Famous Down And Out Poems by Famous Poets

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

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The House Of Dust: Part 01: 01: The sun goes down in a cold pale flare of light

by Conrad Aiken
 The sun goes down in a cold pale flare of light.
The trees grow dark: the shadows lean to the east:
And lights wink out through the windows, one by one.
A clamor of frosty sirens mourns at the night.
Pale slate-grey clouds whirl up from the sunken sun.

And the wandering one, the inquisitive dreamer of dreams,
The eternal asker of answers, stands in...Read more of this...

The Town Down by the River

by Edwin Arlington Robinson
 I

Said the Watcher by the Way 
To the young and the unladen, 
To the boy and to the maiden, 
"God be with you both to-day. 
First your song came ringing, 
Now you come, you two-- 
Knowing naught of what you do, 
Or of what your dreams are bringing.

"O you children who go singing 
To the Town down the River,...Read more of this...

Piping Down the Valleys Wild

by William Blake
 Piping down the valleys wild,
Piping songs of pleasant glee,
On a cloud I saw a child,
And he laughing said to me:

'Pipe a song about a lamb!'
So I piped with merry cheer.
'Piper, pipe that song again.'
So I piped: he wept to hear.

'Drop thy pipe, thy happy pipe;
Sing thy songs of happy cheer.'
So I sung the same again,
While he wept with joy...Read more of this...

Theres Another Blessed Horse Fell Down

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 When you're lying in your hammock, sleeping soft and sleeping sound, 
Without a care or trouble on your mind, 
And there's nothing to disturb you but the engines going round, 
And you're dreaming of the girl you left behind; 
In the middle of your joys you'll be wakened by a noise 
And a clatter on the deck above your...Read more of this...

When Death shall tread me down upon the plain,

by Omar Khayyam
When Death shall tread me down upon the plain,
And pluck my feathers, and my life-blood drain,
Then mould me to a cup, and fill with wine,
Haply its scent will make me breathe again....Read more of this...

Lying Down

by Robert Desnos
 To the right, the sky, to the left, the sea.
And before your eyes, the grass and its flowers.
A cloud, the road, follows its vertical way
Parallel to the plumb line of the horizon,
Parallel to the rider.
The horse races towards its imminent fall
And the other climbs interminably.
How simple and strange everything is.
Lying on my left side
I take no interest in the...Read more of this...

The Man in the Moon Came Down Too Soon

by J R R Tolkien
 There is an inn, a merry old inn
beneath an old grey hill,
And there they brew a beer so brown
That the Man in the Moon himself came down
one night to drink his fill.

The ostler has a tipsy cat
that plays a five-stringed fiddle;
And up and down he saws his bow
Now squeaking high, now purring low,
now sawing in the middle.

The landlord keeps...Read more of this...

Down fall the tears from skies enwrapt in gloom,

by Omar Khayyam
Down fall the tears from skies enwrapt in gloom,
Without this drink, the flowers could never bloom!
As now these flowerets yield delight to me,
So shall my dust yield flowers,—God knows for whom....Read more of this...

The Furl of Fresh-Leaved Dogrose Down

by Gerard Manley Hopkins
 The furl of fresh-leaved dogrose down 
His cheeks the forth-and-flaunting sun 
Had swarthed about with lion-brown 
Before the Spring was done. 

His locks like all a ravel-rope’s-end,
With hempen strands in spray— 
Fallow, foam-fallow, hanks—fall’n off their ranks, 
Swung down at a disarray. 

Or like a juicy and jostling shock 
Of bluebells sheaved in May
Or wind-long fleeces on the flock...Read more of this...

On Sitting Down To Read King Lear Once Again

by John Keats
 O golden-tongued Romance with serene lute!
 Fair plumed Syren! Queen of far away!
 Leave melodizing on this wintry day,
Shut up thine olden pages, and be mute:
Adieu! for once again the fierce dispute,
 Betwixt damnation and impassion'd clay
 Must I burn through; once more humbly assay
The bitter-sweet of this Shakespearian fruit.
Chief Poet! and ye clouds of Albion,
 Begetters of our...Read more of this...

I solved all problems, down from Saturn's wreath

by Omar Khayyam
I solved all problems, down from Saturn's wreath
Unto this lowly sphere of earth beneath,
And leapt out free from bonds of fraud and lies,
Yea, every knot was loosed, save that of death!...Read more of this...

Down Home

by Lucy Maud Montgomery
 Down home to-night the moonshine falls
Across a hill with daisies pied,
The pear tree by the garden gate
Beckons with white arms like a bride. 

A savor as of trampled fern
Along the whispering meadow stirs,
And, beacon of immortal love,
A light is shining through the firs. 

To my old gable window creeps
The night wind with a sigh and song,
And, weaving ancient sorceries,
Thereto...Read more of this...

The Earth Falls Down

by Anne Sexton
 If I could blame it all on the weather,
the snow like the cadaver's table,
the trees turned into knitting needles,
the ground as hard as a frozen haddock,
the pond wearing its mustache of frost.
If I could blame conditions on that,
if I could blame the hearts of strangers
striding muffled down the street,
or blame the dogs, every color,
sniffing each other
and pissing on the...Read more of this...

I Went Down into the Desert

by Vachel Lindsay
 I went down into the desert
To meet Elijah—
Arisen from the dead.
I thought to. find him in an echoing cave;
For so my dream had said.

I went down into the desert
To meet John the Baptist.
I walked with feet that bled,
Seeking that prophet lean and brown and bold.
I spied foul fiends instead.

I went down into the desert
To meet my God.
By him be...Read more of this...

The Princess: A Medley: Come down O Maid

by Alfred Lord Tennyson
 Come down, O maid, from yonder mountain height:
What pleasure lives in height (the shepherd sang)
In height and cold, the splendour of the hills?
But cease to move so near the Heavens, and cease
To glide a sunbeam by the blasted Pine,
To sit a star upon the sparkling spire;
And come, for Love is of the valley, come,
For Love is of the valley,...Read more of this...

Go Down Death

by James Weldon Johnson
 Weep not, weep not,
She is not dead;
She's resting in the bosom of Jesus.
Heart-broken husband--weep no more;
Grief-stricken son--weep no more;
Left-lonesome daughter --weep no more;
She only just gone home.

Day before yesterday morning,
God was looking down from his great, high heaven,
Looking down on all his children,
And his eye fell of Sister Caroline,
Tossing on her bed of pain.
And God's big heart was touched...Read more of this...

A bird came down the walk

by Emily Dickinson
A bird came down the walk:
He did not know I saw;
He bit an angle-worm in halves
And ate the fellow, raw.

And then he drank a dew
From a convenient grass,
And then hopped sidewise to the wall
To let a beetle pass.

He glanced with rapid eyes
That hurried all abroad,--
They looked like frightened beads, I thought;
He stirred his velvet head

Like one in danger; cautious,
I offered...Read more of this...

Let down the Bars Oh Death --

by Emily Dickinson
 Let down the Bars, Oh Death --
The tired Flocks come in
Whose bleating ceases to repeat
Whose wandering is done --

Thine is the stillest night
Thine the securest Fold
Too near Thou art for seeking Thee
Too tender, to be told....Read more of this...

The Low-Down White

by Robert William Service
 This is the pay-day up at the mines, when the bearded brutes come down;
There's money to burn in the streets to-night, so I've sent my klooch to town,
With a haggard face and a ribband of red entwined in her hair of brown.

And I know at the dawn she'll come reeling home with the bottles, one, two, three --
One for...Read more of this...

Up At A Villa— Down In The City

by Robert Browning
 (As Distinguished by an Italian Person of Quality)

I

Had I but plenty of money, money enough and to spare,
The house for me, no doubt, were a house in the city-square;
Ah, such a life, such a life, as one leads at the window there!

II

Something to see, by Bacchus, something to hear, at least!
There, the whole day long, one's life is a...Read more of this...

There was an Old Derry down Derry who loved to see little folks merry;

by Edward Lear
There was an Old Derry down Derry, who loved to see little folks merry;So he made them a Book, and with laughter they shook At the fun of that Derry down Derry. ...Read more of this...

Dream Song 29: There sat down once a thing

by John Berryman
 There sat down, once, a thing on Henry's heart
só heavy, if he had a hundred years
& more, & weeping, sleepless, in all them time
Henry could not make good.
Starts again always in Henry's ears
the little cough somewhere, an odour, a chime.

And there is another thing he has in mind
like a grave Sienese face a thousand years
would fail to blur the...Read more of this...

Be not cast down by the troubles which we call vicissitudes

by Omar Khayyam
Be not cast down by the troubles which we call vicissitudes
here below. Let us occupy ourselves only in
drinking pure wine, limpid wine, the color of a rose.
Wine, friend, is the blood of the world. The world is
our murderer; how shall we resist drinking the blood of
the heart of him who spills ours?...Read more of this...

Down Stream

by Lucy Maud Montgomery
 Comrades, up! Let us row down stream in this first rare dawnlight,
While far in the clear north-west the late moon whitens and wanes;
Before us the sun will rise, deep-purpling headland and islet,
It is well to meet him thus, with the life astir in our veins! 

The wakening birds will sing for us in the woods wind-shaken,
And the solitude of...Read more of this...

Come down O Maid

by Alfred Lord Tennyson
COME down, O maid, from yonder mountain height: 
What pleasure lives in height (the shepherd sang), 
In height and cold, the splendour of the hills? 
But cease to move so near the Heavens, and cease 
To glide a sunbeam by the blasted Pine, 5 
To sit a star upon the sparkling spire; 
And come, for Love is of the valley,...Read more of this...

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