Famous Demesne Poems by Famous Poets

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

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On first looking into Chapmans Homer

by John Keats
MUCH have I travell'd in the realms of gold  
And many goodly states and kingdoms seen; 
Round many western islands have I been 
Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold. 
Oft of one wide expanse had I been told 5 
That deep-brow'd Homer ruled as his demesne: 
Yet did I never breathe its pure serene 
Till I heard Chapman...Read more of this...

Three Songs To The One Burden

by William Butler Yeats
 I

The Roaring Tinker if you like,
But Mannion is my name,
And I beat up the common sort
And think it is no shame.
The common breeds the common,
A lout begets a lout,
So when I take on half a score
I knock their heads about.

From mountain to mountain ride the fierce horsemen.

All Mannions come from Manannan,
Though rich on every shore
He never lay behind four...Read more of this...

A Carol of Harvest for 1867

by Walt Whitman
 1
A SONG of the good green grass! 
A song no more of the city streets; 
A song of farms—a song of the soil of fields. 

A song with the smell of sun-dried hay, where the nimble pitchers handle the pitch-fork; 
A song tasting of new wheat, and of fresh-husk’d maize.

2
For the lands, and for these passionate days, and for...Read more of this...

The Church-Builder

by Thomas Hardy
 The church flings forth a battled shade 
Over the moon-blanched sward: 
The church; my gift; whereto I paid 
My all in hand and hoard; 
Lavished my gains 
With stintless pains 
To glorify the Lord. 

I squared the broad foundations in 
Of ashlared masonry; 
I moulded mullions thick and thin, 
Hewed fillet and ogee; 
I circleted 
Each sculptured head 
With...Read more of this...

Any Wife To Any Husband

by Robert Browning
 I

My love, this is the bitterest, that thou
Who art all truth and who dost love me now
As thine eyes say, as thy voice breaks to say— 
Shouldst love so truly and couldst love me still
A whole long life through, had but love its will,
Would death that leads me from thee brook delay!

II

I have but to be by thee, and...Read more of this...

The Sick God

by Thomas Hardy
 I 

 In days when men had joy of war, 
A God of Battles sped each mortal jar; 
 The peoples pledged him heart and hand, 
 From Israel's land to isles afar. 

II 

 His crimson form, with clang and chime, 
Flashed on each murk and murderous meeting-time, 
 And kings invoked, for rape and raid, 
 His...Read more of this...

Coole Park And Ballylee 1931

by William Butler Yeats
 Under my window-ledge the waters race,
Otters below and moor-hens on the top,
Run for a mile undimmed in Heaven's face
Then darkening through 'dark' Raftery's 'cellar' drop,
Run underground, rise in a rocky place
In Coole demesne, and there to finish up
Spread to a lake and drop into a hole.
What's water but the generated soul?

Upon the border of that lake's a wood
Now all...Read more of this...

The Irish Unionists farewell to Greta Hellastrom in 1922

by John Betjeman
 Golden haired and golden hearted
I would ever have you be,
As you were when last we parted
Smiling slow and sad at me.
Oh! the fighting down of passion!
Oh! the century-seeming pain-
Parting in this off-hand fashion
In Dungarvan in the rain.

Slanting eyes of blue, unweeping
Stands my Swedish beauty where
Gusts of Irish rain are sweeping
Round the statue in the square;
Corner boys against the walling
Watch...Read more of this...

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