Famous Erin Poems by Famous Poets

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

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A Real Motorcycle

...Unspeakable. The word that fills up the
poem, that the head
tries to excise.
At 6 a.m., the wet lion. Its sewn plush face
on the porch rail in the rain.
Heavy rains later, & maybe a thunderstorm.
12 or 13 degrees.

Inside: an iris, candle, poster of the
many-breasted Artemis in a stone hat
from Anatolia

A little pedal steel guitar

A photograph of her at ...Read more of this...
by Moure, Erin


Against Writing about Children

...When I think of the many people
who privately despise children,
I can't say I'm completely shocked,

having been one. I was not
exceptional, uncomfortable as that is
to admit, and most children are not

exceptional. The particulars of
cruelty, sizes Large and X-Large,
memory gnawing it like

a fat dog, are ordinary: Mean Miss
Smigelsky from the sixth grade...Read more of this...
by Belieu, Erin

Alfred Lord Tennyson - The Coming Of Arthur

...Cradlemont of Wales, 
Claudias, and Clariance of Northumberland, 
The King Brandagoras of Latangor, 
With Anguisant of Erin, Morganore, 
And Lot of Orkney. Then, before a voice 
As dreadful as the shout of one who sees 
To one who sins, and deems himself alone 
And all the world asleep, they swerved and brake 
Flying, and Arthur called to stay the brands 
That hacked among the flyers, `Ho! they yield!' 
So like a painted battle the war stood 
Silenced, the living quiet as th...Read more of this...
by Tennyson, Alfred Lord

All Distance

...Writing from Boston, where sky is simply
property, a flourish topping crowds
of condos and historic real estate,
I'm trying to imagine blue sky:
the first time, where it happened,
what I was becoming. Being taken there
by car, from a town so newly born that grass
still accounted all distance, an explanation
drawn in measureless yellows, a tone
stubbling th...Read more of this...
by Belieu, Erin

As Vanquishd Erin

...As vanquish'd Erin wept beside 
The Boyne's ill-fated river, 
She saw where Discord, in the tide, 
Had dropp'd his loaded quiver. 
"Lie hid," she cried, "ye venom'd darts, 
Where mortal eye may shun you; 
Lie hid -- the stain of manly hearts, 
That bled for me, is on you." 

But vain her wish, her weeping vain -- 
As Time too well hath taught her -- 
Each year the Fiend r...Read more of this...
by Moore, Thomas


Avenging and Bright

...Avenging and bright fall the swift sword of Erin
On him who the brave sons of Usna betray'd! -- 
For every fond eye he hath waken'd a tear in 
A drop from his heart-wounds shall weep o'er her blade. 

By the red cloud that hung over Conor's dark dwelling,
When Ulad's three champions lay sleeping in gore -- 
By the billows of war, which so often, high swelling,, 
Have wafted these heroes to victory's s...Read more of this...
by Moore, Thomas

Cleared

...ies,
Like ph]oenixes from Ph]oenix Park (and what lay there) they rise!
Go shout it to the emerald seas -- give word to Erin now,
Her honourable gentlemen are cleared -- and this is how: --

They only paid the Moonlighter his cattle-hocking price,
They only helped the murderer with counsel's best advice,
But -- sure it keeps their honour white -- the learned Court believes
They never gave a piece of plate to murderers and thieves.

They never told the ramping crowd to card a ...Read more of this...
by Kipling, Rudyard

Erin! The Tear and the Smile in Thine Eyes

...Erin! the tear and the smile in thine eyes 
Blend like the rainbow that hangs in thy skies, 
Shining through sorrow's stream, 
Saddening through pleasure's beam, 
Thy suns with doubtful gleam, 
Weep while they rise. 

Erin, thy silent tear never shall cease, 
Erin, thy languid smile ne'er shall increase, 
Till, like the rainbow's light, 
Thy various tints un...Read more of this...
by Moore, Thomas

For Catherine: Juana Infanta of Navarre

...Ferdinand was systematic when
he drove his daughter mad.

With a Casanova's careful art,
he moved slowly,
stole only one child at a time
through tunnels specially dug
behind the walls of her royal
chamber, then paid the Duenna
well to remember nothing
but his appreciation.

Imagine how quietly
the servants must have worked,

loosening the dirt, the muffled...Read more of this...
by Belieu, Erin

For the Moore Centennial Celebration

...I 

ENCHANTER of Erin, whose magic has bound us,
Thy wand for one moment we fondly would claim,
Entranced while it summons the phantoms around us 
That blush into life at the sound of thy name.

The tell-tales of memory wake from their slumbers,--
I hear the old song with its tender refrain,
What passion lies hid in those honey-voiced numbers!
What perfume of youth in each e...Read more of this...
by Holmes, Oliver Wendell

From On Being Fired Again

...I've known the pleasures of being
fired at least eleven times—

most notably by Larry who found my snood
unsuitable, another time by Jack,
whom I was sleeping with. Poor attitude,
tardiness, a contagious lack
of team spirit; I have been unmotivated

squirting perfume onto little cards,
while stocking salad bars, when stripping
covers from romance novels, t...Read more of this...
by Belieu, Erin

Georgic on Memory

...Make your daily monument the Ego,
use a masochist's epistemology
of shame and dog-eared certainty
that others less exacting might forgo.

If memory's an elephant, then feed
the animal. Resist revision: the stand
of feral raspberry, contraband
fruit the crows stole, ferrying seed

for miles ... No. It was a broken hedge,
not beautiful, sunlight tacking
its ...Read more of this...
by Belieu, Erin

Legend of the Albino Farm

...Omaha, Nebraska They do not sleep nights
but stand between

rows of glowing corn and
cabbages grown on acres past

the edge of the city.
Surrendered flags,

their nightgowns furl and
unfurl around their legs.

Only women could be this
white. Like mules,

they are sterile
and it appears that

their mouths are always
open. Because they are thin

as weeds, th...Read more of this...
by Belieu, Erin

Rondeau at the Train Stop

...It bothers me: the genital smell of the bay
drifting toward me on the T stop, the train
circling the city like a dingy, year-round
Christmas display. The Puritans were right! Sin
is everywhere in Massachusetts, hell-bound

in the population. it bothers me
because it's summer now and sticky - no rain
to cool things down; heat like a wound
that will not clos...Read more of this...
by Belieu, Erin

St. Winefreds Well

...more and more times laces round and round my heart,
The more some monstrous hand gropes with clammy fingers there,
Tampering with those sweet bines, draws them out, strains them, strains them;
Meantime some tongue cries ‘What, Teryth! what, thou poor fond father!
How when this bloom, this honeysuckle, that rides the air so rich about thee,
Is all, all sheared away, thus!’ Then I sweat for fear.
Or else a funeral, and yet ’tis not a funeral,
Some pageant which takes tears and...Read more of this...
by Hopkins, Gerard Manley

Sublime Was the Warning

...breeze, o'er the waves of the west -- 
Give the light of your look to each sorrowing spot, 
Nor, oh, be the Shamrock of Erin forgot 
While you add to your garland the Olive of Spain. 

If the fame of our fathers, bequeathed with their rights, 
Give to country its charm, and to home its delights; 
If deceit be a wound, and suspicion a stain, 
Then, ye men of Iberia, our cause is the same! 
And oh! may his tomb want a tear and a name, 
Who would ask for a nobler, a holier death...Read more of this...
by Moore, Thomas

The Chord

...Courageous lair "might prevail"
Waking up to her your "yellow coal"

Steals a its way

harm's imbrogliatic murmur
to concatenate

has been "said"
a mortal habitation or cut in air

that air leaks through

here too

***

Tricked again out of
hope's chord

The oscillatory hum in the head, or
amygdala

continual reaction in the wet mouth to
old oranges, or

m...Read more of this...
by Moure, Erin

The Cold

...There was a cold
In which

A line of water across the chest risen
(dream)

Impetuate, or
Impetuates

Orthograph you cherish, a hand her
Of doubt importance

Her imbroglio the winnowing of ever
Does establish

An imbroglio, ever
she does repeatedly declare

to no cold end
Admonish wit, at wit's end, where "wit" is

***

The cold of which
her azul gaze impar...Read more of this...
by Moure, Erin

The Hideous Chair

...This hideous,
upholstered in gift-wrap fabric, chromed
in places, design possibility

for the future canned ham.
Its genius
wonderful, circa I993.

I've assumed a great many things:
the perversity of choices, affairs
I did or did not have.

But let the record show
that I was happy.

O let the hideous chair

stand! For the Chinese apothecary
with his roots ...Read more of this...
by Belieu, Erin

The Sycamores

...Tallant! 
Pass in erkin green along 
With thy eyes brim full of laughter, 
And thy mouth as full of song. 

Pioneer of Erin's outcasts 
With his fiddle and his pack- 
Little dreamed the village Saxons 
Of the myriads at his back. 

How he wrought with spade and fiddle, 
Delved by day and sang by night, 
With a hand that never wearied 
And a heart forever light,--- 

Still the gay tradition mingles 
With a record grave and drear 
Like the rollic air of Cluny 
With the solemn ...Read more of this...
by Whittier, John Greenleaf

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