Famous France Poems by Famous Poets

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

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America

...underprivileged who live in my flowerpots 
 under the light of five hundred suns. 
I have abolished the whorehouses of France, Tangiers 
 is the next to go. 
My ambition is to be President despite the fact that 
 I'm a Catholic. 
America how can I write a holy litany in your silly 
 mood? 
I will continue like Henry Ford my strophes are as 
 individual as his automobiles more so they're 
 all different sexes. 
America I will sell you strophes $2500 apiece $500 
 down on your...Read more of this...
by Ginsberg, Allen


An Essay On Criticism

...Bounds the banish'd Muses past:
Thence Arts o'er all the Northern World advance,
But Critic Learning flourish'd most in France.
The Rules, a Nation born to serve, obeys,
And Boileau still in Right of Horace sways.
But we, brave Britons, Foreign Laws despis'd,
And kept unconquer'd and unciviliz'd,
Fierce for the Liberties of Wit, and bold,
We still defy'd the Romans as of old.
Yet some there were, among the sounder Few
Of those who less presum'd, and better knew,
Who durst ass...Read more of this...
by Pope, Alexander

Bishop Blougrams Apology

...o the next still, on and off! 
As when a traveller, bound from North to South, 
Scouts fur in Russia: what's its use in France? 
In France spurns flannel: where's its need in Spain? 
In Spain drops cloth, too cumbrous for Algiers! 
Linen goes next, and last the skin itself, 
A superfluity at Timbuctoo. 
When, through his journey, was the fool at ease? 
I'm at ease now, friend; worldly in this world, 
I take and like its way of life; I think 
My brothers, who administer the me...Read more of this...
by Browning, Robert

Evangeline: A Tale of Acadie

...beads and her missal,
Wearing her Norman cap and her kirtle of blue, and the ear-rings,
Brought in the olden time from France, and since, as an heirloom,
Handed down from mother to child, through long generations.
But a celestial brightness--a more ethereal beauty--
Shone on her face and encircled her form, when, after confession,
Homeward serenely she walked with God's benediction upon her.
When she had passed, it seemed like the ceasing of exquisite music.

Firmly builded ...Read more of this...
by Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth

Eviradnus

...ient hierarch in those old days 
 Had custom strange, a now forgotten thing, 
 It was a European plan that King 
 Of France was marquis, and th' imperial head 
 Of Germany was duke; there was no need 
 To class the other kings, but barons they, 
 Obedient vassals unto Rome, their stay. 
 The King of Poland was but simple knight, 
 Yet now, for once, had strange unwonted right, 
 And, as exception to the common state, 
 This one Sarmatian King was held as great 
 As...Read more of this...
by Hugo, Victor


Last Instructions to a Painter

...e title of St Albans bore, 
For Bacon never studied nature more. 
But age, allayed now that youthful heat, 
Fits him in France to play at cards and treat. 
Draw no commission lest the court should lie, 
That, disavowing treaty, asks supply. 
He needs no seal but to St James's lease, 
Whose breeches wear the instrument of peace; 
Who, if the French dispute his power, from thence 
Can straight produce them a plenipotence.. 
Nor fears he the Most Christian should trepan 
Two sai...Read more of this...
by Marvell, Andrew

Let It Enfold You

...idays,
babies,history,
newspapers, museums,
grandmothers,
marriage, movies,
spiders, garbagemen,
english accents,spain,
france,italy,walnuts and
the color 
orange.
algebra angred me,
opera sickened me,
charlie chaplin was a
fake
and flowers were for
pansies.

peace an happiness to me
were signs of
inferiority,
tenants of the weak
an
addled
mind.

but as I went on with
my alley fights,
my suicidal years,
my passage through
any number of 
women-it gradually
began to occur to
me...Read more of this...
by Bukowski, Charles

New Hampshire

...to say my prayers:
"Why, this is Hell, nor am I out of it."
Samoa, Russia, Ireland I complain of,
No less than England, France, and Italy. 
Because I wrote my novels in New Hampshire
Is no proof that I aimed them at New Hampshire.
When I left Massachusetts years ago
Between two days, the reason why I sought
New Hampshire, not Connecticut,
Rhode Island, New York, or Vermont was this:
Where I was living then, New Hampshire offered
The nearest boundary to escape across.
I hadn't...Read more of this...
by Frost, Robert

On the Way

...e with ermine. 
What I fear most is not the multitude, 
But those who are to loop it with a string 
That has one end in France and one end here. 
I’m not so fortified with observation
That I could swear that more than half a score 
Among us who see lightning see that ruin 
Is not the work of thunder. Since the world 
Was ordered, there was never a long pause 
For caution between doing and undoing.

BURR

Go on, sir; my attention is a trap 
Set for the catching of all complime...Read more of this...
by Robinson, Edwin Arlington

Prairie

...t, while peace broods mother-like,
While new wars arise and the fresh killings of young men.
I fed the boys who went to France in great dark days.
Appomattox is a beautiful word to me and so is Valley Forge and the Marne and Verdun,
I who have seen the red births and the red deaths
Of sons and daughters, I take peace or war, I say nothing and wait.

Have you seen a red sunset drip over one of my cornfields, the shore of night stars, the wave lines of dawn up a wheat valley?
H...Read more of this...
by Sandburg, Carl

Ravenna

...tombs where rest the Great of Time.


III.


Yon lonely pillar, rising on the plain,
Marks where the bravest knight of France was slain, -
The Prince of chivalry, the Lord of war,
Gaston de Foix: for some untimely star
Led him against thy city, and he fell,
As falls some forest-lion fighting well.
Taken from life while life and love were new,
He lies beneath God's seamless veil of blue;
Tall lance-like reeds wave sadly o'er his head,
And oleanders bloom to deeper red,
Where ...Read more of this...
by Wilde, Oscar

Salut au Monde

...rwegian! Swede! Dane! Icelander! you Prussian!
You Spaniard of Spain! you Portuguese! 
You Frenchwoman and Frenchman of France! 
You Belge! you liberty-lover of the Netherlands! 
You sturdy Austrian! you Lombard! Hun! Bohemian! farmer of Styria! 
You neighbor of the Danube!
You working-man of the Rhine, the Elbe, or the Weser! you working-woman too! 
You Sardinian! you Bavarian! Swabian! Saxon! Wallachian! Bulgarian! 
You citizen of Prague! Roman! Neapolitan! Greek! 
You lith...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt

The Four Ages of Man

...ial she,
5.31 And like a Cedar others so surmount
5.32 That but for shrubs they did themselves account.
5.33 Then saw I France, and Holland sav'd, Calais won,
5.34 And Philip and Albertus half undone.
5.35 I saw all peace at home, terror to foes,
5.36 But ah, I saw at last those eyes to close,
5.37 And then, me thought, the world at noon grew dark
5.38 When it had lost that radiant Sun-like spark.
5.39 In midst of griefs, I saw some hopes revive
5.40 (For 'twas our hopes then...Read more of this...
by Bradstreet, Anne

The Ghosts

...entacles of pain;
Then came the doctor, grave and grey; spoke of decline, of nervous strain;
Hinted Egypt, the South of France -- Brown with terror was tiger-gripped.
Where was the money? What the chance? Pitiful God! . . . the manuscript!
A thousand dollars! his only hope! he gazed and gazed at the garret wall. . . .
Reached at last for the envelope, turned to his wife and told her all.
Told of his friend, his promise true; told like his very heart would break:
"Oh, my deare...Read more of this...
by Service, Robert William

The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

...; the American meadows faint!
Shadows of Prophecy shiver along by the lakes and the rivers
and mutter across the ocean! France rend down thy dungeon; 
Golden Spain burst the barriers of old Rome;
Cast thy keys O Rome into the deep down falling, even to
eternity down falling, 
And weep! 
In her trembling hands she took the new, born terror howling;
On those infinite mountains of light now barr'd out by the
atlantic sea, the new born fire stood before the starry king! 
Flag'd w...Read more of this...
by Blake, William

The Negatives

...until they are dead. In my mind 
 Delain stands against the wall 

 precise in detail, steadied 
 for the betrayal. "La France 
 C'Est Moi," he cried, 
 but the irony was lost. Since 
 I returned to the U.S. 
 nothing goes well. I stay up 
 too late, don't sleep, 
 and am losing weight. Thomas, 
 I say, is dead, but what use 

 telling myself what I won't 
 believe. The hotel quiets 
 early at night, 
 the aged brace themselves for 
 another sleep, and offshore 
 the sea quic...Read more of this...
by Levine, Philip

The Vision of Judgment

...— inasmuch as several years of his reign passed in war with America and Ireland, to say nothing of the aggression upon France, — like all other exaggeration, necessarily begets opposition. In whatever manner he may be spoken of in this new 'Vision,' his public career will not be more favourably transmitted by history. Of his private virtues (although a little expense to the nation) there can be no doubt. 

With regard to the supernatural personages treated of, I can only say...Read more of this...
by Byron, George (Lord)

The White Cliffs

...ry in our country's short romance. 
We boast of it and love it. Frenchmen when 
The ultimate menace comes, will die for France 
Logically as they lived. But Englishmen 
Will serve day after day, obey the law, 
And do dull tasks that keep a nation strong. 
Once I remember in London how I saw 
Pale shabby people standing in a long 
Line in the twilight and the misty rain 
To pay their tax. I then saw England plain. 

XXII 
Johnnie and I were married. England then 
Had been a we...Read more of this...
by Miller, Alice Duer

The Wife of Baths Tale

...aint Peter! a common adjuration, like Marie!
from the Virgin's name.

20. St. Joce: or Judocus, a saint of Ponthieu, in France.

21. "An allusion," says Mr Wright, "to the story of the Roman
sage who, when blamed for divorcing his wife, said that a shoe
might appear outwardly to fit well, but no one but the wearer
knew where it pinched."

22. Vigilies: festival-eves; see note 33 to the Prologue to the
Tales.

23. Bobance: boasting; Ben Jonson's braggart, in "Every Man in
his ...Read more of this...
by Chaucer, Geoffrey

The Wood

...Of Norman Peer­ere morning light 
Suspicion must as duly fall,
As day returns­such vigilance 
Presides and watches over France, 
Such rigour governs all ? 

I fear not, William; dost thou fear ? 
So that the knife does not divide, 
It may be ever hovering near: 
I could not tremble at thy side, 
And strenuous love­like mine for thee­
Is buckler strong, 'gainst treachery, 
And turns its stab aside. 

I am resolved that thou shalt learn 
To trust my strength as I trust thine; 
...Read more of this...
by Bronte, Charlotte

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