! on a twine hung from disastered trees
Henry is swinging his daughter. They seem drunk.
Over across them look out,
tranquil, the high statues of the wise.
Her feet peep, like a lady's in sleep sunk.
That which this scene's about-”
he pushes violent, his calves distend,
his mouth is open with effort, so is hers,
in the Supreme Court garden,
the justices lean, *****, out, the...Read more of this...
by
John Donne
Fond woman, which wouldst have thy husband die,
And yet complain'st of his great jealousy;
If swol'n with poison, he lay in his last bed,
His body with a sere-bark covered,
Drawing his breath, as thick and short, as can
The nimblest crocheting musician,
Ready with loathsome vomiting to spew
His soul out of one hell, into a new,
Made deaf with his poor kindred's howling cries,
Begging...Read more of this...
by
Leonard Cohen
(co-written by Sharon Robinson)
Baby, I've been waiting,
I've been waiting night and day.
I didn't see the time,
I waited half my life away.
There were lots of invitations
and I know you sent me some,
but I was waiting
for the miracle, for the miracle to come.
I know you really loved me.
but, you see, my hands...Read more of this...
by
Ben Jonson
For love's sake, kiss me once again;
I long, and should not beg in vain,
Here's none to spy or see;
Why do you doubt or stay?
I'll taste as lightly as the bee
That doth but touch his flower and flies away.
Once more, and faith I will be gone;
Can he that loves ask less than one?
Nay, you may err in this
And all your...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
Tell as a Marksman -- were forgotten
Tell -- this Day endures
Ruddy as that coeval Apple
The Tradition bears --
Fresh as Mankind that humble story
Though a statelier Tale
Grown in the Repetition hoary
Scarcely would prevail --
Tell had a son -- The ones that knew it
Need not linger here --
Those who did not to Human Nature
Will subscribe a Tear --
Tell would not bare...Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
Cinderella in the street
In a ragged gown,
Sloven slippers on her feet,
Shames our tidy town;
Harsh her locks of ashen grey,
Vapour vague her stare,
By the curb this bitter day
Selling papers there.
Cinderella once was sweet,
Fine and lily fair,
Silver slippers on her feet,
Ribands in her hair;
Solid men besought her hand,
Tart was she as quince,
Living in a fairy land,
Waiting for a Prince.
Days went by...Read more of this...
by
John Donne
Come live with me, and be my love,
And we will some new pleasures prove,
Of golden sand, and crystal brooks,
With silken lines and silver hooks.
There will the river whispering run,
Warmed by thy eyes more than the sun.
And there the enamoured fish will stay.
Begging themselves they may betray.
When wilt thou swim in that live bath,
Each fish, which every channel hath,
Will amorously...Read more of this...
by
Edmund Blunden
Already fallen plum-bloom stars the green
And apple-boughs as knarred as old toads' backs
Wear their small roses ere a rose is seen;
The building thrush watches old Job who stacks
The bright-peeled osiers on the sunny fence,
The pent sow grunts to hear him stumping by,
And tries to push the bolt and scamper thence,
But her ringed snout still keeps her to the sty.
Then out...Read more of this...
by
Charles Simic
Not a peep out of you now
After the bedlam early this morning.
Are you begging pardon of me
Hidden up there among the leaves,
Or are your brains momentarily overtaxed?
You savvy a few things I don't:
The overlooked sunflower seed worth a holler;
The traffic of cats in the yard;
Strangers leaving the widow's house,
Tieless and wearing crooked grins.
Or have you got wind of the...Read more of this...
by
Philip Levine
The first purple wisteria
I recall from boyhood hung
on a wire outside the windows
of the breakfast room next door
at the home of Steve Pisaris.
I loved his tall, skinny daughter,
or so I thought, and I would wait
beside the back door, prostrate,
begging to be taken in. Perhaps
it was only the flowers of spring...Read more of this...
by
Louise Gluck
Orange blossoms blowing over Castile
children begging for coins
I met my love under an orange tree
or was it an acacia tree
or was he not my love?
I read this, then I dreamed this:
can waking take back what happened to me?
Bells of San Miguel
ringing in the distance
his hair in the shadows blond-white
I dreamed this,
does that mean it didn't happen?
Does it have to...Read more of this...
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