Famous Misses Poems by Famous Poets

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

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A Grammarians Funeral

by Robert Browning
 SHORTLY AFTER THE REVIVAL OF
LEARNING IN EUROPE.

Let us begin and carry up this corpse,
Singing together.
Leave we the common crofts, the vulgar thorpes
Each in its tether
Sleeping safe on the bosom of the plain,
Cared-for till cock-crow:
Look out if yonder be not day again
Rimming the rock-row!
That's the appropriate country; there, man's thought,
Rarer, intenser,
Self-gathered for an outbreak, as it ought,
Chafes in the censer.
Leave...Read more of this...

Which misses most

by Emily Dickinson
 Which misses most,
The hand that tends,
Or heart so gently borne,
'Tis twice as heavy as it was
Because the hand is gone?

Which blesses most,
The lip that can,
Or that that went to sleep

With "if I could" endeavoring
Without the strength to shape?...Read more of this...

Bessies Boil

by Robert William Service
 Says I to my Missis: "Ba goom, lass! you've something I see, on your mind."
Says she: "You are right, Sam, I've something. It 'appens it's on me be'ind.
A Boil as 'ud make Job jealous. It 'urts me no end when I sit."
Says I: "Go to 'ospittel, Missis. They might 'ave to coot it a bit."
Says she: "I just 'ate...Read more of this...

Prayer

by Richard Crashaw
 LO here a little volume, but great Book
A nest of new-born sweets;
Whose native fires disdaining
To ly thus folded, and complaining
Of these ignoble sheets,
Affect more comly bands
(Fair one) from the kind hands
And confidently look
To find the rest
Of a rich binding in your Brest.
It is, in one choise handfull, heavenn; and all
Heavn’s Royall host; incamp’t thus small
To prove that true schooles...Read more of this...

Amphion

by Alfred Lord Tennyson
 MY father left a park to me, 
But it is wild and barren, 
A garden too with scarce a tree, 
And waster than a warren: 
Yet say the neighbours when they call, 
It is not bad but good land, 
And in it is the germ of all 
That grows within the woodland. 

O had I lived when song was...Read more of this...

Noddin' By De Fire

by Paul Laurence Dunbar
Some folks t'inks hit's right an' p'opah,
Soon ez bedtime come erroun',
Fu' to scramble to de kiver,
Lak dey 'd hyeahed de trumpet soun'.
But dese people dey all misses
Whut I mos'ly does desiah;
Dat 's de settin' roun' an' dozin',
An' a-noddin' by de fiah.
When you 's tiahed out a-hoein',
Er a-followin' de plough,
Whut's de use of des a-fallin'
On yo' pallet lak a cow?
W'y, de...Read more of this...

You

by Russell Edson
Out of nothing there comes a time called childhood, which is simply a path leading through an archway called adolescence. A small town there, past the arch called youth. Soon, down the road, where one almost misses the life lived beyond the flower, is a small shack labeled, you. And it is here the future lives in the several postures...Read more of this...

Silver Wind

by Carl Sandburg
 DO you know how the dream looms? how if summer misses one of us the two of us miss summer—
Summer when the lungs of the earth take a long breath for the change to low contralto singing mornings when the green corn leaves first break through the black loam—
And another long breath for the silver soprano melody of the...Read more of this...

January 1795

by Mary Darby Robinson
 Pavement slipp'ry, people sneezing,
Lords in ermine, beggars freezing ;
Titled gluttons dainties carving,
Genius in a garret starving.

Lofty mansions, warm and spacious ;
Courtiers clinging and voracious ;
Misers scarce the wretched heeding ;
Gallant soldiers fighting, bleeding.

Wives who laugh at passive spouses ;
Theatres, and meeting-houses ;
Balls, where simp'ring misses languish ;
Hospitals, and groans of anguish.

Arts and sciences bewailing ;
Commerce drooping, credit failing ;
Placemen...Read more of this...

Jump Rope

by Connie Wanek
 There is menace
in its relentless course, round and round,
describing an ellipsoid,
an airy prison in which a young girl
is incarcerated.

Whom will she marry? Whom will she love?
The rope, like a snake,
has the gift of divination,
yet reveals only a hint, a single initial.
But what if she never misses?

Is competence its own reward?
Will the rope never strike her ankle,
love's bite? The enders...Read more of this...

A Man In His Life

by Yehuda Amichai
 A man doesn't have time in his life
to have time for everything.
He doesn't have seasons enough to have
a season for every purpose. Ecclesiastes
Was wrong about that.

A man needs to love and to hate at the same moment,
to laugh and cry with the same eyes,
with the same hands to throw stones and to gather them,
to make love in war and...Read more of this...

Delilah

by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
 cIn the midnight of darkness and terror, 
When I would grope nearer to God, 
With my back to a record of error
And the highway of sin I have trod, 
There comes to me shapes I would banish –
The shapes of the deeds I have done; 
And I pray and I plead till they vanish –
All vanish and leave me,...Read more of this...

96. The Inventory

by Robert Burns
 SIR, as your mandate did request,
I send you here a faithfu’ list,
O’ gudes an’ gear, an’ a’ my graith,
To which I’m clear to gi’e my aith.


 Imprimis, then, for carriage cattle,
I hae four brutes o’ gallant mettle,
As ever drew afore a pettle.
My hand-afore ’s a guid auld has-been,
An’ wight an’ wilfu’ a’ his days been:
My hand-ahin ’s a weel...Read more of this...

A Back-log Song

by Paul Laurence Dunbar
De axes has been ringin' in de woods de blessid day,
An' de chips has been a-fallin' fa' an' thick;
Dey has cut de bigges' hick'ry dat de mules kin tote away,
An' dey's laid hit down and soaked it in de crik.
Den dey tuk hit to de big house an' dey piled de wood erroun'
In de fiah-place f'om ash-flo' to de flue,
While...Read more of this...

To R.W.E

by Emma Lazarus
 As when a father dies, his children draw 
About the empty hearth, their loss to cheat 
With uttered praise & love, & oft repeat 
His all-familiar words with whispered awe. 
The honored habit of his daily law, 
Not for his sake, but theirs whose feeble feet 
Need still that guiding lamp, whose faith, less sweet, 
Misses that tempered patience...Read more of this...

S. I. W

by Wilfred Owen
 "I will to the King,
 And offer him consolation in his trouble,
 For that man there has set his teeth to die,
 And being one that hates obedience,
 Discipline, and orderliness of life,
 I cannot mourn him."
 W. B. Yeats.


Patting goodbye, doubtless they told the lad
He'd always show the Hun a brave man's face;
Father would sooner him dead than...Read more of this...

The Moon is distant from the Sea

by Emily Dickinson
 The Moon is distant from the Sea --
And yet, with Amber Hands --
She leads Him -- docile as a Boy --
Along appointed Sands --

He never misses a Degree --
Obedient to Her Eye
He comes just so far -- toward the Town --
Just so far -- goes away --

Oh, Signor, Thine, the Amber Hand --
And mine -- the distant Sea --
Obedient...Read more of this...

The Mystery Of Mister Smith

by Robert William Service
 For supper we had curried tripe.
I washed the dishes, wound the clock;
Then for awhile I smoked my pipe -
Puff! Puff! We had no word of talk.
The Misses sewed - a sober pair;
Says I at last: "I need some air."

A don't know why I acted so;
I had no thought, no plot, no plan.
I did not really mean to go -
I'm...Read more of this...

Open Table

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
 MANY a guest I'd see to-day,

Met to taste my dishes!
Food in plenty is prepar'd,

Birds, and game, and fishes.
Invitations all have had,

All proposed attending.
Johnny, go and look around!

Are they hither wending?

Pretty girls I hope to see,

Dear and guileless misses,
Ignorant how sweet it is

Giving tender kisses.
Invitations all have had,

All proposed attending.
Johnny, go and look around!

Are they hither wending?

Women also I expect,

Loving...Read more of this...

Babette

by Robert William Service
 My Lady is dancing so lightly,
The belle of the Embassy Ball;
I lied as I kissed her politely,
And hurried away from it all.
I'm taxiing up to Montmartre,
With never a pang of regret,
To toy for awhile with the garter
Of her whom I know as Babette.

My Lady's an exquisite creature,
As rare as a queen on a throne;
She's faultless in form and in...Read more of this...

Fed Up

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 I ain't a timid man at all, I'm just as brave as most, 
I'll take my chance in open fight and die beside my post; 
But riding round the 'ole day long as target for a Krupp, 
A-drawing fire from Koppies -- well, I'm fair fed up. 
It's wonderful how few get hit, it's luck that pulls us through;...Read more of this...

The Death of the Rev. Dr. Wilson

by William Topaz McGonagall
 'Twas in the year of 1888 and on the 17th of January
That the late Rev. Dr. Wilson's soul fled away;
The generous-hearted Dr. had been ailing for some time,
But death, with his dart, did pierce the heart of the learned divine. 

He was a man of open countenance and of great ability,
And late minister of Free St. Paul's Church, Dundee,
And...Read more of this...

I Approach and I Withdraw

by Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz
I Approach and I Withdraw (Español)

    Me acerco y me retiro:
¿quién sino yo hallar puedo
a la ausencia en los ojos
la presencia en lo lejos?

    Del desprecio de Filis,
infelice, me ausento.
¡Ay de aquel en quien es
aun pérdida el desprecio!

    Tan atento la adoro
que, en el mal que padezco,
no siento sus rigores
tanto como...Read more of this...

The Infanticide

by Friedrich von Schiller
 Hark where the bells toll, chiming, dull and steady,
The clock's slow hand hath reached the appointed time.
Well, be it so--prepare, my soul is ready,
Companions of the grave--the rest for crime!
Now take, O world! my last farewell--receiving
My parting kisses--in these tears they dwell!
Sweet are thy poisons while we taste believing,
Now we are quits--heart-poisoner, fare-thee-well!

Farewell, ye suns that once to joy...Read more of this...

The Aged Pilot Man

by Mark Twain
 On the Erie Canal, it was,
All on a summer's day,
I sailed forth with my parents
Far away to Albany.

From out the clouds at noon that day
There came a dreadful storm,
That piled the billows high about,
And filled us with alarm.

A man came rushing from a house,
Saying, "Snub up your boat I pray,
Snub up your boat, snub up, alas,
Snub up while yet...Read more of this...

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