Famous Earl Poems by Famous Poets

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

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A Toad can die of Light --

by Emily Dickinson
 A Toad, can die of Light --
Death is the Common Right
Of Toads and Men --
Of Earl and Midge
The privilege --
Why swagger, then?
The Gnat's supremacy is large as Thine --

Life -- is a different Thing --
So measure Wine --
Naked of Flask -- Naked of Cask --
Bare Rhine --
Which Ruby's mine?...Read more of this...

The Hock-cart or Harvest Home

by Robert Herrick
 To the Right Honourable Mildmay, Earl of Westmoreland

Come, sons of summer, by whose toil 
We are the lords of wine and oil; 
By whose tough labours, and rough hands, 
We rip up first, then reap our lands. 
Crown'd with the ears of corn, now come, 
And to the pipe sing Harvest Home. 
Come forth, my lord, and see the...Read more of this...

God gave a loaf to every bird

by Emily Dickinson
God gave a loaf to every bird,
But just a crumb to me;
I dare not eat it, though I starve,--
My poignant luxury
To own it, touch it, prove the feat
That made the pellet mine,--
Too happy in my sparrow chance
For ampler coveting.

It might be famine all around,
I could not miss an ear,
Such plenty smiles upon my board,
My garner shows so fair.
I wonder how...Read more of this...

Honors - Part I

by Jean Ingelow
A Scholar is musing on his want of success.)

To strive—and fail. Yes, I did strive and fail;
  I set mine eyes upon a certain night
To find a certain star—and could not hail
      With them its deep-set light.
Fool that I was! I will rehearse my fault:
  I, wingless, thought myself on high to lift
Among...Read more of this...

The Inauguration of the Hill o Balgay

by William Topaz McGonagall
 Beautiful Hill o' Balgay,
With your green frees and flowers fair,
'Tis health for the old and young
For to be walking there,
To breathe the fragrant air
Emanating from the green bushes
And beautiful flowers there,
Then they can through the burying-ground roam,
And read the epitaphs on the tombstones
Before they go home.
There the lovers can wander safe arm in arm,
For policemen are there to protect...Read more of this...

The Battle of Bannockburn

by William Topaz McGonagall
 Sir Robert the Bruce at Bannockburn
Beat the English in every wheel and turn,
And made them fly in great dismay
From off the field without delay. 

The English were a hundred thousand strong,
And King Edward passed through the Lowlands all along.
Determined to conquer Scotland, it was his desire,
And then to restore it to his own empire. 

King Edward brought numerous waggons...Read more of this...

The Battle of Sheriffmuir

by William Topaz McGonagall
 'Twas in the year 1715, and on the 10th of November,
Which the people of Scotland have cause to remember;
On that day the Earl of Mar left Perth bound for Sheriffmuir,
At the same time leaving behind a garrison under Colonel Balfour. 

Besides leaving a force of about three thousand men quartered in different parts of Fife,
To protect the people's property,...Read more of this...

The Malay -- took the Pearl

by Emily Dickinson
 The Malay -- took the Pearl --
Not -- I -- the Earl --
I -- feared the Sea -- too much
Unsanctified -- to touch --

Praying that I might be
Worthy -- the Destiny --
The Swarthy fellow swam --
And bore my Jewel -- Home --

Home to the Hut! What lot
Had I -- the Jewel -- got --
Borne on a Dusky Breasty --
I...Read more of this...

An Arundel Tomb

by Philip Larkin
 Side by side, their faces blurred,
The earl and countess lie in stone,
Their proper habits vaguely shown
As jointed armour, stiffened pleat,
And that faint hint of the absurd -
The little dogs under their feet.

Such plainness of the pre-baroque
Hardly involves the eye, until
It meets his left-hand gauntlet, still
Clasped empty in the other; and
One sees, with a sharp tender shock,
His hand withdrawn, holding...Read more of this...

The Ballad of the Red Earl

by Rudyard Kipling
 (It is not for them to criticize too minutely
the methods the Irish followed, though they might deplore some of
their results. During the past few years Ireland had been going
through what was tantamount to a revolution. -- EARL SPENCER)



Red Earl, and will ye take for guide
 The silly camel-birds,
That ye bury your head in an Irish thorn,
 On a desert...Read more of this...

The Lovers' Colloquy

by Victor Hugo
 ("Mon duc, rien qu'un moment.") 
 
 {HERNANI, Act V.} 


 One little moment to indulge the sight 
 With the rich beauty of the summer's night. 
 The harp is hushed, and, see, the torch is dim,— 
 Night and ourselves together. To the brim 
 The cup of our felicity is filled. 
 Each sound is mute,...Read more of this...

Gastibelza

by Victor Hugo
 ("Gastibelza, l'homme à la carabine.") 
 
 {XXII., March, 1837.} 


 Gastibelza, with gun the measure beating, 
 Would often sing: 
 "Has one o' ye with sweet Sabine been meeting, 
 As, gay, ye bring 
 Your songs and steps which, by the music, 
 Are reconciled— 
 Oh! this chill wind across the mountain rushing 
 Will...Read more of this...

The Seafarer

by Ezra Pound
 (From the early Anglo-Saxon text) 

May I for my own self song's truth reckon,
Journey's jargon, how I in harsh days
Hardship endured oft.
Bitter breast-cares have I abided,
Known on my keel many a care's hold,
And dire sea-surge, and there I oft spent
Narrow nightwatch nigh the ship's head
While she tossed close to cliffs. Coldly afflicted,
My feet were by frost benumbed.
Chill its chains...Read more of this...

The Fatal Sisters

by Thomas Gray
 Now the storm begins to lower,
(Haste, the loom of Hell prepares!)
Iron-sleet of arrowy shower
Hurtles in the darkened air. 

Glittering lances are the loom,
Where the dusky warp we strain,
Weaving many a soldier's doom,
Orkney's woe and Randver's bane. 

See the grisly texture grow,
('Tis of human entrails made!)
And the weights that play below,
Each a gasping warrior's head. 

Shafts for shuttles, dipped in...Read more of this...

God gave a Loaf to every Bird --

by Emily Dickinson
 God gave a Loaf to every Bird --
But just a Crumb -- to Me --
I dare not eat it -- tho' I starve --
My poignant luxury --

To own it -- touch it --
Prove the feat -- that made the Pellet mine --
Too happy -- for my Sparrow's chance --
For Ampler Coveting --

It might be Famine -- all around --
I...Read more of this...

422. Epigrams against the Earl of Galloway

by Robert Burns
 WHAT dost thou in that mansion fair?
 Flit, Galloway, and find
Some narrow, dirty, dungeon cave,
 The picture of thy mind.
———No Stewart art thou, Galloway,
 The Stewarts ’ll were brave;
Besides, the Stewarts were but fools,
 Not one of them a knave.


Bright ran thy line, O Galloway,
 Thro’ many a far-fam’d sire!
So ran the far-famed Roman way,
 And ended in a...Read more of this...

156. Verses inscribed under a Noble Earl's Picture

by Robert Burns
 WHOSE 1 is that noble, dauntless brow?
 And whose that eye of fire?
And whose that generous princely mien,
 E’en rooted foes admire?


Stranger! to justly show that brow,
 And mark that eye of fire,
Would take His hand, whose vernal tints
 His other works admire.


Bright as a cloudless summer sun,
 With stately port he moves;
His guardian Seraph eyes with awe
 The...Read more of this...

To Thomas Earl of Suffolk

by Ben Jonson
LXVII. — TO THOMAS EARL OF SUFFOLK. Since men have left to do praiseworthy things, Most think all praises flatteries :  but truth brings That sound and that authority with her name, As, to be raised by her, is only fame. Stand high, then, HOWARD, high in eyes of men, High in thy blood, thy place ; but highest then, When,...Read more of this...

319. Lament for James Earl of Glencairn

by Robert Burns
 THE WIND blew hollow frae the hills,
 By fits the sun’s departing beam
Look’d on the fading yellow woods,
 That wav’d o’er Lugar’s winding stream:
Beneath a craigy steep, a Bard,
 Laden with years and meikle pain,
In loud lament bewail’d his lord,
 Whom Death had all untimely ta’en.


He lean’d him to an ancient aik,
 Whose trunk was mould’ring down with years;
His...Read more of this...

Sonnet 10

by John Milton
 X

Daughter to that good Earl, once President
Of Englands Counsel, and her Treasury,
Who liv'd in both, unstain'd with gold or fee,
And left them both, more in himself content,
Till the sad breaking of that Parlament
Broke him, as that dishonest victory
At Chaeronea, fatal to liberty
Kil'd with report that Old man eloquent,
Though later born, then to have known the dayes
Wherin your Father flourisht,...Read more of this...

I met a King this afternoon!

by Emily Dickinson
 I met a King this afternoon!
He had not on a Crown indeed,
A little Palmleaf Hat was all,
And he was barefoot, I'm afraid!

But sure I am he Ermine wore
Beneath his faded Jacket's blue --
And sure I am, the crest he bore
Within that Jacket's pocket too!

For 'twas too stately for an Earl --
A Marquis would not go so grand!
'Twas possibly a...Read more of this...

Did the Harebell loose her girdle

by Emily Dickinson
 Did the Harebell loose her girdle
To the lover Bee
Would the Bee the Harebell hallow
Much as formerly?

Did the "Paradise" -- persuaded --
Yield her moat of pearl --
Would the Eden be an Eden,
Or the Earl -- an Earl?...Read more of this...

Spelt From Sibyls Leaves

by Gerard Manley Hopkins
 Earnest, earthless, equal, attuneable, ' vaulty, voluminous, ... stupendous
Evening strains to be tíme's vást, ' womb-of-all, home-of-all, hearse-of-all night.
Her fond yellow hornlight wound to the west, ' her wild hollow hoarlight hung to the height
Waste; her earliest stars, earl-stars, ' stárs principal, overbend us,
Fíre-féaturing heaven. For earth ' her being has unbound, her dapple is at an end, as-
tray...Read more of this...

To The Right Honourable William Earl Of Dartmouth His Majestys Principal Secretary Of The State For North-America

by Phillis Wheatley
 HAIL, happy day, when, smiling like the morn,
Fair Freedom rose New-England to adorn:
The northern clime beneath her genial ray,
Dartmouth, congratulates thy blissful sway:
Elate with hope her race no longer mourns,
Each soul expands, each grateful bosom burns,
While in thine hand with pleasure we behold
The silken reins, and Freedom's charms unfold.
Long lost to realms beneath the northern skies
She shines supreme, while...Read more of this...

To Mr. F. Now Earl of W

by Anne Kingsmill Finch
 No sooner, FLAVIO, was you gone, 
But, your Injunction thought upon,
ARDELIA took the Pen; 
Designing to perform the Task,
Her FLAVIO did so kindly ask,
Ere he returned agen. 

Unto Parnassus strait she sent, 
And bid the Messenger, that went
Unto the Muses Court,
Assure them, she their Aid did need,
And begg'd they'd use their utmost Speed,
Because the Time was short. 

The hasty...Read more of this...

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