Famous Fore Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Knee-Deep in June

by James Whitcomb Riley
 Tell you what I like the best -- 
'Long about knee-deep in June, 
'Bout the time strawberries melts 
On the vine, -- some afternoon 
Like to jes' git out and rest, 
And not work at nothin' else! 

Orchard's where I'd ruther be -- 
Needn't fence it in fer me! -- 
Jes' the whole sky overhead, 
And the whole airth...Read more of this...

Gods Funeral

by Thomas Hardy
 I 
I saw a slowly-stepping train --
Lined on the brows, scoop-eyed and bent and hoar --
Following in files across a twilit plain
A strange and mystic form the foremost bore.

II 
And by contagious throbs of thought
Or latent knowledge that within me lay
And had already stirred me, I was wrought
To consciousness of sorrow even as they.

III 
The fore-borne shape, to my...Read more of this...

The Deacons Masterpiece Or The Wonderful One-Hoss Shay: A Logical Story

by Oliver Wendell Holmes
 Have you heard of the wonderful one-hoss shay, 
That was built in such a logical way
It ran a hundred years to a day,
And then, of a sudden, it -- ah, but stay,
I'll tell you what happened without delay,
Scaring the parson into fits,
Frightening people out of their wits, --
Have you ever heard of that, I say?

Seventeen hundred and fifty-five.
Georgius Secundus...Read more of this...

What Being in Rank-Old Nature

by Gerard Manley Hopkins
 What being in rank-old nature should earlier have that breath been
That h?re p?rsonal tells off these heart-song powerful peals?— 
A bush-browed, beetle-br?wed b?llow is it? 
With a so?th-w?sterly w?nd bl?stering, with a tide rolls reels 
Of crumbling, fore-foundering, thundering all-surfy seas in; seen
?nderneath, their glassy barrel, of a fairy green.
. . . . . . . . 
Or a...Read more of this...

Nine from Eight

by Sidney Lanier
I was drivin' my two-mule waggin,
With a lot o' truck for sale,
Towards Macon, to git some baggin'
(Which my cotton was ready to bale),
And I come to a place on the side o' the pike
Whar a peert little winter branch jest had throw'd
The sand in a kind of a sand-bar like,
And I seed, a leetle ways up the road,
A man squattin'...Read more of this...

Ode To The Johns Hopkins University

by Sidney Lanier
 How tall among her sisters, and how fair, --
How grave beyond her youth, yet debonair
As dawn, 'mid wrinkled Matres of old lands
Our youngest Alma Mater modest stands!
In four brief cycles round the punctual sun
Has she, old Learning's latest daughter, won
This grace, this stature, and this fruitful fame.
Howbeit she was born
Unnoised as any stealing summer morn.
From far the sages saw,...Read more of this...

A Confidence

by Paul Laurence Dunbar
Uncle John, he makes me tired;
Thinks 'at he's jest so all-fired
Smart, 'at he kin pick up, so,
Ever'thing he wants to know.
Tried to ketch me up last night,
But you bet I would n't bite.
I jest kep' the smoothes' face,
But I led him sich a chase,
Could n't corner me, you bet—
I skipped all the traps he set.
Makin' out he wan'ed to know
Who...Read more of this...

A Pastoral Sung To The King

by Robert Herrick
 MONTANO, SILVIO, AND MIRTILLO, SHEPHERDS

MON. Bad are the times. SIL. And worse than they are we.
MON. Troth, bad are both; worse fruit, and ill the tree:
The feast of shepherds fail. SIL. None crowns the cup
Of wassail now, or sets the quintel up:
And he, who used to lead the country-round,
Youthful Mirtillo, here he comes, grief-drown'd.
AMBO. Let's cheer him up. SIL....Read more of this...

An All-Night Sea Fight

by William Topaz McGonagall
 Ye sons of Mars, come list to me,
And I will relate to ye
A great and heroic naval fight,
Which will fill your hearts with delight. 

The fight was between the French Frigate "Pique" and the British Frigate "Blanche,"
But the British crew were bold and staunch;
And the battle was fought in West Indian waters in the year of 1795,
And for to...Read more of this...

Off the Turnpike

by Amy Lowell
 Good ev'nin', Mis' Priest.
I jest stepped in to tell you Good-bye.
Yes, it's all over.
All my things is packed
An' every last one o' them boxes
Is on Bradley's team
Bein' hauled over to th' depot.
No, I ain't goin' back agin.
I'm stoppin' over to French's fer to-night,
And goin' down first train in th' mornin'.
Yes, it do seem kinder *****
Not to be goin' to...Read more of this...

Cumulatives

by Carl Sandburg
 STORMS have beaten on this point of land
And ships gone to wreck here
and the passers-by remember it
with talk on the deck at night
as they near it.

Fists have beaten on the face of this old prize-fighter
And his battles have held the sporting pages
and on the street they indicate him with their
right fore-finger as one who once wore
a championship belt.

A hundred...Read more of this...

Baby Tortoise

by D. H. Lawrence
 You know what it is to be born alone,
Baby tortoise!
The first day to heave your feet little by little from the shell,
Not yet awake,
And remain lapsed on earth,
Not quite alive.

A tiny, fragile, half-animate bean.

To open your tiny beak-mouth, that looks as if it would never open,

Like some iron door;
To lift the upper hawk-beak from the lower base
And reach your...Read more of this...

Fore-Warning

by Robert William Service
 I'd rather be the Jester than the Minstrel of the King;
I'd rather jangle cap and bells than twang the stately harp;
I'd rather make his royal ribs with belly-laughter ring,
Than see him sitting in the suds and sulky as a carp.
I'd rather be the Court buffoon than its most high-browed sage:
 So you who read, take head, take heed, -
...Read more of this...

Forard

by Henry Lawson
 It is stuffy in the steerage where the second-classers sleep, 
For there's near a hundred for'ard, and they're stowed away like sheep, -- 
They are trav'lers for the most part in a straight 'n' honest path; 
But their linen's rather scanty, an' there isn't any bath -- 
Stowed away like ewes and wethers that is shore 'n' marked 'n'...Read more of this...

Deacon Jones' Grievance

by Paul Laurence Dunbar
I 've been watchin' of 'em, parson,
An' I 'm sorry fur to say
'At my mind is not contented
With the loose an' keerless way
'At the young folks treat the music;
'T ain't the proper sort o' choir.
Then I don't believe in Christuns
A-singin' hymns for hire.
But I never would 'a' murmured
An' the matter might 'a' gone
Ef it was n't fur the antics
'At I've...Read more of this...

The Mayor of Gary

by Carl Sandburg
 I ASKED the Mayor of Gary about the 12-hour day and the 7-day week.
And the Mayor of Gary answered more workmen steal time on the job in Gary than any other place in the United States.
“Go into the plants and you will see men sitting around doing nothing—machinery does everything,” said the Mayor of Gary when I asked him...Read more of this...

Men claim fore-knowledge, predicating Hell or Heaven

by Omar Khayyam
Men claim fore-knowledge, predicating Hell or Heaven.
How plain their fault! How asinine their faith! For
know that if all lovers of the fair and of the cup deserve
a Hell, then Paradise will be a void.
295...Read more of this...

Aztec

by Carl Sandburg
 You came from the Aztecs
With a copper on your fore-arms
Tawnier than a sunset
Saying good-by to an even river.

And I said, you remember,
Those fore-arms of yours
Were finer than bronzes
And you were glad.

 It was tears
And a path west
 and a home-going
 when I asked
Why there were scars of worn gold
Where a man's ring was fixed once
On your third finger.
 And...Read more of this...

At A Vacation Exercise In The Colledge Part Latin Part English. The Latin Speeches Ended The English Thus Began

by John Milton
 Hail native Language, that by sinews weak
Didst move my first endeavouring tongue to speak,
And mad'st imperfect words with childish tripps,
Half unpronounc't, slide through my infant-lipps,
Driving dum silence from the portal dore,
Where he had mutely sate two years before:
Here I salute thee and thy pardon ask,
That now I use thee in my latter task:
Small loss it is that thence can...Read more of this...

Poor Honest Men

by Rudyard Kipling
 Your jar of Virginny
Will cost you a guinea,
Which you reckon too much by five shillings or ten;
But light your churchwarden
And judge it according,
When I've told you the troubles of poor honest men.

From the Capes of the Delaware,
As you are well aware,
We sail which tobacco for England-but then,
Our own British cruisers,
They watch us come through, sirs,
And they press half a...Read more of this...

Lonesome

by Paul Laurence Dunbar
Mother 's gone a-visitin' to spend a month er two,
An', oh, the house is lonesome ez a nest whose birds has flew
To other trees to build ag'in; the rooms seem jest so bare
That the echoes run like sperrits from the kitchen to the stair.
The shetters flap more lazy-like 'n what they used to do,
Sence mother 's gone a-visitin' to spend...Read more of this...

A Farewel (To Worldly Joys.)

by Anne Killigrew
 FArewel ye Unsubstantial Joyes, 
Ye Gilded Nothings, Gaudy Toyes, 
Too long ye have my Soul misled, 
Too long with Aiery Diet fed: 
But now my Heart ye shall no more
Deceive, as you have heretofore: 
For when I hear such Sirens sing, 
Like Ithaca's fore-warned King, 
With prudent Resolution I
Will so my Will and Fancy tye, 
That stronger to the...Read more of this...

O Thou, God, before whom sin is without consequence,

by Omar Khayyam
O Thou, God, before whom sin is without consequence,
tell him who possesses intelligence to proclaim this important
point: that in the eyes of a philosopher it is an
absolute absurdity to make divine fore-knowledge in league
with sin.
308...Read more of this...

I prithee spare me gentle boy

by Sir John Suckling
 I prithee spare me gentle boy,
Press me no more for that slight toy,
That foolish trifle of an heart;
I swear it will not do its part,
Though thou dost thine, employ'st thy pow'r and art.

For through long custom it has known
The little secrets, and is grown
Sullen and wise, will have its will,
And like old hawks pursues that still
That makes least sport,...Read more of this...

LEnvoi

by Rudyard Kipling
 There's a whisper down the field where the year has shot her yield,
 And the ricks stand gray to the sun,
Singing: -- "Over then, come over, for the bee has quit the clover,
 And your English summer's done."
 You have heard the beat of the off-shore wind,
 And the thresh of the deep-sea rain;
 You have heard the song...Read more of this...

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