Famous Fell Poems by Famous Poets

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

See also:

Sonnet LXIV: When I Have Seen by Times Fell Hand Defacd

by William Shakespeare
 When I have seen by Time's fell hand defac'd
The rich proud cost of outworn buried age;
When sometime lofty towers I see down-ras'd
And brass eternal slave to mortal rage;
When I have seen the hungry ocean gain
Advantage on the kingdom of the shore,
And the firm soil win of the wat'ry main,
Increasing store with loss and loss with store;
When I have seen...Read more of this...

Sonnet 64: When I have seen by Times fell hand defaced

by William Shakespeare
 When I have seen by Time's fell hand defaced
The rich-proud cost of outworn buried age;
When sometime lofty towers I see down-razed
And brass eternal slave to mortal rage;
When I have seen the hungry ocean gain
Advantage on the kingdom of the shore,
And the firm soil win of the watery main,
Increasing store with loss, and loss with store;
When I have seen such...Read more of this...

My Mothers Body

by Marge Piercy
 1. 

The dark socket of the year 
the pit, the cave where the sun lies down 
and threatens never to rise, 
when despair descends softly as the snow 
covering all paths and choking roads: 

then hawkfaced pain seized you 
threw you so you fell with a sharp 
cry, a knife tearing a bolt of silk. 
My father heard the...Read more of this...

On Death

by Anne Killigrew
 TEll me thou safest End of all our Woe, 
Why wreched Mortals do avoid thee so: 
Thou gentle drier o'th' afflicteds Tears, 
Thou noble ender of the Cowards Fears; 
Thou sweet Repose to Lovers sad dispaire, 
Thou Calm t'Ambitions rough Tempestuous Care. 
If in regard of Bliss thou wert a Curse, 
And then the Joys of Paradise art worse;...Read more of this...

The Rape of the Lock: Canto 4

by Alexander Pope
 But anxious cares the pensive nymph oppress'd, 
And secret passions labour'd in her breast.
Not youthful kings in battle seiz'd alive,
Not scornful virgins who their charms survive,
Not ardent lovers robb'd of all their bliss,
Not ancient ladies when refus'd a kiss,
Not tyrants fierce that unrepenting die,
Not Cynthia when her manteau's pinn'd awry,
E'er felt such rage, resentment, and despair,
As thou, sad virgin!...Read more of this...

Many People Come to Visit and Bring Wine After I Fell Off My Horse, Drunk

by Du Fu
 Fu (this) duke old guest Finish wine drunk sing open gold halberd Ride horse suddenly remember youth time Scatter hoof pour fall Qutang stone Baidicheng gate water cloud outside Lower body straight down eight thousand feet Whitewashed battlements lightning pass purple loose reins East gain level ridge out heaven cliff River village country hall fight enter eye...Read more of this...

Lullaby

by William Butler Yeats
 Beloved, may your sleep be sound
That have found it where you fed.
What were all the world's alarms
To mighty paris when he found
Sleep upon a golden bed
That first dawn in Helen's arms?

Sleep, beloved, such a sleep
As did that wild Tristram know
When, the potion's work being done,
Roe could run or doe could leap
Under oak and beechen bough,
Roe could leap or doe...Read more of this...

A great Hope fell

by Emily Dickinson
 A great Hope fell
You heard no noise
The Ruin was within
Oh cunning wreck that told no tale
And let no Witness in

The mind was built for mighty Freight
For dread occasion planned
How often foundering at Sea
Ostensibly, on Land

A not admitting of the wound
Until it grew so wide
That all my Life had entered it
And there were troughs beside

A closing of the simple lid
That...Read more of this...

A Drop Fell on the Apple Tree --

by Emily Dickinson
 A Drop Fell on the Apple Tree --
Another -- on the Roof --
A Half a Dozen kissed the Eaves --
And made the Gables laugh --

A few went out to help the Brook
That went to help the Sea --
Myself Conjectured were they Pearls --
What Necklace could be --

The Dust replaced, in Hoisted Roads --
The Birds jocoser sung --
The Sunshine threw...Read more of this...

He fell among Thieves

by Sir Henry Newbolt
 ‘Ye have robb’d,’ said he, ‘ye have slaughter’d and made an end,
Take your ill-got plunder, and bury the dead:
What will ye more of your guest and sometime friend?’
‘Blood for our blood,’ they said.

He laugh’d: ‘If one may settle the score for five,
I am ready; but let the reckoning stand till day:
I have loved the sunlight as dearly as any...Read more of this...

Guenevere

by Sara Teasdale
 I was a queen, and I have lost my crown;
A wife, and I have broken all my vows;
A lover, and I ruined him I loved: --
There is no other havoc left to do.

A little month ago I was a queen,
And mothers held their babies up to see
When I came riding out of Camelot.
The women smiled, and all the world...Read more of this...

as the snow fell

by Rg Gregory
 the children played games
getting from here
to where the truth was
without touching a flake

needless to say
the only ones who got there
were liars

but while the honest ones
shrank back from
the touch of snow
the liars
were where the truth was...Read more of this...

Harry Wilmans

by Edgar Lee Masters
 I was just turned twenty-one,
And Henry Phipps, the Sunday-school superintendent,
Made a speech in Bindle's Opera House.
"The honor of the flag must be upheld," he said,
"Whether it be assailed by a barbarous tribe of Tagalogs
Or the greatest power in Europe."
And we cheered and cheered the speech and the flag he waved
As he spoke.
And I went to the war in spite...Read more of this...

Nimrodel

by J R R Tolkien
 An Elven-maid there was of old,
A shining star by day.
Her mantle white was hemmed with gold,
Her shoes of silver-grey.

A star was bound upon her brows,
A light was on her hair
As sun upon the golden boughs
In Lorien the fair.

Her hair was long, her limbs were white,
And fair she was and free;
And in the wind she went as light
As leaf of...Read more of this...

Sonnet 153: Cupid laid by his brand and fell asleep

by William Shakespeare
 Cupid laid by his brand and fell asleep,
A maid of Dian's this advantage found,
And his love-kindling fire did quickly steep
In a cold valley-fountain of that ground;
Which borrowed from this holy fire of Love
A dateless lively heat still to endure,
And grew a seeting bath, which yet men prove
Against strange maladies a sovereign cure.
But at my mistress' eye Love's brand new-fired,
The...Read more of this...

The Old Woman of Berkeley

by Robert Southey
 The Raven croak'd as she sate at her meal, 
And the Old Woman knew what he said, 
And she grew pale at the Raven's tale, 
And sicken'd and went to her bed. 

'Now fetch me my children, and fetch them with speed,' 
The Old Woman of Berkeley said, 
'The Monk my son, and my daughter the Nun, 
Bid them...Read more of this...

Theres Another Blessed Horse Fell Down

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 When you're lying in your hammock, sleeping soft and sleeping sound, 
Without a care or trouble on your mind, 
And there's nothing to disturb you but the engines going round, 
And you're dreaming of the girl you left behind; 
In the middle of your joys you'll be wakened by a noise 
And a clatter on the deck above your...Read more of this...

The First Chantey

by Rudyard Kipling
 1896

Mine was the woman to me, darkling I found her:
Haling her dumb from the camp, held her and bound her.
Hot rose her tribe on our track ere I had proved her;
Hearing her laugh in the gloom, greatly I loved her.

Swift through the forest we ran, none stood to guard us,
Few were my people and fa; then the flood barred...Read more of this...

The Breaking Point

by Stephen Vincent Benet
 It was not when temptation came, 
Swiftly and blastingly as flame, 
And seared me white with burning scars; 
When I stood up for age-long wars 
And held the very Fiend at grips; 
When all my mutinous body rose 
To range itself beside my foes, 
And, like a greyhound in the slips, 
The Beast that dwells within me roared, 
Lunging...Read more of this...

I Wake And Feel The Fell Of Dark Not Day

by Gerard Manley Hopkins
 I wake and feel the fell of dark, not day.
What hours, O what black hours we have spent
This night! what sights you, heart, saw; ways you went!
And more must, in yet longer light's delay.

With witness I speak this. But where I say
Hours I mean years, mean life. And my lament
Is cries countless, cries like dead letters sent
To dearest him...Read more of this...

Mrs. Simple after her arrival at Halifax

by Mercy Otis Warren
Modest! Polite! Genteel! Heavens what deceit
Dwells in the breast of those I termed grat!
But now too late, my shame and grief appear.
I'm lost! Undone! Stopped short in my career.
A barn my dwelling, paltry fish my food,
With insuylts, scorn, and execrations lewd.
Oh sad disgrace! But this is not the worst.
I'm by my husband and my daughter cursed.
Our Bashaw, to, forever in...Read more of this...

The Problem

by Ralph Waldo Emerson
I LIKE a church; I like a cowl; 
I love a prophet of the soul; 
And on my heart monastic aisles 
Fall like sweet strains or pensive smiles; 
Yet not for all his faith can see 5 
Would I that cowl¨¨d churchman be. 
Why should the vest on him allure  
Which I could not on me endure? 

Not from...Read more of this...

A Tale of Christmas Eve

by William Topaz McGonagall
 'Twas Christmastide in Germany,
And in the year of 1850,
And in the city of Berlin, which is most beautiful to the eye;
A poor boy was heard calling out to passers-by. 
"Who'll buy my pretty figures," loudly he did cry,
Plaster of Paris figures, but no one inclined to buy;
His clothes were thin and he was nearly frozen with cold,
And wholly starving...Read more of this...

Doctor Fell

by Mother Goose
I do not like thee, Doctor Fell;
The reason why I cannot tell;
But this I know, and know full well,
I do not like thee, Doctor Fell!...Read more of this...

Sonnet 74: But be contented when that fell arrest

by William Shakespeare
 But be contented when that fell arrest
Without all bail shall carry me away;
My life hath in this line some interest,
Which for memorial still with thee shall stay.
When thou reviewest this, thou dost review
The very part was consecrate to thee,
The earth can have but earth, which is his due;
My spirit is thine the better part of me.
So then thou hast...Read more of this...

Dont forget to view our wonderful member Fell poems.

Get a Premium Membership
Turn off ads, get more exposure for your poetry, and get more features with a Premium Membership.
Book: Diverse Voices: The Poetry of Human Rights and the Pursuit of Peace