Famous Butler Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Butler poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous butler poems. These examples illustrate what a famous butler poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Yeats, William Butler
...My Soul. I summon to the winding ancient stair;
Set all your mind upon the steep ascent,
Upon the broken, crumbling battlement,
Upon the breathless starlit air,
"Upon the star that marks the hidden pole;
Fix every wandering thought upon
That quarter where all thought is done:
Who can distinguish darkness from the soul
My Self. The consecretes blad...Read more of this...
by
Yeats, William Butler
...A mermaid found a swimming lad,
Picked him for her own,
Pressed her body to his body,
Laughed; and plunging down
Forgot in cruel happiness
That even lovers drown....Read more of this...
by
Yeats, William Butler
...Once more the storm is howling, and half hid
Under this cradle-hood and coverlid
My child sleeps on. There is no obstacle
But Gregory's wood and one bare hill
Whereby the haystack- and roof-levelling wind.
Bred on the Atlantic, can be stayed;
And for an hour I have walked and prayed
Because of the great gloom that is in my mind.
I have walked ...Read more of this...
by
Yeats, William Butler
...Epilogue to "A Vision'
MIDNIGHT has come, and the great Christ Church Bell
And may a lesser bell sound through the room;
And it is All Souls' Night,
And two long glasses brimmed with muscatel
Bubble upon the table. A ghost may come;
For it is a ghost's right,
His element is so fine
Being sharpened by his death,
To drink from the wine-breath
While our ...Read more of this...
by
Yeats, William Butler
...I
I walk through the long schoolroom questioning;
A kind old nun in a white hood replies;
The children learn to cipher and to sing,
To study reading-books and histories,
To cut and sew, be neat in everything
In the best modern way - the children's eyes
In momentary wonder stare upon
A sixty-year-old smiling public man.
II
I dream of a Ledaean body,...Read more of this...
by
Yeats, William Butler
...I
Blessed be this place,
More blessed still this tower;
A bloody, arrogant power
Rose out of the race
Uttering, mastering it,
Rose like these walls from these
Storm-beaten cottages -
In mockery I have set
A powerful emblem up,
And sing it rhyme upon rhyme
In mockery of a time
Half dead at the top.
II
Alexandria's was a beacon tower, and Babylon's
An...Read more of this...
by
Yeats, William Butler
...What they undertook to do
They brought to pass;
All things hang like a drop of dew
Upon a blade of grass....Read more of this...
by
Yeats, William Butler
...Earth in beauty dressed
Awaits returning spring.
All true love must die,
Alter at the best
Into some lesser thing.
Prove that I lie.
Such body lovers have,
Such exacting breath,
That they touch or sigh.
Every touch they give,
Love is nearer death.
Prove that I lie....Read more of this...
by
Nash, Ogden
...How wise I am to have instructed the butler
to instruct the first footman to instruct the second
footman to instruct the doorman to order my carriage;
I am about to volunteer a definition of marriage.
Just as I know that there are two Hagens, Walter and Copen,
I know that marriage is a legal and religious alliance entered
into by a man who can't sleep with the window shut and a
woman who ca...Read more of this...
by
Yeats, William Butler
...I. Ancestral Houses
Surely among a rich man's flowering lawns,
Amid the rustle of his planted hills,
Life overflows without ambitious pains;
And rains down life until the basin spills,
And mounts more dizzy high the more it rains
As though to choose whatever shape it wills
And never stoop to a mechanical
Or servile shape, at others' beck and call....Read more of this...
by
Yeats, William Butler
...'In our time the destiny of man prevents its meanings
in political terms.' -- Thomas Mann.
How can I, that girl standing there,
My attention fix
On Roman or on Russian
Or on Spanish politics?
Yet here's a travelled man that knows
What he talks about,
And there's a politician
That has read and thought,
And maybe what they say is true
Of war and wa...Read more of this...
by
Hugo, Victor
...e the bird
That alights and sings
Though the frail spray bends—
For he knows he has wings.
FANNY KEMBLE (BUTLER)
...Read more of this...
by
Butler, Ellis Parker
...Listen, ladies, while I sing
The ballad of John Henry King.
John Henry was a bachelor,
His age was thirty-three or four.
Two maids for his affection vied,
And each desired to be his bride,
And bravely did they strive to bring
Unto their feet John Henry King.
John Henry liked them both so well,
To save his life he could not tell
Which he mo...Read more of this...
by
Yeats, William Butler
...The cat went here and there
And the moon spun round like a top,
And the nearest kin of the moon,
The creeping cat, looked up.
Black Minnaloushe stared at the moon,
For, wander and wail as he would,
The pure cold light in the sky
Troubled his animal blood.
Minnaloushe runs in the grass
Lifting his delicate feet.
Do you dance, Minnaloushe, do you...Read more of this...
by
Yeats, William Butler
...A cursing rogue with a merry face,
A bundle of rags upon a crutch,
Stumbled upon that windy place
Called Cruachan, and it was as much
As the one sturdy leg could do
To keep him upright while he cursed.
He had counted, where long years ago
Queen Maeve's nine Maines had been nursed,
A pair of lapwings, one old sheep,
And not a house to the plain's edge,
...Read more of this...
by
Yeats, William Butler
...I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;
Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.
And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnigh...Read more of this...
by
Chaucer, Geoffrey
...fondling term, and suggests that the "pigs-
eye," which is very small, was applied in the same sense.
Davenport and Butler both use the word pigsnie, the first for
"darling," the second literally for "eye;" and Bishop Gardner,
"On True Obedience," in his address to the reader, says: "How
softly she was wont to chirpe him under the chin, and kiss him;
how prettily she could talk to him (how doth my sweet heart,
what saith now pig's-eye)."
13. Oseney: A once well-k...Read more of this...
by
Yeats, William Butler
...An old man cocked his car upon a bridge;
He and his friend, their faces to the South,
Had trod the uneven road. Their hoots were soiled,
Their Connemara cloth worn out of shape;
They had kept a steady pace as though their beds,
Despite a dwindling and late-risen moon,
Were distant still. An old man cocked his ear.
Aherne. What made t...Read more of this...
by
Butler, Ellis Parker
...Observe, my child, this pretty scene,
And note the air of pleasure keen
With which the widow’s orphan boy
Toots his tin horn, his only toy.
What need of costly gifts has he?
The widow has nowhere to flee.
And ample noise his horn emits
To drive the widow into fits.
MORAL:
The philosophic mind can see
The uses of adversity....Read more of this...
by
Yeats, William Butler
...WHEN you are old and gray and full of sleep
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;
How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true;
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your...Read more of this...
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