Famous Glean Poems by Famous Poets

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

See also:

Satire II:The Country Mouse and the Town Mouse

by Sir Thomas Wyatt
 MY mother's maids, when they did sew and spin, 
They sang sometime a song of the field mouse, 
That for because her livelood was but thin [livelihood] 
Would needs go seek her townish sister's house. 
She thought herself endured to much pain: 
The stormy blasts her cave so sore did souse 
That when the furrows swimmed with the rain...Read more of this...

The Foreign Land

by Coventry Patmore
 A woman is a foreign land,
Of which, though there he settle young,
A man will ne'er quite understand
The customs, politics, and tongue.
The foolish hie them post-haste through,
See fashions odd, and prospects fair,
Learn of the language, "How d'ye do,"
And go and brag they have been there.
The most for leave to trade apply,
For once, at Empire's seat, her heart,
Then get what knowledge...Read more of this...

Mowglis Song Against People

by Rudyard Kipling
 I will let loose against you the fleet-footed vines--
I will call in the Jungle to stamp out your lines!
 The roofs shall fade before it,
 The house-beams shall fall;
 And the Karela,. the bitter Karela,
 Shall cover it all!

In the gates of these your councils my people shall sing.
In the doors of these your garners the Bat-folk shall cling;
...Read more of this...

The Caged Thrush Freed and Home Again (Villanelle)

by Thomas Hardy
 "Men know but little more than we, 
Who count us least of things terrene, 
How happy days are made to be! 

"Of such strange tidings what think ye, 
O birds in brown that peck and preen? 
Men know but little more than we! 

"When I was borne from yonder tree 
In bonds to them, I hoped to glean 
How...Read more of this...

On Fields Oer Which the Reapers Hand has Passed

by Henry David Thoreau
 On fields o'er which the reaper's hand has pass'd
Lit by the harvest moon and autumn sun,
My thoughts like stubble floating in the wind
And of such fineness as October airs,
There after harvest could I glean my life
A richer harvest reaping without toil,
And weaving gorgeous fancies at my will
In subtler webs than finest summer haze....Read more of this...

Satire On The Earth

by Victor Hugo
 ("Une terre au flanc maigre.") 
 
 {Bk. III. xi., October, 1840.} 


 A clod with rugged, meagre, rust-stained, weather-worried face, 
 Where care-filled creatures tug and delve to keep a worthless race; 
 And glean, begrudgedly, by all their unremitting toil, 
 Sour, scanty bread and fevered water from the ungrateful soil; 
 Made harder by their gloom...Read more of this...

Ruth

by Thomas Hood
 She stood breast-high amid the corn,
Clasp’d by the golden light of morn,
Like the sweetheart of the sun,
Who many a glowing kiss had won.


On her cheek an autumn flush,
Deeply ripen’d;—such a blush
In the midst of brown was born,
Like red poppies grown with corn.


Round her eyes her tresses fell,
Which were blackest none could tell,
But long lashes veil’d a light,
That had else...Read more of this...

Letters To Friends

by Barry Tebb
 I


Eddie Linden

Dear Eddie we’ve not met

Except upon the written page 

And at your age the wonder 

Is that you write at all

When so many have gone under 

Or been split asunder by narcissistic humours

Blunder following blunder

Barker and Graham, godfathering my verse

Bearing me cloud-handed to Haworth moor

From my chained metropolitan moorings,

O hyaline March morning with Leeds

At its thrusting best, the...Read more of this...

Of the Mean and Sure Estate

by Sir Thomas Wyatt
 My mother's maids, when they did sew and spin,
They sang sometime a song of the field mouse,
That, for because her livelood was but thin,

Would needs go seek her townish sister's house.
She thought herself endurèd too much pain;
The stormy blasts her cave so sore did souse

That when the furrows swimmèd with the rain,
She must lie cold and wet in sorry...Read more of this...

The Poppy

by Francis Thompson
 To Monica

Summer set lip to earth's bosom bare,
And left the flushed print in a poppy there:
Like a yawn of fire from the grass it came,
And the fanning wind puffed it to flapping flame.

With burnt mouth, red like a lion's, it drank
The blood of the sun as he slaughtered sank,
And dipped its cup in the purpurate shine
When the Eastern conduits...Read more of this...

A Black Man Talks of Reaping

by Arna Bontemps
 I have sown beside all waters in my day.
I planted deep, within my heart the fear
that wind or fowl would take the grain away.
I planted safe against this stark, lean year. 

I scattered seed enough to plant the land
in rows from Canada to Mexico
but for my reaping only what the hand
can hold at once is all that I can...Read more of this...

The Hemp

by Stephen Vincent Benet
 (A Virginia Legend.) 

The Planting of the Hemp.

Captain Hawk scourged clean the seas 
(Black is the gap below the plank) 
From the Great North Bank to the Caribbees 
(Down by the marsh the hemp grows rank). 

His fear was on the seaport towns, 
The weight of his hand held hard the downs. 
And the merchants cursed him, bitter and...Read more of this...

Security

by Robert William Service
 Young man, gather gold and gear,
they will wear you well;
You can thumb your nose at fear,
Wish the horde in hell.
With the haughty you can be
Insolent and bold:
Young man, if you would be free
Gather gear and gold.

Mellow man o middle age,
Buy a little farm;
Then let revolution rage,
you will take no ham.
Cold and hunger, hand in hand
May red ruin spread;
With your...Read more of this...

My Hour

by Robert William Service
 Day after day behold me plying
My pen within an office drear;
The dullest dog, till homeward hieing,
Then lo! I reign a king of cheer.
A throne have I of padded leather,
A little court of kiddies three,
A wife who smiles whate'er the weather,
A feast of muffins, jam and tea.

The table cleared, a romping battle,
A fairy tale, a "Children, bed,"
A kiss, a hug,...Read more of this...

The Outlaw

by Robert William Service
 A wild and woeful race he ran
Of lust and sin by land and sea;
Until, abhorred of God and man,
They swung him from the gallows-tree.
And then he climbed the Starry Stair,
And dumb and naked and alone,
With head unbowed and brazen glare,
He stood before the Judgment Throne.

The Keeper of the Records spoke:
"This man, O Lord, has mocked Thy Name.
The weak have...Read more of this...

The Song Of The Camp-Fire

by Robert William Service
 Heed me, feed me, I am hungry, I am red-tongued with desire;
Boughs of balsam, slabs of cedar, gummy fagots of the pine,
Heap them on me, let me hug them to my eager heart of fire,
Roaring, soaring up to heaven as a symbol and a sign.
Bring me knots of sunny maple, silver birch and tamarack;
Leaping, sweeping, I will lap them...Read more of this...

Hurrahing In Harvest

by Gerard Manley Hopkins
 Summer ends now; now, barbarous in beauty, the stooks arise
 Around; up above, what wind-walks! what lovely behaviour
 Of silk-sack clouds! has wilder, wilful-wavier
Meal-drift moulded ever and melted across skies? 
I walk, I lift up, I lift up heart, eyes,
 Down all that glory in the heavens to glean our Saviour;
 And, éyes, heárt, what looks, what lips yet...Read more of this...

Messidor

by Algernon Charles Swinburne
 Put in the sickles and reap;
For the morning of harvest is red,
And the long large ranks of the corn
Coloured and clothed as the morn
Stand thick in the fields and deep
For them that faint to be fed.
Let all that hunger and weep
Come hither, and who would have bread
Put in the sickles and reap.

Coloured and clothed as the morn,
The grain grows...Read more of this...

The Coal Picker

by Amy Lowell
 He perches in the slime, inert,
Bedaubed with iridescent dirt.
The oil upon the puddles dries
To colours like a peacock's eyes,
And half-submerged tomato-cans
Shine scaly, as leviathans
Oozily crawling through the mud.
The ground is here and there bestud
With lumps of only part-burned coal.
His duty is to glean the whole,
To pick them from the filth, each one,
To hoard them for the hidden sun
Which glows...Read more of this...

The Song of the Cities

by Rudyard Kipling
 BOMBAY

Royal and Dower-royal, I the Queen
 Fronting thy richest sea with richer hands --
A thousand mills roar through me where I glean
 All races from all lands.


 CALCUTTA

Me the Sea-captain loved, the River built,
 Wealth sought and Kings adventured life to hold.
Hail, England! I am Asia -- Power on silt,
 Death in my hands, but Gold!


 MADRAS

Clive kissed me...Read more of this...

Fleckno an English Priest at Rome

by Andrew Marvell
 Oblig'd by frequent visits of this man,
Whom as Priest, Poet, and Musician,
I for some branch of Melchizedeck took,
(Though he derives himself from my Lord Brooke)
I sought his Lodging; which is at the Sign
Of the sad Pelican; Subject divine
For Poetry: There three Stair Cases high,
Which signifies his triple property,
I found at last a Chamber, as 'twas said,
But seem'd a Coffin...Read more of this...

Eidólons

by Walt Whitman
 I MET a Seer, 
Passing the hues and objects of the world, 
The fields of art and learning, pleasure, sense, To glean Eidólons. 
 Put in thy chants, said he, 
No more the puzzling hour, nor day—nor segments, parts, put in,
Put first before the rest, as light for all, and entrance-song of all, That of
 Eidólons. 
 Ever the...Read more of this...

Sea-Gulls of Manhattan

by Henry Van Dyke
 Children of the elemental mother, 
Born upon some lonely island shore 
Where the wrinkled ripples run and whisper,
Where the crested billows plunge and roar; 
Long-winged, tireless roamers and adventurers,
Fearless breasters of the wind and sea,
In the far-off solitary places
I have seen you floating wild and free! 

Here the high-built cities rise around you;
Here the cliffs that tower east and...Read more of this...

On Poet-Ape

by Ben Jonson
LVI. ? ON POET-APE.         Poor POET-APE, that would be thought our chief,     Whose works are e'en the frippery of wit,  From brokage is become so bold a thief,     As we, the robb'd, leave rage, and pity it.  At first he made low shifts, would pick and glean,     Buy the reversion of...Read more of this...

Mourning and Longing

by William Cowper
 The Saviour hides His face;
My spirit thirsts to prove
Renew'd supplies of pardoning grace,
And never-fading love.

The favor'd souls who know
What glories shine in Him,
Pant for His presence as the roe
Pants for the living stream.

What trifles tease me now!
They swarm like summer flies!
They cleave to everything I do,
And swim before my eyes.

How dull the Sabbath day,
Without the Sabbath's Lord!
How toilsome then...Read more of this...

Dont forget to view our wonderful member Glean 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