Famous Mates Poems by Famous Poets

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

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To the Garden the World

by Walt Whitman
 TO the garden, the world, anew ascending, 
Potent mates, daughters, sons, preluding, 
The love, the life of their bodies, meaning and being, 
Curious, here behold my resurrection, after slumber; 
The revolving cycles, in their wide sweep, have brought me again,
Amorous, mature—all beautiful to me—all wondrous; 
My limbs, and the quivering fire that ever plays through them, for reasons, most...Read more of this...

Datur Hora Quieti

by Sir Walter Scott
 The sun upon the lake is low,
The wild birds hush their song,
The hills have evening's deepest glow,
Yet Leonard tarries long.
Now all whom varied toil and care
From home and love divide,
In the calm sunset may repair
Each to the loved one's side.

The noble dame, on turret high,
Who waits her gallant knight,
Looks to the western beam to spy
The flash of armour bright.
The...Read more of this...

Jim Carew

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 Born of a thoroughbred English race, 
Well proportioned and closely knit, 
Neat, slim figure and handsome face, 
Always ready and always fit, 
Hardy and wiry of limb and thew, 
That was the ne'er-do-well Jim Carew. 
One of the sons of the good old land -- 
Many a year since his like was known; 
Never a game but he took...Read more of this...

The Loss Of The Eurydice

by Gerard Manley Hopkins
 Foundered March 24. 1878


 1

The Eurydice—it concerned thee, O Lord:
Three hundred souls, O alas! on board,
 Some asleep unawakened, all un-
warned, eleven fathoms fallen 

 2

Where she foundered! One stroke
Felled and furled them, the hearts of oak!
 And flockbells off the aerial
Downs' forefalls beat to the burial. 

 3

For did she pride her, freighted fully, on
Bounden bales or a...Read more of this...

Friendship

by Henry David Thoreau
 I think awhile of Love, and while I think, 
Love is to me a world, 
Sole meat and sweetest drink, 
And close connecting link 
Tween heaven and earth. 
I only know it is, not how or why, 
My greatest happiness; 
However hard I try, 
Not if I were to die, 
Can I explain. 

I fain would ask my friend...Read more of this...

The Never-Never Country

by Henry Lawson
 By homestead, hut, and shearing-shed, 
By railroad, coach, and track -- 
By lonely graves of our brave dead, 
Up-Country and Out-Back: 
To where 'neath glorious the clustered stars 
The dreamy plains expand -- 
My home lies wide a thousand miles 
In the Never-Never Land. 

It lies beyond the farming belt, 
Wide wastes of scrub and plain, 
A blazing desert...Read more of this...

Thus may Cyprus (SIC TE DIVA)

by Horace
Thus may Cyprus' heavenly queen,
     Thus Helen's brethren, stars of brightest sheen,
       Guide thee! May the Sire of wind
     Each truant gale, save only Zephyr, bind!
       So do thou, fair ship, that ow'st
     Virgil, thy precious...Read more of this...

The Dame of Athelhall

by Thomas Hardy
 I 

"Soul! Shall I see thy face," she said, 
 "In one brief hour? 
And away with thee from a loveless bed 
To a far-off sun, to a vine-wrapt bower, 
And be thine own unseparated, 
 And challenge the world's white glower? 

II 

She quickened her feet, and met him where 
 They had predesigned: 
And they clasped, and...Read more of this...

God permit industrious angels

by Emily Dickinson
God permit industrious angels
Afternoons to play.
I met one, -- forgot my school-mates,
All, for him, straightaway.

God calls home the angels promptly
At the setting sun;
I missed mine. How dreary marbles,
After playing the Crown!...Read more of this...

To The Sound Of Violins

by Barry Tebb
 Give me life at its most garish

Friday night in the Square, pink sequins dazzle

And dance on clubbers bare to the midriff

Young men in crisp shirts and pressed pants

‘Dress code smart’ gyrate to ‘Sex Bomb, Sex Bomb’

And sing along its lyrics to the throng of which I’m one

My shorts, shoulder bag and white beard

Making me stand out in the teeming...Read more of this...

A Swimmers Dream

by Algernon Charles Swinburne
 Somno mollior unda 

I 
Dawn is dim on the dark soft water, 
Soft and passionate, dark and sweet. 
Love's own self was the deep sea's daughter, 
Fair and flawless from face to feet, 
Hailed of all when the world was golden, 
Loved of lovers whose names beholden 
Thrill men's eyes as with light of olden 
Days more glad than...Read more of this...

The Three Tommies

by Robert William Service
 That Barret, the painter of pictures, what feeling for color he had!
And Fanning, the maker of music, such melodies mirthful and mad!
And Harley, the writer of stories, so whimsical, tender and glad!

To hark to their talk in the trenches, high heart unfolding to heart,
Of the day when the war would be over, and each would be true to his...Read more of this...

Class-Mates

by Robert William Service
 Bob Briggs went in for Government,
 And helps to run the State;
Some day they say he'll represent
 His party in debate:
But with punk politics his job,
 I do not envy Bob.

Jim Jones went in for writing books,
 Best sellers were his aim;
He's ten years younger than he looks,
 And licks the heels of Fame:
Though shop-girls make a fuss of...Read more of this...

Mrs. Williams

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...

What Have the Cavalry Done?

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 What have the cavalry done? 
Cantered and trotted about, 
Routin' the enemy out, 
Causin' the beggars to run! 
And we tramped along in the blazin' heat, 
Over the veldt on our weary feet. 
Tramp, tramp, tramp 
Under the blazin' sun, 
With never the sight of a bloomin' Boer, 
'Cause they'd hunted 'em long before -- 
That's what the cavalry...Read more of this...

The Working Party

by Siegfried Sassoon
 Three hours ago he blundered up the trench, 
Sliding and poising, groping with his boots; 
Sometimes he tripped and lurched against the walls 
With hands that pawed the sodden bags of chalk. 
He couldn't see the man who walked in front; 
Only he heard the drum and rattle of feet 
Stepping along barred trench boards, often splashing 
Wretchedly where...Read more of this...

Annie Marshall the Foundling

by William Topaz McGonagall
 Annie Marshall was a foundling, and lived in Downderry,
And was trained up by a coast-guardsman, kind-hearted and merry
And he loved Annie Marshall as dear as his life,
And he resolved to make her his own loving wife. 

The night was tempestuous, most terrific, and pitch dark,
When Matthew Pengelly rescued Annie Marshall from an ill-fated barque,
But her parents were engulfed in...Read more of this...

The Cambaroora Star

by Henry Lawson
 So you're writing for a paper? Well, it's nothing very new 
To be writing yards of drivel for a tidy little screw; 
You are young and educated, and a clever chap you are, 
But you'll never run a paper like the CAMBAROORA STAR. 
Though in point of education I am nothing but a dunce, 
I myself -- you mayn't...Read more of this...

A Tale of the Sea

by William Topaz McGonagall
 A pathetic tale of the sea I will unfold,
Enough to make one's blood run cold;
Concerning four fishermen cast adrift in a dory.
As I've been told I'll relate the story.
T'was on the 8th April on the afternoon of that day
That the village of Louisburg was thrown into a wild state or dismay, 

And the villagers flew to the beach in...Read more of this...

Coromandel Fishers

by Sarojini Naidu
 Rise, brothers, rise; the wakening skies pray to the morning light, 
The wind lies asleep in the arms of the dawn like a child that has cried all night. 
Come, let us gather our nets from the shore and set our catamarans free, 
To capture the leaping wealth of the tide, for we are the kings of the sea!...Read more of this...

The Unknown Citizen

by Wystan Hugh (W H) Auden
He was found by the Bureau of Statistics to beOne against whom there was no official complaint,And all the reports on his conduct agreeThat, in the modern sense of an old-fashioned word, he was asaint,For in everything he did he served the Greater Community.Except for the War till the day he retiredHe worked in a factory and never got fired,But...Read more of this...

Jack Dunn of Nevertire

by Henry Lawson
 It chanced upon the very day we'd got the shearing done, 
A buggy brought a stranger to the West-o'-Sunday Run; 
He had a round and jolly face, and he was sleek and stout, 
He drove right up between the huts and called the super out. 
We chaps were smoking after tea, and heard the swell enquire 
For one as...Read more of this...

Dunce

by Robert William Service
 At school I never gained a prize,
Proving myself the model ass;
Yet how I watched the wistful eyes,
And cheered my mates who topped the class.
No envy in my heart I found,
Yet bone was worthier to own
Those precious books in vellum bound,
Than I, a dreamer and a drone.

No prize at school I ever gained
(Shirking my studies, I suppose):
Yes, I remember being...Read more of this...

Sonnet 26 - I lived with visions for my company

by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
 I lived with visions for my company
Instead of men and women, years ago,
And found them gentle mates, nor thought to know
A sweeter music than they played to me.
But soon their trailing purple was not free
Of this world's dust, their lutes did silent grow,
And I myself grew faint and blind below
Their vanishing eyes. Then THOU didst come—to be,
Beloved, what they...Read more of this...

Instans Tyrannus

by Robert Browning
 I.

Of the million or two, more or less,
I rule and possess,
One man, for some cause undefined,
Was least to my mind.

II.

I struck him, he grovelled of course---
For, what was his force?
I pinned him to earth with my weight
And persistence of hate:
And he lay, would not moan, would not curse,
As his lot might be worse.

III.

``Were the object less mean, would he...Read more of this...

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