Famous Jeopardy Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Lancelot

by Edwin Arlington Robinson
 Gawaine, aware again of Lancelot 
In the King’s garden, coughed and followed him; 
Whereat he turned and stood with folded arms 
And weary-waiting eyes, cold and half-closed— 
Hard eyes, where doubts at war with memories
Fanned a sad wrath. “Why frown upon a friend? 
Few live that have too many,” Gawaine said, 
And wished unsaid, so thinly came the light...Read more of this...

A Song In Storm

by Rudyard Kipling
 Be well assured that on our side
 The abiding oceans fight,
 Though headlong wind and heaping tide
 Make us their sport to-night.
 By force of weather, not of war,
 In jeopardy we steer.
 Then welcome Fate's discourtesy
 Whereby it shall appear
 How in all time of our distress,
 And our deliverance too,
 The game is more than the player...Read more of this...

The Merchantmen

by Rudyard Kipling
 King Solomon drew merchantmen,
 Because of his desire
 For peacocks, apes, and ivory,
 From Tarshish unto Tyre,
 With cedars out of Lebanon
 Which Hiram rafted down;
 But we be only sailormen
 That use in London town.

Coastwise -- cross-seas -- round the world and back again --
 Where the paw shall head us or the full Trade suits --
Plain-sail --...Read more of this...

The Retired Cat

by William Cowper
 A poet's cat, sedate and grave
As poet well could wish to have,
Was much addicted to inquire
For nooks to which she might retire,
And where, secure as mouse in chink,
She might repose, or sit and think.
I know not where she caught the trick--
Nature perhaps herself had cast her
In such a mould [lang f]philosophique[lang e],
Or else she learn'd it of her master.
Sometimes...Read more of this...

The Coastwise Lights

by Rudyard Kipling
 Our brows are bound with spindrift and the weed is on our knees;
Our loins are battered 'neath us by the swinging, smoking seas.
From reef and rock and skerry -- over headland, ness, and voe --
The Coastwise Lights of England watch the ships of England go!

Through the endless summer evenings, on the lineless, level floors;
Through the yelling Channel tempest when...Read more of this...

The Naulahka

by Rudyard Kipling
 There was a strife 'twixt man and maid--
Oh, that was at the birth of time!
But what befell 'twixt man and maid,
Oh, that's beyond the grip of rhyme.
'Twas "Sweet, I must not bide with you,"
And, "Love, I cannot bide alone";
For both were young and both were true.
And both were hard as the nether stone.

Beware the man who's crossed in love;
...Read more of this...

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