Famous Folly Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Folly poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous folly poems. These examples illustrate what a famous folly poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Joyce Kilmer
(For A. K. K.)
What distant mountains thrill and glow
Beneath our Lady Folly's tread?
Why has she left us, wise in woe,
Shrewd, practical, uncomforted?
We cannot love or dream or sing,
We are too cynical to pray,
There is no joy in anything
Since Lady Folly went away.
Many a knight and gentle maid,
Whose glory shines from years gone by,
Through ignorance was unafraid
And as a fool...Read more of this...
by
Constantine P Cavafy
Even if you cannot shape your life as you want it,
at least try this
as much as you can; do not debase it
in excessive contact with the world,
in the excessive movements and talk.
Do not debase it by taking it,
dragging it often and exposing it
to the daily folly
of relationships and associations,
until it becomes burdensome as an alien life....Read more of this...
by
Edward Lear
There was an Old Lady whose folly
Induced her to sit in a holly:
Whereupon by a thorn
Her dress being torn,
She quickly became melancholy....Read more of this...
by
Robert Burns
THOU greybeard, old Wisdom! may boast of thy treasures;
Give me with young Folly to live;
I grant thee thy calm-blooded, time-settled pleasures,
But Folly has raptures to give....Read more of this...
by
Sir Walter Raleigh
If all the world and love were young,
And truth in every shepherd's tongue,
These pretty pleasures might me move
To live with thee and be thy love.
Time drives the flocks from field to fold
When rivers rage and rocks grow cold,
And Philomel becometh dumb;
The rest complains of cares to come.
The flowers do fade, and...Read more of this...
by
William Cowper
A poet's cat, sedate and grave
As poet well could wish to have,
Was much addicted to inquire
For nooks to which she might retire,
And where, secure as mouse in chink,
She might repose, or sit and think.
I know not where she caught the trick--
Nature perhaps herself had cast her
In such a mould [lang f]philosophique[lang e],
Or else she learn'd it of her master.
Sometimes...Read more of this...
by
Matthew Arnold
I ask not that my bed of death
From bands of greedy heirs be free;
For these besiege the latest breath
Of fortune's favoured sons, not me.
I ask not each kind soul to keep
Tearless, when of my death he hears;
Let those who will, if any, weep!
There are worse plagues on earth than tears.
I ask but that my death may find
The freedom to...Read more of this...
by
William Cullen Bryant
Love's worshippers alone can know
The thousand mysteries that are his;
His blazing torch, his twanging bow,
His blooming age are mysteries.
A charming science--but the day
Were all too short to con it o'er;
So take of me this little lay,
A sample of its boundless lore.
As once, beneath the fragrant shade
Of myrtles breathing heaven's own air,
The children, Love and Folly, played--
A quarrel rose betwixt...Read more of this...
by
Robert Browning
Verse-making was least of my virtues: I viewed with despair
Wealth that never yet was but might be--all that verse-making were
If the life would but lengthen to wish, let the mind be laid bare.
So I said, "To do little is bad, to do nothing is worse"--
And made verse.
Love-making,--how simple a matter! No depths to explore,...Read more of this...
by
William Butler Yeats
One that is ever kind said yesterday:
'Your well-beloved's hair has threads of grey,
And little shadows come about her eyes;
Time can but make it easier to be wise
Though now it seems impossible, and so
All that you need is patience.'
Heart cries, 'No,
I have not a crumb of comfort, not a grain.
Time can but make her beauty over again:
Because of that...Read more of this...
by
Edwin Arlington Robinson
Though for your sake I would not have you now
So near to me tonight as now you are,
God knows how much a stranger to my heart
Was any cold word that I may have written;
And you, poor woman that I made my wife,
You have had more of loneliness, I fear,
Than I—though I have been the...Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
Alas! upon some starry height,
The Gods of Excellence to please,
This hand of mine will never smite
The Harp of High Serenities.
Mere minstrel of the street am I,
To whom a careless coin you fling;
But who, beneath the bitter sky,
Blue-lipped, yet insolent of eye,
Can shrill a song of Spring;
A song of merry mansard days,
The cheery chimney-tops among;
Of rolics and of roundelays
When we...Read more of this...
by
Charles Simic
O crows circling over my head and cawing!
I admit to being, at times,
Suddenly, and without the slightest warning,
Exceedingly happy.
On a morning otherwise sunless,
Strolling arm in arm
Past some gallows-shaped trees
With my dear Helen,
Who is also a strange bird,
With a feeling of being summoned
Urgently, but by a most gracious invitation
To breakfast on slices of watermelon
In the company of naked gods and...Read more of this...
by
Ralph Waldo Emerson
EXULTING BEAUTY,phantom of an hour,
Whose magic spells enchain the heart,
Ah ! what avails thy fascinating pow'r,
Thy thrilling smile, thy witching art ?
Thy lip, where balmy nectar glows;
Thy cheek, where round the damask rose
A thousand nameless Graces move,
Thy mildly speaking azure eyes,
Thy golden hair, where cunning Love
In many a mazy ringlet...Read more of this...
by
Anne Kingsmill Finch
CUPID, ere depriv'd of Sight,
Young and apt for all Delight,
Met with Folly on the way,
As Idle and as fond of Play.
In gay Sports the time they pass;
Now run, now wrestle on the Grass;
Their painted Wings then nimbly ply,
And ev'ry way for Mast'ry try:
'Till a Contest do's arise,
Who has won th'...Read more of this...
by
Mary Darby Robinson
EXULT MY MUSE! exult to see
Each envious, waspish, jealous thing,
Around its harmless venom fling,
And dart its powerless fangs at THEE!
Ne'er shalt THOU bend thy radiant wing,
To sweep the dark revengeful string;
Or meanly stoop, to steal a ray,
E'en from RINALDO'S glorious lay,
Tho' his transcendent Verse should twine
About thy heart, each bliss...Read more of this...
by
Oliver Goldsmith
When lovely woman stoops to folly,
And finds too late that men betray,
What charm can soothe her melancholy,
What art can wash her guilt away?
The only art her guilt to cover,
To hide her shame from every eye,
To give repentance to her lover,
And wring his bosom, is—to die....Read more of this...
by
Emile Verhaeren
Yon, in the depths of the evening's track,
Like a herd of blind bullocks that seek their fellows,
Wild, as in terror, the tempest bellows.
And suddenly, there, o'er the gables black
That the church, in the twilight, around it raises
All scored with lightnings the steeple blazes.
See the old bell-ringer, frenzied with fear.
Mouth gaping, yet speechless, draw hastening near.
And the knell of alarm that...Read more of this...
by
William Strode
Hence, hence, all you vaine delights,
As short as are the nights
Wherein you spend your folly:
Ther's nought in this life sweete,
If men were wise to see'te
But only Melancholly:
O sweetest Melancholly!
Welcome folded armes and fixed eyes,
A sigh that piercing mortifies,
A looke that's fastned to the ground,
A tongue chayned upp without a sound.
Fountains heads, and pathlesse groves,
Places which pale Passion loves:
Moonlike wakes,...Read more of this...
by
Mary Darby Robinson
"Fate snatch'd him early to the pitying sky."
- POPE.
IF WORTH, too early to the grave consign'd,
Can claim the pitying tear, or touch the mind ?
If manly sentiments unstain'd by art,
Could waken FRIENDSHIP, or delight the heart ?
Ill-fated youth ! to THEE the MUSE shall pay
The last sad tribute of a mournful lay;
On thy lone grave shall MAY'S soft...Read more of this...
by
Sidney Lanier
Out of the hills of Habersham,
Down the valleys of Hall,
I hurry amain to reach the plain,
Run the rapid and leap the fall,
Split at the rock and together again,
Accept my bed, or narrow or wide,
And flee from folly on every side
With a lover’s pain to attain the plain
Far from the hills of Habersham,
Far from the valleys of Hall.
All down the hills...Read more of this...
by
Omar Khayyam
My poor heart, full of grief and folly, has not been
able to free itself from drunkenness where passion for
my well-beloved has plunged it. Oh! the day when the
wine of this love was distributed, my portion was, without
doubt, drawn from the blood of my heart!...Read more of this...
by
Edward Lear
There was an Old Lady whose follyInduced her to sit in a holly;Whereon, by a thorn her dress being torn,She quickly became melancholy. ...Read more of this...
by
John Bodenham
If all the world and love were young,
And truth in every shepherd's tongue,
These pretty pleasures might me move
To live with thee and be thy love.
Time drives the flocks from field to fold
When rivers rage and rocks grow cold,
And Philomel becometh dumb;
The rest complains of cares to come.
The flowers do fade, and...Read more of this...
by
Constantine P Cavafy
At the back of the noisy café
bent over a table sits an old man;
a newspaper in front of him, without company.
And in the scorn of his miserable old age
he ponders how little he enjoyed the years
when he had strength, and the power of the word, and good looks.
He knows he has aged much; he feels it, he sees it.
And...Read more of this...
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