Famous Heirloom Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Heirloom poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous heirloom poems. These examples illustrate what a famous heirloom poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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...d Hygelac, if the contest conquers me,
this best of battle-clothes that wards my breast,
finest of garments. It is an heirloom of Hrethel,
the work of Weland. The way of the world
always goes as it must!” (ll. 442-55)
VII.
Hrothgar spoke in reply, the helmet of the Scyldings:
“For our great deeds, my friend Beowulf,
and gracious assistance you have sought us.
Your father struck the greatest of feuds
becoming the hand-slayer of Heatholaf,
amid the Wylfings....Read more of this...
by
Anonymous,
...t food prepare!
To Hygelac send, if Hild {6d} should take me,
best of war-weeds, warding my breast,
armor excellent, heirloom of Hrethel
and work of Wayland. {6e} Fares Wyrd {6f} as she must.”
VII
HROTHGAR spake, the Scyldings’-helmet: --
“For fight defensive, Friend my Beowulf,
to succor and save, thou hast sought us here.
Thy father’s combat {7a} a feud enkindled
when Heatholaf with hand he slew
among the Wylfings; his Weder kin
for horror of fighting fe...Read more of this...
by
Anonymous,
...saved his pines, the small acclamations
I used to show my friends. And the billyclub
I keep by my bed was his, too; an heirloom.
I am somewhat older than you can tell.
The early deaths have decomposed
behind my eyes, leaving lines apparently caused
by smiling. My voice still reflects the time
I believed in prayer as a way of getting
what I wanted. I am none of my clothes.
My poems are approximately true.
The games I play and how I play them
are the arrows you should follow:...Read more of this...
by
Dunn, Stephen
...t keeps the sky at bay,
The sack of black! It is everywhere, tight, tight!
He is yours, the little brassy Atlas --
Poor heirloom, all you have,
At his heels a pile of five brass cannonballs,
No child, no wife.
Five balls! Five bright brass balls!
To juggle with, my love, when the sky falls....Read more of this...
by
Plath, Sylvia
...aring her Norman cap and her kirtle of blue, and the ear-rings,
Brought in the olden time from France, and since, as an heirloom,
Handed down from mother to child, through long generations.
But a celestial brightness--a more ethereal beauty--
Shone on her face and encircled her form, when, after confession,
Homeward serenely she walked with God's benediction upon her.
When she had passed, it seemed like the ceasing of exquisite music.
Firmly builded with rafters of oak, the ...Read more of this...
by
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
...es
and fears, squeaking mice turned up
in a steaming haystack with their babies?
This coat has been handed down, an heirloom
this coat of black hair and ample flesh,
this coat of pale slightly ruddy skin.
This set of hips and thighs, these buttocks
they provided cushioning for my grandmother
Hannah, for my mother Bert and for me
and we all sat on them in turn, those major
muscles on which we walk and walk and walk
over the earth in search of peace and plenty.
My...Read more of this...
by
Piercy, Marge
...I hadn't lost that guarantee. That was a shame. I've
had to face the fact that new socks are not going to be a family
heirloom. Losing the guarantee took care of that. All future
generations are on their own.
We left McCall the next day, the day after I lost the sock
guarantee, following the muddy water of the North Fork of
the Payette down and the clear water of the South Fork up.
We stopped at Lowman and had a strawberry milkshake
and then drove back into the moun...Read more of this...
by
Brautigan, Richard
...ld red shawl a-flutter on the fence.
Now Missis Rooney loved that shawl beyond all rhyme or reason,
And maybe 'twas an heirloom or a cherished souvenir;
For judging by the way she wore it season after season,
I might have been as precious as a product of Cashmere.
So Shamus strolled towards it, and no doubt the colour pleased him,
For he biffed it and he sniffed it, as most any goat might do;
Then his melancholy vanished as a sense of hunger seized him,
And he wagged his tai...Read more of this...
by
Service, Robert William
...exclaimed from his throne in the skies
To the children of man--"take the world I now give;
It shall ever remain as your heirloom and prize,
So divide it as brothers, and happily live."
Then all who had hands sought their share to obtain,
The young and the aged made haste to appear;
The husbandman seized on the fruits of the plain,
The youth through the forest pursued the fleet deer.
The merchant took all that his warehouse could hold,
The abbot selected the last year's best...Read more of this...
by
Schiller, Friedrich von
...The mahogany table-top you smashed
Had been the broad plank top
Of my mother's heirloom sideboard-
Mapped with the scars of my whole life.
That came under the hammer.
That high stool you swung that day
Demented by my being
Twenty minutes late for baby-minding.
'Marvellous!' I shouted, 'Go on,
Smash it into kindling.
That's the stuff you're keeping out of your poems!'
And later, considered and calmer,
'Get that shoulder under your st...Read more of this...
by
Hughes, Ted
...ansmutation smote
The fair to foul, the foul to fair;
Purple nor ermine did he spare,
Nor scorn the dusty coat.
Of heirloom jewels, prized so much,
Were many changed to chips and clods,
And even statues of the Gods
Crumbled beneath its touch.
Then angrily the people cried,
"The loss outweighs the profit far;
Our goods suffice us as they are
We will not have then tried."
And since they could not so prevail
To check this unrelenting guest,
They seized him, sayin...Read more of this...
by
Allingham, William
...ng held it together.
In their jars the snail-nosed babies moon and glow.
He hands her the cut-out heart like a cracked heirloom.
(2)
In Brueghel's panorama of smoke and slaughter
Two people only are blind to the carrion army:
He, afloat in the sea of her blue satin
Skirts, sings in the direction
Of her bare shoulder, while she bends,
Finger a leaflet of music, over him,
Both of them deaf to the fiddle in the hands
Of the death's-head shadowing their song.
These Flemish lo...Read more of this...
by
Plath, Sylvia
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