Famous Fray Poems by Famous Poets

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

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The Bridge of Lodi

by Thomas Hardy
 I 

When of tender mind and body 
I was moved by minstrelsy, 
And that strain "The Bridge of Lodi" 
Brought a strange delight to me. 

II 

In the battle-breathing jingle 
Of its forward-footing tune 
I could see the armies mingle, 
And the columns cleft and hewn 

III 

On that far-famed spot by Lodi 
Where Napoleon clove his way 
To...Read more of this...

The Harlots House

by Oscar Wilde
 We caught the tread of dancing feet,
We loitered down the moonlit street,
And stopped beneath the harlot's house.

Inside, above the din and fray,
We heard the loud musicians play
The 'Treues Liebes Herz' of Strauss.

Like strange mechanical grotesques,
Making fantastic arabesques,
The shadows raced across the blind.

We watched the ghostly dancers spin
To sound of horn and violin,
Like black leaves wheeling in the wind.

Like wire-pulled...Read more of this...

Agincourt

by Michael Drayton
 FAIR stood the wind for France 
When we our sails advance, 
Nor now to prove our chance 
Longer will tarry; 
But putting to the main, 
At Caux, the mouth of Seine, 
With all his martial train 
Landed King Harry. 

And taking many a fort, 
Furnish'd in warlike sort, 
Marcheth tow'rds Agincourt 
In happy hour; 
Skirmishing day by day 
With...Read more of this...

Dedication

by Rudyard Kipling
 To the City of Bombay


The Cities are full of pride,
 Challenging each to each --
This from her mountain-side,
 That from her burthened beach.

They count their ships full tale --
 Their corn and oil and wine,
Derrick and loom and bale,
 And rampart's gun-flecked line;
City by City they hail:
 "Hast aught to match with mine?"

And the men that breed from them
...Read more of this...

Warsaw

by Robert William Service
 I was in Warsaw when the first bomb fell;
I was in Warsaw when the Terror came -
Havoc and horror, famine, fear and flame,
Blasting from loveliness a living hell.
Barring the station towered a sentinel;
Trainward I battled, blind escape my aim.
ENGLAND! I cried. He kindled at the name:
With lion-leap he haled me. . . . All was well.

ENGLAND! they cried for...Read more of this...

Poem 19

by Edmund Spenser
 LEt no lamenting cryes, nor dolefull teares,
Be heard all night within nor yet without:
Ne let false whispers breeding hidden feares,
Breake gentle sleepe with misconceiued dout.
Let no deluding dreames, nor dreadful sights
Make sudden sad affrights;
Ne let housefyres, nor lightnings helpelesse harmes,
Ne led the Ponke, nor other euill sprights,
Ne let mischiuous witches with theyr charmes,
Ne let hob Goblins, names whose sence...Read more of this...

The Cranes Of Ibycus

by Friedrich von Schiller
 Once to the song and chariot-fight,
Where all the tribes of Greece unite
On Corinth's isthmus joyously,
The god-loved Ibycus drew nigh.
On him Apollo had bestowed
The gift of song and strains inspired;
So, with light staff, he took his road
From Rhegium, by the godhead fired.

Acrocorinth, on mountain high,
Now burns upon the wanderer's eye,
And he begins, with pious dread,
Poseidon's grove of firs to tread.
Naught...Read more of this...

Driver Smith

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 'Twas Driver Smith of Battery A was anxious to see a fight; 
He thought of the Transvaal all the day, he thought of it all the night -- 
"Well, if the battery's left behind, I'll go to the war," says he, 
"I'll go a-driving and ambulance in the ranks of the A.M.C. 
"I'm fairly sick of these here parades...Read more of this...

Modern Love XXXIII: In Paris at the Louvre

by George Meredith
 'In Paris, at the Louvre, there have I seen 
The sumptuously-feathered angel pierce 
Prone Lucifer, descending. Looked he fierce, 
Showing the fight a fair one? Too serene! 
The young Pharsalians did not disarray 
Less willingly their locks of floating silk: 
That suckling mouth of his, upon the milk 
Of heaven might still be feasting through the fray. 
Oh, Raphael!...Read more of this...

The Westerner

by Badger Clark
  My fathers sleep on the sunrise plains,
    And each one sleeps alone.
  Their trails may dim to the grass and rains,
    For I choose to make my own.
  I lay proud claim to their blood and name,
    But I lean on no dead kin;
  My name...Read more of this...

The Faerie Queene: Book I Canto I

by Edmund Spenser
Lo I the man, whose Muse whilome did maske,
As time her taught in lowly Shepheards weeds,
Am now enforst a far unfitter taske,
For trumpets sterne to chaunge mine Oaten reeds,
And sing of Knights and Ladies gentle deeds;
Whose prayses having slept in silence long,
Me, all too meane, the sacred Muse areeds
To blazon broad emongst her learned throng:
Fierce warres and faithful loves shall...Read more of this...

Mulga Bills Bicycle

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 'Twas Mulga Bill, from Eaglehawk, that caught the cycling craze; 
He turned away the good old horse that served him many days; 
He dressed himself in cycling clothes, resplendent to be seen; 
He hurried off to town and bought a shining new machine; 
And as he wheeled it through the door, with air of lordly pride, 
The grinning shop...Read more of this...

Old Schooldays

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 Awake, of Muse, the echoes of a day 
Long past, the ghosts of mem'ries manifold -- 
Youth's memories that once were green and gold 
But now, alas, are grim and ashen grey. 
The drowsy schoolboy wakened up from sleep, 
First stays his system with substantial food, 
Then off for school with tasks half understood, 
Alas, alas, that cribs should...Read more of this...

The Ballad Of How Macpherson Held The Floor

by Robert William Service
 Said President MacConnachie to Treasurer MacCall:
"We ought to have a piper for our next Saint Andrew's Ball.
Yon squakin' saxophone gives me the syncopated gripes.
I'm sick of jazz, I want to hear the skirling of the pipes."
"Alas! it's true," said Tam MacCall. "The young folk of to-day
Are fox-trot mad and dinna ken a reel from Strathspey.
Now, what we want's a...Read more of this...

Alms

by Edna St. Vincent Millay
 My heart is what it was before,
A house where people come and go;
But it is winter with your love,
The sashes are beset with snow.

I light the lamp and lay the cloth,
I blow the coals to blaze again;
But it is winter with your love,
The frost is thick upon the pane..

I know a winter when it comes:
The leaves are listless on...Read more of this...

Old Deuteronomy

by T S (Thomas Stearns) Eliot
 Old Deuteronomy's lived a long time;
He's a Cat who has lived many lives in succession.
He was famous in proverb and famous in rhyme
A long while before Queen Victoria's accession.
Old Deuteronomy's buried nine wives
And more--I am tempted to say, ninety-nine;
And his numerous progeny prospers and thrives
And the village is proud of him in his decline.
At the sight of that placid...Read more of this...

The Little Piou-Piou

by Robert William Service
 (The French "Tommy").

Oh, some of us lolled in the chateau,
 And some of us slinked in the slum;
But now we are here with a song and a cheer
 To serve at the sign of the drum.
They put us in trousers of scarlet,
 In big sloppy ulsters of blue;
In boots that are flat, a box of a hat,
 And they...Read more of this...

Finnigans Finish

by Robert William Service
 They thought I'd be a champion;
 They boasted loud of me.
A dozen victories I'd won,
 The Press was proud of me.
I saw myself with glory crowned,
 And would, beyond a doubt,
Till last night in the second round
 A Dago knocked me out.

It must have been an accident;
 I cannot understand.
For I was so damn confident
 I'd lick him with...Read more of this...

Dedication

by Rudyard Kipling
 To the City of Bombay


The Cities are full of pride,
 Challenging each to each --
This from her mountain-side,
 That from her burthened beach.

They count their ships full tale --
 Their corn and oil and wine,
Derrick and loom and bale,
 And rampart's gun-flecked line;
City by City they hail:
 "Hast aught to match with mine?"

And the men that breed from them
...Read more of this...

A Years Carols

by Algernon Charles Swinburne
 JANUARY
HAIL, January, that bearest here
On snowbright breasts the babe-faced year
That weeps and trembles to be born.
Hail, maid and mother, strong and bright,
Hooded and cloaked and shod with white,
Whose eyes are stars that match the morn.
Thy forehead braves the storm's bent bow,
Thy feet enkindle stars of snow.

FEBRUARY
Wan February with weeping cheer,
Whose cold hand guides the youngling year
Down misty roads of...Read more of this...

Do They Know?

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 Do they know? At the turn to the straight 
Where the favourites fail, 
And every last atom of weight 
Is telling its tale; 
As some grim old stayer hard-pressed 
Runs true to his breed, 
And with head in front of the rest 
Fights on in the lead; 
When the jockeys are out with the whips, 
With a furlong to...Read more of this...

The Ballad of Fishers Boarding-House

by Rudyard Kipling
 'T was Fultah Fisher's boarding-house,
 Where sailor-men reside,
And there were men of all the ports
 From Mississip to Clyde,
And regally they spat and smoked,
 And fearsomely they lied.

They lied about the purple Sea
 That gave them scanty bread,
They lied about the Earth beneath,
 The Heavens overhead,
For they had looked too often on
 Black rum when that was red.

They told...Read more of this...

The Great Minimum

by G K Chesterton
 It is something to have wept as we have wept, 
It is something to have done as we have done, 
It is something to have watched when all men slept, 
And seen the stars which never see the sun.

It is something to have smelt the mystic rose, 
Although it break and leave the thorny rods, 
It is something to...Read more of this...

Captain Teach alias Black Beard

by William Topaz McGonagall
 Edward Teach was a native of Bristol, and sailed from that port
On board a privateer, in search of sport,
As one of the crew, during the French War in that station,
And for personal courage he soon gained his Captain's approbation. 

'Twas in the spring of 1717, Captajn Harnigold and Teach sailed from Providence
For the continent of America, and no further...Read more of this...

The Masters

by Paul Laurence Dunbar
Oh, who is the Lord of the land of life,
When hotly goes the fray?
When, fierce we smile in the midst of strife
Then whom shall we obey?
Oh, Love is the Lord of the land of life
Who holds a monarch's sway;
He wends with wish of maid and wife,
And him you must obey.
Then who is the Lord of the land of life,
At setting...Read more of this...

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