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Famous Kate Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Burns, Robert
...r kind stars hae airted till her
gA guid chiel wi’ a pickle siller.
My kindest, best respects, I sen’ it,
To cousin Kate, an’ sister Janet:
Tell them, frae me, wi’ chiels be cautious,
For, faith, they’ll aiblins fin’ them fashious;
To grant a heart is fairly civil,
But to grant a maidenhead’s the devil.
An’ lastly, Jamie, for yoursel,
May guardian angels tak a spell,
An’ steer you seven miles south o’ hell:
But first, before you see heaven’s glory,
May ye get mony a m...Read more of this...



by Burns, Robert
...r a town surpasses,
For honest men and bonie lasses).


 O Tam! had’st thou but been sae wise,
As taen thy ain wife Kate’s advice!
She tauld thee weel thou was a skellum,
A blethering, blustering, drunken blellum;
That frae November till October,
Ae market-day thou was na sober;
That ilka melder wi’ the Miller,
Thou sat as lang as thou had siller;
That ev’ry naig was ca’d a shoe on
The Smith and thee gat roarin’ fou on;
That at the L—d’s house, ev’n on Sunday,
Thou drank ...Read more of this...

by Yeats, William Butler
...shy beds,
You put such folly in our heads
With all this crying in the wind,
No common love is to our mind,
And our poor kate or Nan is less
Than any whose unhappiness
Awoke the harp-strings long ago.
Yet they that know all things hut know
That all this life can give us is
A child's laughter, a woman's kiss.
Who was it put so great a scorn
In thegrey reeds that night and morn
Are trodden and broken hy the herds,
And in the light bodies of birds
The north wind tumbles t...Read more of this...

by Blake, William
...m a push.
The Blind man's arms, extended wide,
Sam slips between:--`O woe betide
Thee, clumsy Will!'--but titt'ring Kate
Is penn'd up in the corner straight!
And now Will's eyes beheld the play;
He thought his face was t'other way.
`Now, Kitty, now! what chance hast thou,
Roger so near thee!--Trips, I vow!'
She catches him--then Roger ties
His own head up--but not his eyes;
For thro' the slender cloth he sees,
And runs at Sam, who slips with ease
His clumsy hold; and,...Read more of this...

by Paterson, Andrew Barton
...a man as quick 
As all the drugs that the doctors know. 

There was a girl in that shanty bar 
Went by the name of Kate Carew, 
Quiet and shy as the bush girls are, 
But ready-witted and plucky, too. 
She loved this Ryan, or so they say, 
And passing by, while her eyes were dim 
With tears, she said in a careless way, 
"The Swagman's round in the stable, Jim." 

Spoken too low for the trooper's ear, 
Why should she care if he heard or not? 
Plenty of swagmen far ...Read more of this...



by Rossetti, Christina
...a silken knot, 
He changed me like a glove; 
So now I moan, an unclean thing, 
Who might have been a dove.

O Lady kate, my cousin Kate, 
You grew more fair than I: 
He saw you at your father's gate, 
Chose you, and cast me by. 
He watched your steps along the lane, 
Your work among the rye; 
He lifted you from mean estate 
To sit with him on high.

Because you were so good and pure 
He bound you with his ring: 
The neighbors call you good and pure, 
Call me an o...Read more of this...

by von Goethe, Johann Wolfgang
...au wau wau!


Wille wo wo wo!

Wito 
hu!

I knew them all; ay, I knew them straight;
First, Anna, then Ursula, Eve, and Kate,
And Barbara, Lizzy, and Bet as well;
And forming a ring, they began to yell:

Wille wau wau wau!


Wille wo wo wo!

Wito 
hu!

Then call'd I their names with angry threat:
"What wouldst thou, Anna? What wouldst thou, Bet?"
At hearing my voice, themselves they shook,
And howling and yelling, to flight they took.

Wille wau wau wau!


Wille wo wo wo!...Read more of this...

by Butler, Ellis Parker
...ositive
I said, "The world shall see
That I can keep myself from sin;
A good man I will be."

But when I loved Miss Kate St. Clair
'Twas thus my musing ran:
"I cannot be compared with her;
I'll be a better man."

'Twas at the wedding of a friend
(He married Kate St. Clair)
That I became superlative,
For I was "best man" there....Read more of this...

by Baraka, Imamu Amiri
...f the divinity of Lamont Cranston?
(Only jack Kerouac, that I know of: & me.
The rest of you probably had on WCBS and Kate Smith,
Or something equally unattractive.)

What can I say?
It is better to haved loved and lost
Than to put linoleum in your living rooms?

Am I a sage or something?
Mandrake's hypnotic gesture of the week?
(Remember, I do not have the healing powers of Oral Roberts...
I cannot, like F. J. Sheen, tell you how to get saved & rich!
I cannot ev...Read more of this...

by Green, Adrian
...counterpoint
above the drums’
percussive ricochets.

Not blues in twelve,
but upbeat late
and shimmying
like Sister Kate.

The cornet-master
blows
an emptiness away....Read more of this...

by Whittier, John Greenleaf
...ly lowland districts teach, 
Where all the droll experience found 
At stranger hearths in boarding round, 
The moonlit skater's keen delight, 
The sleigh-drive through the frosty night, 
The rustic party, with its rough 
Accompaniment of blind-man's-buff, 
And whirling-plate, and forfeits paid, 
His winter task a pastime made. 
Happy the snow-locked homes wherein 
He tuned his merry violin, 
Or played the athlete in the barn, 
Or held the good dame's winding-yarn, 
Or mir...Read more of this...

by Burns, Robert
...'er a town surpasses,
For honest men and bonie lasses).

O Tam! hadst thou but been sae wise,
As ta'en thy ain wife Kate's advice!
She tauld thee weel thou was a skellum,
A blethering, blustering, drunken blellum,
That frae November till October,
Ae market-day thou was nae sober;
That ilka melder, wi' the miller,
Thou sat as lang as thou had siller;
That ev'ry naig was ca'd a shoe on,
The smith and thee gat roarin fou on;
That at the Lord's house, ev'n on Sunday,
Thou dra...Read more of this...

by Butler, Ellis Parker
...so well,
To save his life he could not tell

Which he most wished to be his bride,
Nor was he able to decide.

Fair Kate was jolly, bright, and gay,
And sunny as a summer day;

Marie was kind, sedate, and sweet,
With gentle ways and manners neat.

Each was so dear that John confessed
He could not tell which he liked best.

He studied them for quite a year,
And still found no solution near,

And might have studied two years more
Had he not, walking on the shore,

C...Read more of this...

by Davies, William Henry
...Here comes Kate Summers, who, for gold, 
Takes any man to bed: 
"You knew my friend, Nell Barnes," she said; 
"You knew Nell Barnes -- she's dead. 

"Nell Barnes was bad on all you men, 
Unclean, a thief as well; 
Yet all my life I have not found 
A better friend than Nell. 

"So I sat at her side at last, 
For hours, till she was dead; 
And yet she had no sens...Read more of this...

by Robinson, Mary Darby
...LUBIN and KATE, as gossips tell,
Were Lovers many a day;
LUBIN the damsel lov'd so well,
That folks pretend to say
The silly, simple, doting Lad,
Was little less than loving mad:
A malady not known of late--
Among the little-loving Great!

KATE liked the youth; but woman-kind
Are sometimes giv'n to range.
And oft, the giddy Sex, we find,
(They know not why)
When m...Read more of this...

by Masters, Edgar Lee
...om a bridge toiling for children and wife--
All, all are sleeping, sleeping, sleeping on the hill.

Where are Ella, Kate, Mag, Lizzie, and Edith,
The tender heart, the simple soul, the loud, the proud, the happy one?--
All, all, are sleeping on the hill.

One died in shameful child-birth,
One of a thwarted love,
One at the hands of a brute in a brothel,
One of a broken pride, in a search for a heart's desire,
One after life in faraway London and Paris
Was brought to h...Read more of this...

by Robinson, Mary Darby
...e kiss, and was denied.

First MARG'RY smil'd and gave her Lover
A Kiss; then thank'd her stars, 'twas over! 
Next, KATE, with a reluctant pace,
Was tempted to the mystic place;
Then SUE, a merry laughing jade
A dimpled yielding blush betray'd;
While JOAN her chastity to shew
Wish'd "the bold knaves would serve her so,"
She'd "teach the rogues such wanton play!"
And well she could, she knew the way.

The FARMER, mute with jealous care,
Sat sullen, in his wicker chair;...Read more of this...

by Levine, Philip
...a corner of the boxcar and did 
both our jobs, stacking the full cases 
neatly row upon row and whistling 
the songs of Kate Smith. In the bathroom 
that night I posed naked before the mirror, 
the new cross of hair staining my chest, 
plunging to my groin. That was Wednesday, 
for every Wednesday ended in darkness. 

* 

One of those teenage boys was my brother. 
That night as we lay in bed, the lights 
out, we spoke of Froggy, of how at first 
we thought he ...Read more of this...

by Blake, William
...ou art but a Dunce
And dost not know the Garment from the Man
Every Harlot was a Virgin once
Nor canst thou ever change Kate into Nan

Tho thou art Worship'd by the Names Divine 
Of Jesus & Jehovah thou art still
The Son of Morn in weary Nights decline
The lost Travellers Dream under the Hill...Read more of this...

by Browning, Robert
...ade, and Gibson demolished.'

9 My business was song, song, song;
10 I chirped, cheeped, trilled and twittered,
11 'Kate Brown's on the boards ere long,
12 And Grisi's existence embittered!'

13 I earned no more by a warble
14 Than you by a sketch in plaster;
15 You wanted a piece of marble,
16 I needed a music-master.

17 We studied hard in our styles,
18 Chipped each at a crust like Hindoos,
19 For air looked out on the tiles,
20 For fun watched each other's windows...Read more of this...

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Book: Reflection on the Important Things