Famous Coals Poems by Famous Poets

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

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87. The Twa Dogs

...ke you have;
An’ when the gentry’s life I saw,
What way poor bodies liv’d ava.
 Our laird gets in his racked rents,
His coals, his kane, an’ a’ his stents:
He rises when he likes himsel’;
His flunkies answer at the bell;
He ca’s his coach; he ca’s his horse;
He draws a bonie silken purse,
As lang’s my tail, where, thro’ the steeks,
The yellow letter’d Geordie keeks.
 Frae morn to e’en, it’s nought but toiling
At baking, roasting, frying, boiling;
An’ tho’ the gentry first are...Read more of this...
by Burns, Robert


As I Sat Alone by Blue Ontario's Shores

...es, these little piping
 straws,
 these gnats, that fill the hour, to pass for poets;)
Bards with songs as from burning coals, or the lightning’s fork’d stripes! 
Ample Ohio’s bards—bards for California! inland bards—bards of the war;) 
(As a wheel turns on its axle, so I find my chants turning finally on the war;) 
Bards of pride! Bards tallying the ocean’s roar, and the swooping eagle’s
 scream! 
You, by my charm, I invoke!...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt

Avons Harvest

...ad partly been consumed 
By the black trees, framed on the other wall
A glimmering window not far from the ground. 
The coals were going, and only a few sparks 
Were there to tell of them; and as they died 
The window lightened, and I saw the trees. 
They moved a little, but I could not move,
More than to turn my face the other way; 
And then, if you must have it so, I slept. 
We’ll call it so—if sleep is your best name 
For a sort of conscious, frozen catalepsy 
Wherein a ma...Read more of this...
by Robinson, Edwin Arlington

Colors Passing Through Us

...ry day 
I will paint you, as women 
color each other with henna 
on hands and on feet. 

Red as henna, as cinnamon, 
as coals after the fire is banked, 
the cardinal in the feeder, 
the roses tumbling on the arbor 
their weight bending the wood 
the red of the syrup I make from petals. 

Orange as the perfumed fruit 
hanging their globes on the glossy tree, 
orange as pumpkins in the field, 
orange as butterflyweed and the monarchs 
who come to eat it, orange as my 
cat runni...Read more of this...
by Piercy, Marge

Custer

...III.
Staked to the earth one helpless creature lies, 
Flames at his feet and splinters in his eyes.
Another groans with coals upon his breast, 
While 'round the pyre the Indians dance and jest.
A crying child is brained upon a tree, 
The swooning mother saved from death, to be 
The slave and plaything of a filthy knave, 
Whose sins would startle hell, whose clay defile a grave.



XIX.
Their cause was right, their methods all were wrong.
Pity and censure both to them belong.
...Read more of this...
by Wilcox, Ella Wheeler


Elegy XVIII: Loves Progress

...e's an infernal god, and under ground
With Pluto dwells, where gold and fire abound:
Men to such gods their sacrificing coals
Did not in altars lay, but pits and holes.
Although we see celestial bodies move
Above the earth, the earth we till and love:
So we her airs contemplate, words and heart
And virtues, but we love the centric part.
Nor is the soul more worthy, or more fit,
For love than this, as infinite is it.
But in attaining this desired place
How much they err that s...Read more of this...
by Donne, John

Gunga Din

...'im later on
At the place where 'e is gone --
Where it's always double drill and no canteen;
'E'll be squattin' on the coals
Givin' drink to poor damned souls,
An' I'll get a swig in hell from Gunga Din!
 Yes, Din! Din! Din!
 You Lazarushian-leather Gunga Din!
 Though I've belted you and flayed you,
 By the livin' Gawd that made you,
 You're a better man than I am, Gunga Din!...Read more of this...
by Kipling, Rudyard

Loyalty

...le. 
The local bourgeoisie did not exist.
One of them was a mystic 
and walked right over me 
as if I were a bed of hot coals.
This is par for the course-
I will be employing sundry golf metaphors 
henceforth, because a dog, best friend 
and chief advisor to the General, should. 
While dining with the General I said,
"Let's play the back nine in a sacred rage. 
Let's tee-off over the foredoomed community 
and putt ourselves thunderously, touching bottom." 
He drank it all in,...Read more of this...
by Tate, James

Loyalty

...le. 
The local bourgeoisie did not exist.
One of them was a mystic 
and walked right over me 
as if I were a bed of hot coals.
This is par for the course-
I will be employing sundry golf metaphors 
henceforth, because a dog, best friend 
and chief advisor to the General, should. 
While dining with the General I said,
"Let's play the back nine in a sacred rage. 
Let's tee-off over the foredoomed community 
and putt ourselves thunderously, touching bottom." 
He drank it all in,...Read more of this...
by Taylor, Edward

Paradise Regained: The Second Book

...also, how he fled 
Into the desert, and how there he slept
Under a juniper—then how, awaked,
He found his supper on the coals prepared,
And by the Angel was bid rise and eat,
And eat the second time after repose,
The strength whereof sufficed him forty days:
Sometimes that with Elijah he partook,
Or as a guest with Daniel at his pulse.
Thus wore out night; and now the harald Lark
Left his ground-nest, high towering to descry 
The Morn's approach, and greet her with his song.
...Read more of this...
by Milton, John

Snowbound a Winter Idyl

...the sea. 
We shared the fishing off Boar's Head, 
And round the rocky Isles of Shoals 
The hake-broil on the drift-wood coals; 
The chowder on the sand-beach made, 
Dipped by the hungry, steaming hot, 
With spoons of clam-shell from the pot. 
We heard the tales of witchcraft old, 
And dream and sign and marvel told 
To sleepy listeners as they lay 
Stretched idly on the salted hay, 
Adrift along the winding shores, 
When favoring breezes deigned to blow 
The square sail of th...Read more of this...
by Whittier, John Greenleaf

Song of Solomon

...art, as a seal upon thine arm:
           for love is strong as death; jealousy is cruel as the grave:
           the coals thereof are coals of fire, which hath a most
           vehement flame.

22:008:007 Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown
           it: if a man would give all the substance of his house for
           love, it would utterly be contemned.

22:008:008 We have a little sister, and she hath no breasts: what shall
          ...Read more of this...
by Bible, The

The Ballad Of Pious Pete

...e swore and bade me make tracks from his claim.
I started to tell of the horrors of hell, when sudden his eyes lit like coals;
And "Chuck it," says he, "don't persecute me with your cant and your saving of souls."
I'll swear I was mild as I'd be with a child, but he called me the son of a ****;
And, grabbing his gun with a leap and a run, he threatened my face with the butt.
So what could I do (I leave it to you)? With curses he harried me forth;
Then he was alone, and I was ...Read more of this...
by Service, Robert William

The Millers Tale

...htingale. *quavering
He sent her piment , mead, and spiced ale,
And wafers* piping hot out of the glede**: *cakes **coals
And, for she was of town, he proffer'd meed.
For some folk will be wonnen for richess,
And some for strokes, and some with gentiless.
Sometimes, to show his lightness and mast'ry,
He playeth Herod  on a scaffold high.
But what availeth him as in this case?
So loveth she the Hendy Nicholas,
That Absolon may *blow the bucke's horn*: *"go whistle"...Read more of this...
by Chaucer, Geoffrey

The Occultation Of Orion

....
As if she heard the voice of God,
Unharmed with naked feet she trod
Upon the hot and burning stars,
As on the glowing coals and bars,
That were to prove her strength, and try
Her holiness and her purity.

Thus moving on, with silent pace,
And triumph in her sweet, pale face,
She reached the station of Orion.
Aghast he stood in strange alarm!
And suddenly from his outstretched arm
Down fell the red skin of the lion
Into the river at his feet.
His mighty club no longer beat
T...Read more of this...
by Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth

The Prophet

...nakes 
Into my deadly stoned mouth. 
With his sharp sword he cleaved my breast,
And plucked my quivering heart out,
And coals flamed with God's behest, 
Into my gaping breast were ground.
Like dead I lay on desert sands,
And listened to the God's commands:
'Arise, O prophet, hark and see, 
Be filled with utter My demands,
And, going over Land and Sea,
Burn with your Word the humane hearts.'...Read more of this...
by Pushkin, Alexander

The Quality of Courage

...nest in, 
And fires, innumerable fires, 
Great fagots hurling golden gyres 
Of sparks far up, and the red heart 
In sea-coals, crashing as they part 
To tiny flares, and kindling snapping, 
Bunched sticks that burst their string and wrapping 
And fall like jackstraws; green and blue 
The evil flames of driftwood too, 
And heavy, sullen lumps of coke 
With still, fierce heat and ugly smoke. . . . 
. . . And then the vision of his face, 
And theirs, all theirs, came like a swor...Read more of this...
by Benet, Stephen Vincent

The Reeves Tale

...do, then will we speak,
Yet in our ashes cold does fire reek.* *smoke
Four gledes* have we, which I shall devise**, *coals ** describe
Vaunting, and lying, anger, covetise*. *covetousness
These foure sparks belongen unto eld.
Our olde limbes well may be unweld*, *unwieldy
But will shall never fail us, that is sooth.
And yet have I alway a coltes tooth,
As many a year as it is passed and gone
Since that my tap of life began to run;
For sickerly*, when I was born, anon *c...Read more of this...
by Chaucer, Geoffrey

The Shadow

...-pane.
A grey and shadowless morning filled
The little shop. The watches, chilled,
Were dead and sparkless as burnt-out coals.
The gems lay on the table like shoals
Of stranded shells, their colours faded,
Mere heaps of stone, dull and degraded.
Paul's head was heavy, his hands obeyed
No orders, for his fancy strayed.
His work became a simple round
Of watches repaired and watches wound.
The slanting ribbons of the rain
Broke themselves on the window-pane,
But Paul saw the sil...Read more of this...
by Lowell, Amy

To Stella Who Collected and Transcribed His Poems

...when his credit's out,
Surprise him with a pint of stout;
Or patch his broken stocking soles;
Or send him in a peck of coals;
Exalted in his mighty mind,
He flies and leaves the stars behind;
Counts all his labours amply paid,
Adores her for the timely aid.
Or, should a porter make inquiries
For Chloe, Sylvia, Phillis, Iris;
Be told the lodging, lane, and sign,
The bowers that hold those nymphs divine;
Fair Chloe would perhaps be found
With footmen tippling under ground;
The...Read more of this...
by Swift, Jonathan

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