Famous Hasty Poems by Famous Poets

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

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The Sower

by William Cowper
 (Matthew, xiii.3)

Ye sons of earth prepare the plough,
Break up your fallow ground;
The sower is gone forth to sow,
And scatter blessings round.

The seed that finds a stony soil
Shoots forth a hasty blade;
But ill repays the sower's toil,
Soon wither'd, scorch'd, and dead.

The thorny ground is sure to balk
All hopes of harvest there;
We find a tall and sickly stalk,
But not the fruitful...Read more of this...

The Dream of Eugene Aram

by Thomas Hood
 'Twas in the prime of summer-time 
An evening calm and cool, 
And four-and-twenty happy boys 
Came bounding out of school: 
There were some that ran and some that leapt, 
Like troutlets in a pool.

Away they sped with gamesome minds, 
And souls untouched by sin; 
To a level mead they came, and there 
They drave the wickets in: 
Pleasantly shone...Read more of this...

At a Hasty Wedding

by Thomas Hardy
 If hours be years the twain are blest, 
For now they solace swift desire 
By bonds of every bond the best, 
If hours be years. The twain are blest 
Do eastern stars slope never west, 
Nor pallid ashes follow fire: 
If hours be years the twain are blest, 
For now they solace swift desire....Read more of this...

Fit the Third ( Hunting of the Snark )

by Lewis Carroll
 The Baker's Tale 

They roused him with muffins--they roused him with ice--
They roused him with mustard and cress--
They roused him with jam and judicious advice--
They set him conundrums to guess. 
When at length he sat up and was able to speak,
His sad story he offered to tell;
And the Bellman cried "Silence! Not even a shriek!"
And excitedly tingled his bell....Read more of this...

Ode On The Spring

by Thomas Gray
 Lo! where the rosy-bosomed Hours,
Fair Venus' train, appear,
Disclose the long-expecting flowers,
And wake the purple year!
The Attic warbler pours her throat,
Responsive to the cuckoo's note,
The untaught harmony of spring:
While, whisp'ring pleasure as they fly,
Cool Zephyrs thro' the clear blue sky
Their gathered fragrance fling.

Where'er the oak's thick branches stretch
A broader browner shade,
Where'er the rude and moss-grown beech
O'er-canopies the glade,
Beside some water's...Read more of this...

On the Death of the Honourable Mr. James Thynne

by Anne Kingsmill Finch
 Farewell, lov'd Youth! since 'twas the Will of Heaven 
So soon to take, what had so late been giv'n; 
And thus our Expectations to destroy, 
Raising a Grief, where we had form'd a Joy; 
Who once believ'd, it was the Fates Design 
In Him to double an Illustrious Line, 
And in a second Channel spread that Race 
Where ev'ry...Read more of this...

To the Name above every Name the Name of Jesus

by Richard Crashaw
 I sing the Name which None can say
But touch’t with An interiour Ray:
The Name of our New Peace; our Good:
Our Blisse: and Supernaturall Blood:
The Name of All our Lives and Loves.
Hearken, And Help, ye holy Doves!
The high-born Brood of Day; you bright
Candidates of blissefull Light,
The Heirs Elect of Love; whose Names belong
Unto The everlasting life of Song;
All ye wise...Read more of this...

Poem 94

by Edmund Spenser
 NAthlesse the cruell boy not so content,
would needs the fly pursue:
And in his hand with heedlesse hardiment,
him caught for to subdue.
But when on it he hasty hand did lay,
the Bee him stung therefore:
Now out alasse (he cryde) and welaway,
I wounded am full sore:
The fly that I so much did scorne,
hath hurt me with his little horne....Read more of this...

Baby Tortoise

by D. H. Lawrence
 You know what it is to be born alone,
Baby tortoise!
The first day to heave your feet little by little from the shell,
Not yet awake,
And remain lapsed on earth,
Not quite alive.

A tiny, fragile, half-animate bean.

To open your tiny beak-mouth, that looks as if it would never open,

Like some iron door;
To lift the upper hawk-beak from the lower base
And reach your...Read more of this...

To a Mouse

by Robert Burns
Wee, sleekit, cow'rin, tim'rous beastie,
O, what a panic's in thy breastie!
Thou need na start awa sae hasty,
          Wi' bickering brattle!
I wad be laith to rin an' chase thee,
          Wi' murd'ring pattle!

I'm truly sorry man's dominion
Has broken Nature's social union,
An' justifies that ill...Read more of this...

The Charge of the Second Iowa Cavalry

by Ellis Parker Butler
 Comrades, many a year and day
 Have fled since that glorious 9th of May
 When we made the charge at Farmington.
 But until our days on earth are done
 Our blood will burn and our hearts beat fast
 As we tell of the glorious moments we passed,
 When we rode on the guns with a mighty shout
 And saved...Read more of this...

A Pastoral Dialogue Between Two Shepherdesses

by Anne Kingsmill Finch
 [Silvia] Pretty Nymph! within this Shade, 
Whilst the Flocks to rest are laid,
Whilst the World dissolves in Heat,
Take this cool, and flow'ry Seat: 
And with pleasing Talk awhile
Let us two the Time beguile; 
Tho' thou here no Shepherd see, 
To encline his humble Knee, 
Or with melancholy Lays 
Sing thy dangerous Beauty's Praise. 


[Dorinda] Nymph! with thee I here...Read more of this...

Brother Jonathans Lament

by Oliver Wendell Holmes
 SHE has gone,-- she has left us in passion and pride,--
Our stormy-browed sister, so long at our side!
She has torn her own star from our firmament's glow,
And turned on her brother the face of a foe!

Oh, Caroline, Caroline, child of the sun,
We can never forget that our hearts have been one,--
Our foreheads both sprinkled in Liberty's name,
From the fountain...Read more of this...

An Allusion to Horace

by John Wilmot
 Well Sir, 'tis granted, I said Dryden's Rhimes, 
Were stoln, unequal, nay dull many times: 
What foolish Patron, is there found of his, 
So blindly partial, to deny me this? 
But that his Plays, Embroider'd up and downe, 
With Witt, and Learning, justly pleas'd the Towne, 
In the same paper, I as freely owne: 
Yet haveing this allow'd, the...Read more of this...

Sonnet LIX: As Love and I

by Michael Drayton
 As Love and I, late harbor'd in one inn, 
With proverbs thus each other entertain: 
"In Love there is no lack," thus I begin; 
"Fair words make fools," replieth he again; 
"Who spares to speak doth spare to speed," quoth I; 
"As well," saith he, "too forward as too slow"; 
"Fortune assists the boldest," I reply; 
"A hasty man,"...Read more of this...

Interruption

by Constantine P Cavafy
 We interrupt the work of the gods,
hasty and inexperienced beings of the moment.
In the palaces of Eleusis and Phthia
Demeter and Thetis start good works
amid high flames and dense smoke. But
always Metaneira rushes from the king's
chambers, disheveled and scared,
and always Peleus is fearful and interferes....Read more of this...

Shepherd And Goatherd

by William Butler Yeats
 Shepherd. That cry's from the first cuckoo of the year.
I wished before it ceased.

Goatherd. Nor bird nor beast
Could make me wish for anything this day,
Being old, but that the old alone might die,
And that would be against God's providence.
Let the young wish. But what has brought you here?
Never until this moment have we met
Where my goats browse on the...Read more of this...

An Ode in Time of Hesitation

by William Vaughn Moody
 After seeing at Boston the statue of Robert Gould Shaw, killed while storming Fort Wagner, July 18, 1863, at the head of the first enlisted ***** regiment, the Fifty-fourth Massachusetts.


I 

Before the solemn bronze Saint Gaudens made 
To thrill the heedless passer's heart with awe, 
And set here in the city's talk and trade 
To the good memory of...Read more of this...

Son

by Robert William Service
 He hurried away, young heart of joy, under our Devon sky!
And I watched him go, my beautiful boy, and a weary woman was I.
For my hair is grey, and his was gold; he'd the best of his life to live;
And I'd loved him so, and I'm old, I'm old; and he's all I had to give.

Ah yes, he was...Read more of this...

The Old Man Dreams

by Oliver Wendell Holmes
 OH for one hour of youthful joy!
Give back my twentieth spring!
I'd rather laugh, a bright-haired boy,
Than reign, a gray-beard king.

Off with the spoils of wrinkled age!
Away with Learning's crown!
Tear out life's Wisdom-written page,
And dash its trophies down!

One moment let my life-blood stream
From boyhood's fount of flame!
Give me one giddy, reeling dream
Of life all love and fame!

. . . ....Read more of this...

Frost at Midnight

by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
The Frost performs its secret ministry,
Unhelped by any wind. The owlet's cry
Came loud---and hark, again! loud as before.
The inmates of my cottage, all at rest,
Have left me to that solitude, which suits
Abstruser musings: save that at my side
My cradled infant slumbers peacefully.
`Tis calm indeed! so calm, that it disturbs
And vexes meditation with its strange
And extreme silentness. Sea, hill, and wood,
This...Read more of this...

A Description of a City Shower

by Jonathan Swift
 Careful Observers may fortel the Hour 
(By sure Prognosticks) when to dread a Show'r: 
While Rain depends, the pensive Cat gives o'er 
Her Frolicks, and pursues her Tail no more. 
Returning Home at Night, you'll find the Sink 
Strike your offended Sense with double Stink. 
If you be wise, then go not far to Dine, 
You spend in Coach-hire...Read more of this...

To Ben Jonson upon Occasion of his Ode of Defiance Annexed t

by Thomas Carew
 'Tis true, dear Ben, thy just chastising hand 
Hath fix'd upon the sotted age a brand 
To their swoll'n pride and empty scribbling due; 
It can nor judge, nor write, and yet 'tis true 
Thy comic muse, from the exalted line 
Touch'd by thy Alchemist, doth since decline 
From that her zenith, and foretells a red 
And blushing evening,...Read more of this...

The Faerie Queene: Book I Canto I

by Edmund Spenser
Lo I the man, whose Muse whilome did maske,
As time her taught in lowly Shepheards weeds,
Am now enforst a far unfitter taske,
For trumpets sterne to chaunge mine Oaten reeds,
And sing of Knights and Ladies gentle deeds;
Whose prayses having slept in silence long,
Me, all too meane, the sacred Muse areeds
To blazon broad emongst her learned throng:
Fierce warres and faithful loves shall...Read more of this...

As the Bell Clinks

by Rudyard Kipling
 As I left the Halls at Lumley, rose the vision of a comely
Maid last season worshipped dumbly, watched with fervor from afar;
And I wondered idly, blindly, if the maid would greet me kindly.
That was all -- the rest was settled by the clinking tonga-bar.
Yea, my life and hers were coupled by the tonga coupling-bar.

For my misty meditation, at the...Read more of this...

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