Famous Fretting Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Marginalia

by Barry Tebb
 Here is a silence I had not hoped for

This side of paradise, I am an old believer

In nature’s bounty as God’s grace

To us poor mortals, fretting and fuming

At frustrated lust or the scent of fame 

Coming too late to make a difference

Blue with white vertebrae of cloud forms

Riming the spectrum of green dark of poplars

Lined like soldiers, paler the...Read more of this...

Summer Evening

by John Clare
 The frog half fearful jumps across the path,
And little mouse that leaves its hole at eve
Nimbles with timid dread beneath the swath;
My rustling steps awhile their joys deceive,
Till past, and then the cricket sings more strong,
And grasshoppers in merry moods still wear
The short night weary with their fretting song.
Up from behind the molehill jumps the hare,
Cheat of his chosen...Read more of this...

Sir Galahad a Christmas Mystery

by William Morris
 It is the longest night in all the year,
Near on the day when the Lord Christ was born;
Six hours ago I came and sat down here,
And ponder'd sadly, wearied and forlorn.

The winter wind that pass'd the chapel door,
Sang out a moody tune, that went right well
With mine own thoughts: I look'd down on the floor,
Between my feet, until I...Read more of this...

Searcy Foote

by Edgar Lee Masters
 I wanted to go away to college
But rich Aunt Persis wouldn't help me.
So I made gardens and raked the lawns
And bought John Alden's books with my earnings
And toiled for the very means of life.
I wanted to marry Delia Prickett,
But how could I do it with what I earned?
And there was Aunt Persis more than seventy,
Who sat in a wheel-chair...Read more of this...

Red Moon-Rise

by D. H. Lawrence
The train in running across the weald has fallen into a steadier stroke
So even, it beats like silence, and sky and earth in one unbroke
Embrace of darkness lie around, and crushed between them all the loose
And littered lettering of leaves and hills and houses closed, and we
can use
The open book of landscape no more, for the covers of darkness have
shut...Read more of this...

The Iron Gate

by Oliver Wendell Holmes
 WHERE is this patriarch you are kindly greeting?
Not unfamiliar to my ear his name,
Nor yet unknown to many a joyous meeting
In days long vanished,-- is he still the same,

Or changed by years, forgotten and forgetting,
Dull-eared, dim-sighted, slow of speech and thought,
Still o'er the sad, degenerate present fretting,
Where all goes wrong, and nothing as it ought?

Old age, the graybeard! Well,...Read more of this...

Jersey

by Victor Hugo
 ("Jersey dort dans les flots.") 
 
 {Bk. III. xiv., Oct. 8, 1854.} 


 Dear Jersey! jewel jubilant and green, 
 'Midst surge that splits steel ships, but sings to thee! 
 Thou fav'rest Frenchmen, though from England seen, 
 Oft tearful to that mistress "North Countree"; 
 Returned the third time safely here to be, 
 I bless...Read more of this...

Visions of the worlds vanitie

by Edmund Spenser
 One day, whiles that my daylie cares did sleepe,
My spirit, shaking off her earthly prison,
Began to enter into meditation deepe
Of things exceeding reach of common reason;
Such as this age, in which all good is geason,
And all that humble is and meane debaced,
Hath brought forth in her last declining season,
Griefe of good mindes, to see goodnesse disgraced.
On which when as...Read more of this...

Coucy

by Alan Seeger
 The rooks aclamor when one enters here 
Startle the empty towers far overhead; 
Through gaping walls the summer fields appear, 
Green, tan, or, poppy-mingled, tinged with red. 
The courts where revel rang deep grass and moss 
Cover, and tangled vines have overgrown 
The gate where banners blazoned with a cross 
Rolled forth to toss round Tyre and Ascalon. 
Decay...Read more of this...

In Drear-Nighted December

by John Keats
 In drear-nighted December,
Too happy, happy tree,
Thy branches ne'er remember
Their green felicity:
The north cannot undo them
With a sleety whistle through them;
Nor frozen thawings glue them
 From budding at the prime.

In drear-nighted December,
Too happy, happy brook,
Thy bubblings ne'er remember
Apollo's summer look;
But with a sweet forgetting,
They stay their crystal fretting,
Never, never petting
About the frozen time.

Ah! would 'twere so with many
A gentle girl...Read more of this...

No One So Much As You

by Edward Thomas
 No one so much as you
Loves this my clay, 
Or would lament as you
Its dying day. 

You know me through and through
Though I have not told, 
And though with what you know
You are not bold. 

None ever was so fair
As I thought you: 
Not a word can I bear
Spoken against you. 

All that I ever did
For you seemed coarse
Compared...Read more of this...

Blue

by D. H. Lawrence
 The earth again like a ship steams out of the dark sea over
The edge of the blue, and the sun stands up to see us glide
Slowly into another day; slowly the rover 
Vessel of darkness takes the rising tide. 

I, on the deck, am startled by this dawn confronting
Me who am issued amazed from the darkness, stripped
And quailing here...Read more of this...

Dead Mans Dump

by Isaac Rosenberg
 The plunging limbers over the shattered track
Racketed with their rusty freight,
Stuck out like many crowns of thorns,
And the rusty stakes like sceptres old
To stay the flood of brutish men
Upon our brothers dear.

The wheels lurched over sprawled dead
But pained them not, though their bones crunched;
Their shut mouths made no moan,
They lie there huddled, friend and foeman,
Man born of man, and...Read more of this...

Wheres the Poker?

by Christopher Smart
 The poker lost, poor Susan storm'd, 
And all the rites of rage perform'd; 
As scolding, crying, swearing, sweating, 
Abusing, fidgetting, and fretting. 
"Nothing but villany, and thieving; 
Good heavens! what a world we live in! 
If I don't find it in the morning, 
I'll surely give my master warning. 
He'd better far shut up his doors, 
Than keep such...Read more of this...

Easter Communion

by Gerard Manley Hopkins
 Pure fasted faces draw unto this feast: 
God comes all sweetness to your Lenten lips.
You striped in secret with breath-taking whips, 
Those crooked rough-scored chequers may be pieced
To crosses meant for Jesu's; you whom the East 
With draught of thin and pursuant cold so nips
Breathe Easter now; you serged fellowships, 
You vigil-keepers with low flames decreased, 

God shall o'er-brim...Read more of this...

Mystic Trumpeter The

by Walt Whitman
 1
HARK! some wild trumpeter—some strange musician, 
Hovering unseen in air, vibrates capricious tunes to-night. 

I hear thee, trumpeter—listening, alert, I catch thy notes, 
Now pouring, whirling like a tempest round me, 
Now low, subdued—now in the distance lost.

2
Come nearer, bodiless one—haply, in thee resounds 
Some dead composer—haply thy pensive life 
Was fill’d with aspirations high—unform’d ideals, 
Waves, oceans musical,...Read more of this...

Proud Music of The Storm

by Walt Whitman
 1
PROUD music of the storm! 
Blast that careers so free, whistling across the prairies! 
Strong hum of forest tree-tops! Wind of the mountains! 
Personified dim shapes! you hidden orchestras! 
You serenades of phantoms, with instruments alert,
Blending, with Nature’s rhythmus, all the tongues of nations; 
You chords left us by vast composers! you choruses! 
You formless, free, religious dances! you...Read more of this...

Jane and Eliza

by Ann Taylor
 There were two little girls, neither handsome nor plain; 
One's name was Eliza, the other's was Jane: 
They were both of one height, as I've heard people say, 
They were both of one age, I believe, to a day. 

'Twas fancied by some, who but slightly had seen them, 
That scarcely a difference was there between them; 
But no...Read more of this...

Stanzas

by John Keats
IN a drear-nighted December  
Too happy happy tree  
Thy branches ne'er remember 
Their green felicity: 
The north cannot undo them 5 
With a sleety whistle through them; 
Nor frozen thawings glue them 
From budding at the prime. 

In a drear-nighted December  
Too happy happy brook 10 
Thy bubblings ne'er remember 
Apollo's summer look; 
But with a sweet...Read more of this...

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