Famous Lied Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Lied poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous lied poems. These examples illustrate what a famous lied poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Edwin Arlington Robinson
I—THE LURE
No, no,—forget your Cricket and your Ant,
For I shall never set my name to theirs
That now bespeak the very sons and heirs
Incarnate of Queen Gossip and King Cant.
The case of Leffingwell is mixed, I grant,
And futile Seems the burden that he bears;
But are we sounding his forlorn affairs
Who brand him parasite and...Read more of this...
by
C K Williams
The first morning of Three Mile Island: those first disquieting, uncertain,
mystifying hours.
All morning a crew of workmen have been tearing the old decrepit roof
off our building,
and all morning, trying to distract myself, I've been wandering out to
watch them
as they hack away the leaden layers of asbestos paper and disassemble
the disintegrating drains.
After half a night of listening...Read more of this...
by
Edwin Arlington Robinson
Let him answer as he will,
Or be lightsome as he may,
Now nor after shall he say
Worn-out words enough to kill,
Or to lull down by their craft,
Doubt, that was born yesterday,
When he lied and when she laughed.
Let him and another name
for the starlight on the snow,
Let him teach her till she know
That all seasons are the same,
And all sheltered ways...Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
My Lady is dancing so lightly,
The belle of the Embassy Ball;
I lied as I kissed her politely,
And hurried away from it all.
I'm taxiing up to Montmartre,
With never a pang of regret,
To toy for awhile with the garter
Of her whom I know as Babette.
My Lady's an exquisite creature,
As rare as a queen on a throne;
She's faultless in form and in...Read more of this...
by
Philip Larkin
The trumpet's voice, loud and authoritative,
Draws me a moment to the lighted glass
To watch the dancers - all under twenty-five -
Solemnly on the beat of happiness.
- Or so I fancy, sensing the smoke and sweat,
The wonderful feel of girls. Why be out there ?
But then, why be in there? Sex, yes, but what
Is sex ? Surely to think the...Read more of this...
by
Edgar Lee Masters
I was sick, but more than that, I was mad
At the crooked police, and the crooked game of life.
So I wrote to the Chief of Police at Peoria:
"I am here in my girlhood home in Spoon River,
Gradually wasting away.
But come and take me, I killed the son
Of the merchant prince, in Madam Lou's,
And the papers that said he killed...Read more of this...
by
Edgar Lee Masters
They first charged me with disorderly conduct,
There being no statute on blasphemy.
Later they locked me up as insane
Where I was beaten to death by a Catholic guard.
My offense was this:
I said God lied to Adam, and destined him
to lead the life of a fool,
Ignorant that there is evil in the world as well as good.
And when Adam outwitted God...Read more of this...
by
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
The cypress stood up like a church
That night we felt our love would hold,
And saintly moonlight seemed to search
And wash the whole world clean as gold;
The olives crystallized the vales'
Broad slopes until the hills grew strong:
The fireflies and the nightingales
Throbbed each to either, flame and song.
The nightingales, the nightingales.
Upon the angle of its shade
The cypress stood, self-balanced high;
Half up,...Read more of this...
by
Thomas Hardy
THE two were silent in a sunless church,
Whose mildewed walls, uneven paving-stones,
And wasted carvings passed antique research;
And nothing broke the clock's dull monotones.
Leaning against a wormy poppy-head,
So wan and worn that he could scarcely stand,
--For he was soon to die,--he softly said,
"Tell me you love me!"--holding hard her hand.
She would have given a world to breathe "yes" truly,
So much...Read more of this...
by
Amy Lowell
There once was a man whom the gods didn't love,
And a disagreeable man was he.
He loathed his neighbours, and his neighbours hated him,
And he cursed eternally.
He damned the sun, and he damned the stars,
And he blasted the winds in the sky.
He sent to Hell every green, growing thing,
And he raved at the birds as they fly.
His oaths were many,...Read more of this...
by
Anne Sexton
Roach, foulest of creatures,
who attacks with yellow teeth
and an army of cousins big as shoes,
you are lumps of coal that are mechanized
and when I turn on the light you scuttle
into the corners and there is this hiss upon the land.
Yet I know you are only the common angel
turned into, by way of enchantment, the ugliest.
Your uncle was made into...Read more of this...
by
Robert Browning
Christ God who savest man, save most
Of men Count Gismond who saved me!
Count Gauthier, when he chose his post,
Chose time and place and company
To suit it; when he struck at length
My honour, 'twas with all his strength.
II.
And doubtlessly ere he could draw
All points to one, he must have schemed!
That miserable morning saw
Few half so happy as I seemed,
While being...Read more of this...
by
Edgar Lee Masters
Not character, not fortitude, not patience
Were mine, the which the village thought I had
In bearing with my wife, while preaching on,
Doing the work God chose for me.
I loathed her as a termagant, as a wanton.
I knew of her adulteries, every one.
But even so, if I divorced the woman
I must forsake the ministry.
Therefore to do God's work and have it...Read more of this...
by
Rudyard Kipling
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
...Read more of this...
by
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
(Lied: Ins Stille Land)
BY JOHANN GAUDENZ VON SALIS-SEEWIS
INTO the Silent Land!
Ah! who shall lead us thither?
Clouds in the evening sky more darkly gather
And shattered wrecks lie thicker on the strand.
Who leads us with a gentle hand 5
Thither oh thither
Into the Silent Land?
Into the Silent Land!
To you ye boundless regions...Read more of this...
by
John Donne
I scarce believe my love to be so pure
As I had thought it was,
Because it doth endure
Vicissitude, and season, as the grass;
Methinks I lied all winter, when I swore
My love was infinite, if spring make’ it more.
But if medicine, love, which cures all sorrow
With more, not only be no quintessence,
But mixed of all stuffs...Read more of this...
by
Robert Browning
My first thought was, he lied in every word,
That hoary cripple, with malicious eye
Askance to watch the working of his lie
On mine, and mouth scarce able to afford
Suppression of the glee, that pursed and scored
Its edge, at one more victim gained thereby.
What else should he be set for, with his staff?
What, save to waylay with his lies, ensnare
All travellers who...Read more of this...
by
Robert Browning
1842
I
As I ride, as I ride,
With a full heart for my guide,
So its tide rocks my side,
As I ride, as I ride,
That, as I were double-eyed,
He, in whom our Tribes confide,
Is descried, ways untried
As I ride, as I ride.
II
As I ride, as I ride
To our Chief and his Allied,
Who dares chide my heart's pride
As I ride, as I ride?
Or...Read more of this...
by
Edgar Lee Masters
I was the milliner
Talked about, lied about,
Mother of Dora,
Whose strange disappearance
Was charged to her rearing.
My eye quick to beauty
Saw much beside ribbons
And buckles and feathers
And leghorns and felts,
To set off sweet faces,
And dark hair and gold.
One thing I will tell you
And one I will ask:
The stealers of husbands
Wear powder and trinkets,
And fashionable hats.
Wives, wear them yourselves.
Hats may make...Read more of this...
by
Edna St. Vincent Millay
Time does not bring relief; you all have lied
Who told me time would ease me of my pain!
I miss him in the weeping of the rain;
I want him at the shrinking of the tide;
The old snows melt from every mountain-side,
And last year's leaves are smoke in every lane;
But last year's bitter loving must remain
Heaped on...Read more of this...
by
Carl Sandburg
GUNS on the battle lines have pounded now a year
between Brussels and Paris.
And, William Morris, when I read your old chapter on
the great arches and naves and little whimsical
corners of the Churches of Northern France--Brr-rr!
I'm glad you're a dead man, William Morris, I'm glad
you're down in the damp and mouldy, only a memory
instead of a living man--I'm glad you're...Read more of this...
by
Marcin Malek
I'll never be a king of the brave
The vain poet - I lied, forgive me if you care
I went calmly through all the stages of madness
The last it's the tongue on a stranger face
And believe that man can turn in to a bird
To look at people and things
Without the need of rising the gaze
What a disruptive and ugly input
- Acquired...Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
Mumsie and Dad are raven dark
And I am lily blonde.
''Tis strange,' I once heard nurse remark,
'You do not correspond.'
And yet they claim me as their own,
Born of their flesh and bone.
To doubt their parenthood I dread,
But now to girlhood grown,
The thought is haunting in my head
That I am not their own:
If so, my radiant...Read more of this...
by
Elizabeth Bishop
The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.
Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.
Then practice losing farther losing faster:
places and names and where it was your meant
to travel. None of these...Read more of this...
by
Leonard Cohen
(co-written by Sharon Robinson)
Everybody knows that the dice are loaded
Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed
Everybody knows that the war is over
Everybody knows the good guys lost
Everybody knows the fight was fixed
The poor stay poor, the rich get rich
That's how it goes
Everybody knows
Everybody knows that the boat is leaking
Everybody knows the...Read more of this...
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