Famous Friendly Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Friendly poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous friendly poems. These examples illustrate what a famous friendly poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Teasdale, Sara
...id to me
The long new poem -- but how different now,
How eerie with the curtain of the fog
Making it strange to all the friendly trees!
There is no wind, and yet great curving scrolls
Carve themselves, ever changing, in the mist.
Walk on a little, let me stand here watching
To see you, too, grown strange to me and far. . . .
I used to wonder how the park would be
If one night we could have it all alone --
No lovers with close arm-encircled waists
To whispe...Read more of this...
by
Brackenridge, Hugh Henry
...life.
ACASTO.
Since then Leander you attempt a strain
So new, so noble and so full of fame;
And since a friendly concourse centers here
America's own sons, begin O muse!
Now thro' the veil of ancient days review
The period fam'd when first Columbus touch'd
The shore so long unknown, thro' various toils,
Famine and death, the hero made his way,
Thro' oceans bestowing with eternal storms.
But why, thus hap'ly found, should we resume
The tale of Corte...Read more of this...
by
Whitman, Walt
...build for you!
O well-beloved stone-cutters! I lead them who plan with decision and science,
I lead the present with friendly hand toward the future.
Bravas to all impulses sending sane children to the next age!
But damn that which spends itself, with no thought of the stain, pains, dismay, feebleness
it
is bequeathing.
9
I listened to the Phantom by Ontario’s shore,
I heard the voice arising, demanding bards;
By them, all native and grand—by them alone can...Read more of this...
by
Wilcox, Ella Wheeler
...nd only then,
Of those intrepid and unflinching men
Who knew no homes save ever moving tents,
And who 'twixt fierce unfriendly elements
And wild barbarians warred. Yet unfraid,
Since love impels thy strains, sing, sing, my modest maid.
II.
Relate how Custer in midwinter sought
Far Washita's cold shores; tell why he fought
With savage nomads fortressed in deep snows.
Woman, thou source of half the sad world's woes
And all its joys, what sanguinary strife
H...Read more of this...
by
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
...e and the box of tobacco;
Never so much thyself art thou as when through the curling
Smoke of the pipe or the forge thy friendly and jovial face gleams
Round and red as the harvest moon through the mist of the marshes."
Then, with a smile of content, thus answered Basil the blacksmith,
Taking with easy air the accustomed seat by the fireside:--
"Benedict Bellefontaine, thou hast ever thy jest and thy ballad!
Ever in cheerfullest mood art thou, when others are filled with
...Read more of this...
by
Hugo, Victor
...be she regrets the change: meanwhile,
The valiant knight salutes her with a smile,
And then approaching her with friendly mien,
Says, "Madam, has your sleep all pleasant been?"
MRS. NEWTON CROSLAND.
...Read more of this...
by
Kendall, Henry
...rs and the moonlight seldom falls?
Oh, the feelings re-awakened! Oh, the hopes of loftier range!
Is it well, thou friendly Being, well to wish for such a change?''
But the Spirit answers nothing! and the dazzling mantle fades;
And a wailing whisper wanders out from dismal seaside shades!
``Lo, the trees are moaning loudly, underneath their hood-like shrouds,
And the arch above us darkens, scarred with ragged thunder clouds!''
But the spirit answers nothing...Read more of this...
by
St Vincent Millay, Edna
...o decipher and priests to garble,
Only and for a little while her letters wedged in marble,
Which even now, behold, the friendly mumbling rain erases,
And the inarticulate snow,
Leaving at last of her least signs and traces
None whatsoever, nor whither she is vanished from these places.
"She will love well," I said,
"If love be of that heart inhabiter,
The flowers of the dead;
The red anemone that with no sound
Moves in the wind, and from another wound
That sprang, the he...Read more of this...
by
Milton, John
...ike the God
Of this new world; at whose sight all the stars
Hide their diminished heads; to thee I call,
But with no friendly voice, and add thy name,
Of Sun! to tell thee how I hate thy beams,
That bring to my remembrance from what state
I fell, how glorious once above thy sphere;
Till pride and worse ambition threw me down
Warring in Heaven against Heaven's matchless King:
Ah, wherefore! he deserved no such return
From me, whom he created what I was
In that brigh...Read more of this...
by
Milton, John
...ot with human voice endued;
Redouble then this miracle, and say,
How camest thou speakable of mute, and how
To me so friendly grown above the rest
Of brutal kind, that daily are in sight?
Say, for such wonder claims attention due.
To whom the guileful Tempter thus replied.
Empress of this fair world, resplendent Eve!
Easy to me it is to tell thee all
What thou commandest; and right thou shouldst be obeyed:
I was at first as other beasts that graze
The trodd...Read more of this...
by
Whitman, Walt
...aming day—joy of the wide-breath’d games?
Joy of sweet music—joy of the lighted ball-room, and the dancers?
Joy of the friendly, plenteous dinner—the strong carouse, and drinking?
15
Yet, O my soul supreme!
Know’st thou the joys of pensive thought?
Joys of the free and lonesome heart—the tender, gloomy heart?
Joy of the solitary walk—the spirit bowed yet proud—the suffering and the
struggle?
The agonistic throes, the extasies—joys of the solemn musings, day or night?
...Read more of this...
by
Milton, John
...arrives.
Har: I come not Samson, to condole thy chance,
As these perhaps, yet wish it had not been,
Though for no friendly intent. I am of Gath,
Men call me Harapha, of stock renown'd
As Og or Anak and the Emims old
That Kiriathaim held, thou knowst me now
If thou at all art known. Much I have heard
Of thy prodigious might and feats perform'd
Incredible to me, in this displeas'd,
That I was never present on the place
Of those encounters, where we might have tri...Read more of this...
by
Whitman, Walt
...-lock lean’d in the corner.)
11
Twenty-eight young men bathe by the shore;
Twenty-eight young men, and all so friendly:
Twenty-eight years of womanly life, and all so lonesome.
She owns the fine house by the rise of the bank;
She hides, handsome and richly drest, aft the blinds of the window.
Which of the young men does she like the best?
Ah, the homeliest of them is beautiful to her.
Where are you off to, lady? for I see you;
You spla...Read more of this...
by
Whitman, Walt
...raw and become useless;
I see the scaffold untrodden and mouldy—I see no longer any axe upon it;
I see the mighty and friendly emblem of the power of my own race—the newest, largest race.
9
(America! I do not vaunt my love for you;
I have what I have.)
The axe leaps!
The solid forest gives fluid utterances;
They tumble forth, they rise and form,
Hut, tent, landing, survey,
Flail, plough, pick, crowbar, spade,
Shingle, rail, prop, wainscot, jamb, lath, panel,...Read more of this...
by
Masefield, John
...whom he can't afford a fire.
Your well-packed bench, your prison pen,
To keep them something less than men;
Your friendly clubs to help 'em bury.
Your charities of midwifery.
Your bidding children duck and cap
To them who give them workhouse pap.
O, what you are, and what you preach,
And what you do, and what you teach
Is not God's Word, nor honest schism,
But Devil's scant and pauperism."
By this time many folk had gathered
To listen to me whi...Read more of this...
by
Carroll, Lewis
...f a summer sea.
Girt with a boyish garb for boyish task,
Eager she wields her spade; yet loves as well
Rest on a friendly knee, intent to ask
The tale he loves to tell.
Rude spirits of the seething outer strife,
Unmeet to read her pure and simple spright,
Deem, if you list, such hours a waste of life,
Empty of all delight!
Chat on, sweet Maid, and rescue from annoy
Hearts that by wiser talk are unbeguiled.
Ah, happy he who owns that tenderest joy,
The he...Read more of this...
by
Chaucer, Geoffrey
..., and no saluting, other afar off*
But straight, withoute wordes rehearsing,
Evereach of them holp to arm the other,
As friendly, as he were his owen brother.
And after that, with sharpe speares strong
They foined* each at other wonder long. *thrust
Thou mightest weene*, that this Palamon *think
In fighting were as a wood* lion, *mad
And as a cruel tiger was Arcite:
As wilde boars gan they together smite,
That froth as white as foam, *for ire wood*. *mad with ange...Read more of this...
by
Scott, Sir Walter
...a bead with every knell!
And bugle, lute, and bell, and all,
Should each bewildered stranger call
To friendly feast and lighted hall.
XVI.
'Blithe were it then to wander here!
But now—beshrew yon nimble deer—
Like that same hermit's, thin and spare,
The copse must give my evening fare;
Some mossy bank my couch must be,
Some rustling oak my canopy.
Yet pass we that; the war and chase
Give little choice ...Read more of this...
by
Schiller, Friedrich von
...ife, full of charms, in its own grace melts away
Freely the plain receives me,--with carpet far away reaching,
Over its friendly green wanders the pathway along.
Round me is humming the busy bee, and with pinion uncertain
Hovers the butterfly gay over the trefoil's red flower.
Fiercely the darts of the sun fall on me,--the zephyr is silent,
Only the song of the lark echoes athwart the clear air.
Now from the neighboring copse comes a roar, and the tops of the alde...Read more of this...
by
Miller, Alice Duer
...and frayed,
The heavy dishes—gold with birds and flowers—
Fruits of the China trade.
I saw the jack o' lanterns, friendly, frightening,
Shine from our gateposts every Hallow-e'en;
I saw the oak tree, shattered once by lightning,
Twisted, stripped clean.
I saw the Dioscuri— two black kittens,
Stalking relentlessly an empty spool;
I saw a little girl in scarlet mittens
Trudging through snow to school.
XXVII
John read the letter with his lovely smile.
'Y...Read more of this...
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