Famous Masking Poems by Famous Poets

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

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A Hymn In Honour Of Beauty

...forth she sends,
Lord, how sweet music that unto them lends.

Sometimes upon her forehead they behold
A thousand graces masking in delight;
Sometimes within her eyelids they unfold
Ten thousand sweet belgards, which to their sight
Do seem like twinkling stars in frosty night;
But on her lips, like rosy buds in May,
So many millions of chaste pleasures play.

All those, O Cytherea, and thousands more
Thy handmaids be, which do on thee attend,
To deck thy beauty with their dain...Read more of this...
by Spenser, Edmund


A Tale of the Miser and the Poet

...r, your Time is ended, 
And Poetry no more befriended. 

I hid this Coin, when Charles was swaying; 
When all was Riot, Masking, Playing; 
When witty Beggars were in fashion, 
And Learning had o'er-run the Nation, 
But, since Mankind is so much wiser, 
That none is valued like the Miser, 
I draw it hence, and now these Sums 
In proper Soil grow up to {1} Plumbs;
Which gather'd once, from that rich Minute 
We rule the World, and all that's in it. 

But, quoth the Poet,can you ...Read more of this...
by Finch, Anne Kingsmill

An Hymn In Honour Of Beauty

...forth she sends,
Lord, how sweet music that unto them lends.

Sometimes upon her forehead they behold
A thousand graces masking in delight;
Sometimes within her eyelids they unfold
Ten thousand sweet belgards, which to their sight
Do seem like twinkling stars in frosty night;
But on her lips, like rosy buds in May,
So many millions of chaste pleasures play.

All those, O Cytherea, and thousands more
Thy handmaids be, which do on thee attend,
To deck thy beauty with their dain...Read more of this...
by Spenser, Edmund

Astrophel

...re, his ioyance innocent, 
Sweet without sowre, and honny without gall:
And he himselfe seemd made for meriment,
Merily masking both in bowre and hall.
There was no pleasure nor delightfull play,
When Astrophel so euer was away.

For he could pipe and daunce, and caroll sweet,
Emongst the shepheards in their shearing feast:
As Somers larke that with her song doth greet,
The dawning day forth comming from the East.
And layes of loue he also could compose,
Thrise happie she, wh...Read more of this...
by Spenser, Edmund

Astrophel

...re, his ioyance innocent, 
Sweet without sowre, and honny without gall:
And he himselfe seemd made for meriment,
Merily masking both in bowre and hall.
There was no pleasure nor delightfull play,
When Astrophel so euer was away.

For he could pipe and daunce, and caroll sweet,
Emongst the shepheards in their shearing feast:
As Somers larke that with her song doth greet,
The dawning day forth comming from the East.
And layes of loue he also could compose,
Thrise happie she, wh...Read more of this...
by Spenser, Edmund


Behind the Arras

...of noon. 


Or whispering his fool-talk to the leaves 
About my eaves. 
And yet how can I know 
'T is not a happy Ariel masking so 
In mocking woe? 


Then with a little broken laugh I say, 
Snatching away 
The curtain where he grinned 
(My feverish sight thought) like a sin unsinned, 
"Only the wind!" 


Yet often too he steals so softly by. 
With half a sigh, 
I deem he must be mild, 
Fair as a woman, gentle as a child, 
And forest wild. 


Passing the door where an old win...Read more of this...
by Carman, Bliss

How many masks wear we, and undermasks,

...on their seen grimaces

And get a whole world on their forgot causing;

And, when a thought would unmask our soul's masking,

Itself goes not unmasked to the unmasking....Read more of this...
by Pessoa, Fernando

Los Angeles 1954

...less love
Had grown, he marked
The circumference of the glare whitening the patio
Where her friends all sat, sunglasses
Masking their eyes...
And he said to me, Jordan, why do
 White people love the sun so?--
 God's spotlight, my man?
Leaning back, he looked over to where she
Stood at one end of the patio, watching
The breakers flatten along the beach below,
Her body reflected and mirrored
Perfectly in the bedroom's sliding black glass
Door. He stared at her
Reflection for a ...Read more of this...
by John, David St

The Old Issue

...self is witness, till the battle joins,
Deeper strikes the rottenness in the people's loins.)

Give no heed to bondsmen masking war with peace.
Suffer not the old King here or overseas.

They that beg us barter--wait his yielding mood--
Pledge the years we hold in trust-pawn our brother's blood--

Howso' great their clamour, whatsoe'er their claim,
Suffer not the old King under any name!

Here is naught unproven--here is naught to learn.
It is written what shall fall if the K...Read more of this...
by Kipling, Rudyard

They All Want to Play Hamlet

...an open grave with a joker’s skull in the hand and then to say over slow and say over slow wise, keen, beautiful words masking a heart that’s breaking, breaking,
This is something that calls and calls to their blood.
They are acting when they talk about it and they know it is acting to be particular about it and yet: They all want to play Hamlet....Read more of this...
by Sandburg, Carl

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