Famous Heaps Poems by Famous Poets

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

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The Conversazzhony

by Eugene Field
 What conversazzhyonies wuz I really did not know,
For that, you must remember, wuz a powerful spell ago;
The camp wuz new 'nd noisy, 'nd only modrit sized,
So fashionable sossiety wuz hardly crystallized.
There hadn't been no grand events to interest the men,
But a lynchin', or a inquest, or a jackpot now an' then.
The wimmin-folks wuz mighty scarce, for wimmin, ez a...Read more of this...

Old Trouper

by Robert William Service
 I was Mojeska's leading man
And famous parts I used to play,
But now I do the best I can
To earn my bread from day to day;
Here in this Burg of Breaking Hears,
Where one wins as a thousand fail,
I play a score of scurvy parts
Till Time writes Finis to my tale.

My wife is dead, my daughter wed,
With heaps of trouble of...Read more of this...

Hymn 42

by Isaac Watts
 Divine wrath and mercy.

Nah. 1:1-3; Heb. 12:29. 

Adore and tremble, for our God
Is a consuming fire!
His jealous eyes his wrath inflame,
And raise his vengeance higher.

Almighty vengeance, how it burns!
How bright his fury glows!
Vast magazines of plagues and storms
Lie treasured for his foes.

Those heaps of wrath, by slow degrees,
Are forced into a flame;
But kindled, oh! how fierce they blaze!
And rend...Read more of this...

August

by Elinor Wylie
 Why should this ***** insolently stride 
Down the red noonday on such noiseless feet? 
Piled in his barrow, tawnier than wheat, 
Lie heaps of smouldering daisies, sombre-eyed, 
Their copper petals shriveled up with pride, 
Hot with a superfluity of heat, 
Like a great brazier borne along the street 
By captive leopards, black and burning pied.

Are there no water-lilies, smooth...Read more of this...

The Battle of Waterloo

by William Topaz McGonagall
 'Twas in the year 1815, and on the 18th day of June,
That British cannon, against the French army, loudly did boom,
Upon the ever memorable bloody field of Waterloo;
Which Napoleon remembered while in St. Helena, and bitterly did rue. 
The morning of the 18th was gloomy and cheerless to behold,
But the British soon recovered from the severe cold
That they had...Read more of this...

The Harvest

by Duncan Campbell Scott
 Sun on the mountain,
Shade in the valley,
Ripple and lightness
Leaping along the world,
Sun, like a gold sword
Plucked from the scabbard,
Striking the wheat-fields,
Splendid and lusty,
Close-standing, full-headed,
Toppling with plenty;
Shade, like a buckler
Kindly and ample,
Sweeping the wheat-fields
Darkening and tossing;
There on the world-rim
Winds break and gather
Heaping the mist
For the pyre of the sunset;
And still as a shadow,
In the dim westward,
A cloud sloop of amethyst
Moored...Read more of this...

Song of Fortune VI

by Kahlil Gibran
 Man and I are sweethearts 
He craves me and I long for him, 
But alas! Between us has appeared 
A rival who brings us misery. 
She is cruel and demanding, 
Possessing empty lure. 
Her name is Substance. 
She follows wherever we go 
And watches like a sentinel, bringing 
Restlessness to my lover. 


I ask for my beloved in the...Read more of this...

The Road

by Siegfried Sassoon
 The road is thronged with women; soldiers pass 
And halt, but never see them; yet they’re here— 
A patient crowd along the sodden grass, 
Silent, worn out with waiting, sick with fear. 
The road goes crawling up a long hillside,
All ruts and stones and sludge, and the emptied dregs 
Of battle thrown in heaps. Here where they died 
Are...Read more of this...

Wounded

by Robert William Service
 Is it not strange? A year ago to-day,
 With scarce a thought beyond the hum-drum round,
I did my decent job and earned my pay;
 Was averagely happy, I'll be bound.
Ay, in my little groove I was content,
 Seeing my life run smoothly to the end,
With prosy days in stolid labour spent,
 And jolly nights, a pipe, a glass, a...Read more of this...

When the Frost is on the Punkin

by James Whitcomb Riley
 When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder's in the shock,
And you hear the kyouck and gobble of the struttin' turkey-cock,
And the clackin' of the guineys, and the cluckin' of the hens,
And the rooster's hallylooyer as he tiptoes on the fence;
O, it's then's the times a feller is a-feelin' at his best,
With the risin' sun to greet...Read more of this...

The Eve of Crecy

by William Morris
 Gold on her head, and gold on her feet, 
And gold where the hems of her kirtle meet, 
And a golden girdle round my sweet;
Ah! qu'elle est belle La Marguerite.

Margaret's maids are fair to see, 
Freshly dress'd and pleasantly; 
Margaret's hair falls down to her knee;
Ah! qu'elle est belle La Marguerite.

If I were rich I would kiss her feet;
I...Read more of this...

Authorship

by Rabindranath Tagore
 You say that father write a lot of books, but what he write I don't
understand.
He was reading to you all the evening, but could you really
make out what he meant?
What nice stores, mother, you can tell us! Why can't father
write like that, I wonder?
Did he never hear from his own mother stories of giants and
fairies and princesses?
Has he forgotten...Read more of this...

A Paumanok Picture

by Walt Whitman
 TWO boats with nets lying off the sea-beach, quite still, 
Ten fishermen waiting—they discover a thick school of mossbonkers—they drop the
 join’d seine-ends in the water, 
The boats separate and row off, each on its rounding course to the beach, enclosing the
 mossbonkers, 
The net is drawn in by a windlass by those who stop ashore, 
Some of the...Read more of this...

The Trail Of Ninety-Eight

by Robert William Service
 Gold! We leapt from our benches. Gold! We sprang from our stools.
Gold! We wheeled in the furrow, fired with the faith of fools.
Fearless, unfound, unfitted, far from the night and the cold,
Heard we the clarion summons, followed the master-lure--Gold!

Men from the sands of the Sunland; men from the woods of the West;
Men from the farms and the cities, into...Read more of this...

Intolerance

by Robert William Service
 I have no brief for gambling, nay
 The notion I express
That money earned 's the only way
 To pay for happiness.
With cards and dice I do not hold;
 By betting I've been bit:
Conclusion: to get honest gold
 You've got to sweat for it.

Though there be evil in strong drink
 It's brought me heaps of fun;
And now, with some reserve,...Read more of this...

Mayakovsky In New York: A Found Poem

by Annie Dillard
 New York: You take a train that rips through versts.
It feels as if the trains were running over your ears.

For many hours the train flies along the banks
of the Hudson about two feet from the water. At the stops,
passengers run out, buy up bunches of celery,
and run back in, chewing the stalks as they go.

Bridges leap over the train...Read more of this...

In Guernsey - To Theodore Watts

by Algernon Charles Swinburne
 The heavenly bay, ringed round with cliffs and moors,
Storm-stained ravines, and crags that lawns inlay,
Soothes as with love the rocks whose guard secures
The heavenly bay.

O friend, shall time take ever this away,
This blessing given of beauty that endures,
This glory shown us, not to pass but stay?

Though sight be changed for memory, love ensures
What memory, changed by love to sight,...Read more of this...

The Ladys Dressing Room

by Jonathan Swift
 Five hours, (and who can do it less in?)
By haughty Celia spent in dressing;
The goddess from her chamber issues,
Arrayed in lace, brocades, and tissues.
Strephon, who found the room was void
And Betty otherwise employed,
Stole in and took a strict survey
Of all the litter as it lay;
Whereof, to make the matter clear,
An inventory follows here.
And first a dirty smock appeared,
Beneath the...Read more of this...

To The Napoleon Column

by Victor Hugo
 {Oct. 9, 1830.} 


 When with gigantic hand he placed, 
 For throne, on vassal Europe based, 
 That column's lofty height— 
 Pillar, in whose dread majesty, 
 In double immortality, 
 Glory and bronze unite! 
 Aye, when he built it that, some day, 
 Discord or war their course might stay, 
 Or here might break...Read more of this...

Metro North

by Mark Doty
 Over the terminal,
 the arms and chest
 of the god

brightened by snow.
 Formerly mercury,
 formerly silver,

surface yellowed
 by atmospheric sulphurs
 acid exhalations,

and now the shining
 thing's descendant.
 Obscure passages,

dim apertures:
 these clouded windows
 show a few faces

or some empty car's
 filmstrip of lit flames
 --remember them

from school,
 how they were supposed
 to teach us something?--

waxy light hurrying
 inches away...Read more of this...

Ben apfelgarten

by Eugene Field
 There was a certain gentleman, Ben Apfelgarten called,
Who lived way off in Germany a many years ago,
And he was very fortunate in being very bald
And so was very happy he was so.
He warbled all the day
Such songs as only they
Who are very, very circumspect and very happy may;
The people wondered why,
As the years went gliding by,
They never heard him...Read more of this...

Class-Mates

by Robert William Service
 Bob Briggs went in for Government,
 And helps to run the State;
Some day they say he'll represent
 His party in debate:
But with punk politics his job,
 I do not envy Bob.

Jim Jones went in for writing books,
 Best sellers were his aim;
He's ten years younger than he looks,
 And licks the heels of Fame:
Though shop-girls make a fuss of...Read more of this...

Laus Mariae

by Sidney Lanier
 Across the brook of Time man leaping goes
On stepping-stones of epochs, that uprise
Fixed, memorable, midst broad shallow flows
Of neutrals, kill-times, sleeps, indifferencies.
So twixt each morn and night rise salient heaps:
Some cross with but a zigzag, jaded pace
From meal to meal: some with convulsive leaps
Shake the green tussocks of malign disgrace:
And some advance by system and deep art
O'er vantages of...Read more of this...

Lament of the Frontier Guard

by Ezra Pound
 By the North Gate, the wind blows full of sand,
Lonely from the beginning of time until now!
Trees fall, the grass goes yellow with autumn.
I climb the towers and towers
to watch out the barbarous land:
Desolate castle, the sky, the wide desert.
There is no wall left to this village.
Bones white with a thousand frosts,
High heaps, covered with trees and grass;
Who brought...Read more of this...

A New Years Giftsent To Sir Simeon Steward

by Robert Herrick
 No news of navies burnt at seas;
No noise of late spawn'd tittyries;
No closet plot or open vent,
That frights men with a Parliament:
No new device or late-found trick,
To read by th' stars the kingdom's sick;
No gin to catch the State, or wring
The free-born nostril of the King,
We send to you; but here a jolly
Verse crown'd with ivy and with holly;
That...Read more of this...

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