Famous Goad Poems by Famous Poets

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

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The Mountain

by Robert Frost
 The mountain held the town as in a shadow 
I saw so much before I slept there once: 
I noticed that I missed stars in the west, 
Where its black body cut into the sky. 
Near me it seemed: I felt it like a wall 
Behind which I was sheltered from a wind. 
And yet between the town and...Read more of this...

The Dance Of Death

by Charles Baudelaire
 CARRYING bouquet, and handkerchief, and gloves, 
Proud of her height as when she lived, she moves 
With all the careless and high-stepping grace, 
And the extravagant courtesan's thin face. 

Was slimmer waist e'er in a ball-room wooed? 
Her floating robe, in royal amplitude, 
Falls in deep folds around a dry foot, shod 
With a bright flower-like shoe that gems...Read more of this...

Vagrants

by Paul Laurence Dunbar
Long time ago, we two set out,
My soul and I.
I know not why,
For all our way was dim with doubt.
I know not where
We two may fare:
Though still with every changing weather,
We wander, groping on together.
We do not love, we are not friends,
My soul and I.
He lives a lie;
Untruth lines every way he wends.
A scoffer he
[Pg 120]Who jeers at...Read more of this...

The Retreat From Moscow

by Victor Hugo
 ("Il neigeait.") 
 
 {Bk. V. xiii., Nov. 25-30, 1852.} 


 It snowed. A defeat was our conquest red! 
 For once the eagle was hanging its head. 
 Sad days! the Emperor turned slowly his back 
 On smoking Moscow, blent orange and black. 
 The winter burst, avalanche-like, to reign 
 Over the endless blanched sheet of...Read more of this...

Work

by Robert William Service
 When twenty-one I loved to dream,
 And was to loafing well inclined;
Somehow I couldn't get up steam
 To welcome work of any kind.
While students burned the midnight lamp,
 With dour ambition as their goad,
I longed to be a gayful tramp
 And greet adventure on the road.

But now that sixty years have sped,
 Behold! I toil from morn to night.
The...Read more of this...

Men Of The High North

by Robert William Service
 Men of the High North, the wild sky is blazing;
 Islands of opal float on silver seas;
Swift splendors kindle, barbaric, amazing;
 Pale ports of amber, golden argosies.
Ringed all around us the proud peaks are glowing;
 Fierce chiefs in council, their wigwam the sky;
Far, far below us the big Yukon flowing,
 Like threaded quicksilver, gleams to the eye.

Men of the...Read more of this...

Eureka

by Henry Lawson
 Roll up, Eureka's heroes, on that grand Old Rush afar,
For Lalor's gone to join you in the big camp where you are;
Roll up and give him welcome such as only diggers can,
For well he battled for the rights of miner and of Man.
In that bright golden country that lies beyond our sight,
The record of his honest life shall be...Read more of this...

The Sons of Martha

by Rudyard Kipling
 The Sons of Mary seldom bother, for they have inherited that good part;
But the Sons of Martha favour their Mother of the careful soul and the troubled heart.
And because she lost her temper once, and because she was rude to the Lord her Guest,
Her Sons must wait upon Mary's Sons, world without end, reprieve, or rest.

It is their care...Read more of this...

A March Day in London

by Amy Levy
 The east wind blows in the street to-day;
The sky is blue, yet the town looks grey.
'Tis the wind of ice, the wind of fire,
Of cold despair and of hot desire,
Which chills the flesh to aches and pains,
And sends a fever through all the veins.

From end to end, with aimless feet,
All day long have I paced the street.
My limbs are...Read more of this...

Tin Wedding Whistle

by Ogden Nash
 Though you know it anyhow 
Listen to me, darling, now, 
Proving what I need not prove 
How I know I love you, love. 
Near and far, near and far, 
I am happy where you are; 
Likewise I have never larnt 
How to be it where you aren't. 
Far and wide, far and wide, 
I can walk with you beside;...Read more of this...

Supernatural Songs

by William Butler Yeats
 I. Ribh at the Tomb of Baile and Aillinn

Because you have found me in the pitch-dark night
With open book you ask me what I do.
Mark and digest my tale, carry it afar
To those that never saw this tonsured head
Nor heard this voice that ninety years have cracked.
Of Baile and Aillinn you need not speak,
All know their tale, all know...Read more of this...

Llewellyn and the Tree

by Edwin Arlington Robinson
 Could he have made Priscilla share 
The paradise that he had planned, 
Llewellyn would have loved his wife 
As well as any in the land. 

Could he have made Priscilla cease
To goad him for what God left out, 
Llewellyn would have been as mild 
As any we have read about. 

Could all have been as all was not, 
Llewellyn...Read more of this...

Song IX: Ho Ye Who Seek Saving

by William Morris
 Love is enough: ho ye who seek saving,
Go no further; come hither; there have been who have found it,
And these know the House of Fulfilment of Craving;
These know the Cup with the roses around it;
These know the World's Wound and the balm that hath bound it:
Cry out, the World heedeth not, 'Love, lead us home!' 

He leadeth, He hearkeneth,...Read more of this...

Two Blind Men

by Robert William Service
 Two blind men met. Said one: "This earth
Has been a blackout from my birth.
Through darkness I have groped my way,
Forlorn, unknowing night from day.
But you - though War destroyed your sight,
Still have your memories of Light,
And to allay your present pain
Can live your golden youth again."

Then said the second: "Aye, it's true,
It must seem magical to you
To know the...Read more of this...

Frances

by Charlotte Bronte
 SHE will not sleep, for fear of dreams, 
But, rising, quits her restless bed, 
And walks where some beclouded beams 
Of moonlight through the hall are shed.

Obedient to the goad of grief, 
Her steps, now fast, now lingering slow, 
In varying motion seek relief 
From the Eumenides of woe.

Wringing her hands, at intervals­ 
But long as mute as phantom...Read more of this...

Lead Soldiers

by Amy Lowell
 The nursery fire burns brightly, crackling in cheerful 
little explosions
and trails of sparks up the back of the chimney. Miniature 
rockets
peppering the black bricks with golden stars, as though a gala
flamed a night of victorious wars.
The nodding mandarin on the bookcase moves his 
head forward and back, slowly,
and looks into the air with his blue-green eyes. He stares 
into...Read more of this...

Art thou the thing I wanted?

by Emily Dickinson
 Art thou the thing I wanted?
Begone -- my Tooth has grown --
Supply the minor Palate
That has not starved so long --
I tell thee while I waited
The mystery of Food
Increased till I abjured it
And dine without Like God --

--

Art thou the thing I wanted?
Begone -- my Tooth has grown --
Affront a minor palate
Thou could'st not goad so long --

I tell...Read more of this...

The Santa-Fe Trail (A Humoresque)

by Vachel Lindsay
 I asked the old *****, "What is that bird that sings so well?" He answered: "That is the Rachel-Jane." "Hasn't it another name, lark, or thrush, or the like?" "No. Jus' Rachel-Jane."


I. IN WHICH A RACING AUTO COMES FROM THE EAST

This is the order of the music of the morning: —
First, from the far East comes but a crooning.
The...Read more of this...

The Haunted Oak

by Paul Laurence Dunbar
 Pray why are you so bare, so bare, 
Oh, bough of the old oak-tree;
And why, when I go through the shade you throw,
Runs a shudder over me?
My leaves were green as the best, I trow,
And sap ran free in my veins,
But I say in the moonlight dim and weird
A guiltless victim's pains.

They'd charged him with the old, old crime,
And...Read more of this...

The Rover

by Robert William Service
 Oh, how good it is to be
Foot-loose and heart-free!
Just my dog and pipe and I, underneath the vast sky;
Trail to try and goal to win, white road and cool inn;
Fields to lure a lad afar, clear spring and still star;
Lilting feet that never tire, green dingle, fagot fire;
None to hurry, none to hold, heather hill and hushed fold;
Nature like...Read more of this...

The Reformers

by Rudyard Kipling
 1901

Not in the camp his victory lies
 Or triumph in the market-place,
Who is his Nation's sacrifice
To turn the judgement from his race.

Happy is he who, bred and taught
 By sleek, sufficing Circumstance --
Whose Gospel was the apparelled thought,
 Whose Gods were Luxury and Chance --

Seese, on the threshold of his days,
 The old life shrivel like a scroll,
And to...Read more of this...

Dram-Shop Ditty

by Robert William Service
 I drink my fill of foamy ale
I sing a song, I tell a tale,
I play the fiddle;
My throat is chronically dry,
Yet savant of a sort am I,
And Life's my riddle.

For look! I raise my arm to drink-
A voluntary act, you think
(Nay, Sir, you're grinning)>
You're wrong: this stein of beer I've drained
to emptiness was pre-ordained
Since Time's beginning.

But stay! 'Tis I...Read more of this...

Spanish Peasant

by Robert William Service
 We have no aspiration vain
For paradise Utopian,
And here in our sun-happy Spain,
Though man exploit his fellow man,
To high constraint we humbly yield,
And turn from politics to toil,
Content to till a kindly field
And bring forth bounty from the soil.

They tell us wars will never cease;
They sy the world is out of joint.
How well we Know! But peace is peace
Even imposed...Read more of this...

Beast and Man in India

by Rudyard Kipling
 Written for John Lockwood Kipling's
They killed a Child to please the Gods
In Earth's young penitence,
And I have bled in that Babe's stead
Because of innocence.

I bear the sins of sinful men
That have no sin of my own,
They drive me forth to Heaven's wrath
Unpastured and alone.

I am the meat of sacrifice, 
The ransom of man's guilt,
For they give my life to...Read more of this...

The Negro Girl

by Mary Darby Robinson
 I. 

Dark was the dawn, and o'er the deep
The boist'rous whirlwinds blew;
The Sea-bird wheel'd its circling sweep,
And all was drear to view--
When on the beach that binds the western shore
The love-lorn ZELMA stood, list'ning the tempest's roar.


II. 

Her eager Eyes beheld the main,
While on her DRACO dear
She madly call'd, but call'd in vain,
No sound could DRACO hear,
Save the shrill...Read more of this...

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