Famous Fill Poems by Famous Poets

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

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My Dentist

by Robert William Service
 Sitting in the dentist's chair,
Wishing that I wasn't there,
To forget and pass the time
I have made this bit of rhyme.

I had a rendez-vous at ten;
I rushed to get in line,
But found a lot of dames and men
Had waited there since nine;
I stared at them, then in an hour
Was blandly ushered in;
But though my face was grim and sour
He met...Read more of this...

Fill the Bumper Fair

by Thomas Moore
 Fill the bumper fair! 
Every drop we sprinkle 
O'er the brow of Care 
Smooths away a wrinkle. 
Wit's electric flame 
Ne'er so swiftly passes, 
As when through the frame 
It shoots from brimming glasses. 
Fill the bumper fair! 
Every drop we sprinkle 
O'er the brow of Care 
Smooths away a wrinkle. 

Sages can, they say, 
Grasp the lightning's pinions,...Read more of this...

A Curse for Kings

by Vachel Lindsay
 A curse upon each king who leads his state,
No matter what his plea, to this foul game,
And may it end his wicked dynasty,
And may he die in exile and black shame.

If there is vengeance in the Heaven of Heavens,
What punishment could Heaven devise for these
Who fill the rivers of the world with dead,
And turn their murderers loose on all...Read more of this...

Fill For Me A Brimming Bowl

by John Keats
 Fill for me a brimming bowl
And in it let me drown my soul:
But put therein some drug, designed
To Banish Women from my mind:
For I want not the stream inspiring
That fills the mind with--fond desiring,
But I want as deep a draught
As e'er from Lethe's wave was quaff'd;
From my despairing heart to charm
The Image of the fairest form
That e'er my reveling...Read more of this...

Dear Friends

by Edwin Arlington Robinson
 Dear Friends, reproach me not for what I do,
Nor counsel me, nor pity me; nor say
That I am wearing half my life away
For bubble-work that only fools pursue.
And if my bubbles be too small for you,
Blow bigger then your own: the games we play
To fill the frittered minutes of a day,
Good glasses are to read the spirit through.

And whoso...Read more of this...

Sonnet 112: Your love and pity doth th impression fill

by William Shakespeare
 Your love and pity doth th' impression fill
Which vulgar scandal stamped upon my brow;
For what care I who calls me well or ill,
So you o'ergreen my bad, my good allow?
You are my all the world, and I must strive
To know my shames and praises from your tongue;
None else to me, nor I to none alive,
That my steeled sense or...Read more of this...

87. The Twa Dogs

by Robert Burns
 ’TWAS 1 in that place o’ Scotland’s isle,
That bears the name o’ auld King Coil,
Upon a bonie day in June,
When wearin’ thro’ the afternoon,
Twa dogs, that were na thrang at hame,
Forgather’d ance upon a time.
 The first I’ll name, they ca’d him Caesar,
Was keepit for His Honor’s pleasure:
His hair, his size, his mouth, his lugs,
Shew’d he was nane o’...Read more of this...

When Coldness Wraps This Suffering Clay

by George (Lord) Byron
 When coldness wraps this suffering clay,
Ah! whither strays the immortal mind?
It cannot die, it cannot stay,
But leaves its darken'd dust behind.
Then, unembodied, doth it trace
By steps each planet's heavenly way?
Or fill at once the realms of space,
A thing of eyes, that all survey?

Eternal, boundless, undecay'd,
A thought unseen, but seeing all,
All, all in earth or skies display'd,
Shall it survey, shall...Read more of this...

I make His Crescent fill or lack --

by Emily Dickinson
 I make His Crescent fill or lack --
His Nature is at Full
Or Quarter -- as I signify --
His Tides -- do I control --

He holds superior in the Sky
Or gropes, at my Command
Behind inferior Clouds -- or round
A Mist's slow Colonnade --

But since We hold a Mutual Disc --
And front a Mutual Day --
Which is the Despot, neither knows...Read more of this...

The Lake

by Alphonse de Lamartine
Towards new and different shores forever driven onward,
Through endless darkness always borne away,
Upon the sea of time can we not lie at anchor
For but a single day?

Oh lake, the year has scarce run once more round its track,
And by these waves she had to see again,
Look! I have come alone to sit upon this rock
You saw her sit on then.

Beneath...Read more of this...

The Progress of Spring

by Alfred Lord Tennyson
 THE groundflame of the crocus breaks the mould, 
Fair Spring slides hither o'er the Southern sea, 
Wavers on her thin stem the snowdrop cold 
That trembles not to kisses of the bee: 
Come Spring, for now from all the dripping eaves 
The spear of ice has wept itself away, 
And hour by hour unfolding woodbine leaves 
O'er his uncertain...Read more of this...

Friends Departed

by Henry Vaughan
 They are all gone into the world of light! 
And I alone sit ling'ring here; 
Their very memory is fair and bright, 
And my sad thoughts doth clear. 

It glows and glitters in my cloudy breast,
Like stars upon some gloomy grove, 
Or those faint beams in which this hill is drest 
After the sun's remove. 

I see them walking...Read more of this...

The House Of Dust: Part 04: 06: Cinema

by Conrad Aiken
 As evening falls,
The walls grow luminous and warm, the walls
Tremble and glow with the lives within them moving,
Moving like music, secret and rich and warm.
How shall we live to-night, where shall we turn?
To what new light or darkness yearn?
A thousand winding stairs lead down before us;
And one by one in myriads we descend
By lamplit flowered walls, long balustrades,
Through half-lit...Read more of this...

We buy new wine and old, our cups to fill,

by Omar Khayyam
We buy new wine and old, our cups to fill,
And sell for two grains this world's good and ill;
Know you where you will go to after death?
Set wine before me, and go where you will!...Read more of this...

Dharma

by Billy Collins
 The way the dog trots out the front door
every morning
without a hat or an umbrella,
without any money
or the keys to her doghouse
never fails to fill the saucer of my heart
with milky admiration.

Who provides a finer example 
of a life without encumbrance—
Thoreau in his curtainless hut
with a single plate, a single spoon?
Gandhi with his staff and his holy diapers?

Off she...Read more of this...

Saadi

by Ralph Waldo Emerson
 Trees in groves,
Kine in droves,
In ocean sport the scaly herds,
Wedge-like cleave the air the birds,
To northern lakes fly wind-borne ducks,
Browse the mountain sheep in flocks,
Men consort in camp and town,
But the poet dwells alone.

God who gave to him the lyre,
Of all mortals the desire,
For all breathing men's behoof,
Straitly charged him, "Sit aloof;"
Annexed a warning, poets say,
To the bright premium,—
Ever...Read more of this...

To Posterity

by Bertolt Brecht
 Indeed I live in the dark ages!
A guileless word is an absurdity. A smooth forehead betokens
A hard heart. He who laughs
Has not yet heard
The terrible tidings.

Ah, what an age it is
When to speak of trees is almost a crime
For it is a kind of silence about injustice!
And he who walks calmly across the street,
Is he not out of reach...Read more of this...

Crave not of worldly sweets to take your fill,

by Omar Khayyam
Crave not of worldly sweets to take your fill,
Nor wait on turns of fortune, good or ill;
Be of light heart, as are the skies above,
They roll a round or two, and then lie still....Read more of this...

Of happy turns of fortune take your fill,

by Omar Khayyam
Of happy turns of fortune take your fill,
Seek pleasure's couch, or wine-cup, as you will;
Allah regards not if you sin, or saint it,
So take your pleasure, be it good or ill....Read more of this...

To fill a Gap

by Emily Dickinson
 To fill a Gap
Insert the Thing that caused it --
Block it up
With Other -- and 'twill yawn the more --
You cannot solder an Abyss
With Air....Read more of this...

Honors - Part I

by Jean Ingelow
A Scholar is musing on his want of success.)

To strive—and fail. Yes, I did strive and fail;
  I set mine eyes upon a certain night
To find a certain star—and could not hail
      With them its deep-set light.
Fool that I was! I will rehearse my fault:
  I, wingless, thought myself on high to lift
Among...Read more of this...

Prelude

by Algernon Charles Swinburne
 Between the green bud and the red
Youth sat and sang by Time, and shed
From eyes and tresses flowers and tears,
From heart and spirit hopes and fears,
Upon the hollow stream whose bed
Is channelled by the foamless years;
And with the white the gold-haired head
Mixed running locks, and in Time's ears
Youth's dreams hung singing, and Time's truth
Was half not harsh in the...Read more of this...

To-day when fortune's rose is burgeoning, fill high the

by Omar Khayyam
To-day when fortune's rose is burgeoning, fill high the
cup. Drink deep, O friend, drink deep, for time is not
thy friend or ever willingly repeats a day like this.
296...Read more of this...

Risus Dei

by Thomas Edward Brown
 Methinks in Him there dwells alway
A sea of laughter very deep,
Where the leviathans leap,
And little children play,
Their white feet twinkling on its crisped edge;
But in the outer bay
The strong man drives the wedge
Of polished limbs,
And swims.
Yet there is one will say:--
'It is but shallow, neither is it broad'--
And so he frowns; but is he nearer God?

One saith that God...Read more of this...

A Summer Night

by Paul Laurence Dunbar
Summah is de lovin' time—
Do' keer what you say.
Night is allus peart an' prime,
Bettah dan de day.
Do de day is sweet an' good,
Birds a-singin' fine,
Pines a-smellin' in de wood,—
But de night is mine.
Rivah whisperin' "howdy do,"
Ez it pass you by—
Moon a-lookin' down at you,
Winkin' on de sly.
Frogs a-croakin' f'om de pon',
Singin' bass dey fill,
An' you listen way beyon'
[Pg...Read more of this...

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