Famous Custom Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Custom poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous custom poems. These examples illustrate what a famous custom poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Henry Lawson
White handkerchiefs wave from the short black pier
As we glide to the grand old sea --
But the song of my heart is for none to hear
If one of them waves for me.
A roving, roaming life is mine,
Ever by field or flood --
For not far back in my father's line
Was a dash of...Read more of this...
by
Thomas Hardy
They had long met o' Zundays--her true love and she--
And at junketings, maypoles, and flings;
But she bode wi' a thirtover uncle, and he
Swore by noon and by night that her goodman should be
Naibor Sweatley--a gaffer oft weak at the knee
From taking o' sommat more cheerful than tea--
Who tranted, and moved people's...Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
The Men of Seville are, they say,
The laziest of Spain.
Consummate artists in delay,
Allergical to strain;
Fr if you have a job for them,
And beg them to be spry,
They only look at you with phlegm:
"Mañana," they reply.
The Men of gay Madrid, I'm told,
Siesta's law revere;
The custom is so ages old,
And to tradition dear;
So if you want a job done soon,
And shyly...Read more of this...
by
Rudyard Kipling
Dim dawn behind the tamerisks -- the sky is saffron-yellow --
As the women in the village grind the corn,
And the parrots seek the riverside, each calling to his fellow
That the Day, the staring Easter Day is born.
Oh the white dust on the highway! Oh the stenches in the byway!
Oh the clammy fog that hovers
And...Read more of this...
by
Alec Derwent (A D) Hope
For every bird there is this last migration;
Once more the cooling year kindles her heart;
With a warm passage to the summer station
Love pricks the course in lights across the chart.
Year after year a speck on the map, divided
By a whole hemisphere, summons her to come;
Season after season, sure and safely guided,
Going away she is also coming home.
And being home,...Read more of this...
by
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
I
'But where do you go?' said the lady, while both sat under the yew,
And her eyes were alive in their depth, as the kraken beneath the sea-blue.
II
'Because I fear you,' he answered;--'because you are far too fair,
And able to strangle my soul in a mesh of your golfd-coloured hair.'
III
'Oh that,' she said, 'is no reason! Such knots are quickly...Read more of this...
by
Ben Jonson
XII. — EPISTLE TO ELIZABETH COUNTESS OF RUTLAND. That which, to boot with hell, is thought worth heaven, And for it, life, conscience, yea souls are given, Toils, by grave custom, up and down the court, To every squire, or groom, that will report Well or ill, only all the following year, Just to the weight their this day's presents...Read more of this...
by
Kahlil Gibran
Spring
Come, my beloved; let us walk amidst the knolls,
For the snow is water, and Life is alive from its
Slumber and is roaming the hills and valleys.
Let us follow the footprints of Spring into the
Distant fields, and mount the hilltops to draw
Inspiration high above the cool green plains.
Dawn of Spring has unfolded her winter-kept...Read more of this...
by
Rudyard Kipling
They bear, in place of classic names,
Letters and numbers on their skin.
They play their grisly blindfold games
In little boxes made of tin.
Sometimes they stalk the Zeppelin,
Sometimes they learn where mines are laid,
Or where the Baltic ice is thin.
That is the custom of "The Trade."
Few prize-courts sit upon their claims.
They seldom...Read more of this...
by
Vachel Lindsay
SECTION ONE
"Give the engines room,
Give the engines room."
Louder, faster
The little band-master
Whips up the fluting,
Hurries up the tooting.
He thinks that he stands,
[*] The reins in his hands,
In the fire-chief's place
In the night alarm chase.
The cymbals whang,
The kettledrums bang: —
"Clear the street,
Clear the street,
Clear the street — Boom, boom.
In the evening gloom,
In the...Read more of this...
by
Thomas Hardy
"No--not where I shall make my own;
But dig his grave just by
The woman's with the initialed stone -
As near as he can lie -
After whose death he seemed to ail,
Though none considered why.
"And when I also claim a nook,
And your feet tread me in,
Bestow me, under my...Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
Have you gazed on naked grandeur where there's nothing else to gaze on,
Set pieces and drop-curtain scenes galore,
Big mountains heaved to heaven, which the blinding sunsets blazon,
Black canyons where the rapids rip and roar?
Have you swept the visioned valley with the green stream streaking through it,
Searched the Vastness for a something you have lost?
Have you strung...Read more of this...
by
Walt Whitman
RESPONDEZ! Respondez!
(The war is completed—the price is paid—the title is settled beyond recall;)
Let every one answer! let those who sleep be waked! let none evade!
Must we still go on with our affectations and sneaking?
Let me bring this to a close—I pronounce openly for a new distribution of roles;
Let that which stood in front go behind!...Read more of this...
by
William Topaz McGonagall
'Twas in a certain regiment of French Grenadiers,
A touching and beautiful custom was observed many years;
Which was meant to commemorate the heroism of a departed comrade,
And when the companies assembled for parade,
There was one name at roll call to which no answer was made
It was that of the noble La Tour d'Auvergne,
The first Grenadier of France, heroic and...Read more of this...
by
Thomas Hardy
I MARKED her ruined hues,
Her custom-straitened views,
And asked, "Can there indwell
My Amabel?"
I looked upon her gown,
Once rose, now earthen brown;
The change was like the knell
Of Amabel.
Her step's mechanic ways
Had lost the life of May's;
Her laugh, once sweet in swell,
Spoilt Amabel.
I mused: "Who sings the strain
I sang ere warmth did wane?
Who thinks its numbers spell
His Amabel?"--
Knowing that, though Love cease,
Love's...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
A Diamond on the Hand
To Custom Common grown
Subsides from its significance
The Gem were best unknown --
Within a Seller's Shrine
How many sight and sigh
And cannot, but are mad for fear
That any other buy....Read more of this...
by
Sir John Suckling
I prithee spare me gentle boy,
Press me no more for that slight toy,
That foolish trifle of an heart;
I swear it will not do its part,
Though thou dost thine, employ'st thy pow'r and art.
For through long custom it has known
The little secrets, and is grown
Sullen and wise, will have its will,
And like old hawks pursues that still
That makes least sport,...Read more of this...
by
Thomas Carew
'Tis true, dear Ben, thy just chastising hand
Hath fix'd upon the sotted age a brand
To their swoll'n pride and empty scribbling due;
It can nor judge, nor write, and yet 'tis true
Thy comic muse, from the exalted line
Touch'd by thy Alchemist, doth since decline
From that her zenith, and foretells a red
And blushing evening,...Read more of this...
by
Ellis Parker Butler
Love took chambers on our street
Opposite to mine;
On his door he tacked a neat,
Clearly lettered sign.
Straightway grew his custom great,
For his sign read so:
“Hearts united while you wait.
Step in. Love and Co.”
Much I wondered who was “Co.”
In Love’s partnership;
Thought across the street I’d go—
Learn from Love’s own lip.
So I went; and since that...Read more of this...
by
Friedrich von Schiller
Joy, thou shining spark of God,
Daughter of Elysium,
With fiery rapture, goddess,
We approach thy shrine!
Your magic reunites those
Whom stern custom has parted;*
All men will become brothers*
Under your protective wing.
Let the man who has had the fortune
To be a helper to his friend,
And the man who has won a noble woman,
Join in our chorus of jubilation!
Yes, even if he holds but one...Read more of this...
by
Edwin Arlington Robinson
Aunt Imogen was coming, and therefore
The children—Jane, Sylvester, and Young George—
Were eyes and ears; for there was only one
Aunt Imogen to them in the whole world,
And she was in it only for four weeks
In fifty-two. But those great bites of time
Made all September a Queen’s Festival;
And they would strive, informally, to make
The...Read more of this...
by
Walt Whitman
OF persons arrived at high positions, ceremonies, wealth, scholarships, and the like;
To me, all that those persons have arrived at, sinks away from them, except as it results
to
their
Bodies and Souls,
So that often to me they appear gaunt and naked;
And often, to me, each one mocks the others, and mocks himself or herself,
And...Read more of this...
by
Henry Lawson
Wide lies Australia! The seas that surround her
Flow for her unity – all states in one.
Never has Custom nor Tyranny bound her –
Never was conquest so peacefully won.
Fair lies Australia! with all things within her
Meet for a Nation, the greatest to be:
Free to the White Man to woo and to win her:
Those...Read more of this...
by
Mary Darby Robinson
It was in the days of a gay British King
(In the old fashion'd custom of merry-making)
The Palace of Woodstock with revels did ring,
While they sang and carous'd--one and all:
For the monarch a plentiful treasury had,
And his Courtiers were pleas'd, and no visage was sad,
And the knavish and foolish with drinking were mad,
While they sat in the Banquetting hall.
Some talk'd...Read more of this...
by
Joyce Kilmer
(For Aline)
Monsignore,
Right Reverend Bishop Valentinus,
Sometime of Interamna, which is called Ferni,
Now of the delightful Court of Heaven,
I respectfully salute you,
I genuflect
And I kiss your episcopal ring.
It is not, Monsignore,
The fragrant memory of your holy life,
Nor that of your shining and joyous martyrdom,
Which causes me now to address you.
But since this is your august festival, Monsignore,
It seems appropriate to me...Read more of this...
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