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Famous Madame Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry
...bloom with roses
because of her who sits upon it,
When you come to pay your devoir to Our Lady,
I beg you, say to her:
"Madame, a poor poet, one of your singing servants yet on earth,
Has asked me to say that at this moment he is especially grateful 
to you
For wearing a blue gown."...Read more of this...
by Kilmer, Joyce



...my Bride;
Her anecdotes will be more amusing
Than Pipit’s experience could provide.

I shall not want Pipit in Heaven:
Madame Blavatsky will instruct me
In the Seven Sacred Trances;
Piccarda de Donati will conduct me.
. . . . .
But where is the penny world I bought
To eat with Pipit behind the screen?
The red-eyed scavengers are creeping
From Kentish Town and Golder’s Green;

Where are the eagles and the trumpets?

Buried beneath some snow-deep Alps.
Over buttered scones and...Read more of this...
by Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)
...Poetry is the supreme fiction, madame.
Take the moral law and make a nave of it
And from the nave build haunted heaven. Thus,
The conscience is converted into palms,
Like windy citherns hankering for hymns.
We agree in principle. That's clear. But take
The opposing law and make a peristyle,
And from the peristyle project a masque
Beyond the planets. Thus, our bawdiness,
Unpurged by epitap...Read more of this...
by Stevens, Wallace
...one whose name is know to Fame - it's Adam, first of mortals.
For quiet's sake he makes a break from Eve, which is his Madame. . . .
Well, there's the gate - To crash it straight, just spy the guy that's Adam."

The old Sourdough went down the row of greybeards ruminatin'
With optics dim they peered at him, and pressed agin the gratin'.
In every face he sought some trace of our ancestral father;
But though he stared, he soon despaired the faintest clue to gather.
Then sudden...Read more of this...
by Service, Robert William
...a way to die!—
To leave my Queen still spinning there on high, 
Still wondering, I dare say, 
To see me in this way … 
Madame à sa tour monte 
Si haut qu’elle peut monter—
Like one of our Commissioners… ai! ai!
Prometheus and the women have to cry, 
But no, not I … 
Faugh, what a way to die! 

But who are these that come and go
Before me, shaking laurel as they pass? 
Laurel, to make me know 
For certain what they mean: 
That now my Fate, my Queen, 
Having found that she, by...Read more of this...
by Robinson, Edwin Arlington



...as Mimi, Camille, and an aging gourmet.
He must also refuse the favors of the unattainable lady
(As Baudelaire refused Madame Sabatier when the fair 
blonde summoned him,

For Jeanne Duval was enough and more than enough, 
although she cuckolded him
With errand boys, servants, waiters; reality was Jeanne Duval.
Had he permitted Madame Sabatier to teach the poet a greater whiteness,
His devotion and conception of the divinity of Beauty
would have suffered an absolute diminuti...Read more of this...
by Schwartz, Delmore
...oppy wet, it soaks
part of one of your shirt
sleeves.
It's a clip joint-the scotch is weak.
you order a bottle of beer.
Madame Death walks up to you
wearing a dress.
she sits down, you buy her a
beer, she stinks of swamps, presses
a leg against you.
the bar tender sneers.
you've got him worried, he doesn't
know if you're a cop, a killer, a
madman or an
Idiot.
you ask for a vodka.
you pour the vodka into the top of
the beer bottle.
It's one a.m. In a dead cow world.
you ask he...Read more of this...
by Bukowski, Charles
...rt and fuss;
Folks think you modest, mild and meek . . .
But would they - if Fi-Fi could speak?

If dogs could tell, Ah Madame Rose,
What secrets could they not disclose!
If your pet poodle Angeline
Could hint at half of what she's seen,
Your reputation would, I fear,
As absolutely disappear
As would a snowball dropped in hell . . .
If Angeline could only tell.

If dogs could speak, how dangerous
It would be for a lot of us!
At what they see and what they hear
They wink an ey...Read more of this...
by Service, Robert William
...the slugs between. 
 
 "Big Joss and little Zeno, pray come here; 
 Look now—how dreadful! can I help but fear!" 
 Madame Mahaud was speaker. Moonlight there 
 Caressingly enhanced her beauty rare, 
 Making it shine and tremble, as if she 
 So soft and gentle were of things that be 
 Of air created, and are brought and ta'en 
 By heavenly flashes. Now, she spoke again 
 "Certes, 'tis heavy purchase of a throne, 
 To pass the night here utterly alone. 
 Had you no...Read more of this...
by Hugo, Victor
..."
Scho made hym so gret chere,
That watz so fayr of face,
The knyyght with speches skere
Answared to vche a cace.
"Madame," quoth the myry mon, "Mary yow yghelde,
For I haf founden, in god fayth, yowre fraunchis nobele,
And other ful much of other folk fongen bi hor dedez,
Bot the dayntŽ that thay delen, for my disert nys euen,
Hit is the worchyp of yourself, that noyght bot wel connez."
"Bi Mary," quoth the menskful, "me thynk hit an other;
For were I worth al the...Read more of this...
by Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)
...vero
With caressing hands, at Limoges
Who walked all night in the next room;

By Hakagawa, bowing among the Titians;
By Madame de Tornquist, in the dark room
Shifting the candles; Fräulein von Kulp
Who turned in the hall, one hand on the door. Vacant shuttles
Weave the wind. I have no ghosts,
An old man in a draughty house
Under a windy knob.

After such knowledge, what forgiveness? Think now
History has many cunning passages, contrived corridors
And issues, deceives with whi...Read more of this...
by Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)
...ngular piece of canvas dropped from the air
 into the crows nest.
The canvas
 was some kind of woman!
It struck me this madame who came from the sky
 would never understand
 our seamen's talk and ways.
I got right down and kissed her hand,
 and making like a poet, I cried:
"O you canvas woman who fell from the sky!
Tell me, which goddess should I compare you to?
Why did you descend here? What is your large purpose?"

She replied:
"I fell
 from a 550-horsepower plane.
My name ...Read more of this...
by Hikmet, Nazim
...r, finally

They said it was all in a book one ‘husband’

Wrote in prison, how she’d had a great house,

Been a brothel madame, had servants even.

For years I chased that book, "Lynch," they

Told me, "It’s by Paul Lynch" but it wasn’t,

Then finally, "I remember, Sykes, they allus

Called him Sykesy" and so it was, Sweet Agony,

Written in prison by one Paul Sykes, her most

Famous inamorato, amateur boxing champion

Of all England, twenty years inside, fly-pitcher

Supreme...Read more of this...
by Tebb, Barry
...perty. Throw 
open the gates,
you, Porter of Malmaison. Pull off your cap, my man, 
this is your master,
the husband of Madame. Faster! Faster! A 
jerk and a jingle
and they are arrived, he and she. Madame has red eyes. Fie! It 
is for joy
at her husband's return. Learn your place, Porter. A 
gentleman here
for two months? Fie! Fie, then! Since 
when have you taken to gossiping.
Madame may have a brother, I suppose. That -- all green, 
and red,
and glitter, with flesh as dark...Read more of this...
by Lowell, Amy
...,                                    40
  Looking into the heart of light, the silence.
  Od' und leer das Meer.

  Madame Sosostris, famous clairvoyante,
  Had a bad cold, nevertheless
  Is known to be the wisest woman in Europe,
  With a wicked pack of cards. Here, said she,
  Is your card, the drowned Phoenician Sailor,
  (Those are pearls that were his eyes. Look!)
  Here is Belladonna, the Lady of the Rocks,
  The lady of situations.                           ...Read more of this...
by Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)
...hen--the truth must be confessed--
They're all so charmingly addressed:
Whate'er they cost, they well requite her--
"To Madame Blank, the famous writer!"
Poor thing, she sleeps so soft! and yet
'Twere worth my life to spare her slumber;
"Madame--from Jena--the Gazette--
The Berlin Journal--the last number!"
Sudden she wakes; those eyes of blue
(Sweet eyes!) fall straight--on the Review!
I by her side--all undetected,
While those cursed columns are inspected;
Loud squall the c...Read more of this...
by Schiller, Friedrich von
..., a PRIORESS,
That of her smiling was full simple and coy;
Her greatest oathe was but by Saint Loy;
And she was cleped* Madame Eglentine. *called
Full well she sang the service divine,
Entuned in her nose full seemly;
And French she spake full fair and fetisly* *properly
After the school of Stratford atte Bow,
For French of Paris was to her unknow.
At meate was she well y-taught withal;
She let no morsel from her lippes fall,
Nor wet her fingers in her sauce deep.
Well could ...Read more of this...
by Chaucer, Geoffrey
...promote his own interest*
Unto the kinge's mother rideth swithe,* *swiftly
And saluteth her full fair in his language.
"Madame," quoth he, "ye may be glad and blithe,
And thanke God an hundred thousand sithe;* *times
My lady queen hath child, withoute doubt,
To joy and bliss of all this realm about.

"Lo, here the letter sealed of this thing,
That I must bear with all the haste I may:
If ye will aught unto your son the king,
I am your servant both by night and day."
Donegild ...Read more of this...
by Chaucer, Geoffrey
...arde what the friar said,
"Hey, Godde's mother;" quoth she, "blissful maid,
Is there ought elles? tell me faithfully."
"Madame," quoth he, "how thinketh you thereby?"
"How thinketh me?" quoth she; "so God me speed,
I say, a churl hath done a churlish deed,
What should I say? God let him never the;* *thrive
His sicke head is full of vanity;
I hold him in *a manner phrenesy."* *a sort of frenzy*
"Madame," quoth he, "by God, I shall not lie,
But I in other wise may be awreke,* *...Read more of this...
by Chaucer, Geoffrey
...as neither
Living nor dead, and I knew nothing, 
Looking into the heart of light, the silence.
Oed' und leer das Meer.
 Madame Sosostris, famous clairvoyante,
Had a bad cold, nevertheless
Is known to be the wisest woman in Europe,
With a wicked pack of cards. Here, said she,
Is your card, the drowned Phoenician Sailor,
(Those are pearls that were his eyes. Look!)
Here is Belladonna, the Lady of the Rocks,
The lady of situations. 
Here is the man with three staves, and here th...Read more of this...
by Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)

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Book: Reflection on the Important Things