Famous Dole Poems by Famous Poets

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

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A Florida Sunday

...,
New-wing'd, yet fain to sail
Above the serene Gulf to where a bridegroom soul
Calls o'er the soft horizon -- mine thy dole
Of shut undaring wings and wan desire --
Mine, too, thy later hope and heavenly fire
Of kindling expectation; yea, all sights,
All sounds, that make this morn -- quick flights
Of pea-green paroquets 'twixt neighbor trees,
Like missives and sweet morning inquiries
From green to green, in green -- live oaks' round heads,
Busy with jays for thoughts -- gra...Read more of this...
by Lanier, Sidney


A proper trewe idyll of camelot

...f noblesse lords fared unto Camelot,
Wherein were mighty feastings and passing merrie cheere,
And eke a deale of dismal dole, as you shall quickly heare.

It so befell upon a daye when jousts ben had and while
Sir Launcelot did ramp around ye ring in gallaunt style,
There came an horseman shriking sore and rashing wildly home,--
A mediaeval horseman with ye usual flecks of foame;
And he did brast into ye ring, wherein his horse did drop,
Upon ye which ye rider did with like a...Read more of this...
by Field, Eugene

Beowulf (Old English)

...son-in-law stood in feud
for warfare and hatred that woke again. {1c}
With envy and anger an evil spirit
endured the dole in his dark abode,
that he heard each day the din of revel
high in the hall: there harps rang out,
clear song of the singer. He sang who knew {1d}
tales of the early time of man,
how the Almighty made the earth,
fairest fields enfolded by water,
set, triumphant, sun and moon
for a light to lighten the land-dwellers,
and braided bright the breas...Read more of this...
by Anonymous,

Casualty

...a discreet dumb-show
Of pulling off the top;
At closing time would go
In waders and peaked cap
Into the showery dark,
A dole-kept breadwinner
But a natural for work.
I loved his whole manner,
Sure-footed but too sly,
His deadpan sidling tact,
His fisherman's quick eye
And turned observant back.

Incomprehensible
To him, my other life.
Sometimes on the high stool,
Too busy with his knife
At a tobacco plug
And not meeting my eye,
In the pause after a slug
He mentioned poetry.
W...Read more of this...
by Heaney, Seamus

Dirge of the Three Queens

...URNS and odours bring away! 
 Vapours, sighs, darken the day! 
Our dole more deadly looks than dying; 
 Balms and gums and heavy cheers, 
 Sacred vials fill'd with tears, 
And clamours through the wild air flying! 

 Come, all sad and solemn shows, 
 That are quick-eyed Pleasure's foes! 
 We convent naught else but woes....Read more of this...
by Shakespeare, William


from the Ansty Experience

...begin
to taste the honey on the plate
and soon another name is buzzing 
round the bars where literary pass-
ons meet to dole out bits of hem
i accept it all - it's not for me

above it all the literary lions
(jackals to each other) stand posed
upon their polystyrene mountains
constructed by their fans and foes
alike (they have such need of them)
disdaining what they see but terror-
stricken when newcomers climb up 
waving their thin bright books

for so long they've dubbed th...Read more of this...
by Gregory, Rg

Gawain and the Green Knight

...lle that feyght hym byhode.
So mony meruayl bi mount ther the mon fyndez,
Hit were to tore for to telle of the tenthe dole.
Sumwhyle wyth wormez he werrez, and with wolues als,
Sumwhyle wyth wodwos, that woned in the knarrez,
Bothe wyth bullez and berez, and borez otherquyle,
And etaynez, that hym anelede of the heyghe felle;

Nade he ben duyghty and dryyghe, and Dryyghtyn had serued,
Douteles he hade ben ded and dreped ful ofte.
For werre wrathed hym not so much th...Read more of this...
by Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)

Guinevere

...be prayed for; lie before your shrines; 
Do each low office of your holy house; 
Walk your dim cloister, and distribute dole 
To poor sick people, richer in His eyes 
Who ransomed us, and haler too than I; 
And treat their loathsome hurts and heal mine own; 
And so wear out in almsdeed and in prayer 
The sombre close of that voluptuous day, 
Which wrought the ruin of my lord the King.' 

She said: they took her to themselves; and she 
Still hoping, fearing `is it yet too late...Read more of this...
by Tennyson, Alfred Lord

Idylls of the King: The Last Tournament (excerpt)

...l on our rough Lyonnesse,
Sailing from Ireland." Softly laugh'd Isolt;
"Flatter me not, for hath not our great Queen
My dole of beauty trebled?" and he said,
"Her beauty is her beauty, and thine thine,
And thine is more to me--soft, gracious, kind--
Save when thy Mark is kindled on thy lips
Most gracious; but she, haughty ev'n to him,
Lancelot; for I have seen him wan enow
To make one doubt if ever the great Queen
Have yielded him her love."


To whom Isolt,
"Ah then, false h...Read more of this...
by Tennyson, Alfred Lord

Making Good

...hinks he is a winner,
 Then he is. 

But when I say Success I mean the sublimated kind;
A man may gain it yet be on the dole.
To me it's music of the heart and sunshine of the mind,
Serenity and sweetness of the soul.
You may not have a brace of bucks to jingle in your jeans,
Far less the dough to buy a motor car;
But though the row you're hoeing
May be grim, ungodly going,
If you think the skies are glowing -
 Then they are.

For a poor man may be wealthy and a millionaire m...Read more of this...
by Service, Robert William

Old Pictures In Florence

...coin of their neighbour!
'Tis looking downward that makes one dizzy.

XI.

``If you knew their work you would deal your dole.''
May I take upon me to instruct you?
When Greek Art ran and reached the goal,
Thus much had the world to boast _in fructu_---
The Truth of Man, as by God first spoken,
Which the actual generations garble,
Was re-uttered, and Soul (which Limbs betoken)
And Limbs (Soul informs) made new in marble.

XII.

So, you saw yourself as you wished you were,
As y...Read more of this...
by Browning, Robert

Paradise Lost: Book 04

...re to whatever place 
Farthest from pain, where thou mightst hope to change 
Torment with ease, and soonest recompense 
Dole with delight, which in this place I sought; 
To thee no reason, who knowest only good, 
But evil hast not tried: and wilt object 
His will who bounds us! Let him surer bar 
His iron gates, if he intends our stay 
In that dark durance: Thus much what was asked. 
The rest is true, they found me where they say; 
But that implies not violence or harm. 
Thus...Read more of this...
by Milton, John

Purgatorio (Italian)

...o mena?».
 Li atti suoi pigri e le corte parole
mosser le labbra mie un poco a riso;
poi cominciai: «Belacqua, a me non dole
 di te omai; ma dimmi: perché assiso
quiritto se'? attendi tu iscorta,
o pur lo modo usato t'ha' ripriso?».
 Ed elli: «O frate, andar in sù che porta?
ché non mi lascerebbe ire a' martìri
l'angel di Dio che siede in su la porta.
 Prima convien che tanto il ciel m'aggiri
di fuor da essa, quanto fece in vita,
perch'io 'ndugiai al fine i buon sospiri,
 se ...Read more of this...
by Alighieri, Dante

Rabbi Ben Ezra

...ifts should prove their use:
I own the Past profuse
Of power each side, perfection every turn:
Eyes, ears took in their dole,
Brain treasured up the whole;
Should not the heart beat once 'How good to live and learn?'

Not once beat 'Praise be Thine!
I see the whole design,
I, who saw power, see now love perfect too:
Perfect I call Thy plan:
Thanks that I was a man!
Maker, remake, complete,--I trust what Thou shalt do!'

For pleasant is this flesh;
Our soul, in its rose-mesh
P...Read more of this...
by Browning, Robert

Street Cries

...I saw a man sit by a corse;
`Hell's in the murderer's breast: remorse!'
Thus clamored his mind to his mind:
Not fleshly dole is the sinner's goal,
Hell's not below, nor yet above,
'Tis fixed in the ever-damned soul --'
`Fixed?' quoth Love --

"`Fixed: follow me, would'st thou but see:
He weepeth under yon willow tree,
Fast chained to his corse,' quoth Mind.
Full soon they passed, for they rode fast,
Where the piteous willow bent above.
`Now shall I see at last, at last,
Hell,...Read more of this...
by Lanier, Sidney

The Emigrants: Book II

...on these hills
Is yonder little thoughtless shepherd lad,
Who, on the slope abrupt of downy turf
Reclin'd in playful indolence, sends off
The chalky ball, quick bounding far below;
While, half forgetful of his simple task,
Hardly his length'ning shadow, or the bells'
Slow tinkling of his flock, that supping tend
To the brown fallows in the vale beneath,
Where nightly it is folded, from his sport
Recal the happy idler.--While I gaze
On his gay vacant countenance, my thoughts
...Read more of this...
by Turner Smith, Charlotte

The Last Tournament

...our rough Lyonnesse, 
Sailing from Ireland.' 

Softly laughed Isolt; 
`Flatter me not, for hath not our great Queen 
My dole of beauty trebled?' and he said, 
`Her beauty is her beauty, and thine thine, 
And thine is more to me--soft, gracious, kind-- 
Save when thy Mark is kindled on thy lips 
Most gracious; but she, haughty, even to him, 
Lancelot; for I have seen him wan enow 
To make one doubt if ever the great Queen 
Have yielded him her love.' 

To whom Isolt, 
`Ah then...Read more of this...
by Tennyson, Alfred Lord

The Lonely God

...r be aware 
How much the other loved, and greatly care 
With passion for that happy love or hate, 
Nor know what joy or dole was hid in fate. 
For I have ranged the spacy width and gone 
Swift north and south, striving to look upon 
An ending somewhere. Many days I sped 
Hard to the west, a thousand years I fled 
Eastwards in fury, but I could not find 
The fringes of the Infinite. Behind 
And yet behind, and ever at the end 
Came new beginnings, paths that did not wend 
To a...Read more of this...
by Stephens, James

Ulysses

...little profits that an idle king,
By this still hearth, among these barren crags,
Matched with an aged wife, I mete and dole
Unequal laws unto a savage race,
That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.

I cannot rest from travel: I will drink
Life to the lees: all times I have enjoyed
Greatly, have suffered greatly, both with those
That loved me, and alone; on shore, and when
Through scudding drifts the rainy Hyades
Vest the dim sea: I am become a name;
For always roami...Read more of this...
by Tennyson, Alfred Lord

V

...n a call to Britain and to all nations
made in the name of love for peace's sake.

Aspirations, ****! Folk on t'fucking dole
'ave got about as much scope to aspire
above the **** they're dumped in, ****, as coal
aspires to be chucked on t'fucking fire. 

'OK, forget the aspirations. Look, I know
United's losing gets you fans incensed
and how far the HARP inside you makes you go
but all these Vs: against! against! against! 

Ah'll tell yer then what really riles a bloke.
It's ...Read more of this...
by Harrison, Tony

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