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Famous Fee Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Burns, Robert
...’s esteem and praise:
 To you I sing, in simple Scottish lays,
The lowly train in life’s sequester’d scene,
 The native feelings strong, the guileless ways,
What Aiken in a cottage would have been;
Ah! tho’ his worth unknown, far happier there I ween!


November chill blaws loud wi’ angry sugh;
 The short’ning winter-day is near a close;
The miry beasts retreating frae the pleugh;
 The black’ning trains o’ craws to their repose:
 The toil-worn Cotter frae his labour goes,—
Th...Read more of this...



by Shakespeare, William
...'d his hand,
Sweetly supposed them mistress of his heart.
My woeful self, that did in freedom stand,
And was my own fee-simple, not in part,
What with his art in youth, and youth in art,
Threw my affections in his charmed power,
Reserved the stalk and gave him all my flower.

'Yet did I not, as some my equals did,
Demand of him, nor being desired yielded;
Finding myself in honour so forbid,
With safest distance I mine honour shielded:
Experience for me many bulwarks b...Read more of this...

by Browning, Robert
...I.

Oh, what a dawn of day!
How the March sun feels like May!
All is blue again
After last night's rain,
And the South dries the hawthorn-spray.
Only, my Love's away!
I'd as lief that the blue were grey,

II.

Runnels, which rillets swell,
Must be dancing down the dell,
With a foaming head
On the beryl bed
Paven smooth as a hermit's cell;
Each with a tale to tell,
Could my Love but attend as wel...Read more of this...

by Robinson, Edwin Arlington
...r appearance here. You do not know him, 
And even if you should pass him in the street 
He might go by without your feeling him
Between you and the world. I cannot say 
Whether he would, but I suppose he might.” 

“And I suppose you might, if urged,” I said, 
“Say in what water it is that we are fishing. 
You that have reasons hidden in a well,
Not mentioning all your nameless friends that walk 
The streets and are not either dead or living 
For company, are s...Read more of this...

by Montgomery, Lucy Maud
...ip that needs no further proving; 

No more of springtime hopes, sweet and uncertain,
Here we have largess of summer in fee­
Pile high the logs till the flame be leaping,
At bay the chill of the autumn keeping,
While pilgrim-wise, we may go a-reaping
In the fairest meadow of memory!...Read more of this...



by Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
...ck, yet how softly they gleamed beneath the brown shade of her tresses!
Sweet was her breath as the breath of kine that feed in the meadows.
When in the harvest heat she bore to the reapers at noontide
Flagons of home-brewed ale, ah! fair in sooth was the maiden,
Fairer was she when, on Sunday morn, while the bell from its turret
Sprinkled with holy sounds the air, as the priest with his hyssop
Sprinkles the congregation, and scatters blessings upon them,
Down the long st...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...worms,
And this is some murderer’s knife, with a half-pull’d scabbard. 

This face owes to the sexton his dismalest fee; 
An unceasing death-bell tolls there. 

3
Those then are really men—the bosses and tufts of the great round globe! 

Features of my equals, would you trick me with your creas’d and cadaverous march?
Well, you cannot trick me. 

I see your rounded, never-erased flow; 
I see neath the rims of your haggard and mean disguises. 

Splay and twist ...Read more of this...

by Swinburne, Algernon Charles
...d good news of the spring.

Draw the white curtain
Close, and be certain
She takes no hurt in
Her soft low bed;
She feels no colder,
And grows not older,
Though snows enfold her
From foot to head;
She turns not chilly
Like weed and lily
In marsh or hilly
High watershed,
Or green soft island
In lakes of highland;
She sleeps awhile, and she is not dead.

For all the hours,
Come sun, come showers,
Are friends of flowers,
And fairies all;
When frost entrapped her,
They ca...Read more of this...

by Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)
...And I schal baythen thy bone that thou boden habbes."
Lyyghtly lepez he hym to, and layght at his honde.
Then feersly that other freke vpon fote lyyghtis.
Now hatz Arthure his axe, and the halme grypez,
And sturnely sturez hit aboute, that stryke wyth hit thoyght.
The stif mon hym bifore stod vpon hyyght,
Herre then ani in the hous by the hede and more.
Wyth sturne schere ther he stod he stroked his berde,
And wyth a countenaunce dryyghe he droygh ...Read more of this...

by Rossetti, Christina
...eying,
If you will not sell me any
Of your fruits though much and many,
Give me back my silver penny
I tossed you for a fee."
They began to scratch their pates,
No longer wagging, purring,
But visibly demurring,
Grunting and snarling.
One called her proud,
Cross-grained, uncivil;
Their tones waxed loud,
Their looks were evil.
Lashing their tails
They trod and hustled her,
Elbowed and jostled her,
Clawed with their nails,
Barking, mewing, hissing, mocking,
Tore her...Read more of this...

by Keats, John
...
They could not in the self-same mansion dwell
Without some stir of heart, some malady;
They could not sit at meals but feel how well
It soothed each to be the other by;
They could not, sure, beneath the same roof sleep
But to each other dream, and nightly weep.

II.
With every morn their love grew tenderer,
With every eve deeper and tenderer still;
He might not in house, field, or garden stir,
But her full shape would all his seeing fill;
And his continual voice was ...Read more of this...

by Kipling, Rudyard
...g my mother.
 Why has the Lord afflicted me?
The Saints are helpless for all I offer--
 So are the clergy I used to fee.
Henceforward I keep my cash in my coffer,
 Because the Lord has afflicted me.


 Material

I run eight hundred hens to the acre
 They die by dozens mysteriously. . . .
I am more than doubtful concerning my Maker,
 Why has the Lord afflicted me?
What a return for all my endeavour--
 Not to mention the L. S. D!
I am an athe...Read more of this...

by McKay, Claude
...ld sing forgotten jungle songs. 
I would go back to darkness and to peace, 
But the great western world holds me in fee, 
And I may never hope for full release 
While to its alien gods I bend my knee. 
Something in me is lost, forever lost, 
Some vital thing has gone out of my heart, 
And I must walk the way of life a ghost 
Among the sons of earth, a thing apart; 
For I was born, far from my native clime, 
Under the white man's menace, out of time....Read more of this...

by Chaucer, Geoffrey
...ce he was full often in assize,
By patent, and by plein* commission; *full
For his science, and for his high renown,
Of fees and robes had he many one.
So great a purchaser was nowhere none.
All was fee simple to him, in effect
His purchasing might not be in suspect* *suspicion
Nowhere so busy a man as he there was
And yet he seemed busier than he was
In termes had he case' and doomes* all *judgements
That from the time of King Will. were fall.
Thereto he coul...Read more of this...

by Bridges, Robert Seymour
...eaks that shine,
Hailing in each the citadel divine
The which ye thought to have enter'd long ago;
Until at length your feeble steps and slow
Falter upon the threshold of the shrine,
And your hearts overhurden'd doubt in fine
Whether it be Jerusalem or no: 
Dishearten'd pilgrims, I am one of you;
For, having worshipp'd many a barren face,
I scarce now greet the goal I journey'd to:
I stand a pagan in the holy place;
Beneath the lamp of truth I am found untrue,
And question wi...Read more of this...

by Scott, Sir Walter
...That ventures o'er thy magic maze to stray;
     O, wake once more! though scarce my skill command
        Some feeble echoing of thine earlier lay:
     Though harsh and faint, and soon to die away,
        And all unworthy of thy nobler strain,
     Yet if one heart throb higher at its sway,
        The wizard note has not been touched in vain.
     Then silent be no more! Enchantress, wake again!
     I.

     The stag at eve had drunk his fill,
     Where...Read more of this...

by Lanier, Sidney
...l the tale untold.
They follow mad Hamish afar up the crag toward the sea,
And the lady cries: "Clansmen, run for a fee! --
Yon castle and lands to the two first hands that shall hook him and hold

Fast Hamish back from the brink!" -- and ever she flies up the steep,
And the clansmen pant, and they sweat, and they jostle and strain.
But, mother, 'tis vain; but, father, 'tis vain;
Stern Hamish stands bold on the brink, and dangles the child o'er the deep.

Now a fa...Read more of this...

by Cullen, Countee
...smallest sandgrain like a knife, and smelt
The next year's flowering; all this to speed
My body's dissolution, fain to feed
The worms.And so I groaned, and spent my strength
Until, all passion spent, I lay full length
And quivered like a flayed and bleeding thing.

So lay till lifted on a great black wing
That had no mate nor flesh-apparent trunk
To hamper it; with me all time had sunk
Into oblivion; when I awoke
The wing hung poised above two cliffs that broke
The b...Read more of this...

by Chaucer, Geoffrey
...ill I tell:
God let his soul never come into hell.
And yet was he to me the moste shrew;* *cruel, ill-tempered
That feel I on my ribbes all *by rew,* *in a row
And ever shall, until mine ending day.
But in our bed he was so fresh and gay,
And therewithal so well he could me glose,* *flatter
When that he woulde have my belle chose,
Though he had beaten me on every bone,
Yet could he win again my love anon.
I trow, I lov'd him better, for that he
Was of his love so ...Read more of this...

by Kipling, Rudyard
...t find Thee quick and kind,
 Nor know Thee till I die,
Enough for me in dreams to see
 And touch Thy garments' hem:
Thy feet have trod so near to God
 I may not follow them.

Through wantonness if men profess
 They weary of Thy parts,
E'en let them die at blasphemy
 And perish with their arts;
But we that love, but we that prove
 Thine excellence august,
While we adore discover more
 Thee perfect, wise, and just.

Since spoken word Man's Spirit stirred
 Beyond his bel...Read more of this...

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Book: Reflection on the Important Things