Get Your Premium Membership

Famous Fooled Poems by Famous Poets

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

See also:

by Rossetti, Christina
...nderer heart? 
You had the stronger wing.

O cousin Kate, my love was true, 
Your love was writ in sand: 
If he had fooled not me but you, 
If you stood where I stand, 
He'd not have won me with his love 
Nor bought me with his land; 
I would have spit into his face 
And not have taken his hand.

Yet I've a gift you have not got, 
And seem not like to get: 
For all your clothes and wedding-ring 
I've little doubt you fret. 
My fair-haired son, my shame, my pride, ...Read more of this...



by Marvell, Andrew
...he earth did from the centre tear; 
It seemed the sun was fall'n out of the sphere: 
Justice obstructed lay, and reason fooled; 
Courage disheartened, and religion cooled. 
A dismal silence through the palace went, 
And then loud shrieks the vaulted marbles rent, 
Such as the dying chorus sings by turns, 
And to deaf seas, and ruthless tempests mourns, 
When now they sink, and now the plundering streams 
Break up each deck, and rip the oaken seams. 

But thee triumpha...Read more of this...

by Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...o being still rebuked, would answer still 
Courteous as any knight--but now, if knight, 
The marvel dies, and leaves me fooled and tricked, 
And only wondering wherefore played upon: 
And doubtful whether I and mine be scorned. 
Where should be truth if not in Arthur's hall, 
In Arthur's presence? Knight, knave, prince and fool, 
I hate thee and for ever.' 

And Lancelot said, 
'Blessd be thou, Sir Gareth! knight art thou 
To the King's best wish. O damsel, be you...Read more of this...

by Cavafy, Constantine P
...r you wouldn't have set out.
She has nothing left to give you now.

And if you find her poor, Ithaka won't have fooled you.
Wise as you will have become, so full of experience,
you'll have understood by then what these Ithakas mean....Read more of this...

by Hughes, Langston
...ay, who are you that mumbles in the dark? 
And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?

I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,
I am the ***** bearing slavery's scars.
I am the red man driven from the land,
I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek--
And finding only the same old stupid plan
Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.

I am the young man, full of strength and hope,
Tangled in that ancient endless chain
Of profit, power, gain, of grab...Read more of this...



by Plath, Sylvia
...shone, mice-scaled, and unfolded
To pour myself out like a fluid
Among bird feet and the stems of plants.
I wasn't fooled. I knew you at once.

Tree and stone glittered, without shadows.
My finger-length grew lucent as glass.
I started to bud like a March twig:
An arm and a leg, and arm, a leg.
From stone to cloud, so I ascended.
Now I resemble a sort of god
Floating through the air in my soul-shift
Pure as a pane of ice. It's a gift....Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...sted; longing to be seen, 
Though by the Devil himself; him overweening 
To over-reach; but, with the serpent meeting, 
Fooled and beguiled; by him thou, I by thee 
To trust thee from my side; imagined wise, 
Constant, mature, proof against all assaults; 
And understood not all was but a show, 
Rather than solid virtue; all but a rib 
Crooked by nature, bent, as now appears, 
More to the part sinister, from me drawn; 
Well if thrown out, as supernumerary 
To my just number fo...Read more of this...

by Ashbery, John
...e in rendering
The velleities of the rounded reflecting surface
(It is the first mirror portrait),
So that you could be fooled for a moment
Before you realize the reflection
Isn't yours. You feel then like one of those
Hoffmann characters who have been deprived
Of a reflection, except that the whole of me
Is seen to be supplanted by the strict
Otherness of the painter in his
Other room. We have surprised him
At work, but no, he has surprised us
As he works. The pi...Read more of this...

by Estep, Maggie
...ll shack up with you
I love stalkers
Especially when they hate me
But you knew that 
That's why you stalk me
You're not fooled by my clever ruse
***** goddess? I think not
I'm just a sucker for punishment
So punish me
Spank me
Dominate my sock drawer 
And stalk me


Don't stalk Jodie Foster, David Letterman or John S. Hall
Don't go through their trash 
Their trash is boring
play with my trash
Hurry, I'm waiting
I'm pleading
Just come on and do it
Chew me choke me and stal...Read more of this...

by Robinson, Edwin Arlington
...on his hair,
No shimmer of pink slippers on brown tiles. 

But there was nothing, nothing, in all that: 
He had not fooled himself so much as that; 
He might be dreaming or he might be sick, 
But not like that. There was no place for fear,
No reason for remorse. There was the book 
That he had made, though.… It might be the book; 
Perhaps he might find something in the book; 
But no, there could be nothing there at all— 
He knew it word for word; but what it m...Read more of this...

by Sexton, Anne
...y side.
I missed your babyhood,
tried a second suicide,
tried the sealed hotel a second year.
On April Fool you fooled me. We laughed and this
was good.

5.

I checked out for the last time
on the first of May;
graduate of the mental cases,
with my analysts's okay,
my complete book of rhymes,
my typewriter and my suitcases.

All that summer I learned life
back into my own
seven rooms, visited the swan boats,
the market, answered the phone,
served cockt...Read more of this...

by Morris, William
...was?
O haste thee from this fatal place to pass!
Yet, ere thou goest, take this, lest thou shouldst deem
Thou hast been fooled by some strange midday dream."


So saying, blushing like a new-kissed maid,
From off her neck a little gem she drew,
That 'twixt those snowy rose-tinged hillocks laid,
The secrets of her glorious beauty knew;
And ere he well perceived what she would do,
She touched his hand, the gem within it lay,
And, turning, from his sight she fled away.

...Read more of this...

by Laurence Dunbar, Paul
...ur heels
With mind to do him wrong;
They have no care for his innocence,
And the rope they bear is long."
They have fooled the jailer with lying words,
They have fooled the man with lies;
The bolts unbar, the locks are drawn,
And the great door open flies.
Now they have taken him from the jail,
And hard and fast they ride,
And the leader laughs low down in his throat,
As they halt my trunk beside.

Oh, the judge, he wore a mask of black,
And the doctor one of whit...Read more of this...

by Chaucer, Geoffrey
...will tell a legend and a life
Both of a carpenter and of his wife,
How that a clerk hath *set the wrighte's cap*." *fooled the carpenter*
The Reeve answer'd and saide, "*Stint thy clap*, *hold your tongue*
Let be thy lewed drunken harlotry.
It is a sin, and eke a great folly
To apeiren* any man, or him defame, *injure
And eke to bringe wives in evil name.
Thou may'st enough of other thinges sayn."
This drunken Miller spake full soon again,
And saide, "Leve bro...Read more of this...

by Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...e out my sire, 
Lifted his grim head from my wounds. 'O you, 
Woman, whom we thought woman even now, 
And were half fooled to let you tend our son, 
Because he might have wished it--but we see, 
The accomplice of your madness unforgiven, 
And think that you might mix his draught with death, 
When your skies change again: the rougher hand 
Is safer: on to the tents: take up the Prince.' 

He rose, and while each ear was pricked to attend 
A tempest, through the cloud t...Read more of this...

by Sandburg, Carl
...oved your kiddies playing run-sheep-run
And cutting their initials on the ball ground fence.
They knew every time I fooled them who was fooled and how.

 Best of all
I have loved the red gold smoke of your sunsets;
I have loved a moon with a ring around it
Floating over your public square;
I have loved the white dawn frost of early winter silver
And purple over your railroad tracks and lumber yards.

 The wishing heart of you I loved, Kalamazoo.
 I sang bye-lo...Read more of this...

by Dyke, Henry Van
...


But little recked the pampered King of these;
He heard no voice but such as praise and please.
Flattered and fooled, victor in every sport,
One day he wandered idly with his court
Beside the river, seeking to devise
New ways to show his skill to wondering eyes.
There in the stream a patient fisher stood,
And cast his line across the rippling flood.
His silver spoil lay near him on the green:
"Such fish," the courtiers cried, "were never seen!"
"Three salmon...Read more of this...

by Mandelstam, Osip
...wonder where 
the real ones are
what 
giant cave
hides them
as
the deathly talentless
bow to
accolades
as
the fools are
fooled
again
you 
wonder where 
the real ones are
if there are
real ones.
this self-congratulatory nonsense
has lasted 
decades
and
with some exceptions
centuries.
this
is so dreary
is so absolutely pitiless
it
churns the gut to 
powder
shackles hope
it 
makes little things
like
pulling up a shade
or
putting on your shoes
or 
walking out on the stree...Read more of this...

by Ondaatje, Michael
...alies
creatures with webbed feet.
You can enter their caves and castles
their glass laboratories. Just
don't be fooled by anyone but yourself.

This is the first lecture I've given you.
You're 'sweet sixteen' you said.
I'd rather be your closest friend
than your father. I'm not good at advice
you know that, but ride
the ceremonies
until they grow dark.

Sometimes you are so busy
discovering your friends
I ache with loss
--but that is greed.
And...Read more of this...

by Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...ndeed, her voice 
And meaning, whom the roar of Hougoumont 
Left mightiest of all peoples under heaven? 
What shock has fooled her since, that she should speak 
So feebly? wealthier--wealthier--hour by hour! 
The voice of Britain, or a sinking land, 
Some third-rate isle half-lost among her seas? 
THERE rang her voice, when the full city pealed 
Thee and thy Prince! The loyal to their crown 
Are loyal to their own far sons, who love 
Our ocean-empire with her boundless homes ...Read more of this...

Dont forget to view our wonderful member Fooled poems.


Book: Shattered Sighs