Famous Neat Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Neat poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous neat poems. These examples illustrate what a famous neat poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Elizabeth Bishop
From narrow provinces
of fish and bread and tea,
home of the long tides
where the bay leaves the sea
twice a day and takes
the herrings long rides,
where if the river
enters or retreats
in a wall of brown foam
depends on if it meets
the bay coming in,
the bay not at home;
where, silted red,
sometimes the sun sets
facing a red sea,
and others, veins the flats'
lavender, rich...Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
When young I was a Socialist
Despite my tender years;
No blessed chance I ever missed
To slam the profiteers.
Yet though a fanatic I was,
And cursed aristocrats,
The Party chucked me out because
I sported Spats.
Aye, though on soap boxes I stood,
And spouted in the parks,
They grizzled that my foot-wear would
Be disavowed my Marx.
It's buttons of a pearly...Read more of this...
by
T Wignesan
When at five-thirty
In the rubbed-eye haziness
Of ferreting lonesome night walks
The camera-eye refugee
Asleep in the half awakefulness
Of the hour
Peers out of his high turbanned sockets:
Hyde Park's through road links
London's diurnally estranged couple -
The Arch and Gate.
When at five-thirty
The foot falls gently
Of the vision cut in dark recesses
And the man, finger gingerly on the fly
Gapes dolefully about
For a while
Exchanges a casual passing...Read more of this...
by
John Milton
Lawrence, of virtuous father virtuous son,
Now that the fields are dank, and ways are mire,
Where shall we sometimes meet, and by the fire
Help waste a sullen day, what may be won
From the hard season gaining? Time will run
On smoother, till Favonius reinspire
The frozen earth, and clothe in fresh attire
The lily and rose, that...Read more of this...
by
Oliver Wendell Holmes
HAS there any old fellow got mixed with the boys?
If there has, take him out, without making a noise.
Hang the Almanac's cheat and the Catalogue's spite!
Old Time is a liar! We're twenty to-night!
We're twenty! We're twenty! Who says we are more?
He's tipsy,-- young jackanapes!-- show him the door!
"Gray temples at twenty?"-- Yes ! white if we please;
Where the snow-flakes...Read more of this...
by
John Milton
Hence, loathed Melancholy,
............Of Cerberus and blackest Midnight born
In Stygian cave forlorn
............'Mongst horrid shapes, and shrieks, and sights
unholy!
Find out some uncouth cell,
............Where brooding Darkness spreads his jealous wings,
And the night-raven sings;
............There, under ebon shades and low-browed rocks,
As ragged as thy locks,
............In dark Cimmerian desert ever dwell.
But come, thou Goddess fair and free,
In heaven yclept Euphrosyne,
And by men heart-easing Mirth;
Whom lovely...Read more of this...
by
John Betjeman
Across the wet November night
The church is bright with candlelight
And waiting Evensong.
A single bell with plaintive strokes
Pleads louder than the stirring oaks
The leafless lanes along.
It calls the hoirboys from their tea
And villagers, the two or three,
Damp down the kitchen fire,
Let out the cat, and up the lane
Go paddling through the gentle rain
Of misty Oxfordshire.
How warm the many candles shine
Of...Read more of this...
by
Galway Kinnell
Goodbye, lady in Bangor, who sent me
snapshots of yourself, after definitely hinting
you were beautiful; goodbye,
Miami Beach urologist, who enclosed plain
brown envelopes for the return of your very
Clinical Sonnet; goodbye, manufacturer
of brassieres on the Coast, whose eclogues
give the fullest treatment in literature yet
to the sagging-breast motif; goodbye, you in San Quentin,
who wrote, "Being German my hero is Hitler,"
instead of "Sincerely...Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
She'd bring to me a skein of wool
And beg me to hold out my hands;
so on my pipe I cease to pull
And watch her twine the shining strands
Into a ball so snug and neat,
Perchance a pair of socks to knit
To comfort my unworthy feet,
Or pullover my girth to fit.
As to the winding I would sway,
A poem in my head...Read more of this...
by
Edward Lear
Who, or why, or which, or what, Is the Akond of SWAT?
Is he tall or short, or dark or fair?
Does he sit on a stool or a sofa or a chair,
or SQUAT,
The Akond of Swat?
Is he wise or foolish, young or old?
Does he drink his soup and his coffee cold,
or HOT,
The Akond of Swat?
Does he...Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
Said President MacConnachie to Treasurer MacCall:
"We ought to have a piper for our next Saint Andrew's Ball.
Yon squakin' saxophone gives me the syncopated gripes.
I'm sick of jazz, I want to hear the skirling of the pipes."
"Alas! it's true," said Tam MacCall. "The young folk of to-day
Are fox-trot mad and dinna ken a reel from Strathspey.
Now, what we want's a...Read more of this...
by
Paul Laurence Dunbar
Dinah stan' befo' de glass,
Lookin' moughty neat,
An' huh purty shadder sass
At huh haid an' feet.
While she sasshay 'roun' an' bow,
Smilin' den an' poutin' now,
An' de lookin'-glass, I 'low,
Say: "Now, ain't she sweet?"
All she do, de glass it see,
Hit des see, no mo',
Seems to me, hit ought to be
Drappin' on de flo'.
She go w'en huh time git slack,
Kissin' han's an' smilin'...Read more of this...
by
Robert Burns
O ONCE I lov’d a bonie lass,
Ay, and I love her still;
And whilst that virtue warms my breast,
I’ll love my handsome Nell.
As bonie lasses I hae seen,
And mony full as braw;
But, for a modest gracefu’ mein,
The like I never saw.
A bonie lass, I will confess,
Is pleasant to the e’e;
But, without some better qualities,
She’s...Read more of this...
by
Rg Gregory
i don’t know what you’re up to
yet but for me
you wouldn’t exist
(not on this page anyway -
not using the word exist)
so – you’re a fake (eternity)
one i wouldn’t raise a cup to
except you’re there
and won’t go away
i can’t win – and it’s not fair
best turn my back on you – get on
with what i meet
smack in the eyes
(that’s experience...Read more of this...
by
Siegfried Sassoon
He staggered in from night and frost and fog
And lampless streets: he’d guzzled like a hog
And drunk till he was dazed. And now he came
To hear—he couldn’t call to mind the name—
But he’d been given a ticket for the show,
And thought he’d (hiccup) chance his luck and go.
The hall swam in his eyes, and...Read more of this...
by
Rudyard Kipling
I go to concert, party, ball --
What profit is in these?
I sit alone against the wall
And strive to look at ease.
The incense that is mine by right
They burn before her shrine;
And that's because I'm seventeen
And She is forty-nine.
I cannot check my girlish blush,
My color comes and goes;
I redden to my finger-tips,
And sometimes to...Read more of this...
by
Walter de la Mare
Three jolly Farmers
Once bet a pound
Each dance the others would
Off the ground.
Out of their coats
They slipped right soon,
And neat and nicesome
Put each his shoon.
One--Two--Three!
And away they go,
Not too fast,
And not too slow;
Out from the elm-tree's
Noonday shadow,
Into the sun
And across the meadow.
Past the schoolroom,...Read more of this...
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...
by
Anne Sexton
By the first of August
the invisible beetles began
to snore and the grass was
as tough as hemp and was
no color--no more than
the sand was a color and
we had worn our bare feet
bare since the twentieth
of June and there were times
we forgot to wind up your
alarm clock and some nights
we took our gin warm and neat
from old jelly glasses while
the sun...Read more of this...
by
William Topaz McGonagall
'Twas in the year of 1746, on a fine summer afternoon,
When trees and flowers were in full bloom,
That widow Riddel sat knitting stockings on a little rustic seat,
Which her only son had made for her, which was very neat.
The cottage she lived in was in the wilds of Nithsdale,
Where many a poor soul had cause to bewail
The loss...Read more of this...
by
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Though loth to grieve
The evil time's sole patriot,
I cannot leave
My buried thought
For the priest's cant,
Or statesman's rant.
If I refuse
My study for their politique,
Which at the best is trick,
The angry muse
Puts confusion in my brain.
But who is he that prates
Of the culture of mankind,
Of better arts and life?
Go, blind worm, go,
Behold the famous States
Harrying Mexico
With rifle and with knife.
Or who,...Read more of this...
by
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
I.
Dead ! One of them shot by the sea in the east,
And one of them shot in the west by the sea.
Dead ! both my boys ! When you sit at the feast
And are wanting a great song for Italy free,
Let none look at me !
II.
Yet I was a poetess only last year,
And good at my art, for a...Read more of this...
by
Ann Taylor
Ah! why will my dear little girl be so cross,
And cry, and look sulky, and pout?
To lose her sweet smile is a terrible loss,
I can't even kiss her without.
You say you don't like to be wash'd and be dress'd,
But would you not wish to be clean?
Come, drive that long sob from your dear little breast,
This face...Read more of this...
by
Ben Jonson
STILL to be neat still to be drest
As you were going to a feast;
Still to be powder'd still perfumed:
Lady it is to be presumed
Though art's hid causes are not found 5
All is not sweet all is not sound.
Give me a look give me a face
That makes simplicity a grace;
Robes loosely...Read more of this...
by
Vernon Scannell
Sleepless I lay last night and watched the slow
Procession of the men who wear my clothes:
First, the grey man with bloodshot eyes and sly
Gestures miming what he loves and loathes.
Next came the cheery knocker-back of pints,
The beery joker, never far from tears,
Whose loud and public vanity acquaints
The careful watcher with his private...Read more of this...
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