Famous Boasts Poems by Famous Poets

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

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The Question to Lisetta

by Matthew Prior
 WHAT nymph should I admire or trust, 
But Chloe beauteous, Chloe just? 
What nymph should I desire to see, 
But her who leaves the plain for me? 
To whom should I compose the lay, 
But her who listens when I play? 
To whom in song repeat my cares, 
But her who in my sorrow shares? 
For whom should I...Read more of this...

Psalm 20

by Isaac Watts
 Prayer and hope of victory.
For a day of prayer in time of war.

Now may the God of power and grace
Attend his people's humble cry!
Jehovah hears when Isr'el prays,
And brings deliverance from on high.

The name of Jacob's God defends
Better than shields or brazen walls;
He from his sanctuary sends
Succor and strength, when Zion calls.

Well he remembers all our sighs,
His love exceeds...Read more of this...

The Poor Mans Lamb

by Anne Kingsmill Finch
 NOW spent the alter'd King, in am'rous Cares, 
The Hours of sacred Hymns and solemn Pray'rs: 
In vain the Alter waits his slow returns, 
Where unattended Incense faintly burns: 
In vain the whisp'ring Priests their Fears express, 
And of the Change a thousand Causes guess. 
Heedless of all their Censures He retires, 
And in his Palace feeds his secret...Read more of this...

The Pasha And The Dervish

by Victor Hugo
 ("Un jour Ali passait.") 
 
 {XIII, Nov. 8, 1828.} 


 Ali came riding by—the highest head 
 Bent to the dust, o'ercharged with dread, 
 Whilst "God be praised!" all cried; 
 But through the throng one dervish pressed, 
 Aged and bent, who dared arrest 
 The pasha in his pride. 
 
 "Ali Tepelini, light of...Read more of this...

Worm Either Way

by D. H. Lawrence
 If you live along with all the other people 
and are just like them, and conform, and are nice 
you're just a worm -- 

and if you live with all the other people 
and you don't like them and won't be like them and won't conform 
then you're just the worm that has turned, 
in either case, a worm....Read more of this...

Our Mother Pocahontas

by Vachel Lindsay
 (Note: — Pocahontas is buried at Gravesend, England.)

"Pocahontas' body, lovely as a poplar, sweet as a red haw in November or a pawpaw in May — did she wonder? does she remember — in the dust — in the cool tombs?" 

CARL SANDBURG. 


I

Powhatan was conqueror,
Powhatan was emperor.
He was akin to wolf and bee,
Brother of the hickory tree.
Son of...Read more of this...

Plutonian Ode

by Allen Ginsberg
 I

What new element before us unborn in nature? Is there
 a new thing under the Sun?
At last inquisitive Whitman a modern epic, detonative,
 Scientific theme
First penned unmindful by Doctor Seaborg with poison-
 ous hand, named for Death's planet through the 
 sea beyond Uranus
whose chthonic ore fathers this magma-teared Lord of 
 Hades, Sire of avenging Furies, billionaire Hell-
...Read more of this...

The Lost Leader

by Robert Browning
 Just for a handful of silver he left us,
Just for a riband to stick in his coat— 
Found the one gift of which fortune bereft us,
Lost all the others she lets us devote;
They, with the gold to give, doled him out silver,
So much was theirs who so little allowed:
How all our copper had gone for his service!
Rags—were they purple,...Read more of this...

148. To Miss Logan with Beattie's Poems

by Robert Burns
 AGAIN the silent wheels of time
 Their annual round have driven,
And you, tho’ scarce in maiden prime,
 Are so much nearer Heaven.


No gifts have I from Indian coasts
 The infant year to hail;
I send you more than India boasts,
 In Edwin’s simple tale.


Our sex with guile, and faithless love,
 Is charg’d, perhaps too true;
But may, dear maid, each lover...Read more of this...

Spring in Town

by William Cullen Bryant
 The country ever has a lagging Spring,
Waiting for May to call its violets forth,
And June its roses--showers and sunshine bring,
Slowly, the deepening verdure o'er the earth;
To put their foliage out, the woods are slack,
And one by one the singing-birds come back.

Within the city's bounds the time of flowers
Comes earlier. Let a mild and sunny day,
Such as full often, for...Read more of this...

To Sir Robert Wroth

by Ben Jonson
  III. — TO SIR ROBERT WROTH.          Art ta'en with neither's vice nor sport : That at great times, art no ambitious guest    Of sheriff 's dinner, or mayor's feast. Nor com'st to view the better cloth of state,    The richer hangings, or crown-plate ; Nor throng'st (when masquing is) to have a sight   There wasted, some not...Read more of this...

His Phoenix

by William Butler Yeats
 There is a queen in China, or maybe it's in Spain,
And birthdays and holidays such praises can be heard
Of her unblemished lineaments, a whiteness with no stain,
That she might be that sprightly girl trodden by a bird;
And there's a score of duchesses, surpassing womankind,
Or who have found a painter to make them so for pay
And smooth out stain and...Read more of this...

Goliath Of Gath

by Phillis Wheatley
 SAMUEL, Chap. xvii.

YE martial pow'rs, and all ye tuneful nine,
Inspire my song, and aid my high design.
The dreadful scenes and toils of war I write,
The ardent warriors, and the fields of fight:
You best remember, and you best can sing
The acts of heroes to the vocal string:
Resume the lays with which your sacred lyre,
Did then the poet and the sage...Read more of this...

The Forest Greeting

by Paul Laurence Dunbar
Good hunting!—aye, good hunting,
Wherever the forests call;
But ever a heart beats hot with fear,
And what of the birds that fall?
Good hunting!—aye, good hunting,
Wherever the north winds blow;
But what of the stag that calls for his mate?
And what of the wounded doe?
Good hunting!—aye, good hunting;
And ah! we are bold and strong;
But our triumph call through the forest hall
Is a brother's funeral...Read more of this...

Hymn To Joy

by Friedrich von Schiller
 Joy, thou goddess, fair, immortal,
Offspring of Elysium,
Mad with rapture, to the portal
Of thy holy fame we come!
Fashion's laws, indeed, may sever,
But thy magic joins again;
All mankind are brethren ever
'Neath thy mild and gentle reign.

CHORUS.
Welcome, all ye myriad creatures!
Brethren, take the kiss of love!
Yes, the starry realms above
Hide a Father's smiling features!

He, that noble prize possessing--
He that boasts a friend...Read more of this...

Lines on Hearing it Declared that No Women Were So Handsome as the English

by Mary Darby Robinson
 BEAUTY, the attribute of Heaven! 
In various forms to mortals given, 
With magic skill enslaves mankind, 
As sportive fancy sways the mind. 
Search the wide world, go where you will, 
VARIETY pursues you still; 
Capricious Nature knows no bound, 
Her unexhausted gifts are found 
In ev'ry clime, in ev'ry face, 
Each has its own peculiar grace. 

To GALLIA's frolic...Read more of this...

In the Time of Tyrants

by William Soutar
All that the hand may touch;
All that the hand may own;
Crumbles beyond time’s clutch
Down to oblivion.

Fear not the boasts which wound:
Fear not the threats which bind:
Always on broken ground
The seeds fall from the mind.

Always in darkest loam
A birthday is begun;
And from its catacomb
A candle lights the sun.

...Read more of this...

Ode To Neptune

by Phillis Wheatley
 On Mrs. W-----'s Voyage to England.

I.
WHILE raging tempests shake the shore,
While AElus' thunders round us roar,
And sweep impetuous o'er the plain
Be still, O tyrant of the main;
Nor let thy brow contracted frowns betray,
While my Susanna skims the wat'ry way.

II.
The Pow'r propitious hears the lay,
The blue-ey'd daughters of the sea
With sweeter cadence glide along,
And Thames responsive joins the song.
Pleas'd with...Read more of this...

Sudden Fine Weather

by James Henry Leigh Hunt
 Reader! what soul that laoves a verse can see 
The spring return, nor glow like you and me? 
Hear the quick birds, and see the landscape fill, 
Nor long to utter his melodious will? 

This more than ever leaps into the veins, 
When spring has been delay'd by winds and rains, 
And coming with a burst, comes like a...Read more of this...

25. My Father was a Farmer: A Ballad

by Robert Burns
 MY father was a farmer upon the Carrick border, O,
And carefully he bred me in decency and order, O;
He bade me act a manly part, though I had ne’er a farthing, O;
For without an honest manly heart, no man was worth regarding, O.


Then out into the world my course I did determine, O;
Tho’ to be rich was not my...Read more of this...

Difference Of Station

by Friedrich von Schiller
 Even the moral world its nobility boasts--vulgar natures
Reckon by that which they do; noble, by that which they are....Read more of this...

Elegy On The Death Of A Young Man

by Friedrich von Schiller
 Mournful groans, as when a tempest lowers,
Echo from the dreary house of woe;
Death-notes rise from yonder minster's towers!
Bearing out a youth, they slowly go;
Yes! a youth--unripe yet for the bier,
Gathered in the spring-time of his days,
Thrilling yet with pulses strong and clear,
With the flame that in his bright eye plays--
Yes, a son--the idol of his mother,
(Oh, her mournful sigh...Read more of this...

The Fortune-Favored

by Friedrich von Schiller
 Ah! happy he, upon whose birth each god
Looks down in love, whose earliest sleep the bright
Idalia cradles, whose young lips the rod
Of eloquent Hermes kindles--to whose eyes,
Scarce wakened yet, Apollo steals in light,
While on imperial brows Jove sets the seal of might!
Godlike the lot ordained for him to share,
He wins the garland ere he runs the race;
He learns life's...Read more of this...

To A Young Lady

by John Trumbull
 In vain, fair Maid, you ask in vain,
My pen should try th' advent'rous strain,
And following truth's unalter'd law,
Attempt your character to draw.
I own indeed, that generous mind
That weeps the woes of human kind,
That heart by friendship's charms inspired,
That soul with sprightly fancy fired,
The air of life, the vivid eye,
The flowing wit, the keen reply--
To paint these beauties as they...Read more of this...

Roast Leviathan

by Louis Untermeyer
"Old Jews!" Well, David, aren't we?
What news is that to make you see so red,
To swear and almost tear your beard in half?
Jeered at? Well, let them laugh.
You can laugh longer when you're dead.
What? Are you still too blind to see?
Have you forgot your Midrash!... They were right,
The little goyim, with their angry stones.
You should be buried in the desert...Read more of this...

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