Famous Earls Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Lady Clare

by Alfred Lord Tennyson
IT was the time when lilies blow, 
And clouds are highest up in air, 
Lord Ronald brought a lily-white doe 
To give his cousin, Lady Clare. 

I trow they did not part in scorn- 
Lovers long-betroth'd were they: 
They too will wed the morrow morn: 
God's blessing on the day! 

'He does not love me for my birth, 
Nor for...Read more of this...

Battle Of Brunanburgh

by Alfred Lord Tennyson
 Athelstan King,
Lord among Earls,
Bracelet-bestower and
Baron of Barons,
He with his brother,
Edmund Atheling,
Gaining a lifelong
Glory in battle,
Slew with the sword-edge
There by Brunanburh,
Brake the shield-wall,
Hew'd the lindenwood,
Hack'd the battleshield,
Sons of Edward with hammer'd brands. 

Theirs was a greatness
Got from their Grandsires--
Theirs that so often in
Strife with their enemies
Struck for their hoards and their hearths and their homes. 

Bow'd the spoiler,
Bent the Scotsman,
Fell...Read more of this...

551. Ballad on Mr. Heron's Election—No. 4

by Robert Burns
 WHA will buy my troggin, fine election ware,
Broken trade o’ Broughton, a’ in high repair?


Chorus.—Buy braw troggin frae the banks o’ Dee;
Wha wants troggin let him come to me.


There’s a noble Earl’s fame and high renown,
For an auld sang—it’s thought the gudes were stown—
 Buy braw troggin, &c.


Here’s the worth o’ Broughton in a needle’s e’e;
Here’s a reputation tint...Read more of this...

A Pigs-Eye View Of Literature

by Dorothy Parker
 The Lives and Times of John Keats,
Percy Bysshe Shelley, and
George Gordon Noel, Lord Byron

Byron and Shelley and Keats
Were a trio of Lyrical treats.
The forehead of Shelley was cluttered with curls,
And Keats never was a descendant of earls,
And Byron walked out with a number of girls,
But it didn't impair the poetical feats
Of Byron and Shelley,
Of Byron and Shelley,
Of Byron and...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...

The Cymbaleer's Bride

by Victor Hugo
 ("Monseigneur le Duc de Bretagne.") 
 
 {VI., October, 1825.} 


 My lord the Duke of Brittany 
 Has summoned his barons bold— 
 Their names make a fearful litany! 
 Among them you will not meet any 
 But men of giant mould. 
 
 Proud earls, who dwell in donjon keep, 
 And steel-clad knight and peer,...Read more of this...

139. Lines on Meeting with Lord Daer

by Robert Burns
 THIS 1 wot ye all whom it concerns,
I, Rhymer Robin, alias Burns,
 October twenty-third,
A ne’er-to-be-forgotten day,
Sae far I sprackl’d up the brae,
 I dinner’d wi’ a Lord.


I’ve been at drucken writers’ feasts,
Nay, been *****-fou ’mang godly priests—
 Wi’ rev’rence be it spoken!—
I’ve even join’d the honour’d jorum,
When mighty Squireships of the quorum,
 Their hydra drouth did sloken.


But wi’ a...Read more of this...

The Black Sheep

by Robert William Service
 "The aristocratic ne'er-do-well in Canada frequently finds his way
into the ranks of the Royal North-West Mounted Police." -- Extract.

 Hark to the ewe that bore him:
 "What has muddied the strain?
 Never his brothers before him
 Showed the hint of a stain."
 Hark to the tups and wethers;
 Hark to the old gray ram:
 "We're all of us white,...Read more of this...

The Cockney Soul

by Henry Lawson
 From Woolwich and Brentford and Stamford Hill, from Richmond into the Strand, 
Oh, the Cockney soul is a silent soul – as it is in every land! 
But out on the sand with a broken band it's sarcasm spurs them through; 
And, with never a laugh, in a gale and a half, 'tis the Cockney cheers the crew. 

Oh,...Read more of this...

Double Ballade on the Nothingness of Things

by William Ernest Henley
 The big teetotum twirls,
And epochs wax and wane
As chance subsides or swirls;
But of the loss and gain
The sum is always plain.
Read on the mighty pall,
The weed of funeral
That covers praise and blame,
The -isms and the -anities,
Magnificence and shame:--
"O Vanity of Vanities!"

The Fates are subtle girls!
They give us chaff for grain.
And Time, the Thunderer, hurls,
Like bolted death, disdain
At all that...Read more of this...

One Viceroy Resigns

by Rudyard Kipling
 So here's your Empire. No more wine, then?
Good.
We'll clear the Aides and khitmatgars away.
(You'll know that fat old fellow with the knife --
He keeps the Name Book, talks in English too,
And almost thinks himself the Government.)
O Youth, Youth, Youth! Forgive me, you're so young.
Forty from sixty -- twenty years of work
And power to back the working. Ay def mi!
You...Read more of this...

An Epitaph On The Marchioness Of Winchester

by John Milton
 This rich Marble doth enterr
The honour'd Wife of Winchester,
A Vicounts daughter, an Earls heir,
Besides what her vertues fair
Added to her noble birth,
More then she could own from Earth.
Summers three times eight save one
She had told, alas too soon,
After so short time of breath,
To house with darknes, and with death. 
Yet had the number of her days
Bin as compleat as...Read more of this...

Good-By Now or Pardon My Gauntlet

by Ogden Nash
 Bring down the moon for genteel Janet;
She's too refined for this gross planet.
She wears garments and you wear clothes,
You buy stockings, she purchases hose.
She say That is correct, and you say Yes,
And she disrobes and you undress.
Confronted by a mouse or moose,
You turn green, she turns chartroose.
Her speech is new-minted, freshly quarried;
She has a fore-head, you have a forehead.
Nor...Read more of this...

The Maypole

by Robert Herrick
 The May-pole is up,
Now give me the cup;
I'll drink to the garlands around it;
But first unto those
Whose hands did compose
The glory of flowers that crown'd it.

A health to my girls,
Whose husbands may earls
Or lords be, granting my wishes,
And when that ye wed
To the bridal bed,
Then multiply all, like to fishes....Read more of this...

The Last Rhyme of True Thomas

by Rudyard Kipling
 The King has called for priest and cup,
 The King has taken spur and blade
To dub True Thomas a belted knight,
 And all for the sake o' the songs he made.

They have sought him high, they have sought him low,
 They have sought him over down and lea;
They have found him by the milk-white thorn
 That guards the gates...Read more of this...

The Emperor's Return

by Victor Hugo
 ("Un bouffon manquait à cette fête.") 
 
 {LES BURGRAVES, Part II.} 


 The EMPEROR FREDERICK BARBAROSSA, believed to be dead, appearing 
 as a beggar among the Rhenish nobility at a castle, suddenly reveals 
 himself. 
 
 HATTO. This goodly masque but lacked a fool! 
 First gypsy; next a beggar;—good! Thy name? 
 
 BARBAROSSA. Frederick...Read more of this...

Pigmy seraphs -- gone astray

by Emily Dickinson
 Pigmy seraphs -- gone astray --
Velvet people from Vevay --
Balles from some lost summer day --
Bees exclusive Coterie --
Paris could not lay the fold
Belted down with Emerald --
Venice could not show a check
Of a tint so lustrous meek --
Never such an Ambuscade
As of briar and leaf displayed
For my little damask maid --

I had rather wear her grace
Than an Earl's...Read more of this...

301. Lines to a Gentleman who sent a Newspaper

by Robert Burns
 KIND Sir, I’ve read your paper through,
And faith, to me, ’twas really new!
How guessed ye, Sir, what maist I wanted?
This mony a day I’ve grain’d and gaunted,
To ken what French mischief was brewin;
Or what the drumlie Dutch were doin;
That vile doup-skelper, Emperor Joseph,
If Venus yet had got his nose off;
Or how the collieshangie works
Atween the Russians and the Turks,
Or...Read more of this...

Here's a Health to King Charles

by Sir Walter Scott
 Bring the bowl which you boast, 
Fill it up to the brim; 
’Tis to him we love most, 
And to all who love him. 
Brave gallants, stand up, 
And avaunt ye, base carles! 
Were there death in the cup, 
Here’s a health to King Charles. 

Though he wanders through dangers, 
Unaided, unknown, 
Dependent on strangers, 
Estranged from his own;...Read more of this...

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