Famous Fickle Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Fickle poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous fickle poems. These examples illustrate what a famous fickle poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Omer Tarin
Some souls pass away so quietly that not even the suspiration of their fleeting wings
is heard, or known, to us, among so many other activities, so many other things;
so, this was one such soul, that breathed its last, effortlessly and without pain,
melting away into the unknown, rising to the snowy Himalayan heights, shining forth beyond these dusty plains;...Read more of this...
by
Mary Darby Robinson
LOVE, I renounce thy tyrant sway,
I mock thy fascinating art,
MINE, be the calm unruffled day,
That brings no torment to the heart;
The tranquil mind, the noiseless scene,
Where FANCY, with enchanting mien,
Shall in her right-hand lead along
The graceful patroness of Song;
Where HARMONY shall softly fling
Her light tones o'er the dulcet string;
And with her magic LYRE...Read more of this...
by
Francesco Petrarch
SONNET LXXXIX. Sennuccio, i' vo' che sappi in qual maniera. HE RELATES TO HIS FRIEND SENNUCCIO HIS UNHAPPINESS, AND THE VARIED MOOD OF LAURA. To thee, Sennuccio, fain would I declare,To sadden life, what wrongs, what woes I find:Still glow my wonted flames; and, though resign'dTo Laura's fickle will, no change I...Read more of this...
by
Robert Burns
DEAR SMITH, the slee’st, pawkie thief,
That e’er attempted stealth or rief!
Ye surely hae some warlock-brief
Owre human hearts;
For ne’er a bosom yet was prief
Against your arts.
For me, I swear by sun an’ moon,
An’ ev’ry star that blinks aboon,
Ye’ve cost me twenty pair o’ shoon,
Just gaun to see you;
An’ ev’ry ither pair that’s done,
Mair taen I’m wi’...Read more of this...
by
Christina Rossetti
Out of the church she followed them
With a lofty step and mien:
His bride was like a village maid,
Maude Clare was like a queen.
“Son Thomas, ” his lady mother said,
With smiles, almost with tears:
“May Nell and you but live as true
As we have done for years;
“Your father thirty years ago
Had just your tale to tell;...Read more of this...
by
Horace
Maecenas, born of monarch ancestors,
The shield at once and glory of my life!
There are who joy them in the Olympic strife
And love the dust they gather in the course;
The goal by hot wheels shunn'd, the famous...Read more of this...
by
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
As a boy, reserved and naughty;
As a youth, a coxcomb and haughty;
As a man, for action inclined;
As a greybeard, fickle in mind.--
Upon thy grave will people read:
This was a very man, indeed!
1815.*...Read more of this...
by
John Dryden
Air Iris I love, and hourly I die,
But not for a lip, nor a languishing eye:
She's fickle and false, and there we agree,
For I am as false and as fickle as she.
We neither believe what either can say;
And, neither believing, we neither betray.
'Tis civil to swear, and say things of course;
We mean...Read more of this...
by
William Shakespeare
O thou, my lovely boy, who in thy power
Dost hold Time's fickle glass his fickle hour;
Who hast by waning grown, and therein show'st
Thy lovers withering, as thy sweet self grow'st.
If Nature, sovereign mistress over wrack,
As thou goest onwards, still will pluck thee back,
She keeps thee to this purpose, that her skill
May Time disgrace, and wretched minutes kill.
Yet fear her,...Read more of this...
by
Andrew Barton Paterson
As I pondered very weary o'er a volume long and dreary --
For the plot was void of interest; 'twas the Postal Guide, in fact --
There I learnt the true location, distance, size and population
Of each township, town, and village in the radius of the Act.
And I learnt that Puckawidgee stands beside the Murrumbidgee,
And the...Read more of this...
by
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
IF all the gentlest-hearted friends I know
Concentred in one heart their gentleness,
That still grew gentler till its pulse was less
For life than pity,--I should yet be slow
To bring my own heart nakedly below
The palm of such a friend, that he should press
Motive, condition, means, appliances,
My false ideal joy and fickle woe,
Out full to light and knowledge; I should fear
Some...Read more of this...
by
Erica Jong
Now, moving in, cartons on the floor,
the radio playing to bare walls,
picture hooks left stranded
in the unsoiled squares where paintings were,
and something reminding us
this is like all other moving days;
finding the dirty ends of someone else's life,
hair fallen in the sink, a peach pit,
and burned-out matches in the corner;
things not preserved, yet never swept away
like fragments of disturbing dreams
we...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
Risk is the Hair that holds the Tun
Seductive in the Air --
That Tun is hollow -- but the Tun --
With Hundred Weights -- to spare --
Too ponderous to suspect the snare
Espies that fickle chair
And seats itself to be let go
By that perfidious Hair --
The "foolish Tun" the Critics say --
While that delusive Hair
Persuasive as Perdition,
Decoys its Traveller....Read more of this...
by
Alfred Lord Tennyson
O Swallow, Swallow, flying, flying South,
Fly to her, and fall upon her gilded eaves,
And tell her, tell her, what I tell to thee.
O tell her, Swallow, thou that knowest each,
That bright and fierce and fickle is the South,
And dark and true and tender is the North.
O Swallow, Swallow, if I could follow, and light
Upon her lattice, I would pipe...Read more of this...
by
Robert Burns
THOUGH fickle Fortune has deceived me,
She pormis’d fair and perform’d but ill;
Of mistress, friends, and wealth bereav’d me,
Yet I bear a heart shall support me still.
I’ll act with prudence as far ’s I’m able,
But if success I must never find,
Then come misfortune, I bid thee welcome,
I’ll meet thee with an undaunted mind....Read more of this...
by
John Davidson
'Who affirms that crystals are alive?'
I affirm it, let who will deny:
Crystals are engendered, wax and thrive,
Wane and wither; I have seen them die.
Trust me, masters, crystals have their day,
Eager to attain the perfect norm,
Lit with purpose, potent to display
Facet, angle, colour, beauty, form.
Water-crystals need for flower and root
Sixty clear degrees, no less, no more;
Snow, so fickle, still in...Read more of this...
by
Thomas Lux
Senator, statesman, speaker of the House,
exceptional dancer, slim,
graceful, ugly. Proclaimed, before most, slavery
an evil, broker
of elections (burned Jackson
for Adams), took a pistol ball in the thigh
in a duel, delayed, by forty years,
with his compromises, the Civil War,
gambler ("I have always
paid peculiar homage to the fickle goddess"),
boozehound, ladies' man -- which leads us
to his mouth, which was huge,
a long slash...Read more of this...
by
Vachel Lindsay
(A Poem Game.)
The King of Yellow Butterflies,
The King of Yellow Butterflies,
The King of Yellow Butterflies,
Now orders forth his men.
He says "The time is almost here
When violets bloom again."
Adown the road the fickle rout
Goes flashing proud and bold,
A down the road the fickle rout
Goes flashing proud and bold,
Adown the road the fickle rout
Goes flashing proud and bold,
They shiver by the...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
Fame is a fickle food
Upon a shifting plate
Whose table once a
Guest but not
The second time is set.
Whose crumbs the crows inspect
And with ironic caw
Flap past it to the
Farmer's Corn --
Men eat of it and die....Read more of this...
by
Joyce Kilmer
The boom and blare of the big brass band is cheering
to my heart
And I like the smell of the trampled grass and elephants and hay.
I take off my hat to the acrobat with his delicate, strong art,
And the motley mirth of the chalk-faced clown drives all my care
away.
I wish I could feel as they must feel, these...Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
Jenny was my first sweetheart;
Poor lass! she was none too smart.
Though I swore she'd never rue it,
She would never let me do it.
When I tried she mad a fuss,
So damn pure and virtuous.
Girls should cozen all they can,
Use their wiles to get their man.
June, my second, was no prude;
Too good-looking to be good;
Wanton and a giddy-gadder,
Never knew who might...Read more of this...
by
Victor Hugo
("Non, l'avenir n'est à personne!")
{V. ii., August, 1832.}
Sire, beware, the future's range
Is of God alone the power,
Naught below but augurs change,
E'en with ev'ry passing hour.
Future! mighty mystery!
All the earthly goods that be,
Fortune, glory, war's renown,
King or kaiser's sparkling crown,
...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
What we see we know somewhat
Be it but a little --
What we don't surmise we do
Though it shows so fickle
I shall vote for Lands with Locks
Granted I can pick 'em --
Transport's doubtful Dividend
Patented by Adam....Read more of this...
by
Alfred Lord Tennyson
Strong Son of God, immortal Love,
Whom we, that have not seen thy face,
By faith, and faith alone, embrace,
Believing where we cannot prove;
Thine are these orbs of light and shade;
Thou madest Life in man and brute;
Thou madest Death; and lo, thy foot
Is on the skull which thou hast...Read more of this...
by
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
"Yes," I answered you last night;
"No," this morning, Sir, I say.
Colours seen by candlelight,
Will not look the same by day.
When the viols played their best,
Lamps above, and laughs below---
Love me sounded like a jest,
Fit for Yes or fit for No.
Call me false, or call me free---
Vow, whatever light may shine,
No man on your face shall see
Any grief for change...Read more of this...
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