Famous Judge Poems by Famous Poets

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

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By the Hoof of the Wild Goat

by Rudyard Kipling
 By the Hoof of the Wild Goat uptossed
 From the cliff where she lay in the Sun
 Fell the Stone
 To the Tarn where the daylight is lost,
 So she fell from the light of the Sun
 And alone!

 Now the fall was ordained from the first
 With the Goat and the Cliff and the Tarn,
 But the Stone
...Read more of this...

The Judge is like the Owl --

by Emily Dickinson
 The Judge is like the Owl --
I've heard my Father tell --
And Owls do build in Oaks --
So here's an Amber Sill --

That slanted in my Path --
When going to the Barn --
And if it serve You for a House --
Itself is not in vain --

About the price -- 'tis small --
I only ask a Tune
At Midnight -- Let...Read more of this...

the Labirinth

by Jorge Luis Borges
The Labyrinth I

Zeus himself could not undo the web
of stone closing around me. I have forgotten
the men I was before; I follow the hated
path of monotonous walls
that is my destiny. Severe galleries
which curve in secret circles
to the end of the years. Parapets
cracked by the days' usury.
In the pale dust I have discerned
signs that frighten me. In the concave
evenings the air...Read more of this...

Hymn To Joy

by Friedrich von Schiller
 Joy, thou goddess, fair, immortal,
Offspring of Elysium,
Mad with rapture, to the portal
Of thy holy fame we come!
Fashion's laws, indeed, may sever,
But thy magic joins again;
All mankind are brethren ever
'Neath thy mild and gentle reign.

CHORUS.
Welcome, all ye myriad creatures!
Brethren, take the kiss of love!
Yes, the starry realms above
Hide a Father's smiling features!

He, that noble prize possessing--
He that boasts a friend...Read more of this...

The Judge

by Rabindranath Tagore
 Say of him what you please, but I know my child's failings.
I do not love him because he is good, but because he is my
little child.
How should you know how dear he can be when you try to weigh
his merits against his faults?
When I must punish him he becomes all the more a part of my
being.
When I cause his...Read more of this...

God Moves In A Mysterious Way

by William Cowper
 God moves in a mysterious way
His wonders to perform;
He plants His footsteps in the sea,
And rides upon the storm.

Deep in unfathomable mines
Of never-failing skill
He treasures up His bright designs,
And works His sovereign will.

Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take,
The clouds ye so much dread
Are big with mercy, and shall break
In blessings on your head.

Judge not the Lord by feeble sense,
But...Read more of this...

Judge Somers

by Edgar Lee Masters
 How does it happen, tell me,
That I who was the most erudite of lawyers,
Who knew Blackstone and Coke
Almost by heart, who made the greatest speech
The court-house ever heard, and wrote
A brief that won the praise of Justice Breese--
How does it happen, tell me,
That I lie here unmarked, forgotten,
While Chase Henry, the town drunkard,
Has a marble block, topped by an...Read more of this...

Beat! Beat! Drums!

by Walt Whitman
 1
BEAT! beat! drums!—Blow! bugles! blow! 
Through the windows—through doors—burst like a ruthless force, 
Into the solemn church, and scatter the congregation; 
Into the school where the scholar is studying; 
Leave not the bridegroom quiet—no happiness must he have now with his bride;
Nor the peaceful farmer any peace, plowing his field or gathering his grain; 
So fierce you whirr and...Read more of this...

Place for a Third

by Robert Frost
 Nothing to say to all those marriages!
She had made three herself to three of his.
The score was even for them, three to three.
But come to die she found she cared so much:
She thought of children in a burial row;
Three children in a burial row were sad.
One man's three women in a burial row
Somehow made her impatient with the man.
And...Read more of this...

Judge Selah Lively

by Edgar Lee Masters
 Suppose you stood just five feet two,
And had worked your way as a grocery clerk,
Studying law by candle light
Until you became an attorney at law?
And then suppose through your diligence,
And regular church attendance,
You became attorney for Thomas Rhodes,
Collecting notes and mortgages,
And representing all the widows
In the Probate Court? And through it all
They jeered at your size, and laughed at...Read more of this...

Butch Weldy

by Edgar Lee Masters
 After I got religion and steadied down
They gave me a job in the canning works,
And every morning I had to fill
The tank in the yard with gasoline,
That fed the blow-fires in the sheds
To heat the soldering irons.
And I mounted a rickety ladder to do it,
Carrying buckets full of the stuff.
One morning, as I stood there pouring,
The air grew still...Read more of this...

Sonnet XIII: Phoebus Was Judge

by Sir Philip Sidney
 Phoebus was judge between Jove, Mars, and Love, 
Of those three gods, whose arms the fairest were: 
Jove's golden shield did eagle sables bear, 
Whose talons held young Ganymede above: 

But in vert field Mars bare a golden spear, 
Which through a bleeding heart his point did shove: 
Each had his crest; Mars carried Venus' glove, 
Jove in his...Read more of this...

Astrophel And Stella-Sonnet XXXI

by Sir Philip Sidney
 With how sad steps, O Moon, thou climb'st the skies!
How silently, and with how wan a face!
What! may it be that even in heavenly place
That busy archer his sharp arrows tries?
Sure, if that long-with-love-acquainted eyes
Can judge of love, thou feel'st a lover's case:
I read it in thy looks; thy languished grace,
To me that feel the like, thy state descries.
Then...Read more of this...

A Tribute to Mr J. Graham Henderson The Worlds Fair Judge

by William Topaz McGonagall
 Thrice welcome home to Hawick, Mr J. Graham Henderson,
For by your Scotch tweeds a great honour you have won;
By exhibiting your beautiful tweeds at the World's Fair
You have been elected judge of Australian and American wools while there. 

You had to pass a strict examination on the wool trade,
But you have been victorious, and not the least afraid,
And has...Read more of this...

Maud Muller

by John Greenleaf Whittier
 Maud Muller on a summer's day 
Raked the meadow sweet with hay. 

Beneath her torn hat glowed the wealth 
Of simple beauty and rustic health. 

Singing, she wrought, and her merry gleee 
The mock-bird echoed from his tree. 

But when she glanced to the far-off town 
White from its hill-slope looking down, 

The sweet song died, and a vague...Read more of this...

The Circuit Judge

by Edgar Lee Masters
 Take note, passers-by, of the sharp erosions
Eaten in my head-stone by the wind and rain --
Almost as if an intangible Nemesis or hatred
Were marking scores against me,
But to destroy, and not preserve, my memory.
I in life was the Circuit judge, a maker of notches,
Deciding cases on the points the lawyers scored,
Not on the right of the matter.
O wind and...Read more of this...

O mufti (grand judge) of the city! I am more a worker

by Omar Khayyam
O mufti [grand judge] of the city! I am more a worker
than art thou. Drunk as I am, I own more intelligence
than thou; for thou, thou drinkest the blood of human
beings and I that of the vine. Be just and tell me
which is the more sanguinary of the two?
345...Read more of this...

How Samson Bore Away the Gates of Gaza

by Vachel Lindsay
 (A ***** Sermon.)


Once, in a night as black as ink,
She drove him out when he would not drink.
Round the house there were men in wait
Asleep in rows by the Gaza gate.
But the Holy Spirit was in this man.
Like a gentle wind he crept and ran.
("It is midnight," said the big town clock.)

He lifted the gates up, post and lock.
The...Read more of this...

Wilful Missing

by Rudyard Kipling
 (Deserters)
 There is a world outside the one you know,
 To which for curiousness 'Ell can't compare--
 It is the place where "wilful-missings" go,
 As we can testify, for we are there.

 You may 'ave read a bullet laid us low,
 That we was gathered in "with reverent care"
 And buried proper. But it was not so,
 As we...Read more of this...

The Day Of Doom

by Michael Wigglesworth
 Still was the night, Serene & Bright, 
when all Men sleeping lay;
Calm was the season, & carnal reason 
thought so 'twould last for ay.
Soul, take thine ease, let sorrow cease,
much good thou hast in store:
This was their Song, their Cups among, 
the Evening before.

Wallowing in all kind of sin, 
vile wretches lay secure:
The best of men had scarcely then...Read more of this...

Heccar and Gaira

by Thomas Chatterton
 Where the rough Caigra rolls the surgy wave, 
Urging his thunders thro' the echoing cave; 
Where the sharp rocks, in distant horror seen, 
Drive the white currents thro' the spreading green; 
Where the loud tiger, pawing in his rage, 
Bids the black archers of the wilds engage; 
Stretch'd on the sand, two panting warriors lay, 
In all the burning...Read more of this...

The Grandmother

by Alfred Lord Tennyson
 I.
And Willy, my eldest-born, is gone, you say, little Anne?
Ruddy and white, and strong on his legs, he looks like a man.
And Willy's wife has written: she never was over-wise,
Never the wife for Willy: he would n't take my advice. 

II.
For, Annie, you see, her father was not the man to save,
Had n't a head to manage, and drank...Read more of this...

The Last Rhyme of True Thomas

by Rudyard Kipling
 The King has called for priest and cup,
 The King has taken spur and blade
To dub True Thomas a belted knight,
 And all for the sake o' the songs he made.

They have sought him high, they have sought him low,
 They have sought him over down and lea;
They have found him by the milk-white thorn
 That guards the gates...Read more of this...

Pleasure XXIV

by Kahlil Gibran
 Then a hermit, who visited the city once a year, came forth and said, "Speak to us of Pleasure." 

And he answered, saying: 

Pleasure is a freedom song, 

But it is not freedom. 

It is the blossoming of your desires, 

But it is not their fruit. 

It is a depth calling unto a height, 

But it is not the...Read more of this...

The Cymbaleer's Bride

by Victor Hugo
 ("Monseigneur le Duc de Bretagne.") 
 
 {VI., October, 1825.} 


 My lord the Duke of Brittany 
 Has summoned his barons bold— 
 Their names make a fearful litany! 
 Among them you will not meet any 
 But men of giant mould. 
 
 Proud earls, who dwell in donjon keep, 
 And steel-clad knight and peer,...Read more of this...

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