Famous Corn Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Corn poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous corn poems. These examples illustrate what a famous corn poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Helen Hunt Jackson
I never had a title-deed
To my estate. But little heed
Eyes give to me, when I walk by
My fields, to see who occupy.
Some clumsy men who lease and hire
And cut my trees to feed their fire,
Own all the land that I possess,
And tax my tenants to distress.
And if I say I had...Read more of this...
by
Edgar Lee Masters
There is the caw of a crow,
And the hesitant song of a thrush.
There is the tinkle of a cowbell far away,
And the voice of a plowman on Shipley's hill.
The forest beyond the orchard is still
With midsummer stillness;
And along the road a wagon chuckles,
Loaded with corn, going to Atterbury.
And an old man sits under a tree asleep,
And an old woman...Read more of this...
by
Sidney Lanier
To-day the woods are trembling through and through
With shimmering forms, that flash before my view,
Then melt in green as dawn-stars melt in blue.
The leaves that wave against my cheek caress
Like women's hands; the embracing boughs express
A subtlety of mighty tenderness;
The copse-depths into little noises start,
That sound anon like beatings of a heart,
Anon like talk 'twixt lips not far apart.
The...Read more of this...
by
Thomas Moore
Said Cotton to Corn, t'other day,
As they met and exchang'd salute--
(Squire Corn in his carriage so gay,
Poor Cotton, half famish'd on foot):
"Great Squire, if it isn't uncivil
To hint at starvation before you,
Look down on a poor hungry devil,
And give him some bread, I implore you!"
Quoth Corn, then, in answer to Cotton,
Perceiving he meant to make free --
"Low fellow, you've...Read more of this...
by
Algernon Charles Swinburne
Here, where the world is quiet;
Here, where all trouble seems
Dead winds' and spent waves' riot
In doubtful dreams of dreams;
I watch the green field growing
For reaping folk and sowing,
For harvest-time and mowing,
A sleepy world of streams.
I am tired of tears and laughter,
And men that laugh and weep;
Of what may come hereafter
For men that sow to reap:
I am weary of days...Read more of this...
by
Amy Lowell
Softly the water ripples
Against the canoe's curving side,
Softly the birch trees rustle
Flinging over us branches wide.
Softly the moon glints and glistens
As the water takes and leaves,
Like golden ears of corn
Which fall from loose-bound sheaves,
Or like the snow-white petals
Which drop from an overblown rose,
When Summer ripens to Autumn
And the freighted year must close.
From the shore come the scents of a...Read more of this...
by
Rudyard Kipling
To the City of Bombay
The Cities are full of pride,
Challenging each to each --
This from her mountain-side,
That from her burthened beach.
They count their ships full tale --
Their corn and oil and wine,
Derrick and loom and bale,
And rampart's gun-flecked line;
City by City they hail:
"Hast aught to match with mine?"
And the men that breed from them
...Read more of this...
by
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
In the warm yellow smile of the morning,
She stands at the lattice pane,
And watches the strong young binders
Stride down to the fields of grain.
And she counts them over and over
As they pass her cottage door:
Are they six, she counts them seven;
Are they seven, she counts one more.
When the sun swings high in the heavens,
And...Read more of this...
by
Paul Laurence Dunbar
Men may sing of their Havanas, elevating to the stars
The real or fancied virtues of their foreign-made cigars;[Pg 130]
But I worship Nicotina at a different sort of shrine,
And she sits enthroned in glory in this corn-cob pipe of mine.
It 's as fragrant as the meadows when the clover is in bloom;
It 's as dainty as the essence of...Read more of this...
by
Isaac Watts
The punishment of luxury and intemperance.
When Isr'el sins, the Lord reproves
And fills their hearts with dread;
Yet he forgives the men he loves,
And sends them heav'nly bread.
He fed them with a lib'ral hand,
And made his treasures known;
He gave the midnight clouds command
To pour provision down.
The manna, like a morning shower,
Lay thick around their feet
The corn of heav'n, so light, so...Read more of this...
by
Thomas Moore
"What! still those two infernal questions,
That with our meals our slumbers mix --
That spoil our tempers and digestions --
Eternal Corn and Catholics!
Gods! were there ever two such bores?
Nothing else talk'd of night or morn --
Nothing in doors, or out of doors,
But endless Catholics and Corn!
Never was such a brace of pests --
While Ministers, still worse than either,
Skill'd but in...Read more of this...
by
Paul Laurence Dunbar
When the corn 's all cut and the bright stalks shine
Like the burnished spears of a field of gold;
When the field-mice rich on the nubbins dine,
And the frost comes white and the wind blows cold;
Then it's heigho! fellows and hi-diddle-diddle,
For the time is ripe for the corn-stalk fiddle.
And you take a stalk that is straight and long,
With an expert eye...Read more of this...
by
Paul Laurence Dunbar
On the wide veranda white,
In the purple failing light,
Sits the master while the sun is lowly burning;
And his dreamy thoughts are drowned
In the softly flowing sound
Of the corn-songs of the field-hands slow returning.
Oh, we hoe de co'n
Since de ehly mo'n;
Now de sinkin' sun
Says de day is done.
O'er the fields with heavy tread,
Light of heart and high of head,
Though the halting...Read more of this...
by
Carl Sandburg
WRITE your wishes
on the door
and come in.
Stand outside
in the pools of the harvest moon.
Bring in
the handshake of the pumpkins.
There’s a wish
for every hazel nut?
There’s a hope
for every corn shock?
There’s a kiss
for every clumsy climbing shadow?
Clover and the bumblebees once,
high winds and November rain now.
Buy shoes
for rough weather in November.
Buy shirts
to...Read more of this...
by
Sidney Lanier
Ploughman, whose gnarly hand yet kindly wheeled
Thy plough to ring this solitary tree
With clover, whose round plat, reserved a-field,
In cool green radius twice my length may be --
Scanting the corn thy furrows else might yield,
To pleasure August, bees, fair thoughts, and me,
That here come oft together -- daily I,
Stretched prone in summer's mortal ecstasy,
Do stir with thanks to thee,...Read more of this...
by
George Herbert
I struck the board, and cried "No more!
I will abroad.
What, shall I ever sigh and pine?
My lines and life are free; free as the road,
Loose as the wind, as large as store.
Shall I be still in suit?
Have I no harvest but a thorn
To let me blood, and not restore
What I have lost with cordial fruit?
Sure there was wine
Before my...Read more of this...
by
Rudyard Kipling
So we settled it all when the storm was done
As comfy as comfy could be;
And I was to wait in the barn, my dears,
Because I was only three.
And Teddy would run to the rainbow's foot
Because he was five and a man--
And that's how it all began, my dears,
And that's how it all began!
Then we brought the lances down--then the...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
There is a June when Corn is cut
And Roses in the Seed --
A Summer briefer than the first
But tenderer indeed
As should a Face supposed the Grave's
Emerge a single Noon
In the Vermilion that it wore
Affect us, and return --
Two Seasons, it is said, exist --
The Summer of the Just,
And this of Ours, diversified
With Prospect, and with Frost --
May not our...Read more of this...
by
Rudyard Kipling
To the City of Bombay
The Cities are full of pride,
Challenging each to each --
This from her mountain-side,
That from her burthened beach.
They count their ships full tale --
Their corn and oil and wine,
Derrick and loom and bale,
And rampart's gun-flecked line;
City by City they hail:
"Hast aught to match with mine?"
And the men that breed from them
...Read more of this...
by
Carl Sandburg
THERE was a high majestic fooling
Day before yesterday in the yellow corn.
And day after to-morrow in the yellow corn
There will be high majestic fooling.
The ears ripen in late summer
And come on with a conquering laughter,
Come on with a high and conquering laughter.
The long-tailed blackbirds are hoarse.
One of the smaller blackbirds chitters on a stalk
And a spot of red is...Read more of this...
by
John Dryden
(Comus.) Your hay it is mow'd, and your corn is reap'd;
Your barns will be full, and your hovels heap'd:
Come, my boys, come;
Come, my boys, come;
And merrily roar out Harvest Home.
(Chorus.) Come, my boys, come;
Come, my boys, come;
And merrily roar out Harvest Home.
(Man.) We ha' cheated the parson, we'll cheat him agen,
For why should a blockhead ha' one in ten?
One...Read more of this...
by
John Clare
See what delights in sylvan scenes appear!
Descending Gods have found Elysium here.
In woods bright Venus with Adonis stray'd,
And chaste Diana haunts the forest shade.
Come lovely nymph, and bless the silent hours,
When swains from shearing seek their nightly bow'rs;
When weary reapers quit the sultry field,
And crown'd with corn, their thanks to Ceres yield.
This...Read more of this...
by
Sarojini Naidu
O little mouse, why dost thou cry
While merry stars laugh in the sky?
Alas! alas! my lord is dead!
Ah, who will ease my bitter pain?
He went to seek a millet-grain
In the rich farmer's granary shed;
They caught him in a baited snare,
And slew my lover unaware:
Alas! alas! my lord is dead.
O little deer,...Read more of this...
by
Katharine Tynan
The house where I was born,
Where I was young and gay,
Grows old amid its corn,
Amid its scented hay.
Moan of the cushat dove,
In silence rich and deep;
The old head I love
Nods to its quiet sleep.
Where once were nine and ten
Now two keep house together;
The doves moan and complain
All day in...Read more of this...
by
Les Murray
Scarlet as the cloth draped over a sword,
white as steaming rice, blue as leschenaultia,
old curried towns, the frog in its green human skin;
a ploughman walking his furrow as if in irons, but
as at a whoop of young men running loose
in brick passages, there occurred the thought
like instant stitches all through crumpled silk:
as if he'd had to leap to catch...Read more of this...
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