Famous Counting Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Counting poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous counting poems. These examples illustrate what a famous counting poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Sidney, Sir Philip
...e by her I loue and lacke, that I
Was not in fault, who bent thy dazling race
Onely vnto the heau'n of Stellas face,
Counting but dust what in the way did lie.
But cease, mine eyes, your teares do witnesse well
That you, guiltlesse thereof, your nectar mist:
Curst be the page from whome the bad torch fell:
Curst be the night which did your strife resist:
Curst be the coachman that did driue so fast,
With no lesse curse then absence makes me tast.
CVI
O ...Read more of this...
by
Tebb, Barry
...ex-brother-in-law’s ex-wife called
Round with a book but you told her to
Sling her hook and we sat on the worn couch
Counting the years with their bits of luck.
65
At midnight you said I’d have to stay
Night buses don’t run anymore anyway
And you didn’t give me a funny look
Or make anything out of anything, you
Just took off your top and asked me to
Unhook your bra, letting everything else
Fall to the floor.
66
Forty years went
Out of the windo...Read more of this...
by
Larkin, Philip
...of the crew
That tap and jot and know what rood-lofts were?
Some ruin-bibber randy for antique
Or Christmas-addict counting on a whiff
Of grown-and-bands and organ-pipes and myrrh?
Or will he be my representative
Bored uninformed knowing the ghostly silt
Dispersed yet tending to this cross of ground
Through suburb scrub because it held unspilt
So long and equably what since is found
Only in separation--marriage and birth
And death and thoughts of these--for w...Read more of this...
by
Ali, Muhammad
...punch raises the Bear
clean out of the ring.
Liston is still rising and the ref wears a frown,
For he can't start counting
till Sonny goes down.
Now Liston is disappearing from view,
The crowd is going frantic,
But radar stations have picked him up,
Somewhere over the Atlantic.
Who would have thought
when they came to the fight?
That they'd witness the launching
of a human satellite.
Yes the crowd did not dream,
when they put up the money,
That t...Read more of this...
by
Bly, Robert
...Let's count the bodies over again.
If we could only make the bodies smaller
The size of skulls
We could make a whole plain white with skulls in the moonlight!
If we could only make the bodies smaller
Maybe we could get
A whole year's kill in front of us on a desk!
If we could only make the bodies smaller
We could fit
A body into a fin...Read more of this...
by
Wilcox, Ella Wheeler
...see! yon rays spread near and far;
It is the day's first smile, the radiant morning star.
XI.
The long hours counting till the daylight broke,
In whispered words the restless warriors spoke.
They talked of battles, but they thought of home
(For hearts are faithful though the feet may roam) .
Brave Hamilton, all eager for the strife,
Mused o'er that two-fold mystery-death and life;
'And when I die, ' quoth he, ' mine be the part
To fall upon the field, a...Read more of this...
by
Frost, Robert
...The heart can think of no devotion
Greater than being shore to the ocean--
Holding the curve of one position,
Counting an endless repetition....Read more of this...
by
Keats, John
...is old grief. For many days,
Has he been wandering in uncertain ways:
Through wilderness, and woods of mossed oaks;
Counting his woe-worn minutes, by the strokes
Of the lone woodcutter; and listening still,
Hour after hour, to each lush-leav'd rill.
Now he is sitting by a shady spring,
And elbow-deep with feverous fingering
Stems the upbursting cold: a wild rose tree
Pavilions him in bloom, and he doth see
A bud which snares his fancy: lo! but now
He plucks it, dips i...Read more of this...
by
Whitman, Walt
...gain, and the
listening on the alert,
The natural, perfect, varied attitudes—the bent head, the curv’d neck, and the
counting;
Such-like I love—I loosen myself, pass freely, am at the mother’s breast with the
little child,
Swim with the swimmers, wrestle with wrestlers, march in line with the firemen, and pause,
listen, and count.
3
I know a man, a common farmer—the father of five sons;
And in them were the fathers of sons—and in them were the fathers of sons.Read more of this...
by
Tennyson, Alfred Lord
..., and lightly bring me word."
Then went Sir Bedivere the second time
Across the ridge, and paced beside the mere,
Counting the dewy pebbles, fix'd in thought;
But when he saw the wonder of the hilt,
How curiously and strangely chased, he smote
His palms together, and he cried aloud:
"And if indeed I cast the brand away,
Surely a precious thing, one worthy note,
Should thus be lost for ever from the earth,
Which might have pleased the eyes of many men.
What good sh...Read more of this...
by
Nemerov, Howard
...on
Talking about form, talking about myth
And the (so help us) need for a modern idiom;
The verseballs among them kept counting syllables.
So there he was, this forty-year-old teen-ager
Dreaming preposterous mergers and divisions
Of vowels like water, consonants like rock
(While everybody kept discussing values
And the need for values), for words that would
Enter the silence and be there as a light.
So much coffee and so many cigarettes
Gone down the drain, gone up ...Read more of this...
by
Robinson, Edwin Arlington
...might say that and then be shot,”
I told him; and he said: “Why not?”
I ceased, and gave him rather more
Than he was counting of my store.
“And since I have it, thanks to you,
Don’t ask me what I mean to do,”
Said he. “Believe that even I
Would rather tell the truth than lie—
On Christmas Eve. No matter why.”
His unshaved, educated face,
His inextinguishable grace.
And his hard smile, are with me still,
Deplore the vision as I will;
For whatso...Read more of this...
by
Drinkwater, John
...nd should I love you more than any thing
You would but be of idle love possessed,
A mere love wandering in appetite,
Counting your glories and yet bringing none,
Finding in you occasions of delight,
A thief of payment for no service done.
But when of labouring life I make a song
And bring it you, as that were my reward,
To let what most is me to you belong,
Then do I come of high possessions lord,
And loving life more than my love of you
I give you love more ex...Read more of this...
by
Seeger, Alan
...any purpose, felt the need to praise
And seek the angelic image to adore,
In love with Love, its wonderful, sweet ways
Counting what most makes life worth living for,
That so some relic may be his to see
How I loved these things too and they were dear to me.
I sometimes think a conscious happiness
Mantles through all the rose's sentient vine
When summer winds with myriad calyces
Of bloom its clambering height incarnadine;
I sometimes think that cleaving lips, no less,
A...Read more of this...
by
Sexton, Anne
...otostat of your will
arrived in the mail today.
This is the division of money.
I am one third
of your daughters counting my bounty
or I am a queen alone
in the parlor still,
eating the bread and honey.
It is Good Friday.
Black birds pick at my window sill.
Your coat in my closet,
your bright stones on my hand,
the gaudy fur animals
I do not know how to use,
settle on me like a debt.
A week ago, while the hard March gales
beat on your house,
we sorted y...Read more of this...
by
Blake, William
...t.
The fire, the fire, is falling!
Look up! look up! O citizen of London. enlarge thy
countenance; O Jew, leave counting gold! return to thy oil and
wine; O African! black African! (go. winged thought widen his
forehead.)
The fiery limbs, the flaming hair, shot like the sinking sun
into the western sea.
Wak'd from his eternal sleep, the hoary, element roaring
fled away:
Down rushd beating his wings in vain the jealous king: his
grey brow'd councellors, th...Read more of this...
by
Hammad, Suheir
...owing vision
shaping lives with memory
a drawer won't close
sleep elusive
smile illusive
the only real is grief
forever counting the days
minutes missing without knowing
so that one day
you find yourself
showering tears
missing that love
like sugar
aches teeth...Read more of this...
by
Herbert, George
...s fly, thus is he toss'd of men:
Was ever grief like mine?
And now weary of sport, glad to engross
All spite in one, counting my life their loss,
They carry me to my most bitter cross:
Was ever grief like mine?
My cross I bear my self, until I faint:
Then Simon bears it for me by constraint,
The decreed burden of each mortal Saint:
Was ever grief like mine?
O all ye who pass by, behold and see;
Man stole the fruit, but I must climb the tree;
The tree of life to ...Read more of this...
by
Alcott, Louisa May
...lver hair.
How could we mourn like those who are bereft,
When every pang of grief
found balm for its relief
In counting up the treasures she had left?--
Faith that withstood the shocks of toil and time;
Hope that defied despair;
Patience that conquered care;
And loyalty, whose courage was sublime;
The great deep heart that was a home for all--
Just, eloquent, and strong
In protest against wrong;
Wide charity, that knew no sin, no fall;
The spartan spirit ...Read more of this...
by
Laurence Dunbar, Paul
...ith torn and bleeding hearts we smile,
And mouth with myriad subtleties.
Why should the world be over-wise,
In counting all our tears and sighs?
Nay, let them only see us, while
We wear the mask.
We smile, but, O great Christ, our cries
To thee from tortured souls arise.
We sing, but oh the clay is vile
Beneath our feet, and long the mile;
But let the world dream otherwise,
We wear the mask!...Read more of this...
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