Famous Dee Poems by Famous Poets

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

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El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz (Malcolm X)

by Robert Hayden
 O masks and metamorphoses of Ahab, Native Son

I

The icy evil that struck his father down
and ravished his mother into madness
trapped him in violence of a punished self
struggling to break free.

As Home Boy, as Dee-troit Red,
he fled his name, became the quarry of
his own obsessed pursuit.

He conked his hair and Lindy-hopped,
zoot-suited jiver, swinging those chicks
in the hot rose and reefer...Read more of this...

The Last Rhyme of True Thomas

by Rudyard Kipling
 The King has called for priest and cup,
 The King has taken spur and blade
To dub True Thomas a belted knight,
 And all for the sake o' the songs he made.

They have sought him high, they have sought him low,
 They have sought him over down and lea;
They have found him by the milk-white thorn
 That guards the gates...Read more of this...

Sonnet XXXII: Our Floods-Queen Thames

by Michael Drayton
 Our flood's-queen Thames for ships and swans is crown'd, 
And stately Severn for her shore is prais'd, 
The crystal Trent for fords and fish renown'd, 
And Avon's fame to Albion's cliffs is rais'd; 
Carlegion Chester vaunts her holy Dee, 
York many wonders of her Ouse can tell, 
The Peak her Dove, whose banks so fertile be, 
And Kent will...Read more of this...

Scotland 1941

by Edwin Muir
 We were a tribe, a family, a people.
Wallace and Bruce guard now a painted field,
And all may read the folio of our fable,
Peruse the sword, the sceptre and the shield.
A simple sky roofed in that rustic day,
The busy corn-fields and the haunted holms,
The green road winding up the ferny brae.
But Knox and Melville clapped their preaching palms
And bundled all...Read more of this...

Beautiful Balmoral

by William Topaz McGonagall
 Ye lovers of the picturesque, away and see
Beautiful Balmoral, near by the River Dee;
There ye will see the deer browsing on the heathery hills,
While adown their sides run clear sparkling rills. 

Which the traveller can drink of when he feels dry,
And admire the dark River Dee near by,
Rolling smoothly and silently on its way,
Which is most lovely to see...Read more of this...

Duncan Gray

by Robert Burns
 Duncan Gray cam here to woo,
Ha, ha, the wooing o't,
On blythe Yule Night when we were fu',
Ha, ha, the wooing o't,
Maggie coost her head fu' high,
Looked asklent and unco skeigh,
Gart poor Duncan stand abeigh;
Ha, ha, the wooing o't.

Duncan fleeched, and Duncan prayed;
Ha, ha, the wooing o't,
Meg was deaf as Ailsa Craig;
Ha, ha, the wooing o't,
Duncan sighed baith out and...Read more of this...

Tweedle-Dum And Tweedle-Dee

by Mother Goose
Tweedle-dum and Tweedle-dee
    Resolved to have a battle,
For Tweedle-dum said Tweedle-dee
    Had spoiled his nice new rattle.

Just then flew by a monstrous crow,
    As big as a tar barrel,
Which frightened both the heroes so,
    They quite forgot their quarrel....Read more of this...

One From One Leaves Two

by Ogden Nash
 Higgledy piggledy, my black hen,
She lays eggs for gentlemen.
Gentlemen come every day
To count what my black hen doth lay.
If perchance she lays too many,
They fine my hen a pretty penny;
If perchance she fails to lay,
The gentlemen a bonus pay.

Mumbledy pumbledy, my red cow,
She’s cooperating now.
At first she didn’t understand
That milk production must be planned;
She didn’t understand at first
She either...Read more of this...

Into the Dusk-Charged Air

by John Ashbery
 Far from the Rappahannock, the silent
Danube moves along toward the sea.
The brown and green Nile rolls slowly
Like the Niagara's welling descent.
Tractors stood on the green banks of the Loire
Near where it joined the Cher.
The St. Lawrence prods among black stones
And mud. But the Arno is all stones.
Wind ruffles the Hudson's
Surface. The Irawaddy is overflowing.
But the yellowish, gray Tiber
Is contained...Read more of this...

There was an old man of Dee-side

by Edward Lear
There was an old man of Dee-sideWhose hat was exceedingly wide,But he said, "Do not fail, if it happen to hail,To come under my hat at Dee-side!" ...Read more of this...

The Death Baby

by Anne Sexton
 1. DREAMS

I was an ice baby.
I turned to sky blue.
My tears became two glass beads.
My mouth stiffened into a dumb howl.
They say it was a dream
but I remember that hardening.

My sister at six
dreamt nightly of my death:
"The baby turned to ice.
Someone put her in the refrigerator
and she turned as hard as a Popsicle."

I remember the stink of the liverwurst.
How...Read more of this...

Camerons Heart

by Henry Lawson
 The diggings were just in their glory when Alister Cameron came, 
With recommendations, he told me, from friends and a parson `at hame'; 
He read me his recommendations -- he called them a part of his plant -- 
The first one was signed by an Elder, the other by Cameron's aunt. 
The meenister called him `ungodly -- a stray...Read more of this...

The Sands of Dee

by Charles Kingsley
 1 "O Mary, go and call the cattle home,
2 And call the cattle home,
3 And call the cattle home
4 Across the sands of Dee";
5 The western wind was wild and dank with foam,
6 And all alone went she.

7 The western tide crept up along the sand,
8 And o'er and o'er the sand,
9 And round and round the sand,
10 As...Read more of this...

The Conversazzhony

by Eugene Field
 What conversazzhyonies wuz I really did not know,
For that, you must remember, wuz a powerful spell ago;
The camp wuz new 'nd noisy, 'nd only modrit sized,
So fashionable sossiety wuz hardly crystallized.
There hadn't been no grand events to interest the men,
But a lynchin', or a inquest, or a jackpot now an' then.
The wimmin-folks wuz mighty scarce, for wimmin, ez a...Read more of this...

The Death of Prince Leopold

by William Topaz McGonagall
 Alas! noble Prince Leopold, he is dead!
Who often has his lustre shed:
Especially by singing for the benefit of Esher School,
Which proves he was a wise prince. and no conceited fool.

Methinks I see him on the platform singing the Sands o' Dee,
The generous-hearted Leopold, the good and the free,
Who was manly in his actions, and beloved by his mother;
And in...Read more of this...

The Pobble Who Has No Toes

by Edward Lear
 The Pobble who has no toes
Had once as many as we;
When they said "Some day you may lose them all;"
He replied "Fish, fiddle-de-dee!"
And his Aunt Jobiska made him drink
Lavender water tinged with pink,
For she said "The World in general knows
There's nothing so good for a Pobble's toes!"

The Pobble who has no toes
Swam across the Bristol Channel;
But before he set...Read more of this...

There was an Old Man of the Dee

by Edward Lear
There was an Old Man of the Dee,Who was sadly annoyed by a Flea;When he said, "I will scratch it!" they gave him a hatchet,Which grieved that Old Man of the Dee. ...Read more of this...

Fiddle-Dee-Dee

by Eugene Field
 There once was a bird that lived up in a tree,
And all he could whistle was "Fiddle-dee-dee" -
A very provoking, unmusical song
For one to be whistling the summer day long!
Yet always contented and busy was he
With that vocal recurrence of "Fiddle-dee-dee."

Hard by lived a brave little soldier of four,
That weird iteration repented him sore;
"I prithee, Dear-Mother-Mine! fetch me my...Read more of this...

Mary Morison

by Robert Burns
 O Mary, at thy window be,
It is the wished, the trysted hour!
Those smiles and glances let me see,
That make the miser's treasure poor:
How blythely wad I bide the stour,
A weary slave frae sun to sun,
Could I the rich reward secure,
The lovely Mary Morison.

Yestreen, when to the trembling string
The dance gaed thro' the lighted ha',
To thee my fancy took its...Read more of this...

The Toy Band

by Sir Henry Newbolt
 A Song of the Great Retreat

Dreary lay the long road, dreary lay the town, 
Lights out and never a glint o' moon: 
Weary lay the stragglers, half a thousand down, 
Sad sighed the weary big Dragoon. 
"Oh! if I'd a drum here to make them take the road again, 
Oh! if I'd a fife to wheedle, Come, boys, come!...Read more of this...

The Death of the Queen

by William Topaz McGonagall
 Alas! our noble and generous Queen Victoria is dead,
And I hope her soul to Heaven has fled,
To sing and rejoice with saints above,
Where ah is joy, peace, and love. 

'Twas on January 22, 1901, in the evening she died at 6.30 o'clock,
Which to the civilised world has been a great shock;
She was surrounded by her children and grandchildren dear,
And...Read more of this...

520. Ballad on Mr. Heron's Election—No. 3

by Robert Burns
 ’TWAS in the seventeen hunder year
 O’ grace, and ninety-five,
That year I was the wae’est man
 Of ony man alive.


In March the three-an’-twentieth morn,
 The sun raise clear an’ bright;
But oh! I was a waefu’ man,
 Ere to-fa’ o’ the night.


Yerl Galloway lang did rule this land,
 Wi’ equal right and fame,
And thereto was his kinsmen join’d,
 The Murray’s...Read more of this...

There was a Young Lady of Lucca

by Edward Lear
There was a Young Lady of Lucca,Whose lovers completely forsook her;She ran up a tree, and said "Fiddle-de-dee!"Which embarrassed the people of Lucca. ...Read more of this...

I Exceed My Limits

by Jerome Rothenberg
 I have tried an altenstil
& dropped it.
My skin is blazing, 
blazing too
the way I see your faces 
in the glass.
With the circle of the sun
behind me
I exceed my limits.
My garments are
from the beginning
& my dwelling place
is in my self(J. Dee)
It makes me want
to fly the stars
below the paradise of poets
lost in space.
I am the father of a lie
unspoken.
I can...Read more of this...

Balmoral Castle

by William Topaz McGonagall
 Beautiful Balmoral Castle,
Most handsome to be seen,
Highland home of the Empress of India,
Great Britain's Queen. 

Your woods and waters and
Mountains high are most
Beautiful to see,
Near by Balmoral Castle
And the dark river Dee. 

Then there's the hill of Cairngorm
To be seen from afar,
And the beautiful heathery hills
Of dark Lochnagar,
And the handsome little village-
The Castleton o' Braemar-
Which is most beautiful to...Read more of this...

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