Famous Bore Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Sonnet 125: Weret aught to me I bore the canopy

by William Shakespeare
 Were't aught to me I bore the canopy,
With my extern the outward honouring,
Or laid great bases for eternity,
Which proves more short than waste or ruining?
Have I not seen dwellers on form and favour
Lose all, and more, by paying too much rent
For compound sweet forgoing simple savour,
Pitiful thrivers in their gazing spent?
No, let me be obsequious in thy heart,
And take...Read more of this...

Any Wife To Any Husband

by Robert Browning
 I

My love, this is the bitterest, that thou
Who art all truth and who dost love me now
As thine eyes say, as thy voice breaks to say— 
Shouldst love so truly and couldst love me still
A whole long life through, had but love its will,
Would death that leads me from thee brook delay!

II

I have but to be by thee, and...Read more of this...

Drinking Song

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
 INSCRIPTION FOR AN ANTIQUE PITCHER

Come, old friend! sit down and listen!
From the pitcher, placed between us,
How the waters laugh and glisten
In the head of old Silenus!

Old Silenus, bloated, drunken,
Led by his inebriate Satyrs;
On his breast his head is sunken,
Vacantly he leers and chatters.

Fauns with youthful Bacchus follow;
Ivy crowns that brow supernal
As the forehead of Apollo,
And possessing youth eternal.

Round about...Read more of this...

It was a Grave yet bore no Stone

by Emily Dickinson
 It was a Grave, yet bore no Stone
Enclosed 'twas not of Rail
A Consciousness its Acre, and
It held a Human Soul.

Entombed by whom, for what offence
If Home or Foreign born --
Had I the curiosity
'Twere not appeased of men

Till Resurrection, I must guess
Denied the small desire
A Rose upon its Ridge to sow
Or take away a Briar....Read more of this...

After great pain a formal feeling comes

by Emily Dickinson
 After great pain, a formal feeling comes --
The Nerves sit ceremonious, like Tombs --
The stiff Heart questions was it He, that bore,
And Yesterday, or Centuries before?

The Feet, mechanical, go round --
Of Ground, or Air, or Ought --
A Wooden way
Regardless grown,
A Quartz contentment, like a stone --

This is the Hour of Lead --
Remembered, if outlived,
As Freezing persons, recollect the Snow...Read more of this...

Mary and Gabriel

by Rupert Brooke
 Young Mary, loitering once her garden way,
Felt a warm splendour grow in the April day,
As wine that blushes water through. And soon,
Out of the gold air of the afternoon,
One knelt before her: hair he had, or fire,
Bound back above his ears with golden wire,
Baring the eager marble of his face.
Not man's nor woman's was the immortal grace
Rounding the limbs...Read more of this...

Where is the Slave

by Thomas Moore
 Oh, where's the slave so lowly, 
Condemn'd to chains unholy, 
Who, could he burst 
His bonds at first, 
Would pine beneath them slowly? 
What soul, whose wrongs degrade it, 
Would wait till time decay'd it, 
When thus its wing 
At once may spring 
To the throne of Him who made it? 

Farewell, Erin, -- farewell, all, 
Who live to...Read more of this...

The Hostage

by Friedrich von Schiller
 The tyrant Dionys to seek,
Stern Moerus with his poniard crept;
The watchful guard upon him swept;
The grim king marked his changeless cheek:
"What wouldst thou with thy poniard? Speak!"
"The city from the tyrant free!"
"The death-cross shall thy guerdon be."

"I am prepared for death, nor pray,"
Replied that haughty man, "I to live;
Enough, if thou one grace wilt give
For three brief suns the...Read more of this...

Earendil

by J R R Tolkien
 Earendil was a mariner
that tarried in Arvernien;
he built a boat of timber felled
in Nimbrethil to journey in;
her sails he wove of silver fair,
of silver were her lanterns made,
her prow was fashioned like a swan
and light upon her banners laid.

In panolpy of ancient kings,
in chained rings he armoured him;
his shining shield was scored with runes
to ward all wounds and harm...Read more of this...

Two butterflies went out at Noon --

by Emily Dickinson
 Two butterflies went out at Noon --
And waltzed upon a Farm --
Then stepped straight through the Firmament
And rested, on a Beam --

And then -- together bore away
Upon a shining Sea --
Though never yet, in any Port --
Their coming, mentioned -- be --

If spoken by the distant Bird --
If met in Ether Sea
By Frigate, or by Merchantman --
No notice --...Read more of this...

Neighbors

by Edwin Arlington Robinson
 As often as we thought of her, 
We thought of a gray life 
That made a quaint economist 
Of a wolf-haunted wife; 
We made the best of all she bore 
That was not ours to bear, 
And honored her for wearing things 
That were not things to wear.

There was a distance in her look 
That made us look again;...Read more of this...

Birds Of A Feather

by Robert William Service
 Of bosom friends I've had but seven,
 Despite my years are ripe;
I hope they're now enjoying Heaven,
 Although they're not the type;
Nor, candidly, no more am I,
 Though overdue to die.

For looking back I see that they
 Were weak and wasteful men;
They loved a sultry jest alway,
 And women now and then.
They smoked and gambled, soused and swore,
 --Yet...Read more of this...

Had we known the Ton she bore

by Emily Dickinson
 Had we known the Ton she bore
We had helped the terror
But she straighter walked for Freight
So be hers the error --...Read more of this...

Tinuviel

by J R R Tolkien
 The leaves were long, the grass was green,
The hemlock-umbels tall and fair,
And in the glade a light was seen
Of stars in shadow shimmering.
Tinuviel was dancing there
To music of a pipe unseen,
And light of stars was in her hair,
And in her raiment glimmering.

There Beren came from mountains cold,
And lost he wandered under leaves,
And where the Elven-river rolled,
He walked alone and...Read more of this...

I Am Like One That For Long Days Had Sate

by Robert Louis Stevenson
 I AM like one that for long days had sate,
With seaward eyes set keen against the gale,
On some lone foreland, watching sail by sail,
The portbound ships for one ship that was late;
And sail by sail, his heart burned up with joy,
And cruelly was quenched, until at last
One ship, the looked-for pennant at its mast,
Bore gaily, and dropt safely past...Read more of this...

Hudsons Last Voyage

by Henry Van Dyke
 June 22, 1611 

THE SHALLOP ON HUDSON BAY 

One sail in sight upon the lonely sea
And only one, God knows! For never ship 
But mine broke through the icy gates that guard 
These waters, greater grown than any since
We left the shores of England. We were first, 
My men, to battle in between the bergs
And floes to these wide...Read more of this...

Mactavish

by Robert William Service
 I do not write for love of pelf,
Nor lust for phantom fame;
I do not rhyme to please myself,
Nor yet to win acclaim:
No, strange to say it is my plan,
What gifts I have, to lavish
Upon a simple working man
 MACTAVISH.

For that's the rather smeary name,
Of dreary toil a hinter,
That heads the galley proofs that came
This morning from my printer;
My patient...Read more of this...

To Tu Fu from Shantung

by Li Po
 You ask how I spend my time--
I nestle against a treetrunk
and listen to autumn winds
in the pines all night and day.

Shantung wine can't get me drunk.
The local poets bore me.
My thoughts remain with you,
like the Wen River, endlessly flowing....Read more of this...

She bore it till the simple veins

by Emily Dickinson
 She bore it till the simple veins
Traced azure on her hand --
Til pleading, round her quiet eyes
The purple Crayons stand.

Till Daffodils had come and gone
I cannot tell the sum,
And then she ceased to bear it --
And with the Saints sat down.

No more her patient figure
At twilight soft to meet --
No more her timid bonnet
Upon the village street --

But Crowns...Read more of this...

Poets Path

by Robert William Service
 My garden hath a slender path
With ivy overgrown,
A secret place where once would pace
A pot all alone;
I see him now with fretted brow,
Plunged deep in thought;
And sometimes he would write maybe,
And sometimes he would not.

A verse a day he used to say
Keeps worry from the door;
Without the stink of printer's ink
How life would be a bore!
And so from chime...Read more of this...

How Samson Bore Away the Gates of Gaza

by Vachel Lindsay
 (A ***** Sermon.)


Once, in a night as black as ink,
She drove him out when he would not drink.
Round the house there were men in wait
Asleep in rows by the Gaza gate.
But the Holy Spirit was in this man.
Like a gentle wind he crept and ran.
("It is midnight," said the big town clock.)

He lifted the gates up, post and lock.
The...Read more of this...

Whose cheek is this?

by Emily Dickinson
 Whose cheek is this?
What rosy face
Has lost a blush today?
I found her -- "pleiad" -- in the woods
And bore her safe away.

Robins, in the tradition
Did cover such with leaves,
But which the cheek --
And which the pall
My scrutiny deceives....Read more of this...

Sonnet 14 - If thou must love me let it be for nought

by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
 If thou must love me, let it be for nought
Except for love's sake only. Do not say
'I love her for her smile—her look—her way
Of speaking gently,—for a trick of thought
That falls in well with mine, and certes brought
A sense of pleasant ease on such a day'—
For these things in themselves, Beloved, may
Be changed, or change for thee,—and love, so...Read more of this...

Sonnet CXXV

by William Shakespeare
  Were 't aught to me I bore the canopy,
With my extern the outward honouring,
Or laid great bases for eternity,
Which prove more short than waste or ruining?
Have I not seen dwellers on form and favour
Lose all, and more, by paying too much rent,
For compound sweet forgoing simple savour,
Pitiful thrivers, in their gazing spent?
No, let me be obsequious in thy...Read more of this...

All Alone

by Mary Darby Robinson
 I. 

Ah! wherefore by the Church-yard side,
Poor little LORN ONE, dost thou stray?
Thy wavy locks but thinly hide
The tears that dim thy blue-eye's ray;
And wherefore dost thou sigh, and moan,
And weep, that thou art left alone?


II. 

Thou art not left alone, poor boy,
The Trav'ller stops to hear thy tale;
No heart, so hard, would thee annoy!
For tho' thy mother's cheek...Read more of this...

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