Famous Deeming Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Botany Bay Eclogues 02 - Elinor

by Robert Southey
 (Time, Morning. Scene, the Shore.)

Once more to daily toil--once more to wear
The weeds of infamy--from every joy
The heart can feel excluded, I arise
Worn out and faint with unremitting woe;
And once again with wearied steps I trace
The hollow-sounding shore. The swelling waves
Gleam to the morning sun, and dazzle o'er
With many a splendid hue the breezy strand.
Oh there was once a...Read more of this...

Vain Gratuities

by Edwin Arlington Robinson
 Never was there a man much uglier 
In eyes of other women, or more grim: 
"The Lord has filled her chalice to the brim, 
So let us pray she's a philosopher," 
They said; and there was more they said of her-- 
Deeming it, after twenty years with him, 
No wonder that she kept her figure slim 
And always made...Read more of this...

My Coffin

by Robert William Service
 Deeming that I was due to die
I framed myself a coffin;
So full of graveyard zeal was I,
I set the folks a-laughing.
I made it snugly to my fit,
My joinering was honest;
And sometimes in it I would sit,
And fancy I was non est. 

I stored it on my cabin shelf
Forever to remind me,
When I was tickled with myself,
That Death was close...Read more of this...

Carillon

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
 In the ancient town of Bruges,
In the quaint old Flemish city,
As the evening shades descended,
Low and loud and sweetly blended,
Low at times and loud at times,
And changing like a poet's rhymes,
Rang the beautiful wild chimes
From the Belfry in the market
Of the ancient town of Bruges.

Then, with deep sonorous clangor
Calmly answering their sweet anger,
When the wrangling bells had ended,
Slowly struck...Read more of this...

Well pass without the parting

by Emily Dickinson
 We'll pass without the parting
So to spare
Certificate of Absence --
Deeming where

I left Her I could find Her
If I tried --
This way, I keep from missing
Those that died....Read more of this...

Good and Evil XXII

by Kahlil Gibran
 And one of the elders of the city said, "Speak to us of Good and Evil." 

And he answered: 

Of the good in you I can speak, but not of the evil. 

For what is evil but good tortured by its own hunger and thirst? 

Verily when good is hungry it seeks food even in dark caves, and when...Read more of this...

Behind The Arras

by Paul Laurence Dunbar
As in some dim baronial hall restrained,
A prisoner sits, engirt by secret doors
And waving tapestries that argue forth
Strange passages into the outer air;
So in this dimmer room which we call life,
Thus sits the soul and marks with eye intent[Pg 95]
That mystic curtain o'er the portal death;
Still deeming that behind the arras lies
The lambent way that leads to lasting...Read more of this...

Autumn -- overlooked my Knitting --

by Emily Dickinson
 Autumn -- overlooked my Knitting --
Dyes -- said He -- have I --
Could disparage a Flamingo --
Show Me them -- said I --

Cochineal -- I chose -- for deeming
It resemble Thee --
And the little Border -- Dusker --
For resembling Me --...Read more of this...

The Ballad Of The Brand

by Robert William Service
 'Twas up in a land long famed for gold, where women were far and rare,
Tellus, the smith, had taken to wife a maiden amazingly fair;
Tellus, the brawny worker in iron, hairy and heavy of hand,
Saw her and loved her and bore her away from the tribe of a Southern land;
Deeming her worthy to queen his home and mother him...Read more of this...

Australia Today 1916

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 They came from the lower levels 
Deep down in the Brilliant mine; 
From the wastes where the whirlwind revels, 
Whirling the leaves of pine. 
On the western plains, where the Darling flows, 
And the dust storms wheel and shift, 
The teamster loosened his yokes and bows, 
And turned his team adrift. 

On the western stations, far and wide, 
There's...Read more of this...

Sonnet

by Amy Levy
 Most wonderful and strange it seems, that I
Who but a little time ago was tost
High on the waves of passion and of pain,
With aching heat and wildly throbbing brain,
Who peered into the darkness, deeming vain
All things there found if but One thing were lost,
Thus calm and still and silent here should lie,
Watching and waiting, --waiting passively.

The dark has faded,...Read more of this...

The Pigeons Of St. Marks

by Robert William Service
 Something's wrong in Pigeon-land;
'Tisn't as it used to be,
When the pilgrim, corn in hand,
Courted us with laughing glee;
When we crooned with pinions furled,
Tamest pigeons in the world.

When we packed each arm and shoulder,
Never deeming man a menace;
Surly birds were never bolder
Than our dainty doves of Venice:
Who would have believed a pigeon
Could become wild as a widgeon.

Well, juts blame it...Read more of this...

My Cicely

by Thomas Hardy
 "ALIVE?"--And I leapt in my wonder,
Was faint of my joyance,
And grasses and grove shone in garments
Of glory to me.

"She lives, in a plenteous well-being,
To-day as aforehand;
The dead bore the name--though a rare one--
The name that bore she."

She lived ... I, afar in the city
Of frenzy-led factions,
Had squandered green years and maturer
In bowing the knee

To Baals illusive and specious,
Till chance...Read more of this...

Post Office Romance

by Robert William Service
 The lady at the corner wicket
Sold me a stamp, I stooped to lick it,
And on the envelope to stick it;
A spinster lacking girlish grace,
Yet sweetly sensitive, her face
Seemed to en-star that stodgy place. 

Said I: "I've come from o'er the sea
To ask you if you'll marry me -
That is to say, if you are free.
I see your gentle features...Read more of this...

Penance

by John McCrae
 My lover died a century ago,
Her dear heart stricken by my sland'rous breath,
Wherefore the Gods forbade that I should know
The peace of death.

Men pass my grave, and say, "'Twere well to sleep,
Like such an one, amid the uncaring dead!"
How should they know the vigils that I keep,
The tears I shed?

Upon the grave, I count with lifeless breath,
Each night, each...Read more of this...

The Visionary

by Robert William Service
 If fortune had not granted me
 To suck the Muse's teats,
I think I would have liked to be
 A sweeper of the streets;
And city gutters glad to groom,
 Have heft a bonny broom.

There--as amid the crass and crush
 The limousines swished by,
I would have leaned upon my brush
 With visionary eye:
Deeming despite their loud allure
 That I was rich,...Read more of this...

Tis Opposites -- entice

by Emily Dickinson
 'Tis Opposites -- entice --
Deformed Men -- ponder Grace --
Bright fires -- the Blanketless --
The Lost -- Day's face --

The Blind -- esteem it be
Enough Estate -- to see --
The Captive -- strangles new --
For deeming -- Beggars -- play --

To lack -- enamor Thee --
Tho' the Divinity --
Be only
Me --...Read more of this...

Preference

by Charlotte Bronte
 NOT in scorn do I reprove thee,
Not in pride thy vows I waive,
But, believe, I could not love thee,
Wert thou prince, and I a slave.
These, then, are thine oaths of passion ?
This, thy tenderness for me ?
Judged, even, by thine own confession,
Thou art steeped in perfidy.
Having vanquished, thou wouldst leave me !
Thus I read thee long ago;
Therefore, dared I...Read more of this...

Musings On A Landscape Of Gaspar Poussin

by Robert Southey
 Poussin! most pleasantly thy pictur'd scenes
Beguile the lonely hour; I sit and gaze
With lingering eye, till charmed FANCY makes
The lovely landscape live, and the rapt soul
From the foul haunts of herded humankind
Flies far away with spirit speed, and tastes
The untainted air, that with the lively hue
Of health and happiness illumes the cheek
Of mountain LIBERTY. My willing soul
All eager follows...Read more of this...

As the Heart Hopes

by Lucy Maud Montgomery
 It is a year dear one, since you afar
Went out beyond my yearning mortal sight­
A wondrous year! perchance in many a star
You have sojourned, or basked within the light
Of mightier suns; it may be you have trod
The glittering pathways of the Pleiades,
And through the Milky Way's white mysteries
Have walked at will, fire-shod. 

You may have gazed in the immortal...Read more of this...

De Profundis

by Thomas Hardy
 I 

"Percussus sum sicut foenum, et aruit cor meum." 
- Ps. ci 

 Wintertime nighs; 
But my bereavement-pain 
It cannot bring again: 
 Twice no one dies. 

 Flower-petals flee; 
But, since it once hath been, 
No more that severing scene 
 Can harrow me. 

 Birds faint in dread: 
I shall not lose old strength 
In the lone...Read more of this...

56. Epistle to Davie A Brother Poet

by Robert Burns
 WHILE winds frae aff Ben-Lomond blaw,
An’ bar the doors wi’ driving snaw,
 An’ hing us owre the ingle,
I set me down to pass the time,
An’ spin a verse or twa o’ rhyme,
 In hamely, westlin jingle.
While frosty winds blaw in the drift,
 Ben to the chimla lug,
I grudge a wee the great-folk’s gift,
 That live sae bien an’ snug:
...Read more of this...

A Song Of Suicide

by Robert William Service
 Deeming that I were better dead,
"How shall I kill myself?" I said.
Thus mooning by the river Seine
I sought extinction without pain,
When on a bridge I saw a flash
Of lingerie and heard a splash . . .
So as I am a swimmer stout
I plunged and pulled the poor wretch out. 

The female that I saved? Ah yes,
To yield the Morgue...Read more of this...

No man saw awe nor to his house

by Emily Dickinson
 No man saw awe, nor to his house
Admitted he a man
Though by his awful residence
Has human nature been.

Not deeming of his dread abode
Till laboring to flee
A grasp on comprehension laid
Detained vitality.

Returning is a different route
The Spirit could not show
For breathing is the only work
To be enacted now.

"Am not consumed," old Moses wrote,
"Yet saw him face to face" --
That very...Read more of this...

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