Famous Coat Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Nymphidia The Court Of Fairy (excerpts)

by Michael Drayton
 But let us leave Queen Mab a while,
Through many a gate, o'er many a stile,
That now had gotten by this wile,
Her dear Pigwiggen kissing;
And tell how Oberon doth fare,
Who grew as mad as any hare,
When he had sought each place with care,
And found his queen was missing.
By grisly Pluto he doth swear,
He rent his clothes, and tore his hair,
And...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...

To The Author Of Glare

by David Lehman
 There comes a time when the story turns into twenty
different stories and soon after that he academy of shadows
retreats to the cave of a solitary boy in a thriving

metropolis where no one remembers the original story
whic is, of course, a sign of its great success: to be forgotten
implies you were once known, and that is something we

can prize more...Read more of this...

Josephs Coat

by George Herbert
 Wounded I sing, tormented I indite, 
Thrown down I fall into a bed, and rest: 
Sorrow hath chang'd its note: such is his will 
Who changeth all things, as him pleaseth best. 
For well he knows, if but one grief and smart 
Among my many had his full career, 
Sure it would carry with it ev'n my heart, 
And...Read more of this...

A Coat

by William Butler Yeats
 I made my song a coat
Covered with embroideries
Out of old mythologies
From heel to throat;
But he fools caught it,
Wore it in the world's eyes
As though they'd wrought it.
Song, let them take it,
For there's more enterprise
In walking naked....Read more of this...

The House

by Philip Levine
 They are building a house
half a block down
and I sit up here
with the shades down
listening to the sounds,
the hammers pounding in nails,
thack thack thack thack,
and then I hear birds,
and thack thack thack,
and I go to bed,
I pull the covers to my throat;
they have been building this house
for a month, and soon it will have
its people...sleeping, eating,
loving, moving around,
but somehow
now
it...Read more of this...

The Captain of the Push

by Henry Lawson
 As the night was falling slowly down on city, town and bush, 
From a slum in Jones's Alley sloped the Captain of the Push; 
And he scowled towards the North, and he scowled towards the South, 
As he hooked his little finger in the corners of his mouth. 
Then his whistle, loud and shrill, woke the echoes of the...Read more of this...

215. Song—Hey the Dusty Miller

by Robert Burns
 HEY, the dusty Miller,
 And his dusty coat,
He will win a shilling,
 Or he spend a groat:
Dusty was the coat,
 Dusty was the colour,
Dusty was the kiss
 That I gat frae the Miller.


Hey, the dusty Miller,
 And his dusty sack;
Leeze me on the calling
 Fills the dusty peck:
Fills the dusty peck,
 Brings the dusty siller;
I wad gie my coatie
...Read more of this...

Conversation Among The Ruins

by Sylvia Plath
 Through portico of my elegant house you stalk
With your wild furies, disturbing garlands of fruit
And the fabulous lutes and peacocks, rending the net
Of all decorum which holds the whirlwind back.
Now, rich order of walls is fallen; rooks croak
Above the appalling ruin; in bleak light
Of your stormy eye, magic takes flight
Like a daunted witch, quitting castle when real days break.

Fractured...Read more of this...

Jealousy

by Rupert Brooke
 When I see you, who were so wise and cool,
Gazing with silly sickness on that fool
You've given your love to, your adoring hands
Touch his so intimately that each understands,
I know, most hidden things; and when I know
Your holiest dreams yield to the stupid bow
Of his red lips, and that the empty grace
Of those strong legs and arms, that rosy...Read more of this...

Baby Tortoise

by D. H. Lawrence
 You know what it is to be born alone,
Baby tortoise!
The first day to heave your feet little by little from the shell,
Not yet awake,
And remain lapsed on earth,
Not quite alive.

A tiny, fragile, half-animate bean.

To open your tiny beak-mouth, that looks as if it would never open,

Like some iron door;
To lift the upper hawk-beak from the lower base
And reach your...Read more of this...

True Love

by Robert Penn Warren
 In silence the heart raves.It utters words
Meaningless, that never had
A meaning.I was ten, skinny, red-headed,

Freckled.In a big black Buick,
Driven by a big grown boy, with a necktie, she sat
In front of the drugstore, sipping something

Through a straw. There is nothing like
Beauty. It stops your heart.It
Thickens your blood.It stops your breath.It

Makes you feel dirty.You need a hot bath.
I leaned against...Read more of this...

U was an upper-coat

by Edward Lear
U  was an upper-coat,Woolly and warm,To wear over allIn the snow or the storm.  u! What a nice upper-coat!...Read more of this...

Old Grimes

by Mother Goose
Old Grimes is dead, that good old man,
     We ne'er shall see him more;
He used to wear a long brown coat
     All buttoned down before....Read more of this...

The Sunderland Calamity

by William Topaz McGonagall
 'Twas in the town of Sunderland, and in the year of 1883,
That about 200 children were launch'd into eternity
While witnessing an entertainment in Victoria Hall,
While they, poor little innocents, to God for help did call. 

The entertainment consisted of conjuring, and the ghost illusion play,
Also talking waxworks, and living marionettes, and given by Mr. Fay;
And on this occasion, presents...Read more of this...

The Rhyme of the Three Captains

by Rudyard Kipling
 This ballad appears to refer to one of the exploits of the notorious
Paul Jones, the American pirate. It is founded on fact.


 . . . At the close of a winter day,
Their anchors down, by London town, the Three Great Captains lay;
And one was Admiral of the North from Solway Firth to Skye,
And one was Lord of the Wessex...Read more of this...

Old Mother Hubbard

by Mother Goose
Old Mother Hubbard
Went to the cupboard,
  To give her poor dog a bone;
But when she got there
The cupboard was bare,
  And so the poor dog had none.

She went to the baker's
  To buy him some bread;
When she came back
  The dog was dead.

She went to the undertaker's
  To buy him a coffin;
When she got back
...Read more of this...

Mowglis Song

by Rudyard Kipling
 The Song of Mowgli -- I, Mowgli, am singing. Let
 the jungle listen to the things I have done.
Shere Khan said he would kill -- would kill! At the
 gates in the twilight he would kill Mowgli, the
 Frog!
He ate and he drank. Drink deep, Shere Khan, for
 when wilt thou drink again? Sleep and dream
 of the kill.
I...Read more of this...

Astræ

by Ralph Waldo Emerson
 Himself it was who wrote
His rank, and quartered his own coat.
There is no king nor sovereign state
That can fix a hero's rate;
Each to all is venerable,
Cap-a-pie invulnerable,
Until he write, where all eyes rest,
Slave or master on his breast.

I saw men go up and down
In the country and the town,
With this prayer upon their neck,
"Judgment and a judge we seek."
Not...Read more of this...

If I should cast off this tattered coat

by Stephen Crane
 If I should cast off this tattered coat,
And go free into the mighty sky;
If I should find nothing there
But a vast blue,
Echoless, ignorant --
What then?...Read more of this...

How fits his Umber Coat

by Emily Dickinson
 How fits his Umber Coat
The Tailor of the Nut?
Combined without a seam
Like Raiment of a Dream --

Who spun the Auburn Cloth?
Computed how the girth?
The Chestnut aged grows
In those primeval Clothes --

We know that we are wise --
Accomplished in Surprise --
Yet by this Countryman --
This nature -- how undone!...Read more of this...

248. Pegasus at Wanlockhead

by Robert Burns
 WITH Pegasus upon a day,
 Apollo, weary flying,
Through frosty hills the journey lay,
 On foot the way was plying.


Poor slipshod giddy Pegasus
 Was but a sorry walker;
To Vulcan then Apollo goes,
 To get a frosty caulker.


Obliging Vulcan fell to work,
 Threw by his coat and bonnet,
And did Sol’s business in a crack;
 Sol paid him with a sonnet.


Ye Vulcan’s...Read more of this...

Poor Peter

by Robert William Service
 Blind Peter Piper used to play
All up and down the city;
I'd often meet him on my way,
And throw a coin for pity.
But all amid his sparkling tones
His ear was quick as any
To catch upon the cobble-stones
The jingle of my penny.

And as upon a day that shone
He piped a merry measure:
"How well you play!" I chanced to say;
Poor Peter glowed...Read more of this...

The Locket

by Robert William Service
 From out her shabby rain-coat pocket
The little Jew girl in the train
Produced a dinted silver locket
With pasted in it portraits twain.
"These are my parents, sir" she said;
"Or were, for now I fear they're dead.

"I know to Belsen they were sent;
I never heard of them again.
So many were like that - they went,
Our woeful quest was all in vain.
I was...Read more of this...

Macavity: The Mystery Cat

by T S (Thomas Stearns) Eliot
 Macavity's a Mystery Cat: he's called the Hidden Paw--
For he's the master criminal who can defy the Law.
He's the bafflement of Scotland Yard, the Flying Squad's despair:
For when they reach the scene of crime--Macavity's not there!

Macavity, Macavity, there's no on like Macavity,
He's broken every human law, he breaks the law of gravity.
His powers of levitation would make a fakir...Read more of this...

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