Famous Dried Out Poems by Famous Poets

These are examples of famous Dried 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 dried out poems. These examples illustrate what a famous dried out poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).

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The Rape of the Lock: Canto 5

by Alexander Pope
 She said: the pitying audience melt in tears, 
But Fate and Jove had stopp'd the Baron's ears.
In vain Thalestris with reproach assails,
For who can move when fair Belinda fails?
Not half so fix'd the Trojan could remain,
While Anna begg'd and Dido rag'd in vain.
Then grave Clarissa graceful wav'd her fan;
Silence ensu'd, and thus the nymph began.
"Say, why are beauties prais'd...Read more of this...

The Quality of Courage

by Stephen Vincent Benet
 Black trees against an orange sky, 
Trees that the wind shook terribly, 
Like a harsh spume along the road, 
Quavering up like withered arms, 
Writhing like streams, like twisted charms 
Of hot lead flung in snow. Below 
The iron ice stung like a goad, 
Slashing the torn shoes from my feet, 
And all the air was bitter sleet. 

And...Read more of this...

The Maoris Wool

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 The Maoris are a mighty race -- the finest ever known; 
Before the missionaries came they worshipped wood and stone; 
They went to war and fought like fiends, and when the war was done 
They pacified their conquered foes by eating every one. 
But now-a-days about the pahs in idleness they lurk, 
Prepared to smoke or drink or talk...Read more of this...

Mariana

by Alfred Lord Tennyson
WITH BLACKEST moss the flower-plots 
Were thickly crusted, one and all: 
The rusted nails fell from the knots 
That held the pear to the gable-wall. 
The broken sheds look'd sad and strange: 
Unlifted was the clinking latch; 
Weeded and worn the ancient thatch 
Upon the lonely moated grange. 
She only said, "My life is dreary, 
He cometh not," she said;...Read more of this...

A Bay In Anglesey

by John Betjeman
 The sleepy sound of a tea-time tide
Slaps at the rocks the sun has dried,

Too lazy, almost, to sink and lift
Round low peninsulas pink with thrift.

The water, enlarging shells and sand,
Grows greener emerald out from land

And brown over shadowy shelves below
The waving forests of seaweed show.

Here at my feet in the short cliff grass
Are shells, dried bladderwrack, broken glass,

Pale blue...Read more of this...

Psalm 31 part 2

by Isaac Watts
 v.7-13,18-21 
C. M.
Deliverance from slander and reproach.

My heart rejoices in thy name,
My God, my help, my trust;
Thou hast preserved my face from shame,
Mine honor from the dust.

"My life is spent with grief," I cried,
"My years consumed in groans,
My strength decays, mine eyes are dried,
And sorrow wastes my bones."

Among mine enemies my name
Was a mere proverb grown,
While to my neighbors...Read more of this...

She Dried Her Tears

by Emily Brontë
 She dried her tears and they did smile
To see her cheeks' returning glow
How little dreaming all the while
That full heart throbbed to overflow 

With that sweet look and lively tone
And bright eye shining all the day
They could not guess at midnight lone
How she would weep the time away...Read more of this...

the eyes that haunt me

by Rg Gregory
 there are eyes that refuse to exist
in the fresh air - they are invented
by the lies of paint or make their mark
in a memory that had a truth
to feed on but only by distortion

right now they sell a dream
i'd like to see the back of - they come
with a whole body rippling me apart
disturbing me with echoes of a...Read more of this...

This Life Is All Chequerd With Pleasures and Woes

by Thomas Moore
 This life is all chequer'd with pleasures and woes, 
That chase one another like waves of the deep -- 
Each brightly or darkly, as onward it flows, 
Reflecting our eyes, as they sparkle or weep. 
So closely our whims on our miseries tread, 
That the laugh is awaked ere the tear can be dried; 
And, as fast as the...Read more of this...

Little Viennese Waltz

by Federico García Lorca
 In Vienna there are ten little girls,
a shoulder for death to cry on,
and a forest of dried pigeons.
There is a fragment of tomorrow
in the museum of winter frost.
There is a thousand-windowed dance hall.

Ay, ay, ay, ay!
Take this close-mouthed waltz.

Little waltz, little waltz, little waltz,
of itself of death, and of brandy
that dips its tail in the sea.

I love you, I...Read more of this...

The Grave Of The Kitchen Mouse

by Philip Levine
 The stone says "Coors" 
The gay carpet says "Camels" 
Spears of dried grass 
The little sticks the children gathered 
The leaves the wind gathered 

The cat did not kill him 
The dog did not, not the trap 
Or lightning, or the rain's anger 
The tree's claws 
The black teeth of the moon 

The sun drilled over and over 
Dusk...Read more of this...

The Fascination Of Whats Difficult

by William Butler Yeats
 The fascination of what's difficult
Has dried the sap out of my veins, and rent
Spontaneous joy and natural content
Out of my heart. There's something ails our colt
That must, as if it had not holy blood
Nor on Olympus leaped from cloud to cloud,
Shiver under the lash, strain, sweat and jolt
As though it dragged road-metal. My curse on plays
That have to be...Read more of this...

You Came, Too

by Nikki Giovanni
You Came, TooI came to the crowd seeking friends  I came to the crowd seeking love  I came to the crowd for understanding    I found you    I came to the crowd to weep  I came to the crowd to laugh    You dried my tears  You shared my...Read more of this...

Farewell to Barn and Stack and Tree

by A E Housman
 "Farewell to barn and stack and tree, 
Farewell to Severn shore. 
Terence, look your last at me, 
For I come home no more. 

"The sun burns on the half-mown hill, 
By now the blood is dried; 
And Maurice amongst the hay lies still 
And my knife is in his side. 

"My mother thinks us long away; 
'Tis time the...Read more of this...

The Old Fools

by Philip Larkin
 What do they think has happened, the old fools,
To make them like this? Do they somehow suppose
It's more grown-up when your mouth hangs open and drools,
And you keep on pissing yourself, and can't remember
Who called this morning? Or that, if they only chose,
They could alter things back to when they danced all night,
Or went to their wedding, or sloped...Read more of this...

The Old Man's Love

by Victor Hugo
 ("Dérision! que cet amour boiteux.") 
 
 {HERNANI, Act III.} 


 O mockery! that this halting love 
 That fills the heart so full of flame and transport, 
 Forgets the body while it fires the soul! 
 If but a youthful shepherd cross my path, 
 He singing on the way—I sadly musing, 
 He in his fields,...Read more of this...

A Change of Menu

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 Now the new chum loaded his three-nought-three, 
It's a small-bore gun, but his hopes were big. 
"I am fed to the teeth with old ewe," said he, 
"And I might be able to shoot a pig." 
And he trusted more to his nose than ear 
To give him warning when pigs were near. 

Out of his lair in the...Read more of this...

Folk Tune

by Joseph Brodsky
It's not that the Muse feels like clamming up 
it's more like high time for the lad's last nap.
And the scarf-waving lass who wished him the best
drives a steamroller across his chest.

And the words won't rise either like that rod
or like logs to rejoin their old grove's sweet rot
and like eggs in the frying pan the face
spills its eyes all...Read more of this...

Stings

by Sylvia Plath
 Bare-handed, I hand the combs.
The man in white smiles, bare-handed,
Our cheesecloth gauntlets neat and sweet,
The throats of our wrists brave lilies.
He and I

Have a thousand clean cells between us,
Eight combs of yellow cups,
And the hive itself a teacup,
White with pink flowers on it,
With excessive love I enameled it

Thinking 'Sweetness, sweetness.'
Brood cells gray as the fossils of shells
Terrify me, they...Read more of this...

The Falcons

by W S Merwin
There were years when I knew
the flower in the red stone walls

now in the courtyard where I have returned with you
we drink the wine of visitors
the temperature of the cellars

dusk is welling
out of the dried blood of the masonry
no hour remains on the sundial
by now the owls of the tower corners
are waking on their keepers' fists
but it is still day
out...Read more of this...

The Lung Fish

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 The Honorable Ardleigh Wyse 
Was every fisherman's despair; 
He caught his fish on floating flies, 
In fact he caught them in the air, 
And wet-fly men -- good sports, perhaps -- 
He called "those chuck-and-chance-it chaps". 
And then the Fates that sometimes play 
A joke on such as me and you 
Deported him up Queensland way 
To act as...Read more of this...

Liberty

by James Whitcomb Riley
 New Castle, July 4, 1878

or a hundred years the pulse of time
Has throbbed for Liberty;
For a hundred years the grand old clime
Columbia has been free;
For a hundred years our country's love,
The Stars and Stripes, has waved above.

Away far out on the gulf of years--
Misty and faint and white
Through the fogs of wrong--a sail appears,
And the Mayflower heaves in sight,
And...Read more of this...

The Refugees

by Randall Jarrell
 In the shabby train no seat is vacant.
The child in the ripped mask
Sprawls undisturbed in the waste
Of the smashed compartment. Is their calm extravagant?
They had faces and lives like you. What was it they possessed
That they were willing to trade for this?
The dried blood sparkles along the mask
Of the child who yesterday possessed
A country welcomer than this.
Did he? All...Read more of this...

Second Poem

by Peter Orlovsky
 Morning again, nothing has to be done, 
 maybe buy a piano or make fudge.
At least clean the room up for sure like my farther I've done flick 
 the ashes & butts over the bed side on the floor.
But frist of all wipe my glasses and drink the water 
 to clean the smelly mouth.
A nock on the...Read more of this...

Sonnet: July 18th 1787

by William Lisle Bowles
 O Time! who know'st a lenient hand to lay
Softest on sorrow's wound, and slowly thence
(Lulling to sad repose the weary sense)
The faint pang stealest unperceived away;
On thee I rest my only hope at last,
And think, when thou hast dried the bitter tear
That flows in vain o'er all my soul held dear,
I may look back on every sorrow past,
And meet...Read more of this...

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