Famous Laughing Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Rabbi Ben Ezra

by Robert Browning
 Grow old along with me!
The best is yet to be,
The last of life, for which the first was made:
Our times are in His hand
Who saith 'A whole I planned,
Youth shows but half; trust God: see all, nor be afraid!'

Not that, amassing flowers,
Youth sighed 'Which rose make ours,
Which lily leave and then as best recall?'
Not that, admiring stars,
It yearned 'Nor...Read more of this...

Testimony Regarding a Ghost

by Carl Sandburg
 THE ROSES slanted crimson sobs
On the night sky hair of the women,
And the long light-fingered men
Spoke to the dark-haired women,
“Nothing lovelier, nothing lovelier.”
How could he sit there among us all
Guzzling blood into his guts,
Goblets, mugs, buckets—
Leaning, toppling, laughing
With a slobber on his mouth,
A smear of red on his strong raw lips,
How could he sit there
And only two or three...Read more of this...

Laughing Rose

by William Henry Davies
 If I were gusty April now, 
How I would blow at laughing Rose; 
I'd make her ribbons slip their knots, 
And all her hair come loose.

If I were merry April now, 
How I would pelt her cheeks with showers; 
I'd make carnations, rich and warm, 
Of her vermillion flowers.

Since she will laugh in April's face 
No matter how he...Read more of this...

Robin Hood An Outlaw

by James Henry Leigh Hunt
 Robin Hood is an outlaw bold
Under the greenwood tree;
Bird, nor stag, nor morning air
Is more at large than he.

They sent against him twenty men,
Who joined him laughing-eyed;
They sent against him thirty more,
And they remained beside.

All the stoutest of the train,
That grew in Gamelyn wood,
Whether they came with these or not,
Are now with Robin Hood.

And not a soul in Locksley...Read more of this...

Throne of my lonely niche

by Suleiman the Magnificent
Throne of my lonely niche, my wealth, my love, my moonlight.
My most sincere friend, my confidant, my very existence, my Sultan
The most beautiful among the beautiful...
My springtime, my merry faced love, my daytime, my sweetheart, laughing leaf...
My plants, my sweet, my rose, the one only who does not distress me in this world...
My Istanbul, my Caraman, the earth of my...Read more of this...

Laughing Blue Steel

by Carl Sandburg
 TWO fishes swimming in the sea,
Two birds flying in the air,
Two chisels on an anvil—maybe.
Beaten, hammered, laughing blue steel to each other—maybe.
Sure I would rather be a chisel with you than a fish.
Sure I would rather be a chisel with you than a bird.
Take these two chisel-pals, O God.
Take ‘em and beat ‘em, hammer ‘em, hear ‘em laugh....Read more of this...

A Busy Man

by Robert William Service
 This crowded life of God's good giving
No man has relished more than I;
I've been so goldarned busy living
I've never had the time to die.
So busy fishing, hunting, roving,
Up on my toes and fighting fit;
So busy singing, laughing, loving,
I've never had the time to quit.

I've never been one for thinking
I've always been the action guy;
I've done my share of feasting,...Read more of this...

Grace

by George Herbert
 This air is flooded with her. I am a boy again, and my mother
and I lie on wet grass, laughing. She startles, turns to
marigolds at my side, saying beautiful, and I can see the red
there is in them.

When she would fall into her thoughts, we'd look for what
distracted her from us.

My mother's gone again as suddenly as ever and,...Read more of this...

Shirt

by Carl Sandburg
 I remember once I ran after you and tagged the fluttering
 shirt of you in the wind.
Once many days ago I drank a glassful of something and
 the picture of you shivered and slid on top of the
 stuff.
And again it was nobody else but you I heard in the
 singing voice of a careless humming woman.
One night when...Read more of this...

To Virgil

by Alfred Lord Tennyson
 Written at the Request of the Mantuans for the Nineteenth Centenary of 
Virgil's Death


Roman Virgil, thou that singest
Ilion's lofty temples robed in fire,
Ilion falling, Rome arising,
wars, and filial faith, and Dido's pyre;

Landscape-lover, lord of language
more than he that sang the Works and Days,
All the chosen coin of fancy
flashing out from many a golden phrase;

Thou that singest wheat and woodland,
tilth...Read more of this...

The Tree of Laughing Bells

by Vachel Lindsay
 [A Poem for Aviators]


How the Wings Were Made

From many morning-glories 
That in an hour will fade, 
From many pansy buds 
Gathered in the shade, 
From lily of the valley 
And dandelion buds, 
From fiery poppy-buds 
Are the Wings of the Morning made. 


The Indian Girl Who Made Them

These, the Wings of the Morning, 
An Indian Maiden wove, 
Intertwining subtilely...Read more of this...

The Haystack in the Floods

by William Morris
 Had she come all the way for this,
To part at last without a kiss?
Yea, had she borne the dirt and rain
That her own eyes might see him slain
Beside the haystack in the floods?

Along the dripping leafless woods,
The stirrup touching either shoe,
She rode astride as troopers do;
With kirtle kilted to her knee,
To which the mud splash'd wretchedly;
And the wet dripp'd...Read more of this...

Blind Mans Buff

by William Blake
 When silver snow decks Susan's clothes,
And jewel hangs at th' shepherd's nose,
The blushing bank is all my care,
With hearth so red, and walls so fair;
`Heap the sea-coal, come, heap it higher,
The oaken log lay on the fire.'
The well-wash'd stools, a circling row,
With lad and lass, how fair the show!
The merry can of nut-brown ale,
The laughing jest, the love-sick tale,
Till,...Read more of this...

The Pencil Seller

by Robert William Service
 A pencil, sir; a penny -- won't you buy?
I'm cold and wet and tired, a sorry plight;
Don't turn your back, sir; take one just to try;
I haven't made a single sale to-night.
Oh, thank you, sir; but take the pencil too;
I'm not a beggar, I'm a business man.
Pencils I deal in, red and black and blue;
It's hard, but still I...Read more of this...

To A Child

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
 Dear child! how radiant on thy mother's knee,
With merry-making eyes and jocund smiles,
Thou gazest at the painted tiles,
Whose figures grace,
With many a grotesque form and face.
The ancient chimney of thy nursery!
The lady with the gay macaw,
The dancing girl, the grave bashaw
With bearded lip and chin;
And, leaning idly o'er his gate,
Beneath the imperial fan of state,
The Chinese mandarin.

With what a...Read more of this...

A Villanelle

by Oscar Wilde
 O singer of Persephone!
In the dim meadows desolate
Dost thou remember Sicily?

Still through the ivy flits the bee
Where Amaryllis lies in state;
O Singer of Persephone!

Simaetha calls on Hecate
And hears the wild dogs at the gate;
Dost thou remember Sicily?

Still by the light and laughing sea
Poor Polypheme bemoans his fate;
O Singer of Persephone!

And still in boyish rivalry
Young Daphnis challenges his mate;
Dost thou...Read more of this...

Laughing Corn

by Carl Sandburg
 THERE was a high majestic fooling
Day before yesterday in the yellow corn.

And day after to-morrow in the yellow corn
There will be high majestic fooling.

The ears ripen in late summer
And come on with a conquering laughter,
Come on with a high and conquering laughter.

The long-tailed blackbirds are hoarse.
One of the smaller blackbirds chitters on a stalk
And a spot of red is...Read more of this...

The Fallen Angels

by Anne Sexton
 They come on to my clean
sheet of paper and leave a Rorschach blot.
They do not do this to be mean,
they do it to give me a sign
they want me, as Aubrey Beardsley once said,
to shove it around till something comes.
Clumsy as I am,
I do it.
For I am like them -
both saved and lost,
tumbling downward like Humpty Dumpty
off the alphabet.

Each...Read more of this...

My Love Is in a Light Attire

by James Joyce
 My love is in a light attire 
Among the apple-trees, 
Where the gay winds do most desire 
To run in companies. 

There, where the gay winds stay to woo 
The young leaves as they pass, 
My love goes slowly, bending to 
Her shadow on the grass; 

And where the sky's a pale blue cup 
Over the laughing land, 
My...Read more of this...

The Glove and The Lions

by James Henry Leigh Hunt
 King Francis was a hearty king, and loved a royal sport,
And one day as his lions fought, sat looking on the court;
The nobles filled the benches, and the ladies in their pride,
And 'mongst them sat the Count de Lorge, with one for whom he sighed:
And truly 'twas a gallant thing to see that crowning show,
Valour and love, and a...Read more of this...

Laughing Song

by William Blake
 When the green woods laugh with the voice of joy
And the dimpling stream runs laughing by,
When the air does laugh with our merry wit,
And the green hill laughs with the noise of it.

When the meadows laugh with lively green
And the grasshopper laughs in the merry scene.
When Mary and Susan and Emily.
With their sweet round mouths sing Ha, Ha, He.

When...Read more of this...

Marshalls Mate

by Henry Lawson
 You almost heard the surface bake, and saw the gum-leaves turn -- 
You could have watched the grass scorch brown had there been grass to burn. 
In such a drought the strongest heart might well grow faint and weak -- 
'Twould frighten Satan to his home -- not far from Dingo Creek. 

The tanks went dry on Ninety Mile,...Read more of this...

The Earth-Child in the Grass

by Katherine Mansfield
 In the very early morning
Long before Dawn time
I lay down in the paddock
And listened to the cold song of the grass.
Between my fingers the green blades,
And the green blades pressed against my body.
"Who is she leaning so heavily upon me?"
Sang the grass.
"Why does she weep on my bosom,
Mingling her tears with the tears of my mystic lover?
Foolish little earth-child!
It...Read more of this...

The Ballad Of The Brand

by Robert William Service
 'Twas up in a land long famed for gold, where women were far and rare,
Tellus, the smith, had taken to wife a maiden amazingly fair;
Tellus, the brawny worker in iron, hairy and heavy of hand,
Saw her and loved her and bore her away from the tribe of a Southern land;
Deeming her worthy to queen his home and mother him...Read more of this...

Second Best

by Rupert Brooke
 Here in the dark, O heart;
Alone with the enduring Earth, and Night,
And Silence, and the warm strange smell of clover;
Clear-visioned, though it break you; far apart
From the dead best, the dear and old delight;
Throw down your dreams of immortality,
O faithful, O foolish lover!
Here's peace for you, and surety; here the one
Wisdom -- the truth! -- "All day the good...Read more of this...

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