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Famous Miller Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Burns, Robert
...life appear’d,
 They toss’d him to and fro.


They wasted, o’er a scorching flame,
 The marrow of his bones;
But a miller us’d him worst of all,
 For he crush’d him between two stones.


And they hae taen his very heart’s blood,
 And drank it round and round;
And still the more and more they drank,
 Their joy did more abound.


John Barleycorn was a hero bold,
 Of noble enterprise;
For if you do but taste his blood,
 ’Twill make your courage rise.


’Twill ma...Read more of this...



by Burns, Robert
...avage Tory;
And Welsh who ne’er yet flinch’d his ground,
High-wav’d his magnum-bonum round
 With Cyclopeian fury.


Miller brought up th’ artillery ranks,
The many-pounders of the Banks,
 Resistless desolation!
While Maxwelton, that baron bold,
’Mid Lawson’s port entrench’d his hold,
 And threaten’d worse damnation.


To these what Tory hosts oppos’d
With these what Tory warriors clos’d
 Surpasses my descriving;
Squadrons, extended long and large,
With furious speed r...Read more of this...

by Burns, Robert
...blustering, drunken blellum;
That frae November till October,
Ae market-day thou was na sober;
That ilka melder wi’ the Miller,
Thou sat as lang as thou had siller;
That ev’ry naig was ca’d a shoe on
The Smith and thee gat roarin’ fou on;
That at the L—d’s house, ev’n on Sunday,
Thou drank wi’ Kirkton Jean till Monday,
She prophesied that late or soon,
Thou wad be found, deep drown’d in Doon,
Or catch’d wi’ warlocks in the mirk,
By Alloway’s auld, haunted kirk.


 Ah, gen...Read more of this...

by Burns, Robert
...mim has view’d it,
While Common-sense has taen the road,
 An’ aff, an’ up the Cowgate 6
 Fast, fast that day.


Wee Miller 7 neist the guard relieves,
 An’ Orthodoxy raibles,
Tho’ in his heart he weel believes,
 An’ thinks it auld wives’ fables:
But faith! the birkie wants a manse,
 So, cannilie he hums them;
Altho’ his carnal wit an’ sense
 Like hafflins-wise o’ercomes him
 At times that day.


Now, butt an’ ben, the change-house fills,
 Wi’ yill-caup commentators;
H...Read more of this...

by Wei, Wang
...
And the flags where the butter-bump hides in forever;
Farewell to the weedy nook, hemmed in by waters;
Farewell to the miller's brook and his three bonny daughters;
Farewell to them all while in prison I lie—
In the prison a thrall sees naught but the sky.

Shut out are the green fields and birds in the bushes;
In the prison yard nothing builds, blackbirds or thrushes.
Farewell to the old mill and dash of waters,
To the miller and, dearer still, to his three bonny da...Read more of this...



by Browning, Robert
...h me at, 
In pure rage! The old mill-horse, out at grass 
After hard years, throws up his stiff heels so, 
Although the miller does not preach to him 
The only good of grass is to make chaff. 
What would men have? Do they like grass or no-- 
May they or mayn't they? all I want's the thing 
Settled for ever one way. As it is, 
You tell too many lies and hurt yourself: 
You don't like what you only like too much, 
You do like what, if given you at your word, 
You find a...Read more of this...

by McGonagall, William Topaz
...Near the village of Udorf, on the banks of the Rhine,
There lived a miller and his family, once on a time;
And there yet stands the mill in a state of decay,
And concerning the miller and his family, attend to my lay. 

The miller and his family went to Church one Sunday morn,
Leaving behind their darling child, the youngest born,
In charge of brave Hanchen, the servant maid,
A kind-hearted girl and not the least afraid....Read more of this...

by Atwood, Margaret
...r>
You took a large scoop of vanilla ice-cream
and filled up the glass with grapejuice
and ginger ale, and put on Glenn Miller
with his big-band sound,
and lit a cigarette and blew the smoke up the chimney,
and cried for a while because you were not dancing,
and then danced, by yourself, your mouth circled with purple.
Now, forty years later, things have changed,
and it's baby lima beans.
It's necessary to reserve a secret vice.
This is what comes from forgetting ...Read more of this...

by Lehman, David
...n New York light is the variable and structure
the content according to Rodrigo Moynihan's
self-portraits at the Robert Miller Gallery where
the painter is serially pictured holding a canvas,
painting his mirror image, shirtless in summer,
with a nude, etc., it's two o'clock and I'm walking
at top speed from the huddled tourists yearning to be
a mass to Les Halles on Park and 28th for a Salade
Niçoise I've just watched The Singing Detective all
six hours of it and can't g...Read more of this...

by Masters, Edgar Lee
...We quarreled that morning,
For he was sixty-five, and I was thirty,
And I was nervous and heavy with the child
Whose birth I dreaded.
I thought over the last letter written me
By that estranged young soul
Whose betrayal of me I had concealed
By marrying the old man.
Then I took morphine and sat down to read.
Across the blackness that came over ...Read more of this...

by Tebb, Barry
...ic corners looming

Round poetry’s boomerang bends

I owe you most a letter

While you are here beside me

Patient as a miller waiting on wind

To drive the great sails

Through summer. 

When the muse takes over

I am snatched from order and duty

Blowing routine into a riot of going

And coming, blind, backwards, tip

Over ****, sea waves crashing in suburbia,

Saturnalia in Sutton, headlines of mad poet

Striding naked over moors, roaring

"I am here I am waiting"....Read more of this...

by Brautigan, Richard
...a constant dream

of my childhood and promoter of my youth."

"That's nice," I said.

"Longfellow was the Henry Miller of my childhood," he

said.

"Good," I said.

I cast into a little pool that had a swirl of fir needles going

around the edge of it. The fir needles went around and around.

It made no sense that they should come from trees. They looked

perfectly contented and natural in the pool as if the pool had

grown them on watery branches....Read more of this...

by Sexton, Anne
...
It is your Doppelganger
trying to get out.
Beware . . . Beware . . .

There once was a miller
with a daughter as lovely as a grape.
He told the king that she could
spin gold out of common straw.
The king summoned the girl
and locked her in a room full of straw
and told her to spin it into gold
or she would die like a criminal.
Poor grape with no one to pick.
Luscious and round and sleek.
Poor thing.
To die and never see...Read more of this...

by Burns, Robert
...ustering, drunken blellum,
That frae November till October,
Ae market-day thou was nae sober;
That ilka melder, wi' the miller,
Thou sat as lang as thou had siller;
That ev'ry naig was ca'd a shoe on,
The smith and thee gat roarin fou on;
That at the Lord's house, ev'n on Sunday,
Thou drank wi' Kirkton Jean till Monday.
She prophesied that, late or soon,
Thou would be found deep drowned in Doon;
Or catched wi' warlocks in the mirk,
By Alloway's auld haunted kirk.

Ah,...Read more of this...

by Chaucer, Geoffrey
...hile the Reeve thus spake,
For joy he laugh'd and clapp'd him on the back:
"Aha!" quoth he, "for Christes passion,
This Miller had a sharp conclusion,
Upon this argument of herbergage.* *lodging
Well saide Solomon in his language,
Bring thou not every man into thine house,
For harbouring by night is perilous.
*Well ought a man avised for to be* *a man should take good heed*
Whom that he brought into his privity.
I pray to God to give me sorrow and care
If ever, si...Read more of this...

by Chaucer, Geoffrey
...ttel** *his own labour* **goods
In a tabard* he rode upon a mare. *sleeveless jerkin

There was also a Reeve, and a Millere,
A Sompnour, and a Pardoner also,
A Manciple, and myself, there were no mo'.

The MILLER was a stout carle for the nones,
Full big he was of brawn, and eke of bones;
That proved well, for *ov'r all where* he came, *wheresoever*
At wrestling he would bear away the ram.
He was short-shouldered, broad, a thicke gnarr*, *stump of wood
There w...Read more of this...

by Chaucer, Geoffrey
...n.
Now telleth ye, Sir Monk, if that ye conne*, *know
Somewhat, to quiten* with the Knighte's tale." *match
The Miller that fordrunken was all pale,
So that unnethes* upon his horse he sat, *with difficulty
He would avalen* neither hood nor hat, *uncover
Nor abide* no man for his courtesy, *give way to
But in Pilate's voice he gan to cry,
And swore by armes, and by blood, and bones,
"I can a noble tale for the nones* *occasion,
With which I will now quite* the Knig...Read more of this...

by Chaucer, Geoffrey
...*murmur **little.
"So the* I," quoth he, "full well could I him quite** *thrive **match
With blearing* of a proude miller's eye, *dimming 
If that me list to speak of ribaldry.
But I am old; me list not play for age; 
Grass time is done, my fodder is now forage.
This white top* writeth mine olde years; *head
Mine heart is also moulded* as mine hairs; *grown mouldy
And I do fare as doth an open-erse*; *medlar 
That ilke* fruit is ever longer werse, *same
...Read more of this...

by Miller, Alice Duer
...Livingstone, Whyte-Melville— Heaven knows
What others. Now, I thought, I was to see
Their habitat, though like the Miller of Dee,
I cared for none and no one cared for me.


III 
A light blue carpet on the stair 
And tall young footmen everywhere, 
Tall young men with English faces 
Standing rigidly in their places, 
Rows and rows of them stiff and staid 
In powder and breeches and bright gold braid; 
And high above them on the wall 
Hung other English faces-all 
Par...Read more of this...

by Neruda, Pablo
...g images,
burying lamps.

Belfry of fogs, how far away, up there!
Stifling laments, milling shadowy hopes,
taciturn miller,
night falls on you face downward, far from the city.

Your presence is foreign, as strange to me as a thing.
I think, I explore great tracts of my life before you.
My life before anyone, my harsh life.
The shout facing the sea, among the rocks,
running free, mad, in the sea-spray.
The sad rage, the shout, the solitude of the sea.<...Read more of this...

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