Famous Deal Poems by Famous Poets

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

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The Baldness Of Chewed-Ear

by Robert William Service
 When Chewed-ear Jenkins got hitched up to Guinneyveer McGee,
His flowin' locks, ye recollect, wuz frivolous an' free;
But in old Hymen's jack-pot, it's a most amazin' thing,
Them flowin' locks jest disappeared like snow-balls in the Spring;
Jest seemed to wilt an' fade away like dead leaves in the Fall,
An' left old Chewed-ear balder than a white-washed cannon ball.

Now Missis Chewed-ear Jenkins,...Read more of this...

The Alchemist in the City

by Gerard Manley Hopkins
 My window shews the travelling clouds, 
Leaves spent, new seasons, alter'd sky, 
The making and the melting crowds: 
The whole world passes; I stand by.

They do not waste their meted hours, 
But men and masters plan and build: 
I see the crowning of their towers, 
And happy promises fulfill'd.

And I - perhaps if my intent
Could count on prediluvian age,...Read more of this...

The Troubles of Matthew Mahoney

by William Topaz McGonagall
 In a little town in Devonshire, in the mellow September moonlight,
A gentleman passing along a street saw a pitiful sight,
A man bending over the form of a woman on the pavement.
He was uttering plaintive words and seemingly discontent. 

"What's the matter with the woman?" asked the gentleman,
As the poor, fallen woman he did narrowly scan.
"There's something the matter, as...Read more of this...

Sursum Corda

by Ralph Waldo Emerson
 Seek not the Spirit, if it hide,
Inexorable to thy zeal:
Baby, do not whine and chide;
Art thou not also real?
Why should'st thou stoop to poor excuse?
Turn on the Accuser roundly; say,
"Here am I, here will I remain
Forever to myself soothfast,
Go thou, sweet Heaven, or, at thy pleasure stay."—
Already Heaven with thee its lot has cast,
For it only can absolutely deal....Read more of this...

Botany Bay Eclogues 03 - Humphrey And William

by Robert Southey
 (Time, Noon.)


HUMPHREY:

See'st thou not William that the scorching Sun
By this time half his daily race has run?
The savage thrusts his light canoe to shore
And hurries homeward with his fishy store.
Suppose we leave awhile this stubborn soil
To eat our dinner and to rest from toil!


WILLIAM:

Agreed. Yon tree whose purple gum bestows
A ready medicine for the sick-man's woes,
Forms with its shadowy...Read more of this...

A Girls Garden

by Robert Frost
 A NEIGHBOR of mine in the village
 Likes to tell how one spring
When she was a girl on the farm, she did
 A childlike thing.

One day she asked her father
 To give her a garden plot
To plant and tend and reap herself,
 And he said, "Why not?"

In casting about for a corner
 He thought of an idle bit
Of walled-off...Read more of this...

454. Epistle from Esopus to Maria

by Robert Burns
 FROM those drear solitudes and frowsy cells,
Where Infamy with sad Repentance dwells;
Where turnkeys make the jealous portal fast,
And deal from iron hands the spare repast;
Where truant ’prentices, yet young in sin,
Blush at the curious stranger peeping in;
Where strumpets, relics of the drunken roar,
Resolve to drink, nay, half, to whore, no more;
Where tiny thieves not destin’d yet to swing,
Beat hemp...Read more of this...

The Warrior's Prayer

by Paul Laurence Dunbar
Long since, in sore distress, I heard one pray,
"Lord, who prevailest with resistless might,
Ever from war and strife keep me away,
My battles fight!"
I know not if I play the Pharisee,
And if my brother after all be right;
But mine shall be the warrior's plea to thee—
Strength for the fight.
I do not ask that thou shalt front the fray,
And drive the warring...Read more of this...

Acid

by Roddy Lumsden
 "She was right. I had to find something new. 
There was only one thing for it."

My mother told it straight, London will finish you off,
and I'd heard what Doctor Johnson said, When a man is tired 
of London, he is tired of life, but I'd been tired of life

for fourteen years; Scotland, never thoroughly enlightened, 
was gathering back its...Read more of this...

On Hearing Of A Death

by Rainer Maria Rilke
 We lack all knowledge of this parting. Death
does not deal with us. We have no reason
to show death admiration, love or hate;
his mask of feigned tragic lament gives us

a false impression. The world's stage is still
filled with roles which we play. While we worry
that our performances may not please, 
death also performs, although to no applause.

But as you left...Read more of this...

Psalm 50 part 3

by Isaac Watts
 v.1,5,8,16,21,22 
C. M.
The judgment of hypocrites.

When Christ to judgment shall descend,
And saints surround their Lord,
He calls the nations to attend,
And hear his awful word.

"Not for the want of bullocks slain
Will I the world reprove;
Altars, and rites, and forms are vain,
Without the fire of love.

"And what have hypocrites to do
To bring their sacrifice?
They call my statutes just and true,
But deal...Read more of this...

The Female of the Species

by Rudyard Kipling
 1911

When the Himalayan peasant meets the he-bear in his pride,
He shouts to scare the monster, who will often turn aside.
But the she-bear thus accosted rends the peasant tooth and nail.
For the female of the species is more deadly than the male.

When Nag the basking cobra hears the careless foot of man,
He will sometimes wriggle sideways and avoid it if...Read more of this...

Canzone XXI

by Francesco Petrarch
CANZONE XXI. I' vo pensando, e nel pensier m' assale. SELF-CONFLICT.  Ceaseless I think, and in each wasting thoughtSo strong a pity for myself appears,[Pg 227]That often it has broughtMy harass'd heart to new yet natural tears;Seeing each day my end of life draw nigh,Instant in prayer,...Read more of this...

Hymn Before Action

by Rudyard Kipling
 The earth is full of anger,
The seas are dark with wrath,
The Nations in their harness
Go up against our path:
Ere yet we draw the blade,
Jehovah of the Thunders,
Lord God of Battles, aid!

High lust and froward bearing,
Proud heart, rebellious brow --
Deaf ear and soul uncaring,
We seek My mercy now!
The sinner that forswore Thee,
The fool that passed Thee by,
Our times are known...Read more of this...

Million Man March Poem

by Maya Angelou
The night has been long,
The wound has been deep,
The pit has been dark,
And the walls have been steep.

Under a dead blue sky on a distant beach,
I was dragged by my braids just beyond your reach.
Your hands were tied, your mouth was bound,
You couldn't even call out my name.
You were helpless and so was I,
But unfortunately throughout history
You've worn a badge...Read more of this...

If We Must Die

by Claude McKay
 If we must die, let it not be like hogs
Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot,
While round us bark the mad and hungry dogs,
Making their mock at our accursèd lot.
If we must die, O let us nobly die,
So that our precious blood may not be shed
In vain; then even the monsters we defy
Shall be constrained to honor us though...Read more of this...

She To Him III

by Thomas Hardy
 I WILL be faithful to thee; aye, I will!
And Death shall choose me with a wondering eye
That he did not discern and domicile
One his by right ever since that last Good-bye!

I have no care for friends, or kin, or prime
Of manhood who deal gently with me here;
Amid the happy people of my time
Who work their love's fulfilment, I appear

Numb...Read more of this...

Public Waste

by Rudyard Kipling
 By the Laws of the Family Circle 'tis written in letters of brass
That only a Colonel from Chatham can manage the Railways of State,
Because of the gold on his breeks, and the subjects wherein he must pass;
Because in all matters that deal not with Railways his knowledge is great.

Now Exeter Battleby Tring had laboured from boyhood to eld
On the...Read more of this...

There was an old person of Deal

by Edward Lear
There was an old person of Deal,Who in walking used only his heel;When they said, "Tell us why?" he made no reply,That mysterious old person of Deal. ...Read more of this...

The Tower

by William Butler Yeats
 I

What shall I do with this absurdity -
O heart, O troubled heart - this caricature,
Decrepit age that has been tied to me
As to a dog's tail?
 Never had I more
Excited, passionate, fantastical
Imagination, nor an ear and eye
That more expected the impossible -
No, not in boyhood when with rod and fly,
Or the humbler worm, I climbed Ben Bulben's back
And had...Read more of this...

Battle Hymn of the Republic

by Julia Ward Howe
 Howe's Final version
Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord:
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored;
He hath loosed the fatal lightning of his terrible swift sword:
His Truth is marching on.
I have seen Him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling camps;
They have builded Him an altar in the evening...Read more of this...

Translation From the Gull Language

by Thomas Moore
 'Twas grav'd on the Stone of Destiny,
In letters four, and letters three;
And ne'er did the King of the Gulls go by
But those awful letters scar'd his eye;
For he knew that a Prophet Voice had said
"As long as those words by man were read,
The ancient race of the Gulls should ne'er
One hour of peace or plenty share."
But years and years...Read more of this...

In Praise of Songs that Die

by Vachel Lindsay
 AFTER HAVING READ A GREAT DEAL OF GOOD CURRENT POETRY IN THE MAGAZINES AND NEWSPAPERS


Ah, they are passing, passing by,
Wonderful songs, but born to die!
Cries from the infinite human seas,
Waves thrice-winged with harmonies.
Here I stand on a pier in the foam
Seeing the songs to the beach go home,
Dying in sand while the tide flows back,
As it flowed of old...Read more of this...

298. Prologue spoken at the Theatre of Dumfries

by Robert Burns
 NO song nor dance I bring from yon great city,
That queens it o’er our taste—the more’s the pity:
Tho’ by the bye, abroad why will you roam?
Good sense and taste are natives here at home:
But not for panegyric I appear,
I come to wish you all a good New Year!
Old Father Time deputes me here before ye,
Not for to preach, but...Read more of this...

A Hedge Of Rubber Trees

by Amy Clampitt
 The West Village by then was changing; before long
the rundown brownstones at its farthest edge
would have slipped into trendier hands. She lived,
impervious to trends, behind a potted hedge of
rubber trees, with three cats, a canary—refuse 
from whose cage kept sifting down and then 
germinating, a yearning seedling choir, around
the saucers on the windowsill—and an inexorable
cohort of roaches she was...Read more of this...

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