Famous Fashion Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Ad Finum

by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
 On the white throat of useless passion
That scorched my soul with its burning breath
I clutched my fingers in murderous fashion
And gathered them close in a grip of death;

For why should I fan, or feed with fuel,
A love that showed me but blank despair?
So my hold was firm, and my grasp was cruel -
I meant to strangle it then and...Read more of this...

Portrait of a Baby

by Stephen Vincent Benet
 He lay within a warm, soft world 
Of motion. Colors bloomed and fled, 
Maroon and turquoise, saffron, red, 
Wave upon wave that broke and whirled 
To vanish in the grey-green gloom, 
Perspectiveless and shadowy. 
A bulging world that had no walls, 
A flowing world, most like the sea, 
Compassing all infinity 
Within a shapeless, ebbing room, 
An endless tide...Read more of this...

Investigating Flora

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 'Twas in scientific circles 
That the great Professor Brown 
Had a world-wide reputation 
As a writer of renown. 
He had striven finer feelings 
In our natures to implant 
By his Treatise on the Morals 
Of the Red-eyed Bulldog Ant. 
He had hoisted an opponent 
Who had trodden unawares 
On his "Reasons for Bare Patches 
On the Female Native Bears"....Read more of this...

Table Song

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
 [Composed for the merry party already mentioned, 
on the occasion of the departure for France of the hereditary prince, 
who was one of the number, and who is especially alluded to in the 
3rd verse.]

O'ER me--how I cannot say,--

Heav'nly rapture's growing.
Will it help to guide my way

To yon stars all-glowing?
Yet that here I'd sooner be,

To assert I'm able,
Where, with...Read more of this...

530. Song—Yonder pomp of costly fashion

by Robert Burns
 MARK yonder pomp of costly fashion
 Round the wealthy, titled bride:
But when compar’d with real passion,
 Poor is all that princely pride.
 Mark yonder, &c. (four lines repeated).


 What are the showy treasures,
 What are the noisy pleasures?
The gay, gaudy glare of vanity and art:
 The polish’d jewels’ blaze
 May draw the wond’ring gaze;
 And courtly grandeur bright
 The...Read more of this...

Non Sum Qualis Eram Bonae Sub Regno Cynarae

by Ernest Dowson
 Last night, ah, yesternight, betwixt her lips and mine 
There fell thy shadow, Cynara! thy breath was shed 
Upon my soul between the kisses and the wine; 
And I was desolate and sick of an old passion, 
Yea, I was desolate and bowed my head: 
I have been faithful to thee, Cynara! in my fashion. 

All night upon mine...Read more of this...

Recollection of the Arabian Nights

by Alfred Lord Tennyson
 WHEN the breeze of a joyful dawn blew free 
In the silken sail of infancy, 
The tide of time flow'd back with me, 
The forward-flowing tide of time; 
And many a sheeny summer-morn, 
Adown the Tigris I was borne, 
By Bagdat's shrines of fretted gold, 
High-walled gardens green and old; 
True Mussulman was I and sworn, 
For it was...Read more of this...

Did He who made me fashion me for hell,

by Omar Khayyam
Did He who made me fashion me for hell,
Or destine me for heaven? I cannot tell.
Yet will I not renounce cup, lute and love,
Nor earthly cash for heavenly credit sell....Read more of this...

Villonaud for This Yule

by Ezra Pound
 Towards the Noel that morte saison 
(Christ make the shepherds' homage dear!)
Then when the grey wolves everychone 
Drink of the winds their chill small-beer 
And lap o' the snows food's gueredon 
Then makyth my heart his yule-tide cheer 
(Skoal! with the dregs if the clear be gone!)
Wineing the ghosts of yester-year.

Ask ye what ghost I dream upon? 
(What of...Read more of this...

We outgrow love like other things

by Emily Dickinson
 We outgrow love, like other things
And put it in the Drawer --
Till it an Antique fashion shows --
Like Costumes Grandsires wore....Read more of this...

If

by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
 Dear love, if you and I could sail away, 
With snowy pennons to the wind unfurled, 
Across the waters of some unknown bay, 
And find some island far from all the world;

If we could dwell there, ever more alone, 
While unrecorded years slip by apace, 
Forgetting and forgotten and unknown 
By aught save native song-birds of the place;

If Winter...Read more of this...

Sonnet 13 - And wilt thou have me fashion into speech

by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
 And wilt thou have me fashion into speech
The love I bear thee, finding words enough,
And hold the torch out, while the winds are rough,
Between our faces, to cast light on each?—
I drop it at thy feet. I cannot teach
My hand to hold my spirit so far off
From myself—me—that I should bring thee proof
In words, of love hid in me...Read more of this...

Prosopopoia: or Mother Hubbards Tale

by Edmund Spenser
 By that he ended had his ghostly sermon,
The fox was well induc'd to be a parson,
And of the priest eftsoons gan to inquire,
How to a benefice he might aspire.
"Marry, there" (said the priest) "is art indeed:
Much good deep learning one thereout may read;
For that the ground-work is, and end of all,
How to obtain a beneficial.
First, therefore, when ye have...Read more of this...

Smoke

by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
 Last summer, lazing by the sea, 
I met a most entrancing creature, 
Her black eyes quite bewildered me--- 
She had a Spanish cast of feature.

She often smoked a cigarette, 
And did it in the cutest fashion. 
Before a week passed by she set 
My young heart in a raging passion.

I swore I loved her as my life, 
I gave...Read more of this...

The Four Ages Of The World

by Friedrich von Schiller
 The goblet is sparkling with purpled-tinged wine,
Bright glistens the eye of each guest,
When into the hall comes the Minstrel divine,
To the good he now brings what is best;
For when from Elysium is absent the lyre,
No joy can the banquet of nectar inspire.

He is blessed by the gods, with an intellect clear,
That mirrors the world as it glides;
He has seen...Read more of this...

Christmass

by John Clare
 Christmass is come and every hearth
Makes room to give him welcome now
Een want will dry its tears in mirth
And crown him wi a holly bough
Tho tramping neath a winters sky
Oer snow track paths and ryhmey stiles
The huswife sets her spining bye
And bids him welcome wi her smiles
Each house is swept the day before
And windows stuck wi evergreens
The snow is...Read more of this...

Rapunzel

by Anne Sexton
 A woman 
who loves a woman 
is forever young. 
The mentor 
and the student 
feed off each other. 
Many a girl 
had an old aunt 
who locked her in the study 
to keep the boys away. 
They would play rummy 
or lie on the couch 
and touch and touch. 
Old breast against young breast... 
Let your dress fall down...Read more of this...

A Prayer For My Son

by William Butler Yeats
 Bid a strong ghost stand at the head
That my Michael may sleep sound,
Nor cry, nor turn in the bed
Till his morning meal come round;
And may departing twilight keep
All dread afar till morning's back.
That his mother may not lack
Her fill of sleep.

Bid the ghost have sword in fist:
Some there are, for I avow
Such devilish things exist,
Who have planned his murder,...Read more of this...

392. Song—Poortith cauld and restless love

by Robert Burns
 O POORTITH cauld, and restless love,
 Ye wrack my peace between ye;
Yet poortith a’ I could forgive,
 An ’twere na for my Jeanie.


Chorus.—O why should Fate sic pleasure have,
 Life’s dearest bands untwining?
Or why sae sweet a flower as love
 Depend on Fortune’s shining?


The warld’s wealth, when I think on,
 It’s pride and a’ the lave o’t;
O fie on...Read more of this...

Three Songs To The One Burden

by William Butler Yeats
 I

The Roaring Tinker if you like,
But Mannion is my name,
And I beat up the common sort
And think it is no shame.
The common breeds the common,
A lout begets a lout,
So when I take on half a score
I knock their heads about.

From mountain to mountain ride the fierce horsemen.

All Mannions come from Manannan,
Though rich on every shore
He never lay behind four...Read more of this...

Dedication To Joseph Mazzini

by Algernon Charles Swinburne
 Take, since you bade it should bear,
These, of the seed of your sowing,
Blossom or berry or weed.
Sweet though they be not, or fair,
That the dew of your word kept growing,
Sweet at least was the seed.

Men bring you love-offerings of tears,
And sorrow the kiss that assuages,
And slaves the hate-offering of wrongs,
And time the thanksgiving of years,
And years the thanksgiving of...Read more of this...

Sonnet 20: A womans face with Natures own hand painted

by William Shakespeare
 A woman's face with Nature's own hand painted
Hast thou, the master-mistress of my passion;
A woman's gentle heart, but not acquainted
With shifting change, as is false women's fashion;
An eye more bright than theirs, less false in rolling,
Gilding the object whereupon it gazeth;
A man in hue, all hues in his controlling,
Which steals men's eyes and women's souls amazeth.
And for a woman...Read more of this...

It will be Summer -- eventually

by Emily Dickinson
 It will be Summer -- eventually.
Ladies -- with parasols --
Sauntering Gentlemen -- with Canes --
And little Girls -- with Dolls --

Will tint the pallid landscape --
As 'twere a bright Bouquet --
Thro' drifted deep, in Parian --
The Village lies -- today --

The Lilacs -- bending many a year --
Will sway with purple load --
The Bees -- will not despise the...Read more of this...

The Sea-voyage

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
 MANY a day and night my bark stood ready laden;
Waiting fav'ring winds, I sat with true friends round me,
Pledging me to patience and to courage,
In the haven.

And they spoke thus with impatience twofold:
"Gladly pray we for thy rapid passage,
Gladly for thy happy voyage; fortune
In the distant world is waiting for thee,
In our arms thoult find thy prize, and love...Read more of this...

Fate Knows no Tears

by Adela Florence Cory Nicolson
   Just as the dawn of Love was breaking
          Across the weary world of grey,
   Just as my life once more was waking
          As roses waken late in May,
   Fate, blindly cruel and havoc-making,
  ...Read more of this...

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