Famous Gaily Poems by Famous Poets

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

See also:

The Phantom Horsewoman

by Thomas Hardy
 ***** are the ways of a man I know:
He comes and stands
In a careworn craze,
And looks at the sands
And in the seaward haze
With moveless hands
And face and gaze,
Then turns to go...
And what does he see when he gazes so?

They say he sees as an instant thing
More clear than today,
A sweet soft scene
That once was in play
By that briny green;
Yes,...Read more of this...

She died at play

by Emily Dickinson
 She died at play,
Gambolled away
Her lease of spotted hours,
Then sank as gaily as a Turn
Upon a Couch of flowers.

Her ghost strolled softly o'er the hill
Yesterday, and Today,
Her vestments as the silver fleece --
Her countenance as spray....Read more of this...

Palanquin Bearers

by Sarojini Naidu
 Lightly, O lightly we bear her along,
She sways like a flower in the wind of our song;
She skims like a bird on the foam of a stream,
She floats like a laugh from the lips of a dream.
Gaily, O gaily we glide and we sing,
We bear her along like a pearl on a string.

Softly, O softly we bear her along,
She...Read more of this...

The Firemens Ball

by Vachel Lindsay
 SECTION ONE

"Give the engines room,
Give the engines room."
Louder, faster
The little band-master
Whips up the fluting,
Hurries up the tooting.
He thinks that he stands,
[*] The reins in his hands, 
In the fire-chief's place 
In the night alarm chase. 
The cymbals whang, 
The kettledrums bang: —
"Clear the street, 
Clear the street, 
Clear the street — Boom, boom. 
In the evening gloom, 
In the...Read more of this...

On Boot Hill

by Badger Clark
  Up from the prairie and through the pines,
  Over your straggling headboard lines
    Winds of the West go by.
  You must love them, you booted dead,
  More than the dreamers who died in bed--
  You old-timers who took your lead
    Under the open sky!

  Leathery knights of...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...

223. Song—The Chevalier's Lament

by Robert Burns
 THE SMALL birds rejoice in the green leaves returning,
The murmuring streamlet winds clear thro’ the vale;
The primroses blow in the dews of the morning,
And wild scatter’d cowslips bedeck the green dale:
But what can give pleasure, or what can seem fair,
When the lingering moments are numbered by care?
No birds sweetly singing, nor flow’rs gaily springing,
Can soothe the sad bosom of...Read more of this...

Eighty Not Out

by Robert William Service
 In the gay, gleamy morn I adore to go walking,
And oh what sweet people I meet on my way!
I hail them with joy for I love to be talking,
Although I have nothing important to say.
I cheer the old grannies whose needles are plying;
I watch the wee kiddies awhoop at their play:
When sunny the sky is, you'll not be denying
The...Read more of this...

Camp Follower's Song, Gomal River

by Adela Florence Cory Nicolson
   Along the hot and endless road,
     Calm and erect, with haggard eyes,
   The prisoner bore his fetters' load
     Beneath the scorching, azure skies.

   Serene and tall, with brows unbent,
     Without a hope, without a friend,
   He, under escort, onward...Read more of this...

Aboard at a Ship's Helm

by Walt Whitman
 , at a ship’s helm, 
A young steersman, steering with care. 

A bell through fog on a sea-coast dolefully ringing, 
An ocean-bell—O a warning bell, rock’d by the waves. 

O you give good notice indeed, you bell by the sea-reefs ringing,
Ringing, ringing, to warn the ship from its wreck-place. 

For, as on the alert, O steersman, you mind the...Read more of this...

Oberon to the Queen of the Fairies

by Mary Darby Robinson
 My OBERON, with ev'ry sprite
"That gilds the vapours of the night,
"Shall dance and weave the verdant ring
"With joy that mortals thus can sing; 
"And when thou sigh'st MARIA'S name, 
"And mourn'st to feel a hopeless flame, 
"Eager they'll catch the tender note
"Just parting from thy tuneful throat, 
"And bear it to the careless ear 
"Of her who scorn'd a...Read more of this...

A Cabbage Patch

by Robert William Service
 Folk ask if I'm alive,
 Most think I'm not;
Yet gaily I contrive
 To till my plot.
The world its way can go,
 I little heed,
So long as I can grow
 The grub I need.

For though long overdue,
 The years to me,
Have taught a lesson true,
 --Humility.
Such better men than I
 I've seen pass on;
Their pay-off when they die;
 --Oblivion.

And so...Read more of this...

Keepsake Mill

by Robert Louis Stevenson
 Over the borders, a sin without pardon, 
Breaking the branches and crawling below, 
Out through the breach in the wall of the garden, 
Down by the banks of the river we go. 

Here is a mill with the humming of thunder, 
Here is the weir with the wonder of foam, 
Here is the sluice with the race running under--...Read more of this...

3. Song—I dream'd I lay

by Robert Burns
 I DREAM’D I lay where flowers were springing
 Gaily in the sunny beam;
List’ning to the wild birds singing,
 By a falling crystal stream:
Straight the sky grew black and daring;
 Thro’ the woods the whirlwinds rave;
Tress with aged arms were warring,
 O’er the swelling drumlie wave.


Such was my life’s deceitful morning,
 Such the pleasures I enjoyed:
But lang or noon, loud...Read more of this...

Good-Children Street

by Eugene Field
 There's a dear little home in Good-Children street -
My heart turneth fondly to-day
Where tinkle of tongues and patter of feet
Make sweetest of music at play;
Where the sunshine of love illumines each face
And warms every heart in that old-fashioned place.

For dear little children go romping about
With dollies and tin tops and drums,
And, my! how they frolic and scamper and shout
Till...Read more of this...

Where Is the Real Non-Resistant

by Vachel Lindsay
 (Matthew V, 38-48.)


Who can surrender to Christ, dividing his best with the stranger,
Giving to each what he asks, braving the uttermost danger
All for the enemy, MAN? Who can surrender till death
His words and his works, his house and his lands,
His eyes and his heart and his breath?

Who can surrender to Christ? Many have yearned toward it daily.
Yet they surrender...Read more of this...

Inspiration

by Robert William Service
 How often have I started out
With no thought in my noodle,
And wandered here and there about,
Where fancy bade me toddle;
Till feeling faunlike in my glee
I've voiced some gay distiches,
Returning joyfully to tea,
A poem in my britches.

A-squatting on a thymy slope
With vast of sky about me,
I've scribbled on an envelope
The rhymes the hills would shout me;
The couplets that the trees...Read more of this...

My Maid Mary

by Mother Goose
My maid Mary she minds the dairy,
  While I go a-hoeing and mowing each morn;
Gaily run the reel and the little spinning wheel,
  While I am singing and mowing my corn....Read more of this...

Deaths Way

by Robert William Service
 Old Man Death's a lousy heel who will not play the game:
Let Graveyard yawn and doom down crash, he'll sneer and turn away.
But when the sky with rapture rings and joy is like a flame,
Then Old Man Death grins evilly, and swings around to slay.

Jack Duval was my chosen pal in the ranks of the Reckless Men.
Thick as thieves...Read more of this...

Eldorado

by Edgar Allan Poe
 Gaily bedight,
 A gallant knight,
In sunshine and in shadow,
 Had journeyed long,
 Singing a song,
In search of Eldorado.

 But he grew old--
 This knight so bold--
And o'er his heart a shadow
 Fell as he found
 No spot of ground
That looked like Eldorado.

 And, as his strength
 Failed him at length,
He met a pilgrim shadow-
 "Shadow," said he,
 "Where can...Read more of this...

Lines On The Loss Of The Titanic

by Thomas Hardy
 In a solitude of the sea
Deep from human vanity,
And the Pride of Life that planned her, stilly couches she.

Steel chambers, late the pyres
Of her salamandrine fires,
Cold currents thrid, and turn to rhythmic tidal lyres.

Over the mirrors meant
To glass the opulent
The sea-worm crawls -- grotesque, slimed, dumb, indifferent.

Jewels in joy designed
To ravish the sensuous mind
Lie lightless, all their sparkles bleared...Read more of this...

Eyrie

by Robert William Service
 The little pink house is high on the hill
And my heart is not what it used to be;
It will kick up a fuss I know, but still
I must toil up that twisty trail to see
What that empty old house can mean to me.

For a Poet lived there for donkey's years,
A Poet of parts and founded fame.
He took to the...Read more of this...

I Am Like One That For Long Days Had Sate

by Robert Louis Stevenson
 I AM like one that for long days had sate,
With seaward eyes set keen against the gale,
On some lone foreland, watching sail by sail,
The portbound ships for one ship that was late;
And sail by sail, his heart burned up with joy,
And cruelly was quenched, until at last
One ship, the looked-for pennant at its mast,
Bore gaily, and dropt safely past...Read more of this...

The Scottish Engineer

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 With eyes that searched in the dark, 
Peering along the line, 
Stood the grim Scotsman, Hector Clark, 
Driver of "Forty-nine". 
And the veldt-fire flamed on the hills ahead, 
Like a blood-red beacon sign. 

There was word of a fight to the north, 
And a column too hardly pressed, 
So they started the Highlanders forth. 
Heedless of food or rest....Read more of this...

Cavalry Crossing a Ford

by Walt Whitman
 A LINE in long array, where they wind betwixt green islands; 
They take a serpentine course—their arms flash in the sun—Hark to the musical
 clank; 
Behold the silvery river—in it the splashing horses, loitering, stop to drink; 
Behold the brown-faced men—each group, each person, a picture—the negligent rest
 on
 the
 saddles; 
Some emerge on the opposite bank—others are just...Read more of this...

Dont forget to view our wonderful member Gaily poems.

Get a Premium Membership
Turn off ads, get more exposure for your poetry, and get more features with a Premium Membership.
Book: Diverse Voices: The Poetry of Human Rights and the Pursuit of Peace