Famous Locusts Poems by Famous Poets

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

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The Djinns

by Victor Hugo
 ("Murs, ville et port.") 
 
 {XXVIII., Aug. 28, 1828.} 


 Town, tower, 
 Shore, deep, 
 Where lower 
 Cliff's steep; 
 Waves gray, 
 Where play 
 Winds gay, 
 All sleep. 
 
 Hark! a sound, 
 Far and slight, 
 Breathes around 
 On the night 
 High and higher, 
 Nigh and nigher, 
...Read more of this...

At Corfu

by Norman Dubie
 In seventeen hundred, a much hated sultan
visited us twice, finally
dying of headaches in the south harbor.

Ever since, visitors have come to the island.
They bring their dogs and children.

The ferry boat with a red cross
freshly painted on it
lifts in uneven drafts of smoke and steam
devising the mustard horizon
that is grotesque with purple thunderheads.

In the rising winds the angry sea birds
circle...Read more of this...

The Poor Mans Lamb

by Anne Kingsmill Finch
 NOW spent the alter'd King, in am'rous Cares, 
The Hours of sacred Hymns and solemn Pray'rs: 
In vain the Alter waits his slow returns, 
Where unattended Incense faintly burns: 
In vain the whisp'ring Priests their Fears express, 
And of the Change a thousand Causes guess. 
Heedless of all their Censures He retires, 
And in his Palace feeds his secret...Read more of this...

South Africa

by Rudyard Kipling
 1903
Lived a woman wonderful,
 (May the Lord amend her!)
Neither simple, kind, nor true,
But her Pagan beauty drew
Christian gentlemen a few
 Hotly to attend her.

Christian gentlemen a few
 From Berwick unto Dover;
For she was South Africa,
Ana she was South Africa,
She was Our South Africa,
 Africa all over!

Half her land was dead with drouth,
 Half was red with battle;
She was fenced...Read more of this...

227. Verses on Friars' Carse Hermitage (First Version)

by Robert Burns
 THOU whom chance may hither lead,
Be thou clad in russet weed,
Be thou deckt in silken stole,
Grave these maxims on thy soul.


Life is but a day at most,
Sprung from night, in darkness lost:
Hope not sunshine every hour,
Fear not clouds will always lour.


Happiness is but a name,
Make content and ease thy aim,
Ambition is a meteor-gleam;
Fame, an idle restless dream;


Peace, the tend’rest...Read more of this...

Homing Swallows

by Claude McKay
 Swift swallows sailing from the Spanish main, 
O rain-birds racing merrily away 
From hill-tops parched with heat and sultry plain 
Of wilting plants and fainting flowers, say-- 

When at the noon-hour from the chapel school 
The children dash and scamper down the dale, 
Scornful of teacher's rod and binding rule 
Forever broken and without avail, 

Do they still stop...Read more of this...

Fit the Fifth ( Hunting of the Snark )

by Lewis Carroll
 The Beaver's Lesson 

They sought it with thimbles, they sought it with care; 
They pursued it with forks and hope; 
They threatened its life with a railway-share; 
They charmed it with smiles and soap. 

Then the Butcher contrived an ingenious plan 
For making a separate sally; 
And fixed on a spot unfrequented by man, 
A dismal and desolate valley....Read more of this...

A Dedication

by Adam Lindsay Gordon
 They are rhymes rudely strung with intent less 
Of sound than of words,
In lands where bright blossoms are scentless,
And songless bright birds;
Where, with fire and fierce drought on her tresses,
Insatiable Summer oppresses
Sere woodlands and sad wildernesses,
And faint flocks and herds. 
Where in drieariest days, when all dews end,
And all winds are warm,
Wild Winter's large floodgates are loosen'd,
And floods, freed...Read more of this...

The Hand That Signed The Paper

by Dylan Thomas
 The hand that signed the paper felled a city;
Five sovereign fingers taxed the breath,
Doubled the globe of dead and halved a country;
These five kings did a king to death.

The mighty hand leads to a sloping shoulder,
The finger joints are cramped with chalk;
A goose's quill has put an end to murder
That put an end to talk.

The hand that signed the...Read more of this...

Old Schooldays

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 Awake, of Muse, the echoes of a day 
Long past, the ghosts of mem'ries manifold -- 
Youth's memories that once were green and gold 
But now, alas, are grim and ashen grey. 
The drowsy schoolboy wakened up from sleep, 
First stays his system with substantial food, 
Then off for school with tasks half understood, 
Alas, alas, that cribs should...Read more of this...

PSALM 105 Abridged

by Isaac Watts
 God's conduct of Israel, and the plagues of Egypt.

Give thanks to God, invoke his name,
And tell the world his grace;
Sound through the earth his deeds of fame,
That all may seek his face.

His cov'nant, which he kept in mind
For num'rous ages past,
To num'rous ages yet behind
In equal force shall last.

He sware to Abraham and his seed,
And made the blessing sure;
Gentiles...Read more of this...

The Settler

by Rudyard Kipling
 1903

(South African War ended, May, 1902)


 Here, where my fresh-turned furrows run,
 And the deep soil glistens red,
 I will repair the wrong that was done
 To the living and the dead.
 Here, where the senseless bullet fell,
 And the barren shrapnel burst,
 I will plant a tree, I will dig a well,
 Against the heat and the thirst.


...Read more of this...

Retrospection

by Paul Laurence Dunbar
When you and I were young, the days
Were filled with scent of pink and rose,
And full of joy from dawn till close,
From morning's mist till evening's haze.
And when the robin sung his song
The verdant woodland ways along,
We whistled louder than he sung.
And school was joy, and work was sport
For which the hours were all too short,
When you and I were...Read more of this...

The Sunset Years of Samuel Shy

by Ogden Nash
 Master I may be,
But not of my fate.
Now come the kisses, too many too late.
Tell me, O Parcae,
For fain would I know,
Where were these kisses three decades ago?
Girls there were plenty,
Mint julep girls, beer girls,
Gay younger married and headstrong career girls,
The girls of my friends
And the wives of my friends,
Some smugly settled and some at loose ends,
Sad girls, serene...Read more of this...

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