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Famous Pence Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by McGonagall, William Topaz
...cried, "Here! Something must be done and quickly too,
Do you hear! Every blessed soul of you;
Come, each one give a few pence to the poor boy,
And it will help to fill his heart with joy." 

Then the wood-cutter gave a golden coin away,
So the crowd subscribed largely without delay;
Which made the poor boy's heart feel gay,
Then the wood-cutter thanked the crowd and went away. 

So the poor boy did a large subscription receive,
And his brother, mother, and sisters had...Read more of this...



by Lowell, Amy
...iven,
No flame of his has leapt to Heaven
Firesouled, vermilion-hearted,
Forked, and darted,
Consuming what a few spare pence
Have cheaply bought, to fling from hence
In idly-asked petition.
His sole condition
Love and poverty.
And while the moon
Swings slow across the sky,
Athwart a waving pine tree,
And soon
Tips all the needles there
With silver sparkles, bitterly
He gazes, while his soul
Grows hard with thinking of the poorness of his dole.
"Shining and distan...Read more of this...

by Service, Robert William
...To buy for school a copy-book
 I asked my Dad for two-pence;
He gave it with a gentle look,
 Although he had but few pence.
'Twas then I proved myself a crook
 And came a moral cropper,
I bought a penny copy-book
 And blued the other copper.

I spent it on a sausage roll
 Gulped down with guilt suggestion,
To the damnation of my soul
 And awful indigestion.
Poor Dad! His job was hard to hold;
 His m...Read more of this...

by Clare, John
...e
Storm wi the actors strut and swell
And harlequin a laugh to raise
Wears his hump back and tinkling bell

And oft for pence and spicy ale
Wi winter nosgays pind before
The wassail singer tells her tale
And drawls her christmass carrols oer
The prentice boy wi ruddy face
And ryhme bepowderd dancing locks
From door to door wi happy pace
Runs round to claim his 'christmass box'

The block behind the fire is put
To sanction customs old desires
And many a faggots bands are cut
F...Read more of this...

by Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)
...fallen suche er this.
Now that here the croun of thorne,
He bryng vus to his blysse! AMEN.
HONY SOYT QUI MAL PENCE....Read more of this...



by Cowper, William
...ith impatient readiness, to seize my
Soul in a moment.

Damned below Judas:more abhorred than he was,
Who for a few pence sold his holy Master.
Twice betrayed Jesus me, this last delinquent,
Deems the profanest.

Man disavows, and Deity disowns me:
Hell might afford my miseries a shelter;
Therefore hell keeps her ever hungry mouths all
Bolted against me.

Hard lot! encompassed with a thousand dangers;
Weary, faint, trembling with a thousand terrors;
I'm called...Read more of this...

by Cowper, William
...ith impatient readiness to seize my
Soul in a moment.

Damned below Judas; more abhorred than he was,
Who for a few pence sold his holy Master!
Twice betrayed, Jesus me, the last delinquent,
Deems the profanest.

Man disavows, and Deity disowns me:
Hell might afford my miseries a shelter;
Therefore Hell keeps her ever-hungry mouths all
Bolted against me.

Hard lot! encompassed with a thousand dangers;
Weary, faint, trembling with a thousand terrors,
I'm called, if...Read more of this...

by Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)
.... .
The sable presbyters approach
The avenue of penitence;
The young are red and pustular
Clutching piaculative pence.

Under the penitential gates
Sustained by staring Seraphim
Where the souls of the devout
Burn invisible and dim.

Along the garden-wall the bees
With hairy bellies pass between
The staminate and pistilate,
Blest office of the epicene.

Sweeney shifts from ham to ham
Stirring the water in his bath.
The masters of the subtle schools
Are ...Read more of this...

by Paterson, Andrew Barton
...y made themselves hoarse, 
And Mulligan's party, with ardour intense, 
They backed her for pounds and for shillings and pence. 

But think of the grief of the bookmaking host 
At the sound of the summons to go to the post -- 
For down to the start with her thoroughbred air 
As fit as a fiddle pranced Mulligan's mare! 

They started, and off went the boy to the front, 
He cleared out at once, and he made it a hunt; 
He steadied as rounding the corner they wheeled, 
Then ga...Read more of this...

by Strode, William
...m their beef, whose hungry throats
Vex the grume porter's surly conscience:
That blesse the mint for coyning lesse than pence:
You whose unknown and meanly payd desarts
Begge silently within, and knocke at hearts:
You whose commanding worth makes men beleeve
That you a kindnesse give when you receave:
All sorts of them that want, your tears now lend:
A House-keeper, a Patron, and a Friend
Is lodged in clay. The man whose table fedde
So many while he lived, since hee is de...Read more of this...

by Belloc, Hilaire
...Torture will give a dozen pence or more 
To keep a drab from bawling at his door. 
The public taste is quite a different thing- 
Torture is positively paid to sing....Read more of this...

by Kipling, Rudyard
...feguarded. That's my record: sink the rest
And better if you can. The Rains may serve,
Rupees may rise -- three pence will give you Fame --
It's rash to hope for sixpence -- If they rise
Get guns, more guns, and lift the salt-tax.
     Oh!
I told you what the Congress meant or thought?
I'll answer nothing. Half a year will prove
The full extent of time and thought you'll spare
To Congress. Ask a Lady Doctor once
How little Begums see the light -- deduce
Th...Read more of this...

by Yeats, William Butler
...What need you, being come to sense,
But fumble in a greasy till
And add the halfpence to the pence
And prayer to shivering prayer, until
You have dried the marrow from the bone?
For men were born to pray and save:
Romantic Ireland's dead and gone,
It's with O'Leary in the grave.

Yet they were of a different kind,
The names that stilled your childish play,
They have gone about the world like wind,
But little time had they to pray
Fo...Read more of this...

by Chatterton, Thomas
...g gains; 
Then for the stockings let them reeve 
And not a scrap behind thee leave, 
Five bundles for a penny sell 
And pence to thee will come pell mell; 
See it be done with speed and care 
Thus spake the sprite and sunk in air. 
When in the morn with thoughts erect 
Sly Dick did on his dreams reflect, 
Why faith, thinks he, 'tis something too, 
It might-- perhaps-- it might be true, 
I'll go and see-- away he hies, 
And to the garret quick he flies, 
Enters the room, c...Read more of this...

by Belloc, Hilaire
...Torture will give a dozen pence or more 
To keep a drab from bawling at his door. 
The public taste is quite a different thing- 
Torture is positively paid to sing....Read more of this...

by Service, Robert William
...Are not to be stacked up against a bunch of hard-earned dough;
And sentiment has little weight compared with pounds and pence,
According to the gospel of the God of Common-sense.

Oh blessing on that old hair-brush my Daddy used to whack
With such benign precision on the basement of my back.
Oh blessings on his wisdom, saying: "Son, don't play the fool,
Let prudence be your counselor and reason be your rule.
Don't get romantic notions, always act with judgment cal...Read more of this...

by Paterson, Andrew Barton
...nes! 
Yes -- thumping great New Zealand rocks among the wool they found; 
On every rock the bank had lent just eighteen-pence a pound. 
And now the Bold Bank Manager, with trouble on his brow, 
Is searching vainly for the chief from Rooti-iti-au....Read more of this...

by Herbert, George
...Though he had all I had, did not forebear
To sell me also, and to put me there: 
Was ever grief like mine? 

For thirty pence he did my death devise, 
Who at three hundred did the ointment prize, 
Not half so sweet as my sweet sacrifice: 
Was ever grief like mine? 

Therefore my soul melts, and my heart's dear treasure
Drops blood (the only beads) my words to measure: 
O let this cup pass, if it be thy pleasure: 
Was ever grief like mine? 

These drops being temper'd with a s...Read more of this...

by Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...uing shorn and sleek, 
Would twist his girdle tight, and pat 
The girls upon the cheek, 

"Ere yet, in scorn of Peter's-pence, 
And number'd bead, and shrift, 
Bluff Harry broke into the spence 
And turn'd the cowls adrift: 

"And I have seen some score of those 
Fresh faces that would thrive 
When his man-minded offset rose 
To chase the deer at five; 

"And all that from the town would stroll, 
Till that wild wind made work 
In which the gloomy brewer's soul 
Went by me, li...Read more of this...

by Harrison, Tony
.... For nowt! Death's reticence
crowns his life, and me, I'm opening my trap
to busk the class that broke him for the pence
that splash like brackish tears into our cap....Read more of this...

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