Famous Four Times Poems by Famous Poets

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

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The Ghosts

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
 Never stoops the soaring vulture
On his quarry in the desert,
On the sick or wounded bison,
But another vulture, watching
From his high aerial look-out,
Sees the downward plunge, and follows;
And a third pursues the second,
Coming from the invisible ether,
First a speck, and then a vulture,
Till the air is dark with pinions.
So disasters come not singly;
But as if they watched and waited,
Scanning one...Read more of this...

There was an Old Man who said Hush!

by Edward Lear
There was an Old Man who said, "Hush!I perceive a young bird in this bush!"When they said, "Is it small?" he replied, "Not at all;It is four times as big as the bush!" ...Read more of this...

The Famine

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
 Oh the long and dreary Winter!
Oh the cold and cruel Winter!
Ever thicker, thicker, thicker
Froze the ice on lake and river,
Ever deeper, deeper, deeper
Fell the snow o'er all the landscape,
Fell the covering snow, and drifted
Through the forest, round the village.
Hardly from his buried wigwam
Could the hunter force a passage;
With his mittens and his snow-shoes
Vainly walked he through the forest,
Sought for...Read more of this...

Colder

by Erica Jong
 He was six foot four, and forty-six
and even colder than he thought he was
James Thurber, The Thirteen Clocks

Not that I cared about the other woman.
Those perfumed breasts with hearts
of pure rock salt.
Lot's wives-
all of them.

I didn't care
if they fondled him at parties,
eased him in at home
between a husband & a child,
sucked him dry
with vacuum cleaner kisses.

It was the coldness...Read more of this...

The Legend Of The One-Eyed Man

by Anne Sexton
 Like Oedipus I am losing my sight.
LIke Judas I have done my wrong.
Their punishment is over;
the shame and disgrace of it
are all used up.
But as for me,
look into my face
and you will know that crimes dropped upon me
as from a high building
and although I cannot speak of them
or explain the degrading details
I have remembered much
about Judas -
about Judas, the...Read more of this...

The Lovers Litany

by Rudyard Kipling
 Eyes of grey -- a sodden quay,
Driving rain and falling tears,
As the steamer wears to sea
In a parting storm of cheers.
 Sing, for Faith and Hope are high --
 None so true as you and I --
 Sing the Lovers' Litany:
 "Love like ours can never die!"

Eyes of black -- a throbbing keel,
Milky foam to left and right;
Whispered converse...Read more of this...

St. Winefreds Well

by Gerard Manley Hopkins
 ACT I. SC. I

Enter Teryth from riding, Winefred following.

T. WHAT is it, Gwen, my girl? why do you hover and haunt me? 

W. You came by Caerwys, sir? 
T. I came by Caerwys. 
W. There
Some messenger there might have met you from my uncle. 
T. Your uncle met the messenger—met me; and this the message:
Lord Beuno comes to-night. 
W....Read more of this...

Dream Song 134: Sick at 6 and sick again at 9

by John Berryman
 Sick at 6 & sick again at 9
was Henry's gloomy Monday morning oh.
Still he had to lecture.
They waited, his little children, for stricken Henry
to rise up yet once more again and come oh.
They figured he was a fixture,

nuts to their bolds, keys to their bloody locks.
One day the whole affair will fall apart
with a rustle of fire,
a wrestle of...Read more of this...

The Dirge Of Jephthahs Daughter:sung By The Virgins

by Robert Herrick
 O thou, the wonder of all days!
O paragon, and pearl of praise!
O Virgin-martyr, ever blest
Above the rest
Of all the maiden-train! We come,
And bring fresh strewings to thy tomb.

Thus, thus, and thus, we compass round
Thy harmless and unhaunted ground;
And as we sing thy dirge, we will
The daffadil,
And other flowers, lay upon
The altar of our love, thy stone.

Thou wonder of all...Read more of this...

O thou who art the result of the four (elements) and

by Omar Khayyam
O thou who art the result of the four [elements] and
the seven [heavens], I see you in perplexity amongst
these four and seven. Drink wine, for, as I have said
to you more than four times, you will return no more;
once departed, you are gone indeed....Read more of this...

Eugene Carman

by Edgar Lee Masters
 Rhodes' slave! Selling shoes and gingham,
Flour and bacon, overalls, clothing, all day long
For fourteen hours a day for three hundred and thirteen days
For more than twenty years.
Saying "Yes'm" and "Yes, sir", and "Thank you"
A thousand times a day, and all for fifty dollars a month.
Living in this stinking room in the rattle-trap "Commercial."
And compelled to go to Sunday School,...Read more of this...

the man the gun and the dog

by Rg Gregory
 yesterday the man was pleased
the sun sat in the tree and all
upon the land held to the harmony
his coming then expected

 his gun in his arm
 his dog at his heels

a blackbird sang on a high branch
a white horse ambled by the hedge
a brindled cow munched grass - the man
shared his heartbeat with them

 his gun in his arm
...Read more of this...

Holy-Cross Day

by Robert Browning
 ON WHICH THE JEWS WERE FORCED TO
ATTEND AN ANNUAL CHRISTIAN SERMON
IN ROME.

[``Now was come about Holy-Cross Day,
and now must my lord preach his first sermon
to the Jews: as it was of old cared for in tine
merciful bowels of the Church, that, so to
speak, a crumb at least from her conspicuous
table here in Rome should be, though but
once yearly, cast...Read more of this...

The Fires

by Rudyard Kipling
 Men make them fires on the hearth
 Each under his roof-tree,
And the Four Winds that rule the earth
 They blow the smoke to me.

Across the high hills and the sea
 And all the changeful skies,
The Four Winds blow the smoke to me
 Till the tears are in my eyes.

Until the tears are in my eyes.
 And my heart is...Read more of this...

Faithful Eckart

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
 "OH, would we were further! Oh, would we were home,
The phantoms of night tow'rd us hastily come,

The band of the Sorceress sisters.
They hitherward speed, and on finding us here,
They'll drink, though with toil we have fetch'd it, the beer,

And leave us the pitchers all empty."

Thus speaking, the children with fear take to flight,
When sudden an old man appears in...Read more of this...

Strayed Crab

by Elizabeth Bishop
 This is not my home. How did I get so far from water? It must 
be over that way somewhere. 
 I am the color of wine, of tinta. The inside of my powerful 
right claw is saffron-yellow. See, I see it now; I wave it like a 
flag. I am dapper and elegant; I move with great precision,...Read more of this...

Zone

by Guillaume Apollinaire
ZONE 


In the end you are tired of this ancient world 
Shepherd oh Eiffel Tower the herd of bridges is bleating this morning 

You've had enough of living in Greek and Roman antiquity 

Here even the cars look antique 
Only religion has stayed new religion 
Has stayed simple like the hangars at Port-Aviation 

You alone in Europe are not ancient...Read more of this...

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