Famous Dublin Poems by Famous Poets

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

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The Battle of Glencoe

by William Topaz McGonagall
 Twas in the month of October, and in the year of 1899,
Which the Boers will remember for a very long time,
Because by the British Army they received a crushing blow;
And were driven from Smith's Hill at the Battle of Glencoe. 

The Boers' plan of the battle was devised with great skill,
And about 7000 men of them were camped on...Read more of this...

Lines in Praise of the Lyric Club Banquet

by William Topaz McGonagall
 Which was Held in the Queens Hotel, Perth, on the Evening of 5th September 1894


'Twas in the year of 1894, and on the 5th of September,
Which for a long time I will remember,
And the gentlemen I entertained in the city of Perth,
Which is one of the grandest cities upon the earth. 

At the Banquet there were gentlemen of high...Read more of this...

Belts

by Rudyard Kipling
 There was a row in Silver Street that's near to Dublin Quay,
Between an Irish regiment an' English cavalree;
It started at Revelly an' it lasted on till dark:
The first man dropped at Harrison's, the last forninst the Park.
 For it was: -- "Belts, belts, belts, an' that's one for you!"
 An' it was "Belts, belts, belts, an' that's done for...Read more of this...

Apologies For Absence

by Barry Tebb
 Sorry, Neil Oram (with an orange in my pocket)

I can’t make ,your loch-side commune by bonny Drummadrochit.



Sorry Brenda Williams, I can’t share your park bench protest near the Royal Free

At sixty I need a fire and slippers, -4 outside just isn’t me.



Sorry, Chris Torrance, I can’t make your Welsh eyrie

Just spelling Gymmercher Isaf Pontneathvaughan quite fazes me.



Sorry, Seamus Famous,...Read more of this...

Early Poems

by Victor Hugo
 MOSES ON THE NILE. 
 
 ("Mes soeurs, l'onde est plus fraiche.") 
 
 {TO THE FLORAL GAMES, Toulouse, Feb. 10, 1820.} 


 "Sisters! the wave is freshest in the ray 
 Of the young morning; the reapers are asleep; 
 The river bank is lonely: come away! 
 The early murmurs of old Memphis creep 
 Faint on...Read more of this...

Cain

by Victor Hugo
 ("Lorsque avec ses enfants Cain se fût enfui.") 
 
 {Bk. II} 


 Then, with his children, clothed in skins of brutes, 
 Dishevelled, livid, rushing through the storm, 
 Cain fled before Jehovah. As night fell 
 The dark man reached a mount in a great plain, 
 And his tired wife and his sons, out of breath,...Read more of this...

Mothers

by Victor Hugo
 ("Regardez: les enfants.") 
 
 {XX., June, 1884.} 


 See all the children gathered there, 
 Their mother near; so young, so fair, 
 An eider sister she might be, 
 And yet she hears, amid their games, 
 The shaking of their unknown names 
 In the dark urn of destiny. 
 
 She wakes their smiles, she...Read more of this...

The Boy-king's Prayer

by Victor Hugo
 ("Le cheval galopait toujours.") 
 
 {Bk. XV. ii. 10.} 


 The good steed flew o'er river and o'er plain, 
 Till far away,—no need of spur or rein. 
 The child, half rapture, half solicitude, 
 Looks back anon, in fear to be pursued; 
 Shakes lest some raging brother of his sire 
 Leap from those rocks...Read more of this...

The Rattling Boy from Dublin

by William Topaz McGonagall
 I'm a rattling boy from Dublin town,
I courted a girl called Biddy Brown,
Her eyes they were as black as sloes,
She had black hair and an aquiline nose. 

Chorus --

Whack fal de da, fal de darelido,
Whack fal de da, fal de darelay,
Whack fal de da, fal de darelido,
Whack fal de da, fal de darelay. 

One night I met her with...Read more of this...

Ii

by Victor Hugo
 But he saw nothing; space was black—no sound. 
 "Forward," said Canute, raising his proud head. 
 There fell a second stain beside the first, 
 Then it grew larger, and the Cimbrian chief 
 Stared at the thick vague darkness, and saw naught. 
 Still as a bloodhound follows on his track, 
 Sad he went on. 'There...Read more of this...

King Louis Xvii

by Victor Hugo
 ("En ce temps-là du ciel les portes.") 
 
 {Bk. I. v., December, 1822.} 


 The golden gates were opened wide that day, 
 All through the unveiled heaven there seemed to play 
 Out of the Holiest of Holy, light; 
 And the elect beheld, crowd immortal, 
 A young soul, led up by young angels bright, 
...Read more of this...

Still Be A Child

by Victor Hugo
 ("O vous que votre âge défende") 
 
 {IX., February, 1840.} 


 In youthful spirits wild, 
 Smile, for all beams on thee; 
 Sport, sing, be still the child, 
 The flower, the honey-bee. 
 
 Bring not the future near, 
 For Joy too soon declines— 
 What is man's mission here? 
 Toil, where no sunlight...Read more of this...

My Thoughts Of Ye

by Victor Hugo
 ("À quoi je songe?") 
 
 {XXIII., July, 1836.} 


 What do I dream of? Far from the low roof, 
 Where now ye are, children, I dream of you; 
 Of your young heads that are the hope and crown 
 Of my full summer, ripening to its fall. 
 Branches whose shadow grows along my wall, 
...Read more of this...

Charity

by Victor Hugo
 ("Je suis la Charité.") 
 
 {February, 1837.} 


 "Lo! I am Charity," she cries, 
 "Who waketh up before the day; 
 While yet asleep all nature lies, 
 God bids me rise and go my way." 
 
 How fair her glorious features shine, 
 Whereon the hand of God hath set 
 An angel's attributes divine,...Read more of this...

The Portrait Of A Child

by Victor Hugo
 ("Oui, ce front, ce sourire.") 
 
 {Bk. V. xxii., November, 1825.} 


 That brow, that smile, that cheek so fair, 
 Beseem my child, who weeps and plays: 
 A heavenly spirit guards her ways, 
 From whom she stole that mixture rare. 
 Through all her features shining mild, 
 The poet sees an angel there, 
...Read more of this...

Huddersfield - The Second Poetry Capital Of England

by Barry Tebb
 It brings to mind Swift leaving a fortune to Dublin

‘For the founding of a lunatic asylum - no place needs it more’.

The breathing beauty of the moors and cheap accommodation

Drew me but the total barbarity of the town stopped me from

Writing a single line: from the hideous facade of its railway

Station - Betjeman must have been drunk or mad...Read more of this...

The Children Of The Poor

by Victor Hugo
 ("Prenez garde à ce petit être.") 
 
 {LAUS PUER: POEM V.} 


 Take heed of this small child of earth; 
 He is great: in him is God most high. 
 Children before their fleshly birth 
 Are lights in the blue sky. 
 
 In our brief bitter world of wrong 
 They come; God gives us...Read more of this...

Teatro Bambino. Dublin N. H

by Amy Lowell
 How still it is! Sunshine itself here 
falls
In quiet shafts of light through the high trees
Which, arching, make a roof above the walls
Changing from sun to shadow as each breeze
Lingers a moment, charmed by the strange sight
Of an Italian theatre, storied, seer
Of vague romance, and time's long history;
Where tiers of grass-grown seats sprinkled with white,
Sweet-scented clover, form a broken...Read more of this...

Bag-Snatching In Dublin

by Stevie Smith
 Sisely
Walked so nicely
With footsteps so discreet
To see her pass
You'd never guess
She walked upon the street.

Down where the Liffey waters' turgid flood
Churns up to greet the ocean-driven mud,
A bruiser in fix
Murdered her for 6/6....Read more of this...

The City

by Constantine P Cavafy
 WHAT domination of what darkness dies this hour,
And through what new, rejoicing, winged, ethereal power
O’erthrown, the cells opened, the heart released from fear?
Gay twilight and grave twilight pass. The stars appear
O’er the prodigious, smouldering, dusky, city flare.
The hanging gardens of Babylon were not more fair
Than these blue flickering glades, where childhood in its glee
Re-echoes with fresh voice the heaven-lit...Read more of this...

Responsibilities - Introduction

by William Butler Yeats
 Pardon, old fathers, if you still remain
Somewhere in ear-shot for the story's end,
Old Dublin merchant "free of the ten and four"
Or trading out of Galway into Spain;
Old country scholar, Robert Emmet's friend,
A hundred-year-old memory to the poor;
Merchant and scholar who have left me blood
That has not passed through any huckster's loin,
Soldiers that gave, whatever die was cast:
A Butler or...Read more of this...

Saltbush Bills Second Flight

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 The news came down on the Castlereagh, and went to the world at large, 
That twenty thousand travelling sheep, with Saltbush Bill in charge, 
Were drifting down from a dried-out run to ravage the Castlereagh; 
And the squatters swore when they heard the news, and wished they were well away: 
For the name and the fame of Saltbush Bill...Read more of this...

59. Death and Dr. Hornbook

by Robert Burns
 SOME books are lies frae end to end,
And some great lies were never penn’d:
Ev’n ministers they hae been kenn’d,
 In holy rapture,
A rousing whid at times to vend,
 And nail’t wi’ Scripture.


But this that I am gaun to tell,
Which lately on a night befell,
Is just as true’s the Deil’s in hell
 Or Dublin city:
That e’er he nearer comes oursel’
...Read more of this...

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