Famous Hap Poems by Famous Poets

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

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133. The Brigs of Ayr

...his grateful bosom swells,
The godlike bliss, to give, alone excels.


—————— ’Twas when the stacks get on their winter hap,
And thack and rape secure the toil-won crap;
Potatoe-bings are snuggèd up frae skaith
O’ coming Winter’s biting, frosty breath;
The bees, rejoicing o’er their summer toils,
Unnumber’d buds an’ flow’rs’ delicious spoils,
Seal’d up with frugal care in massive waxen piles,
Are doom’d by Man, that tyrant o’er the weak,
The death o’ devils, smoor’d wi’ brims...Read more of this...
by Burns, Robert


A proper trewe idyll of camelot

...mosels that sat around Kyng Arthure's table
He liked not her that sometime ben ron over by ye cable,
Ye which full evil hap had harmed and marked her person so
That in a passing wittie jest he dubbeth her ye crow.

But all ye oders of ye girls did please him passing well
And they did own him for to be a proper seeming swell;
And in especial Guinevere esteemed him wondrous faire,
Which had made Arthure and his friend, Sir Launcelot, to sware
But that they both ben so far gone ...Read more of this...
by Field, Eugene

Astrophel and Stella

...u that do search for euery purling spring
Which from the ribs of old Parnassus flowes,
And euery flower, not sweet perhaps, which growes
Neere thereabouts, into your poesie wring;
Ye that do dictionaries methode bring
Into your rimes, running in rattling rowes;
You that poore Petrarchs long deceased woes
With new-borne sighes and denisen'd wit do sing;
You take wrong wayes; those far-fet helps be such
As do bewray a want of inward tuch,
And sure, at length stol'n go...Read more of this...
by Sidney, Sir Philip

Beowulf (Old English)

...s monster grim was called,
march-riever {1e} mighty, in moorland living,
in fen and fastness; fief of the giants
the hapless wight a while had kept
since the Creator his exile doomed.
On kin of Cain was the killing avenged
by sovran God for slaughtered Abel.
Ill fared his feud, {1f} and far was he driven,
for the slaughter’s sake, from sight of men.
Of Cain awoke all that woful breed,
Etins {1g} and elves and evil-spirits,
as well as the giants that warred with God...Read more of this...
by Anonymous,

Bishop Blougrams Apology

...more than the others brings with him 
Italy's self,--the marvellous Modenese!-- 


Yet was not on your list before, perhaps. 
--Alas, friend, here's the agent . . . is't the name? 
The captain, or whoever's master here-- 
You see him screw his face up; what's his cry 
Ere you set foot on shipboard? "Six feet square!" 
If you won't understand what six feet mean, 
Compute and purchase stores accordingly-- 
And if, in pique because he overhauls 
Your Jerome, piano, bath, you co...Read more of this...
by Browning, Robert


Contemplations

...place
79 And in her lap her bloody Cain new born.
80 The weeping Imp oft looks her in the face,
81 Bewails his unknown hap and fate forlorn.
82 His Mother sighs to think of Paradise
83 And how she lost her bliss to be more wise,
84 Believing him that was and is Father of lies. 

13 

85 Here Cain and Abel come to sacrifice,
86 Fruits of the Earth and Fatlings each do bring.
87 On Abel's gift the fire descends from Skies,
88 But no such sign on false Cain's offering.
89 With ...Read more of this...
by Bradstreet, Anne

Endymion: Book I

...es, of the gloomy days,
Of all the unhealthy and o'er-darkened ways
Made for our searching: yes, in spite of all,
Some shape of beauty moves away the pall
From our dark spirits. Such the sun, the moon,
Trees old and young, sprouting a shady boon
For simple sheep; and such are daffodils
With the green world they live in; and clear rills
That for themselves a cooling covert make
'Gainst the hot season; the mid forest brake,
Rich with a sprinkling of fair musk-rose blooms:
And s...Read more of this...
by Keats, John

Fra Lippo Lippi

...doors ajar? 
The Carmine's my cloister: hunt it up, 
Do,--harry out, if you must show your zeal, 
Whatever rat, there, haps on his wrong hole, 
And nip each softling of a wee white mouse, 
Weke, weke, that's crept to keep him company! 
Aha, you know your betters! Then, you'll take 
Your hand away that's fiddling on my throat, 
And please to know me likewise. Who am I? 
Why, one, sir, who is lodging with a friend 
Three streets off--he's a certain . . . how d'ye call? 
Master...Read more of this...
by Browning, Robert

Gawain and the Green Knight

...mirthe that men couthe avyse;
Such glaum ande gle glorious to here,
Dere dyn vpon day, daunsyng on nyyghtes,
Al watz hap vpon heyghe in hallez and chambrez
With lordez and ladies, as leuest him thoyght.
With all the wele of the worlde thay woned ther samen,
The most kyd knyyghtez vnder Krystes seluen,
And the louelokkest ladies that euer lif haden,
And he the comlokest kyng that the court haldes;
For al watz this fayre folk in her first age,
on sille,
The hapnest v...Read more of this...
by Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)

Hap

...If but some vengeful god would call to me
From up the sky, and laugh:  "Thou suffering thing,
Know that thy sorrow is my ecstasy,
That thy love's loss is my hate's profiting!"

Then would I bear it, clench myself, and die,
Steeled by the sense of ire unmerited;
Half-eased in that a Powerfuller than I
Had willed and meted me the tears I shed.

But ...Read more of this...
by Hardy, Thomas

Monadnoc

...l hours
Which thawed the snow-drift into flowers.
O wondrous craft of plant and stone
By eldest science done and shown!
Happy, I said, whose home is here,
Fair fortunes to the mountaineer!
Boon nature to his poorest shed
Has royal pleasure-grounds outspread.
Intent I searched the region round,
And in low hut my monarch found.
He was no eagle and no earl,
Alas! my foundling was a churl,
With heart of cat, and eyes of bug,
Dull victim of his pipe and mug;
Woe is me for my hopes...Read more of this...
by Emerson, Ralph Waldo

Old Pictures In Florence

...profit, her men alive---
My business was hardly with them, I trow,
But with empty cells of the human hive;
---With the chapter-room, the cloister-porch,
The church's apsis, aisle or nave,
Its crypt, one fingers along with a torch,
Its face set full for the sun to shave.

VI.

Wherever a fresco peels and drops,
Wherever an outline weakens and wanes
Till the latest life in the painting stops,
Stands One whom each fainter pulse-tick pains:
One, wishful each scrap should clutch t...Read more of this...
by Browning, Robert

Paradise Lost: Book 02

..., 
Thus far at least recovered, hath much more 
Established in a safe, unenvied throne, 
Yielded with full consent. The happier state 
In Heaven, which follows dignity, might draw 
Envy from each inferior; but who here 
Will envy whom the highest place exposes 
Foremost to stand against the Thunderer's aim 
Your bulwark, and condemns to greatest share 
Of endless pain? Where there is, then, no good 
For which to strive, no strife can grow up there 
From faction: for none sure...Read more of this...
by Milton, John

Paradise Lost: Book 09

...ats 
Of Gabriel out of Eden, now improv'd 
In meditated fraud and malice, bent 
On Man's destruction, maugre what might hap 
Of heavier on himself, fearless returned 
From compassing the earth; cautious of day, 
Since Uriel, regent of the sun, descried 
His entrance, and foreworned the Cherubim 
That kept their watch; thence full of anguish driven, 
The space of seven continued nights he rode 
With darkness; thrice the equinoctial line 
He circled; four times crossed the car ...Read more of this...
by Milton, John

Ruins of Rome by Bellay

...rning, 
Enclosing you in thrice three wards forever, 
Do not restrain your images still mourning) 
Tell me then (for perhaps some one of you 
Yet here above him secretly doth hide) 
Do ye not feel your torments to accrue, 
When ye sometimes behold the ruin'd pride 
Of these old Roman works built with your hands, 
Now to become nought else, but heaped sands? 


16 

Like as ye see the wrathful sea from far, 
In a great mountain heap'd with hideous noise, 
Eftsoons of thousand ...Read more of this...
by Spenser, Edmund

The Ballad of the White Horse

...DEDICATION 

Of great limbs gone to chaos,
A great face turned to night--
Why bend above a shapeless shroud
Seeking in such archaic cloud
Sight of strong lords and light?

Where seven sunken Englands
Lie buried one by one,
Why should one idle spade, I wonder,
Shake up the dust of thanes like thunder
To smoke and choke the sun?

In cloud of clay so cast to heaven
What shape shall man discern?
These lords may light the mystery
Of mastery or victory,
...Read more of this...
by Chesterton, G K

The Friars Tale

...they told it in his ear.
Thus were the wench and he of one assent;
And he would fetch a feigned mandement,
And to the chapter summon them both two,
And pill* the man, and let the wenche go. *plunder, pluck
Then would he say, "Friend, I shall for thy sake
Do strike thee out of oure letters blake;* *black
Thee thar* no more as in this case travail; *need
I am thy friend where I may thee avail."
Certain he knew of bribers many mo'
Than possible is to tell in yeare's two:
For in...Read more of this...
by Chaucer, Geoffrey

The General Prologue

...tten a crown'd A,
And after, *Amor vincit omnia.* *love conquers all*
Another Nun also with her had she,
[That was her chapelleine, and PRIESTES three.]

A MONK there was, a fair *for the mast'ry*, *above all others*
An out-rider, that loved venery*; *hunting
A manly man, to be an abbot able.
Full many a dainty horse had he in stable:
And when he rode, men might his bridle hear
Jingeling  in a whistling wind as clear,
And eke as loud, as doth the chapel bell,
There as...Read more of this...
by Chaucer, Geoffrey

The Lady of the Lake

...home;
     Then, warrior, then be thine to show
     The care that soothes a wanderer's woe;
     Remember then thy hap erewhile,
     A stranger in the lonely isle.

     'Or if on life's uncertain main
          Mishap shall mar thy sail;
     If faithful, wise, and brave in vain,
     Woe, want, and exile thou sustain
          Beneath the fickle gale;
     Waste not a sigh on fortune changed,
     On thankless courts, or friends estranged,
     But come wher...Read more of this...
by Scott, Sir Walter

The Nightingales Nest

...,
And feathers stand on end, as 'twere with joy,
And mouth wide open to release her heart
Of its out-sobbing songs. The happiest part
Of summer's fame she shared, for so to me
Did happy fancies shapen her employ ;
But if I touched a bush, or scarcely stirred,
All in a moment stopt. I watched in vain :
The timid bird had left the hazel bush,
And at a distance hid to sing again.
Lost in a wilderness of listening leaves,
Rich Ecstasy would pour its luscious strain,
Till envy spu...Read more of this...
by Clare, John

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