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Famous Foundling Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Burns, Robert
...strum of Vanity bemus’d,
And even the abuse of Poesy abus’d?—
Who called her verse a Parish Workhouse, made
For motley foundling Fancies, stolen or strayed?


A Workhouse! ah, that sound awakes my woes,
And pillows on the thorn my rack’d repose!
In durance vile here must I wake and weep,
And all my frowsy couch in sorrow steep;
That straw where many a rogue has lain of yore,
And vermin’d gipsies litter’d heretofore.


Why, Lonsdale, thus thy wrath on vagrants pour?
Must ...Read more of this...



by McGonagall, William Topaz
...Annie Marshall was a foundling, and lived in Downderry,
And was trained up by a coast-guardsman, kind-hearted and merry
And he loved Annie Marshall as dear as his life,
And he resolved to make her his own loving wife. 

The night was tempestuous, most terrific, and pitch dark,
When Matthew Pengelly rescued Annie Marshall from an ill-fated barque,
But her parents were engulfe...Read more of this...

by Emerson, Ralph Waldo
...ead.
Intent I searched the region round,
And in low hut my monarch found.
He was no eagle and no earl,
Alas! my foundling was a churl,
With heart of cat, and eyes of bug,
Dull victim of his pipe and mug;
Woe is me for my hopes' downfall!
Lord! is yon squalid peasant all
That this proud nursery could breed
For God's vicegerency and stead?
Time out of mind this forge of ores,
Quarry of spars in mountain pores,
Old cradle, hunting ground, and bier
Of wolf and otter, bear...Read more of this...

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