Famous Hairs Poems by Famous Poets

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

See also:

Preface to Hunting of the Snark

by Lewis Carroll
 PREFACE

If---and the thing is wildly possible---the charge of writing 
nonsense were ever brought against the author of this brief but 
instructive poem, it would be based, I feel convinced, on the line 

``Then the bowsprit got mixed with the rudder sometimes'' 

In view of this painful possibility, I will not (as I might) appeal 
indignantly to my other writings...Read more of this...

Robbed by Death -- but that was easy --

by Emily Dickinson
 Robbed by Death -- but that was easy --
To the failing Eye
I could hold the latest Glowing --
Robbed by Liberty

For Her Jugular Defences --
This, too, I endured --
Hint of Glory -- it afforded --
For the Brave Beloved --

Fraud of Distance -- Fraud of Danger,
Fraud of Death -- to bear --
It is Bounty -- to Suspense's
Vague Calamity --

Stalking our entire...Read more of this...

Song

by John Donne
GO and catch a falling star, 
Get with child a mandrake root, 
Tell me where all past years are, 
Or who cleft the Devil's foot; 
Teach me to hear mermaids singing, 5 
Or to keep off envy's stinging, 
And find 
What wind 
Serves to advance an honest mind. 

If thou be'st born to strange sights, 10 
Things invisible to see,...Read more of this...

Evelyn Hope

by Robert Browning
 I.

Beautiful Evelyn Hope is dead!
Sit and watch by her side an hour.
That is her book-shelf, this her bed;
She plucked that piece of geranium-flower,
Beginning to die too, in the glass;
Little has yet been changed, I think:
The shutters are shut, no light may pass
Save two long rays thro' the hinge's chink.

II.

Sixteen years old, when she died!
Perhaps she had scarcely heard my...Read more of this...

Argus

by Alexander Pope
 When wise Ulysses, from his native coast 
Long kept by wars, and long by tempests toss'd, 
Arrived at last, poor, old, disguised, alone, 
To all his friends, and ev'n his Queen unknown, 
Changed as he was, with age, and toils, and cares, 
Furrow'd his rev'rend face, and white his hairs, 
In his own palace forc'd to ask his bread,...Read more of this...

Grey Hairs

by Marina Tsvetaeva
 These are ashes of treasures:
Of hurt and loss.
These are ashes in face of which
Granite is dross.
Dove, naked and brilliant,
It has no mate.
Solomon's ashes
Over vanity that's great.
Time's menacing chalkmark,
Not to be overthrown.
Means God knocks at the door
-- Once the house has burned down!
Not choked yet by refuse,
Days' and dreams' conqueror.
Like a thunderbolt -- Spirit
Of early grey hair.
It's not you who've...Read more of this...

Falstaffs Lament Over Prince Hal Become Henry V

by Herman Melville
 One that I cherished,
Yea, loved as a son - 
Up early, up late with,
My promising one:
No use in good nurture,
None, lads, none!

Here on this settle
He wore the true crown,
King of good fellows,
And Fat Jack was one - 
Now, Beadle of England
In formal array - 
Best fellow alive
On a throne flung away!

Companions and cronies
Keep fast and lament; - 
Come, drawer,...Read more of this...

Lucius Atherton

by Edgar Lee Masters
 When my moustache curled,
And my hair was black,
And I wore tight trousers
And a diamond stud,
I was an excellent knave of hearts and took many a trick.
But when the gray hairs began to appear--
Lo! a new generation of girls
Laughed at me, not fearing me,
And I had no more exciting adventures
Wherein I was all but shot for a heartless devil,
But only...Read more of this...

Quarrel

by Elinor Wylie
 Let us quarrel for these reasons: 
You detest the salt which seasons 
My speech . . . and all my lights go out 
In the cold poison of your doubt. 
I love Shelley . . . you love Keats 
Something parts and something meets. 
I love salads . . . you love chops; 
Something goes and something stops. 
Something...Read more of this...

The Shower

by Charles Bukowski
 we like to shower afterwards
(I like the water hotter than she)
and her face is always soft and peaceful
and she'll watch me first
spread the soap over my balls
lift the balls
squeeze them,
then wash the cock:
"hey, this thing is still hard!"
then get all the hair down there,-
the belly, the back, the neck, the legs,
I grin grin grin,
and then I wash her. ....Read more of this...

To A Gentlewoman Objecting To Him Hisgray Hairs

by Robert Herrick
 Am I despised, because you say;
And I dare swear, that I am gray?
Know, Lady, you have but your day!
And time will come when you shall wear
Such frost and snow upon your hair;
And when, though long, it comes to pass,
You question with your looking-glass,
And in that sincere crystal seek
But find no rose-bud in your cheek,
Nor any bed to give the...Read more of this...

from Venus and Adonis

by William Shakespeare
 But, lo! from forth a copse that neighbours by,
A breeding jennet, lusty, young, and proud,
Adonis' trampling courser doth espy,
And forth she rushes, snorts and neighs aloud;
The strong-neck'd steed, being tied unto a tree,
Breaketh his rein, and to her straight goes he.

Imperiously he leaps, he neighs, he bounds,
And now his woven girths he breaks asunder;
The bearing earth with his hard...Read more of this...

The Pangolin

by Marianne Moore
 Another armored animal--scale
 lapping scale with spruce-cone regularity until they
form the uninterrupted central
 tail-row! This near artichoke with head and legs and grit-equipped
 gizzard,
the night miniature artist engineer is,
 yes, Leonardo da Vinci's replica--
 impressive animal and toiler of whom we seldom hear.
 Armor seems extra. But for him,
 the closing ear-ridge--
 or bare ear lacking even this small
...Read more of this...

On a Line From Valery (Gulf War)

by Carolyn Kizer
 Tout le ciel vert se meurt
Le dernier arbre brûle.

The whole green sky is dying. The last tree flares
With a great burst of supernatural rose
Under a canopy of poisonous airs.

Could we imagine our return to prayers
To end in time before time's final throes,
The green sky dying as the last tree flares?

But we were young in judgment, gray in hairs
Who could...Read more of this...

Living Remembrance

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
 HALF vex'd, half pleased, thy love will feel,
Shouldst thou her knot or ribbon steal;
To thee they're much--I won't conceal;

Such self-deceit may pardon'd be;
A veil, a kerchief, garter, rings,
In truth are no mean trifling things,

But still they're not enough for me.

She who is dearest to my heart,
Gave me, with well dissembled smart,
Of her own life, a living part,

No charm in...Read more of this...

The Iliad: Book VI (excerpt)

by Alexander Pope
 He said, and pass'd with sad presaging heart
To seek his spouse, his soul's far dearer part;
At home he sought her, but he sought in vain:
She, with one maid of all her menial train,
Had thence retir'd; and, with her second joy,
The young Astyanax, the hope of Troy,
Pensive she stood on Ilion's tow'ry height,
Beheld the war, and sicken'd at the sight;
There...Read more of this...

Up At A Villa— Down In The City

by Robert Browning
 (As Distinguished by an Italian Person of Quality)

I

Had I but plenty of money, money enough and to spare,
The house for me, no doubt, were a house in the city-square;
Ah, such a life, such a life, as one leads at the window there!

II

Something to see, by Bacchus, something to hear, at least!
There, the whole day long, one's life is a...Read more of this...

Bride Song

by Christina Rossetti
 From 'The Prince's Progress' 

TOO late for love, too late for joy, 
 Too late, too late! 
You loiter'd on the road too long, 
 You trifled at the gate: 
The enchanted dove upon her branch 
 Died without a mate; 
The enchanted princess in her tower 
 Slept, died, behind the grate; 
Her heart was starving all this...Read more of this...

Dire Cure

by William Matthews
 "First, do no harm," the Hippocratic
Oath begins, but before she might enjoy
such balm, the docs had to harm her tumor.
It was large, rare, and so anomalous
in its behavior that at first they mis-
diagnosed it. "Your wife will die of it
within a year." But in ten days or so
I sat beside her bed with hot-and-sour
soup and heard an intern congratulate
her...Read more of this...

Plutonian Ode

by Allen Ginsberg
 I

What new element before us unborn in nature? Is there
 a new thing under the Sun?
At last inquisitive Whitman a modern epic, detonative,
 Scientific theme
First penned unmindful by Doctor Seaborg with poison-
 ous hand, named for Death's planet through the 
 sea beyond Uranus
whose chthonic ore fathers this magma-teared Lord of 
 Hades, Sire of avenging Furies, billionaire Hell-
...Read more of this...

Strayed Reveller The

by Matthew Arnold
 The Youth

Faster, faster,
O Circe, Goddess,
Let the wild, thronging train
The bright procession
Of eddying forms,
Sweep through my soul!
Thou standest, smiling
Down on me! thy right arm,
Lean'd up against the column there,
Props thy soft cheek;
Thy left holds, hanging loosely,
The deep cup, ivy-cinctured,
I held but now.
Is it, then, evening
So soon? I see, the night-dews,
Cluster'd in thick beads, dim
The agate brooch-stones
On thy white shoulder;
The cool...Read more of this...

Evarra And His Gods

by Rudyard Kipling
 Read here:
This is the story of Evarra -- man --
Maker of Gods in lands beyond the sea.
 Because the city gave him of her gold,
 Because the caravans brought turquoises,
 Because his life was sheltered by the King,
 So that no man should maim him, none should steal,
 Or break his rest with babble in the streets
 When he...Read more of this...

No Buyers

by Thomas Hardy
 A Load of brushes and baskets and cradles and chairs
Labours along the street in the rain:
With it a man, a woman, a pony with whiteybrown hairs. --
The man foots in front of the horse with a shambling sway
At a slower tread than a funeral train,
While to a dirge-like tune he chants his wares,
Swinging a Turk's-head brush (in a drum-major's...Read more of this...

Spring View

by Du Fu
 Country damaged mountains rivers here City spring grass trees deep Feel moment flower splash tears Regret parting bird startle heart Beacon fires join three months Family letters worth ten thousand metal White head scratch become thin Virtually about to not bear hairpin  The country is broken, though hills and rivers remain, In the city in...Read more of this...

Ichabod

by John Greenleaf Whittier
 So fallen! so lost! the light withdrawn
Which once he wore!
The glory from his gray hairs gone
Forevermore!

Revile him not, the Tempter hath
A snare for all;
And pitying tears, not scorn and wrath,
Befit his fall!

Oh, dumb be passion's stormy rage,
When he who might
Have lighted up and led his age,
Falls back in night.

Scorn! would the angels laugh, to mark
A bright soul driven,
Fiend-goaded, down...Read more of this...

Dont forget to view our wonderful member Hairs 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