Famous Horned Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Shearing With a Hoe

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 The track that led to Carmody's is choked and overgrown, 
The suckers of the stringybark have made the place their own; 
The mountain rains have cut the track that once we used to know 
When first we rode to Carmody's, a score of years ago. 

The shearing shed at Carmody's was slab and stringybark, 
The press was just a...Read more of this...

An August Midnight

by Thomas Hardy
 I 

A shaded lamp and a waving blind, 
And the beat of a clock from a distant floor: 
On this scene enter--winged, horned, and spined - 
A longlegs, a moth, and a dumbledore; 
While 'mid my page there idly stands 
A sleepy fly, that rubs its hands . . . 

II 

Thus meet we five, in this still place,...Read more of this...

Mulhollands Contract

by Rudyard Kipling
 The fear was on the cattle, for the gale was on the sea,
An' the pens broke up on the lower deck an' let the creatures free --
An' the lights went out on the lower deck, an' no one near but me.

I had been singin' to them to keep 'em quiet there,
For the lower deck is the dangerousest, requirin' constant...Read more of this...

Cain and Abel

by Rudyard Kipling
 Cain and Abel were brothers born.
 (Koop-la! Come along, cows!)
One raised cattle and one raised corn.
 (Koop-la! Come along! Co-hoe!)

And Cain he farmed by the river-side,
So he did not care how much it dried.

For he banked, and he sluiced, and he ditched and he led
 (And the Corn don't care for the Horn)--
A-half Euphrates out of her bed
 To...Read more of this...

The Coliseum

by Edgar Allan Poe
 Type of the antique Rome! Rich reliquary 
Of lofty contemplation left to Time 
By buried centuries of pomp and power! 
At length- at length- after so many days 
Of weary pilgrimage and burning thirst, 
(Thirst for the springs of lore that in thee lie,) 
I kneel, an altered and an humble man, 
Amid thy shadows, and so drink within...Read more of this...

Two Travellers in the Place Vendome

by Amy Lowell
 Reign of Louis Philippe

A great tall column spearing at the sky
With a little man on top. Goodness! Tell me 
why?
He looks a silly thing enough to stand up there so high.
What a strange fellow, like a soldier in a play,
Tight-fitting coat with the tails cut away,
High-crowned hat which the brims overlay.
Two-horned hat makes an outline like a bow.
Must have...Read more of this...

Ram

by Omer Tarin
I consecrate you
Twin-horned Ram
to ritual glory;

You may celebrate 
your consecration 
before the butcher comes 
to cut your throat.



(from ''The Anvil of Dreams'', 1995) 
...Read more of this...

CanzoneT

by Oscar Wilde
 I have no store
Of gryphon-guarded gold;
Now, as before,
Bare is the shepherd's fold.
Rubies nor pearls
Have I to gem thy throat;
Yet woodland girls
Have loved the shepherd's note.

Then pluck a reed
And bid me sing to thee,
For I would feed
Thine ears with melody,
Who art more fair
Than fairest fleur-de-lys,
More sweet and rare
Than sweetest ambergris.

What dost thou fear?
Young Hyacinth is slain,
Pan is not here,
And will...Read more of this...

The Old Age Of Queen Maeve

by William Butler Yeats
 A certain poet in outlandish clothes
Gathered a crowd in some Byzantine lane,
Talked1 of his country and its people, sang
To some stringed instrument none there had seen,
A wall behind his back, over his head
A latticed window. His glance went up at time
As though one listened there, and his voice sank
Or let its meaning mix into the strings.

Maeve the great queen...Read more of this...

Love Song

by Elinor Wylie
 I lie here thinking of you:—

the stain of love
is upon the world!
Yellow, yellow, yellow
it eats into the leaves,
smears with saffron
the horned branched the lean
heavily
against a smooth purple sky!
There is no light
only a honey-thick stain
that drips from leaf to leaf
and limb to limb
spoiling the colors
of the whole world—

you far off there under
the wine-red selvage of the west!...Read more of this...

Additions

by Thomas Hardy
 The Fire at Tranter Sweatley's

THEY had long met o' Zundays--her true love and she--
And at junketings, maypoles, and flings;
But she bode wi' a thirtover uncle, and he
Swore by noon and by night that her goodman should be
Naibor Sweatley--a gaffer oft weak at the knee
From taking o' sommat more cheerful than tea--
Who tranted, and moved people's things.

She cried, "O pray...Read more of this...

A Rebus By I. B

by Phillis Wheatley
 I.
A BIRD delicious to the taste,
On which an army once did feast,
Sent by an hand unseen;
A creature of the horned race,
Which Britain's royal standards grace;
A gem of vivid green;

II.
A town of gaiety and sport,
Where beaux and beauteous nymphs resort,
And gallantry doth reign;
A Dardan hero fam'd of old
For youth and beauty, as we're told,
And by a monarch slain;

III.
A peer of...Read more of this...

The Fire At Tranter Sweatleys

by Thomas Hardy
 They had long met o' Zundays--her true love and she-- 
 And at junketings, maypoles, and flings; 
But she bode wi' a thirtover uncle, and he 
Swore by noon and by night that her goodman should be 
Naibor Sweatley--a gaffer oft weak at the knee 
From taking o' sommat more cheerful than tea-- 
 Who tranted, and moved people's...Read more of this...

The Victor Dog

by James Merrill
 Bix to Buxtehude to Boulez,
The little white dog on the Victor label
Listens long and hard as he is able.
It's all in a day's work, whatever plays.

From judgment, it would seem, he has refrained.
He even listens earnestly to Bloch,
Then builds a church upon our acid rock.
He's man's--no--he's the Leiermann's best friend,

Or would be if hearing and listening were the same.
Does...Read more of this...

For The Last Wolverine

by James Dickey
 They will soon be down

To one, but he still will be
For a little while still will be stopping

The flakes in the air with a look,
Surrounding himself with the silence
Of whitening snarls. Let him eat
The last red meal of the condemned

To extinction, tearing the guts

From an elk. Yet that is not enough
For me. I would have him eat

The heart, and,...Read more of this...

The Yukon

by Joaquin Miller
 THE moon resumed all heaven now, 
She shepherded the stars below 
Along her wide, white steeps of snow, 
Nor stooped nor rested, where or how. 

She bared her full white breast, she dared 
The sun e'er show his face again. 
She seemed to know no change, she kept 
Carousal constantly, nor slept, 
Nor turned aside a breath, nor spared...Read more of this...

Giant Fungus

by Charles Webb
 40-acre growth found in Michigan.
— The Los Angeles Times


The sky is full of ruddy ducks
and widgeon's, mockingbirds,
bees, bats, swallowtails,
dragonflies, and great horned owls.

The land below teems with elands
and kit foxes, badgers, aardvarks,
juniper, banana slugs, larch,
cactus, heather, humankind.

Under them, a dome of dirt.
Under that, the World's
Largest Living Thing spreads
like a hemorrhage poised

to paralyze the earth—like a tumor
ready to cause 9.0...Read more of this...

Investigating Flora

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 'Twas in scientific circles 
That the great Professor Brown 
Had a world-wide reputation 
As a writer of renown. 
He had striven finer feelings 
In our natures to implant 
By his Treatise on the Morals 
Of the Red-eyed Bulldog Ant. 
He had hoisted an opponent 
Who had trodden unawares 
On his "Reasons for Bare Patches 
On the Female Native Bears"....Read more of this...

The Tale Of The Forest

by Mihai Eminescu
Mighty emperor is the forest, 
High dominion does he wield, 
And a thousand races prosper 
'Neath the shelter of his shield. 

The moon, the sun and Lucifer 
Do round his kingdom ever sphere;  
While lords and ladies of his court 
Are of the noble race of deer. 

Hares, his heralds and his postmen, 
Carry rapidly his mails; 
Birds his...Read more of this...

An answer to Various Bards

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 Well, I've waited mighty patient while they all came rolling in, 
Mister Lawson, Mister Dyson, and the others of their kin, 
With their dreadful, dismal stories of the Overlander's camp, 
How his fire is always smoky, and his boots are always damp; 
And they paint it so terrific it would fill one's soul with gloom -- 
But you know...Read more of this...

Initial Love

by Ralph Waldo Emerson
 Venus, when her son was lost,
Cried him up and down the coast,
In hamlets, palaces, and parks,
And told the truant by his marks,
Golden curls, and quiver, and bow;—
This befell long ago.
Time and tide are strangely changed,
Men and manners much deranged;
None will now find Cupid latent
By this foolish antique patent.
He came late along the waste,
Shod like a traveller for haste,
With malice...Read more of this...

The Mermaid

by Alfred Lord Tennyson
 I

Who would be
A mermaid fair,
Singing alone,
Combing her hair
Under the sea,
In a golden curl
With a comb of pearl,
On a throne?

II

I would be a mermaid fair;
I would sing to myself the whole of the day;
With a comb of pearl I would comb my hair;
And still as I comb'd I would sing and say,
'Who is it loves me? who loves not me?'
I...Read more of this...

The Crescent Moon

by Amy Lowell
 Slipping softly through the sky
Little horned, happy moon,
Can you hear me up so high?
Will you come down soon?
On my nursery window-sill
Will you stay your steady flight?
And then float away with me
Through the summer night?
Brushing over tops of trees,
Playing hide and seek with stars,
Peeping up through shiny clouds
At Jupiter or Mars.
I shall fill my lap with roses
Gathered in the milky...Read more of this...

The Minotaur

by Ted Hughes
 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...Read more of this...

Waves

by Katherine Mansfield
 I saw a tiny God
Sitting
Under a bright blue umbrella
That had white tassels
And forked ribs of gold.
Below him His little world
Lay open to the sun.
The shadow of His hat
Lay upon a city.
When he stretched forth His hand
A lake became a dark tremble.
When he kicked up His foot
It became night in the mountain passes.

But thou art small!
There are gods far greater...Read more of this...

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