Famous Dramatic Verse Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Dramatic Verse poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous dramatic verse poems. These examples illustrate what a famous dramatic verse poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Thomas Hardy
For A. W. B.
SHE sought the Studios, beckoning to her side
An arch-designer, for she planned to build.
He was of wise contrivance, deeply skilled
In every intervolve of high and wide--
Well fit to be her guide.
"Whatever it be,"
Responded he,
With cold, clear voice, and cold, clear view,
"In true accord with prudent fashionings
For such vicissitudes as living brings,
And thwarting not the law of...Read more of this...
by
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
YOUTH.
AWAY, thou swarthy witch! Go forth
From out my house, I tell thee!
Or else I needs must, in my wrath,
Expel thee!
What's this thou singest so falsely, forsooth,
Of love and a maiden's silent truth?
Who'll trust to such a story!
GIPSY.
I sing of a maid's repentant fears,
And long and bitter yearning;
Her levity's changed to truth and tears
All-burning.
She dreads no more the threats of...Read more of this...
by
Algernon Charles Swinburne
I.
Death, if thou wilt, fain would I plead with thee:
Canst thou not spare, of all our hopes have built,
One shelter where our spirits fain would be,
Death, if thou wilt?
No dome with suns and dews impearled and gilt,
Imperial: but some roof of wildwood tree,
Too mean for sceptre's heft or swordblade's hilt.
Some low sweet roof where love might live, set free
From...Read more of this...
by
Rg Gregory
tangwena says
this is our land
soiled by the blood
of black centuries
smith says
the white tongue
goes bang bang
black must learn
words of a new march
tangwena says
every tree here
is made in the image
of a black ghost
smith says
the white tongue
goes bang bang
you must make your ghosts
in the image of new trees
tangwena...Read more of this...
by
George William Russell
SHADOWWHO art thou, O Glory,
In flame from the deep
Where stars chant their story;
Why trouble my sleep?
I hardly had rested;
My dreams wither now.
Why comest thou crested
And gemmed on thy brow?
GLORYUp, Shadow, and follow
The way I will show:
The blue gleaming hollow
To-night we shall know:
And rise through the vast to
The fountain of days
From whence we had passed to
The parting of ways.
SHADOWI know...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
Answer July --
Where is the Bee --
Where is the Blush --
Where is the Hay?
Ah, said July --
Where is the Seed --
Where is the Bud --
Where is the May --
Answer Thee -- Me --
Nay -- said the May --
Show me the Snow --
Show me the Bells --
Show me the Jay!
Quibbled the Jay --
Where be the Maize --
Where be the Haze...Read more of this...
by
Elinor Wylie
First Traveller: What's that lying in the dust?
Second Traveller: A crooked stick.
First Traveller: What's it worth, if you can trust to arithmetic?
Second Traveller: Isn't this a riddle?
First Traveller: No, a trick.
Second Traveller:It's worthless, leave it where it lies.
First Traveller: Wait; count ten;
Rub a little dust upon your eyes;
Now, look again.
Second...Read more of this...
by
Stephen Crane
"Have you ever made a just man?"
"Oh, I have made three," answered God,
"But two of them are dead,
And the third --
Listen! Listen!
And you will hear the thud of his defeat."...Read more of this...
by
Algernon Charles Swinburne
CHORUS
If with voice of words or prayers thy sons may reach thee,
We thy latter sons, the men thine after-birth,
We the children of thy grey-grown age, O Earth,
O our mother everlasting, we beseech thee,
By the sealed and secret ages of thy life;
By the darkness wherein grew thy sacred forces;
By the songs of stars thy sisters in their courses;
By thine own...Read more of this...
by
Robert Graves
BOY
Most venerable and learned sir,
Tall and true Philosopher,
These rings of smoke you blow all day
With such deep thought, what sense have they?
PHILOSOPHER
Small friend, with prayer and meditation
I make an image of Creation.
And if your mind is working nimble
Straightway you’ll recognize a symbol
Of the endless and eternal ring
Of God,...Read more of this...
by
William Butler Yeats
Man. In a cleft that's christened Alt
Under broken stone I halt
At the bottom of a pit
That broad noon has never lit,
And shout a secret to the stone.
All that I have said and done,
Now that I am old and ill,
Turns into a question till
I lie awake night after night
And never get...Read more of this...
by
A E Housman
CHORUS: O suitably-attired-in-leather-boots
Head of a traveller, wherefore seeking whom
Whence by what way how purposed art thou come
To this well-nightingaled vicinity?
My object in inquiring is to know.
But if you happen to be deaf and dumb
And do not understand a word I say,
Then wave your hand, to signify as much.
ALCMAEON: I journeyed hither a Boetian road.
CHORUS: Sailing on horseback, or with...Read more of this...
by
Conrad Aiken
The door is shut. She leaves the curtained office,
And down the grey-walled stairs comes trembling slowly
Towards the dazzling street.
Her withered hand clings tightly to the railing.
The long stairs rise and fall beneath her feet.
Here in the brilliant sun we jostle, waiting
To tear her secret out . . . We laugh, we hurry,
We go our way, revolving, sinister, slow.
She blinks...Read more of this...
by
Edward Rowland Sill
Doubting Thomas and loving John,
Behind the others walking on:—
“Tell me now, John, dare you be
One of the minority?
To be lonely in your thought,
Never visited nor sought,
Shunned with secret shrug, to go
Thro’ the world, esteemed its foe;
27To be singled out and hissed,
Pointed at as one unblessed,
Warned against in whispers faint,
Lest the children catch a taint;
To bear off your titles well,—
Heretic and...Read more of this...
by
Algernon Charles Swinburne
Watchman, what of the night? -
Storm and thunder and rain,
Lights that waver and wane,
Leaving the watchfires unlit.
Only the balefires are bright,
And the flash of the lamps now and then
From a palace where spoilers sit,
Trampling the children of men.
Prophet, what of the night? -
I stand by the verge of the sea,
Banished, uncomforted,...Read more of this...
by
Vachel Lindsay
I. THE VOICE OF THE MAN IMPATIENT WITH VISIONS AND UTOPIAS
We find your soft Utopias as white
As new-cut bread, and dull as life in cells,
O, scribes who dare forget how wild we are
How human breasts adore alarum bells.
You house us in a hive of prigs and saints
Communal, frugal, clean and chaste by law.
I'd rather brood in bloody Elsinore
Or be...Read more of this...
by
William Shakespeare
All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first, the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms.
Then the whining schoolboy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like...Read more of this...
by
Robert Browning
A MIDDLE-AGE INTERLUDE.
ROSA MUNDI; SEU, FULCITE ME FLORIBUS.
A CONCEIT OF MASTER GYSBRECHT,
CANON-REGULAR OF SAID JODOCUS-BY-THE-BAR,
YPRES CITY. CANTUQUE, _Virgilius._
AND HATH OFTEN BEEN SUNG
AT HOCK-TIDE AND FESTIVALES. GAVISUS
ERAM, _Jessides._
(It would seem to be a glimpse from the
burning of Jacques du Bourg-Mulay, at Paris,
A. D. 1314; as distorted by the refraction from
Flemish brain to brain, during the course of
a couple...Read more of this...
by
William Butler Yeats
Three Voices [together]. Hurry to bless the hands that play,
The mouths that speak, the notes and strings,
O masters of the glittering town!
O! lay the shrilly trumpet down,
Though drunken with the flags that sway
Over the ramparts and the towers,
And with the waving of your wings.
First Voice. Maybe they linger by the way.
One gathers up his purple gown;
One leans and mutters...Read more of this...
by
Siegfried Sassoon
The Bishop tells us: 'When the boys come back
'They will not be the same; for they'll have fought
'In a just cause: they lead the last attack
'On Anti-Christ; their comrades' blood has bought
'New right to breed an honourable race,
'They have challenged Death and dared him face to face.'
'We're none of us the same!' the boys reply.
'For George lost both his...Read more of this...
by
William Butler Yeats
He. Dear, I must be gone
While night Shuts the eyes
Of the household spies;
That song announces dawn.
She. No, night's bird and love's
Bids all true lovers rest,
While his loud song reproves
The murderous stealth of day.
He. Daylight already flies
From mountain crest to crest
She. That light is from the moon.
He. That bird...
She. Let him sing on,
...Read more of this...
by
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
[Published in the Gottingen Musen Almanach,
having been written "to express his feelings and caprices" after
his separation from Frederica.]
WANDERER.
YOUNG woman, may God bless thee,
Thee, and the sucking infant
Upon thy breast!
Let me, 'gainst this rocky wall,
Neath the elm-tree's shadow,
Lay aside my burden,
Near thee take my rest.
WOMAN.
What vocation leads thee,
While the day is burning,
Up this dusty path?
Bring'st thou goods from...Read more of this...
by
Shel Silverstein
Knock knock!
Who's there?
Me!
Me who?
That's right!
What's right?
Meehoo!
That's what I want to know!
What's what you want to know?
Me, WHO?
Yes, exactly!
Exactly what?
Yes, I have an Exactlywatt on a chain!
Exactly what on a chain?
Yes!
Yes what?
No, Exactlywatt!
That's what I want to know!
I told you - Exactlywatt!
Exactly WHAT?
Yes!
Yes what?
Yes, it's with me!
What's with you?
Exactlywatt - that's what's with me.
Me who?
Yes!
GO AWAY!
Knock knock......Read more of this...
by
William Blake
He. Where thou dwellest, in what grove,
Tell me Fair One, tell me Love;
Where thou thy charming nest dost build,
O thou pride of every field!
She. Yonder stands a lonely tree,
There I live and mourn for thee;
Morning drinks my silent tear,
And evening winds my sorrow bear.
He. O thou summer's harmony,
I have liv'd and mourn'd for thee;
Each day I mourn along the...Read more of this...
by
William Butler Yeats
Fergus. This whole day have I followed in the rocks,
And you have changed and flowed from shape to shape,
First as a raven on whose ancient wings
Scarcely a feather lingered, then you seemed
A weasel moving on from stone to stone,
And now at last you wear a human shape,
A thin grey man half lost in gathering night.
Druid. What would you, king...Read more of this...
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