Famous Matron Poems by Famous Poets

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

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American Feuillage

...hwart, up and down, casting swift shadows
 in
 specks
 on the opposite wall, where the shine is; 
The athletic American matron speaking in public to crowds of listeners; 
Males, females, immigrants, combinations—the copiousness—the individuality of
 The
 States,
 each for itself—the money-makers; 
Factories, machinery, the mechanical forces—the windlass, lever, pulley—All
 certainties,
The certainty of space, increase, freedom, futurity, 
In space, the sporades, the scatter’d...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt


An Attempt At Jealousy

...detention;
all that standing to attention

whenever his colleagues drop in
for a spot of what's-your-toxin.
Speech Day, matron, tuck-shop, Christ,
you'll find school fees are over-priced

and leave, but not come back to me.
You've done your bit for poetry.
Words, or deeds? You'll stick to youth.
I'm a stickler for the truth--

which makes me wonder what it was
I loved you for. Tell me, because
now I feel nothing--except regret.
What is it, love, I need to forget?...Read more of this...
by Raine, Craig

Boadicea

...rishes, out of tyranny tyranny buds.
Ran the land with Roman slaughter, multitudinous agonies.
Perish'd many a maid and matron, many a valorous legionary.
Fell the colony, city, and citadel, London, Verulam, Camulodune....Read more of this...
by Tennyson, Alfred Lord

Doom and She

...tchless in artistry, 
 Unlit with sight is she. - 
And though her ever well-obeyed 
 Vacant of feeling he. 

III 

 The Matron mildly asks - 
 A throb in every word - 
 "Our clay-made creatures, lord, 
How fare they in their mortal tasks 
 Upon Earth's bounded bord? 

IV 

 "The fate of those I bear, 
 Dear lord, pray turn and view, 
 And notify me true; 
Shapings that eyelessly I dare 
 Maybe I would undo. 

V 

 "Sometimes from lairs of life 
 Methinks I catch a groan, 
 Or...Read more of this...
by Hardy, Thomas

Drum-Taps

...rtesies merely; 
Put in something else now besides powder and wadding. 

5
And you, Lady of Ships! you Mannahatta! 
Old matron of this proud, friendly, turbulent city!
Often in peace and wealth you were pensive, or covertly frown’d amid all your
 children; 
But now you smile with joy, exulting old Mannahatta!...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt


Endymion: Book I

...to muse
What it might mean. Perhaps, thought I, Morpheus,
In passing here, his owlet pinions shook;
Or, it may be, ere matron Night uptook
Her ebon urn, young Mercury, by stealth,
Had dipt his rod in it: such garland wealth
Came not by common growth. Thus on I thought,
Until my head was dizzy and distraught.
Moreover, through the dancing poppies stole
A breeze, most softly lulling to my soul;
And shaping visions all about my sight
Of colours, wings, and bursts of spangly lig...Read more of this...
by Keats, John

Eulalie

...or sigh,
And all day long
Shines, bright and strong,
Astarte within the sky,
While ever to her dear Eulalie upturns her matron eye-
While ever to her young Eulalie upturns her violet eye....Read more of this...
by Poe, Edgar Allan

On The Death Of A Fair Infant Dying Of A Cough

...earth, O tell me sooth
And cam'st again to visit us once more?
Or wert thou that sweet smiling Youth!
Or that c[r]own'd Matron sage white-robed Truth?
Or any other of that heav'nly brood
Let down in clowdie throne to do the world some good.

Note: 53 Or wert thou] Or wert thou Mercy -- conjectured by
John Heskin Ch. Ch. Oxon. from Ode on Nativity, st. 15.

IX

Or wert thou of the golden-winged boast,
Who having clad thy self in humane weed,
To earth from thy praefixed seat di...Read more of this...
by Milton, John

Paradise Lost: Book 01

...with insolence and wine. 
Witness the streets of Sodom, and that night 
In Gibeah, when the hospitable door 
Exposed a matron, to avoid worse rape. 
 These were the prime in order and in might: 
The rest were long to tell; though far renowned 
Th' Ionian gods--of Javan's issue held 
Gods, yet confessed later than Heaven and Earth, 
Their boasted parents;--Titan, Heaven's first-born, 
With his enormous brood, and birthright seized 
By younger Saturn: he from mightier Jove, 
H...Read more of this...
by Milton, John

Paradise Lost: Book 04

...led with superiour love, as Jupiter 
On Juno smiles, when he impregns the clouds 
That shed Mayflowers; and pressed her matron lip 
With kisses pure: Aside the Devil turned 
For envy; yet with jealous leer malign 
Eyed them askance, and to himself thus plained. 
Sight hateful, sight tormenting! thus these two, 
Imparadised in one another's arms, 
The happier Eden, shall enjoy their fill 
Of bliss on bliss; while I to Hell am thrust, 
Where neither joy nor love, but fierce des...Read more of this...
by Milton, John

Paradise Lost: Book 11

...o re-salute the world with sacred light, 
Leucothea waked; and with fresh dews imbalmed 
The earth; when Adam and first matron Eve 
Had ended now their orisons, and found 
Strength added from above; new hope to spring 
Out of despair; joy, but with fear yet linked; 
Which thus to Eve his welcome words renewed. 
Eve, easily my faith admit, that all 
The good which we enjoy from Heaven descends; 
But, that from us aught should ascend to Heaven 
So prevalent as to concern the mi...Read more of this...
by Milton, John

Samson Agonistes

...winds that hold them play,
An Amber sent of odorous perfume 
Her harbinger, a damsel train behind;
Some rich Philistian Matron she may seem,
And now at nearer view, no other certain
Than Dalila thy wife.

Sam: My Wife, my Traytress, let her not come near me.

Cho: Yet on she moves, now stands & eies thee fixt,
About t'have spoke, but now, with head declin'd
Like a fair flower surcharg'd with dew, she weeps
And words addrest seem into tears dissolv'd,
Wetting the borders of he...Read more of this...
by Milton, John

Spring in Town

...fresh Norman girls their tresses spare,
And the Dutch damsel keeps her flaxen hair.

Then, henceforth, let no maid nor matron grieve,
To see her locks of an unlovely hue,
Frouzy or thin, for liberal art shall give
Such piles of curls as nature never knew.
Eve, with her veil of tresses, at the sight
Had blushed, outdone, and owned herself a fright.

Soft voices and light laughter wake the street,
Like notes of woodbirds, and where'er the eye
Threads the long way, plumes wave,...Read more of this...
by Bryant, William Cullen

Thanatopsis

...
Of ages glide away the sons of men  
The youth in life's green spring and he who goes 
In the full strength of years matron and maid  
The speechless babe and the gray-headed man¡ª 70 
Shall one by one be gathered to thy side 
By those who in their turn shall follow them. 

So live that when thy summons comes to join 
The innumerable caravan which moves 
To that mysterious realm where each shall take 75 
His chamber in the silent halls of death  
Thou go not like ...Read more of this...
by Bryant, William Cullen

The Deserted Village

...ss of his smutted face,
While secret laughter tittered round the place;
The bashful virgin's sidelong look of love,
The matron's glance that would those looks reprove:
These were thy charms, sweet village; sports like these,
With sweet succession, taught even toil to please;
These round thy bowers their cheerful influence shed,
These were thy charms—But all these charms are fled.

Sweet smiling village, loveliest of the lawn,
Thy sports are fled, and all thy charms withdrawn;...Read more of this...
by Goldsmith, Oliver

The Eviction

...ainful duty must be done; 
He begs for quiet-and the work's begun. 
The strong stand ready; now appear the rest, 
Girl, matron, grandsire, baby on the breast, 
And Rosy's thin face on a pallet borne; 
A motley concourse, feeble and forlorn. 
One old man, tears upon his wrinkled cheek, 
Stands trembling on a threshold, tries to speak, 
But, in defect of any word for this, 
Mutely upon the doorpost prints a kiss, 
Then passes out for ever. Through the crowd 
The children run be...Read more of this...
by Allingham, William

The Lady of the Lake

...all know;
     Far o'er its roof the volumed flame
     Clan-Alpine's vengeance shall proclaim,
     While maids and matrons on his name
     Shall call down wretchedness and shame,
          And infamy and woe.'
     Then rose the cry of females, shrill
     As goshawk's whistle on the hill,
     Denouncing misery and ill,
     Mingled with childhood's babbling trill
          Of curses stammered slow;
     Answering with imprecation dread,
     'Sunk be his home...Read more of this...
by Scott, Sir Walter

The Pumpkin

...is board
The old broken links of affection restored;
When the care-wearied man seeks his mother once more,
And the worn matron smiles where the girl smiled before;
What moistens the lip and what brightens the eye,
What calls back the past, like the rich Pumpkin pie?

Oh, fruit loved of boyhood! the old days recalling,
When wood-grapes were purpling and brown nuts were falling!
When wild, ugly faces we carved in its skin,
Glaring out through the dark with a candle within!
When...Read more of this...
by Whittier, John Greenleaf

The Witch Of Atlas

...are)
In her light boat; and many quips and cranks
She played upon the water; till the car
Of the late moon, like a sick matron wan,
To journey from the misty east began.

And then she called out of the hollow turrets
Of those high clouds, white, golden, and vermilion,
The armies of her ministering spirits.
In mighty legions million after million
They came, each troop emblazoning its merits
On meteor flags; and many a proud pavilion
Of the intertexture of the atmosphere
They p...Read more of this...
by Shelley, Percy Bysshe

To Mr. Blanchard the Celebrated Aeronaut in America

...

FROM Persian looms the silk he wove
No Weaver meant should trail above
The surface of the earth we tread,
To deck the matron or the maid.

But you ambitious, have design'd
With silk to soar above mankind:--
On silk you hang your splendid car
And mount towards the morning star.

How can you be so careless--gay:
Would you amidst red lightnings play;
Meet sulphurous blasts, and fear them not--
Is Phaeton's sad fate forgot?

Beyond our view you mean to rise--
And this Balloon, ...Read more of this...
by Freneau, Philip

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