Famous Don Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Don poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous don poems. These examples illustrate what a famous don poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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...im exclaim, ere he drove out of sight—
Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night.
NOTES:
In the year 2000, Don Foster, an English professor at Vassar College
in Poughkeepsie, New York, used external and internal evidence to show
that Clement Clarke Moore could not have been the author of this poem,
but that it was probably the work of Livingston, and that Moore had
written another, and almost forgotten, Christmas piece, "Old
Santeclaus." Foster's analysis of this...Read more of this...
by
Emerson, Ralph Waldo
..."Seldom we find," says Solomon Don Dunce,
"Half an idea in the profoundest sonnet.
Through all the flimsy things we see at once
As easily as through a Naples bonnet-
Trash of all trash!- how can a lady don it?
Yet heavier far than your Petrarchan stuff-
Owl-downy nonsense that the faintest puff
Twirls into trunk-paper the while you con it."
And, veritably, Sol is right enough.
Th...Read more of this...
by
Poe, Edgar Allan
...er
Their stamping elephantine rumba.
A common cold, gadzooks, forsooth!
Ah, yes. And Lincoln was jostled by Booth;
Don Juan was a budding gallant,
And Shakespeare's plays show signs of talent;
The Arctic winter is fairly coolish,
And your diagnosis is fairly foolish.
Oh what a derision history holds
For the man who belittled the Cold of Colds!...Read more of this...
by
Nash, Ogden
...led.
Enmeshed in toils ambitious, not thine own,
Immortal, loved boy-Prince, thou tak'st thy stand
With early doomed Don Carlos, hand in hand
With mild-browed Arthur, Geoffrey's murdered son.
Louis the Dauphin lifts his thorn-ringed head,
And welcomes thee, his brother, 'mongst the dead....Read more of this...
by
Corso, Gregory
...sight he'd seen.
Quite in the forest's heart a lighted space
Arose to view; in that deserted place
A lone, abandoned hall with light aglow
The long neglect of centuries did show.
The castle-towers of Corbus in decay
Were girt by weeds and growths that had their way.
Couch-grass and ivy, and wild eglantine
In subtle scaling warfare all combine.
Subject to such attacks three hundred years,
The donjon yields, and ruin now appears,
E'en as by lepr...Read more of this...
by
Hugo, Victor
...ke."
He glent vpon Sir Gawen, and gaynly he sayde,
"Now, sir, heng vp thyn ax, that hatz innogh hewen";
And hit watz don abof the dece on doser to henge,
Ther alle men for meruayl myyght on hit loke,
And bi trwe tytel therof to telle the wonder.
Thenne thay boyghed to a borde thise burnes togeder,
The kyng and the gode knyyght, and kene men hem serued
Of alle dayntyez double, as derrest myyght falle;
Wyth alle maner of mete and mynstralcie bothe,
Wyth wele walt thda...Read more of this...
by
Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)
...s, her foe
2.28 She rack't, she sack'd, she sunk his Armadoe.
2.29 Her stately Troops advanc'd to Lisbon's wall,
2.30 Don Anthony in's right for to install.
2.31 She frankly help'd Franks' (brave) distressed King,
2.32 The States united now her fame do sing.
2.33 She their Protectrix was, they well do know,
2.34 Unto our dread Virago, what they owe.
2.35 Her Nobles sacrific'd their noble blood,
2.36 Nor men, nor coin she shap'd, to do them good.
2.37 The rude untamed...Read more of this...
by
Bradstreet, Anne
...ny and unafraid,
Comes up along a winding road the noise of the Crusade.
Strong gongs groaning as the guns boom far,
Don John of Austria is going to the war,
Stiff flags straining in the night-blasts cold
In the gloom black-purple, in the glint old-gold,
Torchlight crimson on the copper kettle-drums,
Then the tuckets, then the trumpets, then the cannon, and he comes.
Don John laughing in the brave beard curled,
Spurning of his stirrups like the thrones of all the wor...Read more of this...
by
Chesterton, G K
...I
'Tis done -- but yesterday a King!
And arm'd with Kings to strive --
And now thou art a nameless thing:
So abject -- yet alive!
Is this the man of thousand thrones,
Who strew'd our earth with hostile bones,
And can he thus survive?
Since he, miscall'd the Morning Star,
Nor man nor fiend hath fallen so far.
II
Ill-minded man! why scourge thy kind
Who b...Read more of this...
by
Byron, George (Lord)
...edr? ci? che tenem per fede,
non dimostrato, ma fia per s? noto
a guisa del ver primo che l'uom crede.
Io rispuosi: «Madonna, s? devoto
com'esser posso pi?, ringrazio lui
lo qual dal mortal mondo m'ha remoto.
Ma ditemi: che son li segni bui
di questo corpo, che l? giuso in terra
fan di Cain favoleggiare altrui?».
Ella sorrise alquanto, e poi «S'elli erra
l'oppinion», mi disse, «d'i mortali
dove chiave di senso non diserra,
certo non ti dovrien punger li strali
d'ammirazio...Read more of this...
by
Alighieri, Dante
...
As of the far-back days the poets tell—the Paradiso,
The straying thence, the separation long, but now the wandering done,
The journey done, the Journeyman come home,
And Man and Art, with Nature fused again.
6
Tutti! for Earth and Heaven!
The Almighty Leader now for me, for once has signal’d with his wand.
The manly strophe of the husbands of the world,
And all the wives responding.
The tongues of violins!
(I think, O tongues, ye tell this heart, that cannot tell...Read more of this...
by
Whitman, Walt
...reign skies
Nor under foreign wings protected -
I shared all this with my own people
There, where misfortune had abandoned us.
[1961]
INSTEAD OF A PREFACE
During the frightening years of the Yezhov terror, I
spent seventeen months waiting in prison queues in
Leningrad. One day, somehow, someone 'picked me out'.
On that occasion there was a woman standing behind me,
her lips blue with cold, who, of course, had never in
her life heard my name. Jolted out of the torpor
cha...Read more of this...
by
Akhmatova, Anna
...Calf,
Montrose, Mackail, Argyle, perverse and brave,
Twisted the stream, unhooped the ancestral hill.
Never had Dee or Don or Yarrow or Till
Huddled such thriftless honour in a grave.
Such wasted bravery idle as a song,
Such hard-won ill might prove Time's verdict wrong,
And melt to pity the annalist's iron tongue....Read more of this...
by
Muir, Edwin
...s making over frocks,
When she patches little trousers or darns prosaic socks;
But I draw the line at one thing--yes, I don my hat and take
A three hours' walk when she is moved to try her hand at cake!...Read more of this...
by
Field, Eugene
...me, where the tramways run,
Blossomed bright lights, I turned to leave,
When someone plucked me by the sleeve.
"Your pardon, Sir, but I should be
Most grateful could you lend to me
A carfare, I have lost my purse."
The voice was clear, concise, and terse.
I turned and met the quiet gaze
Of strange eyes flashing through the haze.
The man was old and slightly bent,
Under his cloak some instrument
Disarranged its stately line,
He rested on his cane a fine
And nervous hand, an al...Read more of this...
by
Lowell, Amy
...en the villainous Tempter speaks thus in his ear:
"Seize one of the shrouds that lie yonder!"
Quick as thought it was done! and for safety he fled
Behind the church-door with all speed;
The moon still continues her clear light to shed
On the dance that they fearfully lead.
But the dancers at length disappear one by one,
And their shrouds, ere they vanish, they carefully don,
And under the turf all is quiet.
But one of them stumbles and shuffles there still,
And gropes ...Read more of this...
by
von Goethe, Johann Wolfgang
...ng off my window.
The ants are in great pain
and they cry out as they hit
as if their little legs were only
stitche don and their heads pasted.
And oh they bring to mind the grave,
so humble, so willing to be beat upon
with its awful lettering and
the body lying underneath
without an umbrella.
Depression is boring, I think
and I would do better to make
some soup and light up the cave....Read more of this...
by
Sexton, Anne
...nter beguile." *unless
And thus they were accorded and y-sworn
To wait a time, as I have said beforn.
When Nicholas had done thus every deal*, *whit
And thwacked her about the lendes* well, *loins
He kiss'd her sweet, and taketh his psalt'ry
And playeth fast, and maketh melody.
Then fell it thus, that to the parish church,
Of Christe's owen workes for to wirch*, *work
This good wife went upon a holy day;
Her forehead shone as bright as any day,
So was it washen, when she left...Read more of this...
by
Chaucer, Geoffrey
...e all good English men.
Let us bang these dogs of Seville, the children of the devil,
For I never turned my back upon Don or devil yet.'
Sir Richard spoke and he laughed, and we roared a hurrah, and so
The little Revenge ran on sheer into the heart of the foe,
With her hundred fighters on deck, and her ninety sick below;
For half of their fleet to the right and half to the left were seen,
And the little Revenge ran on through the long sea-lane between.
Thousands of ...Read more of this...
by
Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...inflamed brain.
Enough!
Stop this foolish comedy
and take notice:
I’m ripping off
my toy armour,
I,
the greatest of all Don Quixotes!
Remember?
Weighed down by the cross,
Christ stopped for a moment,
weary.
Watching him, the mob
yelled, jeering:
“Get movin’, you clod!”
That’s right!
Be spiteful.
Spit upon him who begs for a rest
on his day of days,
harry and curse him.
To the army of zealots, doomed to do good,
man shows no mercy!
That does it!
I swear by my pagan strengt...Read more of this...
by
Mayakovsky, Vladimir
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