Famous Pens Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Pens poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous pens poems. These examples illustrate what a famous pens poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
See also:
by
Thomas Hardy
"OLD Norbert with the flat blue cap--
A German said to be--
Why let your pipe die on your lap,
Your eyes blink absently?"--
--"Ah!... Well, I had thought till my cheek was wet
Of my mother--her voice and mien
When she used to sing and pirouette,
And touse the tambourine
"To the march that yon street-fiddler plies;
She told me 'twas the same
She'd heard from the trumpets,...Read more of this...
by
Barry Tebb
Composed of chalk dust,
Pencil shavings and
The sharp odour
Of stale urine;
It meets me now and then
Creeping down a creosoted corridor
Or waiting to be banged
With the dust from piles of books
On top of a cupboard.
The double desks heeled with iron
Having long been replaced;
The steel-nibbed pens and
Ink watered to pale grey
Gone too: the cane’s bamboo bite
Has nothing left to bite on
And David’s...Read more of this...
by
Thomas Hardy
(The 110th anniversary of the completion of the "Decline and Fall" at the same hour and place)
A spirit seems to pass,
Formal in pose, but grave and grand withal:
He contemplates a volume stout and tall,
And far lamps fleck him through the thin acacias.
Anon the book is closed,
With "It is...Read more of this...
by
William Strode
What Angel stirrs this happy Well,
Some Muse from thence come shew't me,
One of those naked Graces tell
That Angels are for beauty:
The Lame themselves that enter here
Come Angels out againe,
And Bodies turne to Soules all cleere,
All made for joy, noe payne.
Heate never was so sweetely mett
With moist as in this shower:
Old men are borne anew by swett
Of its restoring pow'r:
When...Read more of this...
by
Katherine Philips
I CANNOT hold, for though to write were rude,
Yet to be silent were Ingratitude,
And Folly too; for if Posterity
Should never hear of such a one as thee,
And onely know this Age's brutish fame,
They would think Vertue nothing but a Name.
And though far abler Pens must her define,
Yet her Adoption hath engaged mine:...Read more of this...
by
Vladimir Mayakovsky
Awhirl with events,
packed with jobs one too many,
the day slowly sinks
as the night shadows fall.
There are two in the room:
I
and Lenin-
a photograph
on the whiteness of wall.
The stubble slides upward
above his lip
as his mouth
jerks open in speech.
The tense
creases of brow
hold thought
in their grip,
immense brow
matched by thought immense.
A forest of...Read more of this...
by
Robert Browning
[SPAIN.]
I.
It is a lie---their Priests, their Pope,
Their Saints, their ... all they fear or hope
Are lies, and lies---there! through my door
And ceiling, there! and walls and floor,
There, lies, they lie---shall still be hurled
Till spite of them I reach the world!
II.
You think Priests just and holy men!
Before they put me in this den
I was a human creature too,
With flesh and...Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
Pedlar's coming down the street,
Housewives beat a swift retreat.
Don't you answer to the bell;
Heedless what she has to sell.
Just discreetly go inside.
We must hang a board, I fear:
PEDLARS NOT PERMITTED HERE.
I'm trying to sell what nobody wants to buy;
They turn me away, but still I try and try.
My arms are aching and my feet are sore;
Heartsick and worn I...Read more of this...
by
Algernon Charles Swinburne
Crowned, girdled, garbed and shod with light and fire,
Son first-born of the morning, sovereign star!
Soul nearest ours of all, that wert most far,
Most far off in the abysm of time, thy lyre
Hung highest above the dawn-enkindled quire
Where all ye sang together, all that are,
And all the starry songs behind thy car
Rang sequence, all our souls acclaim thee sire.
"If all...Read more of this...
by
Mary Darby Robinson
PALE GODDESS of the witching hour;
Blest Contemplation's placid friend;
Oft in my solitary bow'r,
I mark thy lucid beam
From thy crystal car descend,
Whitening the spangled heath, and limpid sapphire stream.
And oft, amidst the shades of night
I court thy undulating light;
When Fairies dance around the verdant ring,
Or frisk beside the bubbling spring,
When the thoughtless SHEPHERD'S song
Echoes thro' the silent air,
As...Read more of this...
by
Christopher Smart
It ever was allow'd, dear Madam,
Ev'n from the days of father Adam,
Of all perfection flesh is heir to,
Fair patience is the gentlest virtue;
This is a truth our grandames teach,
Our poets sing, and parsons preach;
Yet after all, dear Moll, the fact is
We seldom put it into practice;
I'll warrant (if one knew the...Read more of this...
by
Rabindranath Tagore
Why do you sit there on the floor so quiet and silent, tell me,
mother dear?
The rain is coming in through the open window, making you all
wet, and you don't mind it.
Do you hear the gong striking four? It is time for my brother
to come home from school.
What has happened to you that you look so strange?
Haven't you got a...Read more of this...
by
Edgar Allan Poe
Of all who hail thy presence as the morning-
Of all to whom thine absence is the night-
The blotting utterly from out high heaven
The sacred sun- of all who, weeping, bless thee
Hourly for hope- for life- ah! above all,
For the resurrection of deep-buried faith
In Truth- in Virtue- in Humanity-
Of all who, on Despair's unhallowed bed
Lying down to die, have suddenly...Read more of this...
by
Jenny Joseph
When I am an old woman I shall wear purple
With a red hat which doesn't go, and doesn't suit me.
And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves
And satin sandles, and say we've no money for butter.
I shall sit down on the pavement when I'm tired
And gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells
And run my...Read more of this...
by
Amy Levy
The mountains in fantastic lines
Sweep, blue-white, to the sky, which shines
Blue as blue gems; athwart the pines
The lake gleams blue.
We three were here, three years gone by;
Our Poet, with fine-frenzied eye,
You, stepped in learned lore, and I,
A poet too.
Our Poet brought us books and flowers,
He read us Faust; he talked for hours
Philosophy (sad Schopenhauer's),
Beneath the trees:
And do you mind...Read more of this...
by
Anne Sexton
The children are all crying in their pens
and the surf carries their cries away.
They are old men who have seen too much,
their mouths are full of dirty clothes,
the tongues poverty, tears like puss.
The surf pushes their cries back.
Listen.
They are bewitched.
They are writing down their life
on the wings of an elf
who then dissolves.
They are writing down their life
on a century...Read more of this...
by
Vachel Lindsay
I. THE DOLL UPON THE TOPMOST BOUGH
This doll upon the topmost bough,
This playmate-gift, in Christmas dress,
Was taken down and brought to me
One sleety night most comfortless.
Her hair was gold, her dolly-sash
Was gray brocade, most good to see.
The dear toy laughed, and I forgot
The ill the new year promised me.
II. ON SUDDENLY RECEIVING A CURL LONG...Read more of this...
by
Rudyard Kipling
Yearly, with tent and rifle, our careless white men go
By the Pass called Muttianee, to shoot in the vale below.
Yearly by Muttianee he follows our white men in --
Matun, the old blind beggar, bandaged from brow to chin.
Eyeless, noseless, and lipless -- toothless, broken of speech,
Seeking a dole at the doorway he mumbles his tale to each;
Over and over...Read more of this...
by
R S Thomas
Laid now on his smooth bed
For the last time, watching dully
Through heavy eyelids the day's colour
Widow the sky, what can he say
Worthy of record, the books all open,
Pens ready, the faces, sad,
Waiting gravely for the tired lips
To move once -- what can he say?
His tongue wrestles to force one word
Past the thick phlegm; no speech, no phrases
For the day's...Read more of this...
by
Victor Hugo
The dawn is smiling on the dew that covers
The tearful roses; lo, the little lovers
That kiss the buds, and all the flutterings
In jasmine bloom, and privet, of white wings,
That go and come, and fly, and peep and hide,
With muffled music, murmured far and wide.
Ah, the Spring time, when we think of all the...Read more of this...
by
Rudyard Kipling
When the flush of a new-born sun fell first on Eden's green and gold,
Our father Adam sat under the Tree and scratched with a stick in the mould;
And the first rude sketch that the world had seen was joy to his mighty heart,
Till the Devil whispered behind the leaves, "It's pretty, but is it Art?"
Wherefore he called to his...Read more of this...
by
Wang Wei
Farewell to the bushy clump close to the river
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...Read more of this...
by
Alice Walker
(Thinking of Lorraine Hansberry)
We must say it all, and as clearly
Trying to bury us.
As we can. For, even before we are dead,
Were we black? Were we women? Were we gay?
Were we the wrong shade of black? Were we yellow?
Did we, God forbid, love the wrong person, country?
Or politics? Were we Agnes Smedley or John Brown?
But, most of all, did we...Read more of this...
by
Erica Jong
Here, at the end of the world,
the flowers bleed
as if they were hearts,
the hearts ooze a darkness
like india ink,
& poets dip their pens in
& they write.
"Here, at the end of the world,"
they write,
not knowing what it means.
"Here, where the sky nurses on black milk,
where the smokestack feed the sky,
where the trees tremble in terror
& people come to resemble them....Read more of this...
by
Robert Burns
WHILE briers an’ woodbines budding green,
An’ paitricks scraichin loud at e’en,
An’ morning poussie whiddin seen,
Inspire my muse,
This freedom, in an unknown frien’,
I pray excuse.
On Fasten-e’en we had a rockin,
To ca’ the crack and weave our stockin;
And there was muckle fun and jokin,
Ye need na doubt;
At length we had a hearty yokin
At sang about.
There was ae...Read more of this...
Dont forget to view our wonderful member Pens poems.