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Famous Lad Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Burns, Robert
...y neat,
 Mair braw than when they’re fine;
Their faces blythe, fu’ sweetly kythe,
 Hearts leal, an’ warm, an’ kin’:
The lads sae trig, wi’ wooer-babs
 Weel-knotted on their garten;
Some unco blate, an’ some wi’ gabs
 Gar lasses’ hearts gang startin
 Whiles fast at night.


Then, first an’ foremost, thro’ the kail,
 Their stocks 5 maun a’ be sought ance;
They steek their een, and grape an’ wale
 For muckle anes, an’ straught anes.
Poor hav’rel Will fell aff the drift,
...Read more of this...



by Robinson, Edwin Arlington
...itously, it overlived a silence 
That was itself a story and affirmed 
A savage emphasis of honesty 
That I would only gladly have attuned 
If possible, to vinous innovation.
But his indifferent wassailing was always 
Too far within the measure of excess 
For that; and then there were those eyes of his. 
Avon indeed had kept his word with me, 
And there was not much yet to make me happy.

“So there we were,” he said, “we two together, 
Breathing one air. And h...Read more of this...

by Browning, Robert
...till, catch a wheel within a wheel, 
See more in a truth than the truth's simple self, 
Confuse themselves. You see lads walk the street 
Sixty the minute; what's to note in that? 
You see one lad o'erstride a chimney-stack; 
Him you must watch--he's sure to fall, yet stands! 
Our interest's on the dangerous edge of things. 
The honest thief, the tender murderer, 
The superstitious atheist, demirep 
That loves and saves her soul in new French books-- 
We watch while t...Read more of this...

by Wilde, Oscar
...I.

He was a Grecian lad, who coming home
With pulpy figs and wine from Sicily
Stood at his galley's prow, and let the foam
Blow through his crisp brown curls unconsciously,
And holding wave and wind in boy's despite
Peered from his dripping seat across the wet and stormy night.

Till with the dawn he saw a burnished spear
Like a thin thread of gold against the sky,
And hois...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...f Wales.

The Persons

 The ATTENDANT SPIRIT, afterwards in the habit of THYRSIS.
COMUS, with his Crew.
The LADY.
FIRST BROTHER.
SECOND BROTHER.
SABRINA, the Nymph.

The Chief Persons which presented were:—

The Lord Brackley;
Mr. Thomas Egerton, his Brother;
The Lady Alice Egerton.


The first Scene discovers a wild wood.
The ATTENDANT SPIRIT descends or enters.


BEFORE the starry threshold of Jove's court
My mansion is, where tho...Read more of this...



by Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...e Lee,
The prettiest little damsel in the port,
And Philip Ray the miller's only son,
And Enoch Arden, a rough sailor's lad
Made orphan by a winter shipwreck, play'd
Among the waste and lumber of the shore,
Hard coils of cordage, swarthy fishing-nets,
Anchors of rusty fluke, and boats updrawn,
And built their castles of dissolving sand
To watch them overflow'd, or following up
And flying the white breaker, daily left
The little footprint daily wash'd away. 

A narrow cave...Read more of this...

by Carroll, Lewis
...sked the cause: the aged man grew sad:
They pointed to a building gray and tall,
And hoarsely answered "Step inside, my lad,
And then you'll see it all." 


Yet what are all such gaieties to me
Whose thoughts are full of indices and surds? 

x*x + 7x + 53 = 11/3 

But something whispered "It will soon be done:
Bands cannot always play, nor ladies smile:
Endure with patience the distasteful fun
For just a little while!" 

A change came o'er my Vision - it was night:
We clo...Read more of this...

by Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...ing two 
That still had tended on him from his birth, 
Before the wakeful mother heard him, went. 

The three were clad like tillers of the soil. 
Southward they set their faces. The birds made 
Melody on branch, and melody in mid air. 
The damp hill-slopes were quickened into green, 
And the live green had kindled into flowers, 
For it was past the time of Easterday. 

So, when their feet were planted on the plain 
That broadened toward the base of Camelo...Read more of this...

by Wilde, Oscar
...;

Already the slim crocus stirs the snow,
And soon yon blanched fields will bloom again
With nodding cowslips for some lad to mow,
For with the first warm kisses of the rain
The winter's icy sorrow breaks to tears,
And the brown thrushes mate, and with bright eyes the rabbit peers

From the dark warren where the fir-cones lie,
And treads one snowdrop under foot, and runs
Over the mossy knoll, and blackbirds fly
Across our path at evening, and the suns
Stay longer with us; ah...Read more of this...

by Wordsworth, William
...;Upon his Shield a burning Brand;  And that for ten long Years he woo'd    The Lady of the Land.   I told her, how he pin'd: and, ah!  The low, the deep, the pleading tone,  With which I sang another's Love,    Interpreted my own.   She listen'd with a flitting Blush,  With downcast Eyes and modest Grace;  And s...Read more of this...

by Wilde, Oscar
...coronal our northern isle can yield

Which Grecian meadows know not, many a rose
Which all day long in vales AEolian
A lad might seek in vain for over-grows
Our hedges like a wanton courtesan
Unthrifty of its beauty; lilies too
Ilissos never mirrored star our streams, and cockles blue

Dot the green wheat which, though they are the 
signs
For swallows going south, would never spread
Their azure tents between the Attic vines;
Even that little weed of ragged red,
Which bids th...Read more of this...

by Seeger, Alan
...teals across this plot of pleasant ground,
Waking the vocal leaves to a sweet vernal sound.

Here many a day right gladly have I sped,
Content amid the wavy plumes to lie,
And through the woven branches overhead
Watch the white, ever-wandering clouds go by,
And soaring birds make their dissolving bed
Far in the azure depths of summer sky,
Or nearer that small huntsman of the air,
The fly-catcher, dart nimbly from his leafy lair;

Pillowed at case to hear the merry tune
Of...Read more of this...

by Masefield, John
...I learned with what a rosy feeling 
Good ale makes floors seem like the ceiling, 
And how the moon give shiny light 
To lads as roll home singing by't. 
My blood did leap, my flesh did revel, 
Saul Kane was tokened to the devil. 

From '61 to'71 
I lived in disbelief of Heaven. 
I drunk, I fought, I poached, I whored, 
I did despite unto the Lord. 
I cursed, 'would make a man look pale, 
And nineteen times I went to gaol 

Now, friends, observe and look upon m...Read more of this...

by Wilde, Oscar
...andering reveller
Abandoned of its brothers, whom long since June's messenger

The missel-thrush has frighted from the glade,
One pale narcissus loiters fearfully
Close to a shadowy nook, where half afraid
Of their own loveliness some violets lie
That will not look the gold sun in the face
For fear of too much splendour, - ah! methinks it is a place

Which should be trodden by Persephone
When wearied of the flowerless fields of Dis!
Or danced on by the lads of Arcady!
The hid...Read more of this...

by Lowell, Amy
..."Just take down the eagle, and the shield with the bees."
"As M'sieu pleases."
Tap! Squeak! Tap!
The man on the ladder hammers steadily for a minute or two,
Then stops.
"He! Patron!
They are fastened well, Nom d'un Chien!
What if I break them?"
"Break away,
You and Paul must have them down to-day."
"Bien."
And the hammers start again,
Drum-beating at the something of gilded wood.
Sunshine in a golden flood
Lighting up the yellow fronts of houses,
Glitt...Read more of this...

by Chaucer, Geoffrey
..., and in his moste pride,
He was ware, as he cast his eye aside,
Where that there kneeled in the highe way
A company of ladies, tway and tway,
Each after other, clad in clothes black:
But such a cry and such a woe they make,
That in this world n'is creature living,
That hearde such another waimenting* *lamenting 
And of this crying would they never stenten*, *desist
Till they the reines of his bridle henten*. *seize
"What folk be ye that at mine homecoming
Perturben so...Read more of this...

by Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...ot. 
Four gray walls, and four gray towers, 15 
Overlook a space of flowers, 
And the silent isle imbowers 
The Lady of Shalott. 

By the margin, willow-veil'd, 
Slide the heavy barges trail'd 20 
By slow horses; and unhail'd 
The shallop flitteth silken-sail'd 
Skimming down to Camelot: 
But who hath seen her wave her hand? 
Or at the casement seen her stand? 25 
Or is she known in all the land, 
The Lady of Shalott? 

Only reapers, reaping early 
In...Read more of this...

by Kipling, Rudyard
...the Clay,
Saying: "What about that River-piece for layin'' in to hay?"

And the aged Hobden answered: "I remember as a lad
My father told your father that she wanted dreenin' bad.
An' the more that you neeglect her the less you'll get her clean.
Have it jest as you've a mind to, but, if I was you, I'd dreen."

So they drained it long and crossways in the lavish Roman style--
Still we find among the river-drift their flakes of ancient tile,
And in drouthy middle A...Read more of this...

by Chaucer, Geoffrey
...ion by marriage.

5. The Saintes Legend of Cupid: Now called "The Legend of
Good Women". The names of eight ladies mentioned here are
not in the "Legend" as it has come down to us; while those of
two ladies in the "legend" -- Cleopatra and Philomela -- are her
omitted.

6. Not the Muses, who had their surname from the place near
Mount Olympus where the Thracians first worshipped them; but
the nine daughters of Pierus, king of Macedonia, whom he
called the ...Read more of this...

by Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...rtime, 
And that full voice which circles round the grave, 
Will rank you nobly, mingled up with me. 
What! are the ladies of your land so tall?' 
'We of the court' said Cyril. 'From the court' 
She answered, 'then ye know the Prince?' and he: 
'The climax of his age! as though there were 
One rose in all the world, your Highness that, 
He worships your ideal:' she replied: 
'We scarcely thought in our own hall to hear 
This barren verbiage, current among men, 
Light ...Read more of this...

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