Famous Merchants Poems by Famous Poets

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

See also:

Bird Sanctuary

by Robert William Service
 Between the cliff-rise and the beach
A slip of emerald I own;
With fig and olive, almond, peach,
cherry and plum-tree overgrown;
Glad-watered by a crystal spring
That carols through the silver night,
And populous with birds who sing
Gay madrigals for my delight.

Some merchants fain would buy my land
To build a stately pleasure dome.
Poor fools! they cannot understand
how pricelessly it is my home!
So luminous with...Read more of this...

Seashore

by Rabindranath Tagore
 On the seashore of endless worlds children meet. 
The infinite sky is motionless overhead 
and the restless water is boisterous. 
On the seashore of endless worlds 
the children meet with shouts and dances. 

They build their houses with sand 
and they play with empty shells. 
With withered leaves they weave their boats 
and smilingly float them on the vast...Read more of this...

The Merchants Of London

by Mother Goose
Hey diddle dinkety poppety pet,
The merchants of London they wear scarlet,
Silk in the collar and gold in the hem,
So merrily march the merchant men....Read more of this...

The River-Merchants Wife: A Letter

by Ezra Pound
 After Li Po

While my hair was still cut straight 
 across my forehead
I played at the front gate, pulling
 flowers.
You came by on bamboo stilts, playing
 horse,
You walked about my seat, playing with
 blue plums. 
And we went on living in the village of 
 Chokan:
Two small people, without dislike or 
 suspicion. 

At fourteen I married My Lord...Read more of this...

The Search

by Robert William Service
 I bought a young and lovely bride,
 Paying her father gold;
Lamblike she rested by my side,
 As cold as ice is cold.
No love in her could I awake,
 Even for pity's sake.

I bought rich books I could not read,
 And pictures proud and rare;
Reproachfully they seemed to plead
 And hunger for my care;
But to their beauty I was blind,
...Read more of this...

Marketplace Report January 23, 1991

by Julie Hill Alger
The new war is a week old.
Bombs fall on Baghdad,
missiles on Tel Aviv.
The voice on the radio says
the armament dealers of Europe
are hopeful that a longer war
will be good for business.
They say, as fighting continues
there will be wear and tear
on matériel. Spare parts
must be manufactured,
as well as replacements
for equipment blown apart,
shattered, set afire.

Prudently, the merchants
consult their spreadsheets.
They guard against euphoria
and...Read more of this...

Poem 10

by Edmund Spenser
 TEll me ye merchants daughters did ye see
So fayre a creature in your towne before,
So sweet, so louely, and so mild as she,
Adornd with beautyes grace and vertues store,
Her goodly eyes lyke Saphyres shining bright,
Her forehead yuory white,
Her cheekes lyke apples which the sun hath rudded,
Her lips lyke cherryes charming men to byte,
Her brest like to a bowle of...Read more of this...

Covenent

by Rudyard Kipling
 1914
We thought we ranked above the chance of ill.
 Others might fall, not we, for we were wise--
Merchants in freedom. So, of our free-will
 We let our servants drug our strength with lies.
The pleasure and the poison had its way
 On us as on the meanest, till we learned
That he who lies will steal, who steals will slay.
 Neither...Read more of this...

Jefferson Howard

by Edgar Lee Masters
 My valiant fight! For I call it valiant,
With my father's beliefs from old Virginia:
Hating slavery, but no less war.
I, full of spirit, audacity, courage
Thrown into life here in Spoon River,
With its dominant forces drawn from New England,
Republicans, Calvinists, merchants, bankers,
Hating me, yet fearing my arm.
With wife and children heavy to carry --
Yet fruits of my very zest of life.
Stealing...Read more of this...

A Ballad of Dreamland

by Algernon Charles Swinburne
 I hid my heart in a nest of roses,
Out of the sun's way, hidden apart;
In a softer bed then the soft white snow's is,
Under the roses I hid my heart.
Why would it sleep not? why should it start,
When never a leaf of the rose-tree stirred?
What made sleep flutter his wings and part?
Only the song of a secret bird.

Lie still,...Read more of this...

A Summary History of Lord Clive

by William Topaz McGonagall
 About a hundred and fifty years ago,
History relates it happened so,
A big ship sailed from the shores of Britain
Bound for India across the raging main. 

And many of the passengers did cry and moan
As they took the last look of their old home,
Which they were fast leaving far behind,
And which some of them would long bear in mind. 

Among...Read more of this...

The Firemens Ball

by Vachel Lindsay
 SECTION ONE

"Give the engines room,
Give the engines room."
Louder, faster
The little band-master
Whips up the fluting,
Hurries up the tooting.
He thinks that he stands,
[*] The reins in his hands, 
In the fire-chief's place 
In the night alarm chase. 
The cymbals whang, 
The kettledrums bang: —
"Clear the street, 
Clear the street, 
Clear the street — Boom, boom. 
In the evening gloom, 
In the...Read more of this...

The House Of Dust: Part 03: 02: The Screen Maiden

by Conrad Aiken
 You read—what is it, then that you are reading?
What music moves so silently in your mind?
Your bright hand turns the page.
I watch you from my window, unsuspected:
You move in an alien land, a silent age . . .

. . . The poet—what was his name—? Tokkei—Tokkei—
The poet walked alone in a cold late rain,
And thought his grief was like...Read more of this...

Since the day when Venus and the moon appeared in

by Omar Khayyam
Since the day when Venus and the moon appeared in
the sky, no one has seen anything here below preferable
to ruby wine. I am truly astonished at the wine-merchants,
for how can they buy anything superior to
that which they sell?...Read more of this...

The Retired Cat

by William Cowper
 A poet's cat, sedate and grave
As poet well could wish to have,
Was much addicted to inquire
For nooks to which she might retire,
And where, secure as mouse in chink,
She might repose, or sit and think.
I know not where she caught the trick--
Nature perhaps herself had cast her
In such a mould [lang f]philosophique[lang e],
Or else she learn'd it of her master.
Sometimes...Read more of this...

The Faerie Queene Book VI Canto X

by Edmund Spenser
Calidore sees the Graces daunce,
To Colins melody:
The whiles his Pastorell is led,
[I]nto captiuity.
 

W Ho now does follow the foule Blatant Beast,
Whilest Calidore does follow that faire Mayd,
Vnmyndfull of his vow and high beheast,
Which by the Faery Queene was on him layd,
That he should neuer leaue, nor be delayd
From chacing him, till he had it attchieued?
But now entrapt of loue,...Read more of this...

We Astronomers

by Rebecca Elson
 We astronomers are nomads,
Merchants, circus people,
All the earth our tent.
We are industrious.
We breed enthusiasms,
Honour our responsibility to awe.


But the universe has moved a long way off.
Sometimes, I confess,
Starlight seems too sharp,


And like the moon
I bend my face to the ground,
To the small patch where each foot falls,


Before it falls,
And I forget to ask questions,
And only count things....Read more of this...

A Toccata Of Galuppis

by Robert Browning
 I

Oh Galuppi, Baldassaro, this is very sad to find!
I can hardly misconceive you; it would prove me deaf and blind;
But although I give you credit, 'tis with such a heavy mind!

II

Here you come with your old music, and here's all the good it brings.
What, they lived once thus at Venice, where the merchants were the kings,
Where Saint Mark's is,...Read more of this...

In Memoriam A. H. H.

by Alfred Lord Tennyson
Strong Son of God, immortal Love,
   Whom we, that have not seen thy face,
   By faith, and faith alone, embrace,
Believing where we cannot prove;
 
Thine are these orbs of light and shade;
   Thou madest Life in man and brute;
   Thou madest Death; and lo, thy foot
Is on the skull which thou hast...Read more of this...

To Certain Poets

by Joyce Kilmer
 Now is the rhymer's honest trade
A thing for scornful laughter made.
The merchant's sneer, the clerk's disdain,
These are the burden of our pain.
Because of you did this befall,
You brought this shame upon us all.
You little poets mincing there
With women's hearts and women's hair!
How sick Dan Chaucer's ghost must be
To hear you lisp of "Poesie"!
A heavy-handed blow, I think,
Would make your...Read more of this...

The Strayed Reveller

by Matthew Arnold
 1 Faster, faster, 
2 O Circe, Goddess,
3 Let the wild, thronging train 
4 The bright procession 
5 Of eddying forms, 
6 Sweep through my soul! 

7 Thou standest, smiling
8 Down on me! thy right arm,
9 Lean'd up against the column there,
10 Props thy soft cheek;
11 Thy left holds, hanging loosely,
12 The deep cup, ivy-cinctured,
13 I held but now. 

14...Read more of this...

On the Seashore

by Rabindranath Tagore
 On the seashore of endless worlds children meet. 
The infinite sky is motionless overhead and the restless water is boisterous. On the seashore of endless worlds the children meet with shouts and dances. 
They build their houses with sand, and they play with empty shells. With withered leaves they weave their boats and smilingly float them on the vast...Read more of this...

The Belfry Of Bruges

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
 In the market-place of Bruges stands the belfry old and brown;
Thrice consumed and thrice rebuilded, still it watches o'er the
town.

As the summer morn was breaking, on that lofty tower I stood,
And the world threw off the darkness, like the weeds of
widowhood.

Thick with towns and hamlets studded, and with streams and vapors
gray,
Like a shield embossed with silver, round and vast...Read more of this...

The Canonization

by John Donne
 For God's sake hold your tongue, and let me love,
Or chide my palsy, or my gout,
My five grey hairs, or ruin'd fortune flout,
With wealth your state, your mind with arts improve,
Take you a course, get you a place,
Observe his Honour, or his Grace,
Or the King's real, or his stamped face
Contemplate, what you will, approve,
So you will let me love.

Alas,...Read more of this...

Dutch Interiors

by Jane Kenyon
 Christ has been done to death
in the cold reaches of northern Europe
a thousand thousand times. 
Suddenly bread
and cheese appear on a plate
beside a gleaming pewter beaker of beer.

Now tell me that the Holy Ghost
does not reside in the play of light
on cutlery!

A Woman makes lace,
with a moist-eyed spaniel lying
at her small shapely feet. 
Even the maid with the chamber...Read more of this...

Dont forget to view our wonderful member Merchants poems.

Get a Premium Membership
Turn off ads, get more exposure for your poetry, and get more features with a Premium Membership.
Book: Diverse Voices: The Poetry of Human Rights and the Pursuit of Peace