Famous Foster Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Foster poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous foster poems. These examples illustrate what a famous foster poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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...and scorn of every pit buffoon,
Had yet left charms enough to have subdued
Some fop or other, fond to be thought lewd.
Foster could make an Irish lord a Nokes,
And Betty Morris had her City cokes.
A woman's ne'er so ruined but she can
Be still revenged on her undoer, man;
How lost so'er, she'll find some lover, more
A lewd, abandoned fool than she a whore.
--"That wretched thing Corinna, who had run
Through all the several ways of being undone,
Cozened at first by love, and ...Read more of this...
by
Wilmot, John
...xclaim, ere he drove out of sight—
Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night.
NOTES:
In the year 2000, Don Foster, an English professor at Vassar College
in Poughkeepsie, New York, used external and internal evidence to show
that Clement Clarke Moore could not have been the author of this poem,
but that it was probably the work of Livingston, and that Moore had
written another, and almost forgotten, Christmas piece, "Old
Santeclaus." Foster's analysis of this dec...Read more of this...
by
Emerson, Ralph Waldo
...is
in a National Geographic: monarchs
stream northward from winter roosts in Mexico,
laying their eggs atop milkweed
to foster new generations along the way.
With the old monarchs gone (I took this line as the title)
and all ties to the past ostensibly cut
the unimaginable happens--butterflies
that have never been to that plateau in Mexico
roost there the next winter. . . .I saw this
as a metaphor for a childhood I never had,
until Dugan pointed out
that metaphor has been dea...Read more of this...
by
Flynn, Nick
...e teat
To human sucklings; and the children, housed
In her foul den, there at their meat would growl,
And mock their foster mother on four feet,
Till, straightened, they grew up to wolf-like men,
Worse than the wolves. And King Leodogran
Groaned for the Roman legions here again,
And Csar's eagle: then his brother king,
Urien, assailed him: last a heathen horde,
Reddening the sun with smoke and earth with blood,
And on the spike that split the mother's heart
Spittin...Read more of this...
by
Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...me inform myself each day
Who's proudmost on the natal roster;
If Washington or Henry Clay,
Or Eugene Field or Stephen Foster.
oh lots of famous folks I'll find
Who more than measure to my rating,
And so thanksgivingly inclined
Their birthdays I'll be celebrating.
For Oh I know the cheery glow|
Of Anniversary rejoicing;
Let me reflect its radiance so
My daily gladness I'll be voicing.
And though I'm stooped and silver-haired,
Let me with laughter make the hearth gay,
So by ...Read more of this...
by
Service, Robert William
...
You'll say, the old system's not so obsolete
But men believe still: ay, but who and where?
King Bomba's lazzaroni foster yet
The sacred flame, so Antonelli writes;
But even of these, what ragamuffin-saint
Believes God watches him continually,
As he believes in fire that it will burn,
Or rain that it will drench him? Break fire's law,
Sin against rain, although the penalty
Be just a singe or soaking? "No," he smiles;
"Those laws are laws that can enforce themselv...Read more of this...
by
Browning, Robert
...
Mothers and wives! who day by day prepare
The scrip, with needments, for the mountain air;
And all ye gentle girls who foster up
Udderless lambs, and in a little cup
Will put choice honey for a favoured youth:
Yea, every one attend! for in good truth
Our vows are wanting to our great god Pan.
Are not our lowing heifers sleeker than
Night-swollen mushrooms? Are not our wide plains
Speckled with countless fleeces? Have not rains
Green'd over April's lap? No howling sad
Sickens...Read more of this...
by
Keats, John
...--by Phoebe, no!
Let me not think, soft Angel! shall it be so?
Say, beautifullest, shall I never think?
O thou could'st foster me beyond the brink
Of recollection! make my watchful care
Close up its bloodshot eyes, nor see despair!
Do gently murder half my soul, and I
Shall feel the other half so utterly!--
I'm giddy at that cheek so fair and smooth;
O let it blush so ever! let it soothe
My madness! let it mantle rosy-warm
With the tinge of love, panting in safe alarm.--
This...Read more of this...
by
Keats, John
...and then
They found a naked child upon the sands
Of dark Tintagil by the Cornish sea;
And that was Arthur; and they fostered him
Till he by miracle was approven King:
And that his grave should be a mystery
From all men, like his birth; and could he find
A woman in her womanhood as great
As he was in his manhood, then, he sang,
The twain together well might change the world.
But even in the middle of his song
He faltered, and his hand fell from the harp,
And pale ...Read more of this...
by
Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...refused him.
Acceptance he couldn't recognise
even when it came, like waves
gentling in his life.
Institutions, foster homes,
he knew them all.
Fourteen going on ninety.
Knowledge gleamed in his eyes.
Though he has since been
swept out of reach,
particles of sand cling and
memories are water-cold companions.
*first published Westerly Autumn 1995...Read more of this...
by
Harcombe, Dale
...udents rowdy, she retired. The rent
For the empty rooms she gave to Thornwell Orphanage,
Unwed Mothers, Temperance, and Foster Parents
And never bought the car she meant to buy;
Too blind at last to do much more than sit
All day in the antique glider on the porch
Listening to cars pass up and down the street.
Each summer, on the grass behind the house—
Cape jasmine, with its scent of August nights
Humid and warm, the soft magnolia bloom
Marked lightly by a slow brown stain—sh...Read more of this...
by
Bowers, Edgar
...THOU still unravish'd bride of quietness
Thou foster-child of Silence and slow Time
Sylvan historian who canst thus express
A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme:
What leaf-fringed legend haunts about thy shape 5
Of deities or mortals or of both
In Tempe or the dales of Arcady?
What men or gods are these? What maidens loth?
What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape?
What pipes and...Read more of this...
by
Keats, John
...y, God give you grace
To shield the truth and smite the wrong,
To honour Virtue, Valour, Worth.
To cherish faith and foster song.
So may the lustre of your days
Outshine the deeds Firdusi sung,
Your name within a nation's prayer,
Your music on a nation's tongue....Read more of this...
by
Naidu, Sarojini
...re. Holland was hell
Not long ago, and there were dragons then
More to be fought than any of these we see
That we may foster now. They are not real,
But not for that the less to be regarded;
For there are slimy tyrants born of nothing
That harden slowly into seeming life
And have the strength of madness. I confess,
Accordingly, the wisdom of your care
That I look out for them. Whether I would
Or not, I must; and here we are as one
With our necessity. For though you lo...Read more of this...
by
Robinson, Edwin Arlington
...mouth and streaming eyes,
And lead her to the myrtle-hidden grove where Adon lies!
Cry out aloud on Itys! memory
That foster-brother of remorse and pain
Drops poison in mine ear, - O to be free,
To burn one's old ships! and to launch again
Into the white-plumed battle of the waves
And fight old Proteus for the spoil of coral-flowered caves!
O for Medea with her poppied spell!
O for the secret of the Colchian shrine!
O for one leaf of that pale asphodel
Which binds the tire...Read more of this...
by
Wilde, Oscar
...oo! Cuckoo!
Then suddenly that foulsome bird
Flapped to its feet and flew.
I'm sure it never said goodbye
To its fond foster Pa and Ma,
Though to their desolated sigh
It might have chirruped: "Au revoir."
But no, it went in wanton mood,
Flying the coop for climates new
And so I say: "Ingratitude,
They name's Cuckoo."...Read more of this...
by
Service, Robert William
...l, till the Day of Judgment.
And then,---and then,---to cut short,---this is idle,
These are feelings it is not good to foster,---
I pushed the gate wide, she shook the bridle,
And the palfrey bounded,---and so we lost her.
XVI.
When the liquor's out why clink the cannikin?
I did think to describe you the panic in
The redoubtable breast of our master the mannikin,
And what was the pitch of his mother's yellowness,
How she turned as a shark to snap the spare-rib
Clean off, s...Read more of this...
by
Browning, Robert
...erd seems his flock:
A Something to be guided by ideals --
That in themselves are simple and serene --
Of noble deed to foster noble thought,
And noble thought to image noble deed,
Till deed and thought shall interpenetrate,
Making life lovelier, till we come to doubt
Whether the perfect beauty that escapes
Is beauty of deed or thought or some high thing
Mingled of both, a greater boon than either:
Thus we have seen in the retreating tempest
The victor-sunlight merge with the...Read more of this...
by
Scott, Duncan Campbell
...rms, obey;Whether they mix in elemental strife,Or meet in married calm, and foster life.His nature baffles all created mind,In earth or heaven, to fathom, or to find.One glimpse of glory on the saints bestow'd,With eager longings fills the courts of GodFor deeper views, in that abyss of light,While mort...Read more of this...
by
Petrarch, Francesco
...umed by rapine's lawless train;And glad that nothing now remain'd behind,To foster envy in a rival's mind,That treasure bought, which nothing can destroy,"The soul's calm sunshine, and the heart-felt joy."Then curious Dicaearchus met my view,Who studied nature with sagacious view.Quintilian next, and Seneca were seen,...Read more of this...
by
Petrarch, Francesco
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