Famous Piled Poems by Famous Poets

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

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The Hayloft

by Robert Louis Stevenson
 Through all the pleasant meadow-side 
The grass grew shoulder-high, 
Till the shining scythes went far and wide 
And cut it down to dry. 

Those green and sweetly smelling crops 
They led the waggons home; 
And they piled them here in mountain tops 
For mountaineers to roam. 

Here is Mount Clear, Mount Rusty-Nail, 
Mount Eagle and Mount High;-- 
The mice...Read more of this...

In Memoriam

by George William Russell
 POOR little child, my pretty boy,
Why did the hunter mark thee out?
Wert thou betrayed by thine own joy?
Singled through childhood’s merry shout?


And who on such a gentle thing
Let slip the Hound that none may bar,
That shall o’ertake the swiftest wing
And tear the heavens down star by star?


And borne away unto the night,
What comfort in the vasty hall?
Can That which...Read more of this...

A Ballad of Ducks

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 The railway rattled and roared and swung 
With jolting and bumping trucks. 
The sun, like a billiard red ball, hung 
In the Western sky: and the tireless tongue 
Of the wild-eyed man in the corner told 
This terrible tale of the days of old, 
And the party that ought to have kept the ducks. 
"Well, it ain't all joy...Read more of this...

The Puritans Ballad

by Elinor Wylie
 My love came up from Barnegat, 
The sea was in his eyes; 
He trod as softly as a cat 
And told me terrible lies.

His hair was yellow as new-cut pine 
In shavings curled and feathered; 
I thought how silver it would shine 
By cruel winters weathered.

But he was in his twentieth year, 
Ths time I'm speaking of; 
We were...Read more of this...

Clancy Of The Mounted Police

by Robert William Service
 In the little Crimson Manual it's written plain and clear
That who would wear the scarlet coat shall say good-bye to fear;
Shall be a guardian of the right, a sleuth-hound of the trail--
In the little Crimson Manual there's no such word as "fail"--
Shall follow on though heavens fall, or hell's top-turrets freeze,
Half round the world, if need there be, on...Read more of this...

Getting There

by Sylvia Plath
 How far is it?
How far is it now?
The gigantic gorilla interior
Of the wheels move, they appall me ---
The terrible brains
Of Krupp, black muzzles
Revolving, the sound
Punching out Absence! Like cannon.
It is Russia I have to get across, it is some was or other.
I am dragging my body
Quietly through the straw of the boxcars.
Now is the time for bribery.
What do wheels...Read more of this...

Dunes

by Carl Sandburg
 WHAT do we see here in the sand dunes of the white
moon alone with our thoughts, Bill,
Alone with our dreams, Bill, soft as the women tying
scarves around their heads dancing,
Alone with a picture and a picture coming one after the
other of all the dead,
The dead more than all these grains of sand one by one
piled here in the moon,
Piled...Read more of this...

I am bound to this Land by blood

by Olu Oguibe
I am bound to this land by blood
That's why my vision is blurred
I am rooted in its soil
And its streams flood my veins
I smell the sweat of its men
And the million feet that plod
The dust of its streets
Leave their prints on my soul
I have walked the footpaths of this land
Climbed the snake-routes of its hills
I have known the heat of...Read more of this...

The Battle of El-Teb

by William Topaz McGonagall
 Ye sons of Great Britain, I think no shame
To write in praise of brave General Graham!
Whose name will be handed down to posterity without any stigma,
Because, at the battle of El-Teb, he defeated Osman Digna.

With an army about five thousand strong,
To El-Teb, in the year 1884, he marched along,
And bivouacked there for the night;
While around their fires they only...Read more of this...

Not A Child

by Algernon Charles Swinburne
 'Not a child: I call myself a boy,'
Says my king, with accent stern yet mild,
Now nine years have brought him change of joy;
'Not a child.'

How could reason be so far beguiled,
Err so far from sense's safe employ,
Stray so wide of truth, or run so wild?

Seeing his face bent over book or toy,
Child I called him, smiling: but he smiled
Back,...Read more of this...

Eden in Winter

by Vachel Lindsay
 [Supposed to be chanted to some rude instrument at a modern fireplace]


Chant we the story now 
Tho' in a house we sleep; 
Tho' by a hearth of coals 
Vigil to-night we keep. 
Chant we the story now, 
Of the vague love we knew 
When I from out the sea 
Rose to the feet of you. 

Bird from the cliffs...Read more of this...

Break of Day

by Siegfried Sassoon
 There seemed a smell of autumn in the air 
At the bleak end of night; he shivered there 
In a dank, musty dug-out where he lay, 
Legs wrapped in sand-bags,—lumps of chalk and clay 
Spattering his face. Dry-mouthed, he thought, ‘To-day
We start the damned attack; and, Lord knows why, 
Zero’s at nine; how bloody if I’m done in 
Under...Read more of this...

One Viceroy Resigns

by Rudyard Kipling
 So here's your Empire. No more wine, then?
Good.
We'll clear the Aides and khitmatgars away.
(You'll know that fat old fellow with the knife --
He keeps the Name Book, talks in English too,
And almost thinks himself the Government.)
O Youth, Youth, Youth! Forgive me, you're so young.
Forty from sixty -- twenty years of work
And power to back the working. Ay def mi!
You...Read more of this...

It feels a shame to be Alive

by Emily Dickinson
 It feels a shame to be Alive --
When Men so brave -- are dead --
One envies the Distinguished Dust --
Permitted -- such a Head --

The Stone -- that tells defending Whom
This Spartan put away
What little of Him we -- possessed
In Pawn for Liberty --

The price is great -- Sublimely paid --
Do we deserve -- a Thing --
That lives --...Read more of this...

The Gift of the Sea

by Rudyard Kipling
 The dead child lay in the shroud,
 And the widow watched beside;
And her mother slept, and the Channel swept
 The gale in the teeth of the tide.

But the mother laughed at all.
 "I have lost my man in the sea,
And the child is dead. Be still," she said,
 "What more can ye do to me?"

The widow watched the dead,
...Read more of this...

The stoddards

by Eugene Field
 When I am in New York, I like to drop around at night,
To visit with my honest, genial friends, the Stoddards hight;
Their home in Fifteenth street is all so snug, and furnished so,
That, when I once get planted there, I don't know when to go;
A cosy cheerful refuge for the weary homesick guest,
Combining Yankee comforts with the freedom of...Read more of this...

Jueju Free Mood, No. 7 of 9 (The Path is Paved With Poplar Catkins)

by Du Fu
 Grain path poplar blossom pave white carpet Little stream lotus leaves piled green money Bamboo shoot root sprout no person see Sand on duckling beside mother sleep The path is paved with poplar catkins, a carpet of white grain, Lotus leaves on the little stream are piled like green coins. Among the roots of new bamboo,...Read more of this...

Two Children

by Robert William Service
 Give me your hand, oh little one!
 Like children be we two;
Yet I am old, my day is done
 That barely breaks for you.
A baby-basket hard you hold,
 With in it cherries four:
You cherish them as men do gold,
 And count them o'er.

And then you stumble in your walk;
 The cherries scattered lie.
You pick them up with foolish talk
...Read more of this...

Gastibelza

by Victor Hugo
 ("Gastibelza, l'homme à la carabine.") 
 
 {XXII., March, 1837.} 


 Gastibelza, with gun the measure beating, 
 Would often sing: 
 "Has one o' ye with sweet Sabine been meeting, 
 As, gay, ye bring 
 Your songs and steps which, by the music, 
 Are reconciled— 
 Oh! this chill wind across the mountain rushing 
 Will...Read more of this...

A Greek Girl

by Amy Levy
 I may not weep, not weep, and he is dead.
A weary, weary weight of tears unshed
Through the long day in my sad heart I bear;
The horrid sun with all unpitying glare
Shines down into the dreary weaving-room,
Where clangs the ceaseless clatter of the loom,
And ceaselessly deft maiden-fingers weave
The fine-wrought web; and I from morn till eve
Work with the rest, and...Read more of this...

In the Neolithic Age

by Rudyard Kipling
 1895

I the Neolithic Age savage warfare did I wage
 For food and fame and woolly horses' pelt.
I was singer to my clan in that dim, red Dawn of Man,
 And I sang of all we fought and feared and felt.

Yea, I sang as now I sing, when the Prehistoric spring
 Made the piled Biscayan ice-pack split and shove;
And the...Read more of this...

The Book of Urizen: Chapter III

by William Blake
 1. The voice ended, they saw his pale visage
Emerge from the darkness; his hand
On the rock of eternity unclasping
The Book of brass. Rage siez'd the strong

2. Rage, fury, intense indignation
In cataracts of fire blood & gall
In whirlwinds of sulphurous smoke:
And enormous forms of energy;
All the seven deadly sins of the soul
In living creations appear'd
In the flames of eternal fury.

3....Read more of this...

The Morning Star

by George William Russell
 IN the black pool of the midnight Lu has slung the morning star,
And its foam in rippling silver whitens into day afar
Falling on the mountain rampart piled with pearl above our glen,
Only you and I, beloved, moving in the fields of men.


In the dark tarn of my spirit, love, the morning star, is lit;
And its halo, ever brightening, lightens...Read more of this...

The Lover in Hell

by Stephen Vincent Benet
 Eternally the choking steam goes up 
From the black pools of seething oil. . . . 
How merry 
Those little devils are! They've stolen the pitchfork 
From Bel, there, as he slept . . . Look! -- oh look, look! 
They've got at Nero! Oh it isn't fair! 
Lord, how he squeals! Stop it . . . it's, well...Read more of this...

The Garden by the Bridge

by Adela Florence Cory Nicolson
   The Desert sands are heated, parched and dreary,
     The tigers rend alive their quivering prey
   In the near Jungle; here the kites rise, weary,
     Too gorged with living food to fly away.

   All night the hungry jackals howl together
     Over the...Read more of this...

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