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Famous Players Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Joyce, James
...They mouth love's language. Gnash
The thirteen teeth
Your lean jaws grin with. Lash
Your itch and quailing, nude greed of the flesh.
Love's breath in you is stale, worded or sung,
As sour as cat's breath,
Harsh of tongue.

This grey that stares
Lies not, stark skin and bone.
Leave greasy lips their kissing. None
Will choose her what...Read more of this...



by Kinnell, Galway
...eck opening so small 
he has to screw them on, which one day may make him wonder 
about the mental capacity of baseball players - 
and flops down between us and hugs us and snuggles himself to sleep, 
his face gleaming with satisfaction at being this very child. 

In the half darkness we look at each other 
and smile 
and touch arms across his little, startling muscled body - 
this one whom habit of memory propels to the ground of his making, 
sleeper only the mortal soun...Read more of this...

by Shakespeare, William
...All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first, the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms.
Then the whining schoolboy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a wo...Read more of this...

by Moore, Marianne
...
"I'm very satisfied.We won."
Shorn of the batting crown, says, "We";
robbed by a technicality.

When three players on a side play three positions
and modify conditions,
the massive run need not be everything.
"Going, going . . . "Is
it?Roger Maris
has it, running fast.You will
never see a finer catch.Well . . .
"Mickey, leaping like the devil"--why
gild it, although deer sounds better--
snares what was speeding towards its tree...Read more of this...

by Service, Robert William
...orn of the frontier's need,
Disdainful of the spoken word, exultant in the deed;
Unconscious heroes of the waste, proud players of the game,
Props of the power behind the throne, upholders of the name:
For thus the Great White Chief hath said, "In all my lands be peace",
And to maintain his word he gave his West the Scarlet Police.

Livid-lipped was the valley, still as the grave of God;
 Misty shadows of mountain thinned into mists of cloud;
Corpselike and stark was the ...Read more of this...



by Jeffers, Robinson
...e; the enormous games preparing
Weigh on the water and strain the rock; the stage is 
 here, the play is conceived; the players are 
 not found.

I saw on the Sierras, up the Kaweah valley above the 
 Moro rock, the mountain redwoods
Like red towers on the slopes of snow; about their 
 bases grew a bushery of Christmas green,
Firs and pines to be monuments for pilgrimage
In Europe; I remembered the Swiss forests, the dark 
 robes of Pilatus, no trunk like these there;
But...Read more of this...

by Harjo, Joy
..., the club of the shotgun, knife wound, of
poison by culture.We who were taught not to stare drank our beer.The
players gossiped down their cues.Someone put a quarter in the jukebox to
relive despair.Richard's wife dove to kill her.We had to keep her
still, while Richard secretly bought the beauty a drink.

How do I say it?In this language there are no words for how the real world
collapses.I could say it in my own and the sacred mounds would come ...Read more of this...

by Dickinson, Emily
...ample nation—
Choose One—
Then—close the Valves of her attention—
Like Stone—

315

He fumbles at your Soul
As Players at the Keys
Before they drop full Music on—
He stuns you by degrees—
Prepares your brittle Nature
For the Ethereal Blow
By fainter Hammers—further heard—
Then nearer—Then so slow
Your Breath has time to straighten—
Your Brain—to bubble Cool—
Deals—One—imperial—Thunderbolt—
That scalps your naked Soul—

When Winds take Forests in their Paw...Read more of this...

by Donne, John
...of France, changeable chameleons,
Spitals of diseases, shops of fashions,
Love's fuellers, and the rightest company
Of Players, which upon the world's stage be,
Will quickly know thee, and no less, alas!
Th' indifferent Italian, as we pass
His warm land, well content to think thee Page,
Will hunt thee with such lust, and hideous rage,
As Lot's fair guests were vexed. But none of these
Nor spongy hydroptic Dutch shall thee displease,
If thou stay here. O stay here, fo...Read more of this...

by Lindsay, Vachel
...tormer in California. There were few theatres, but the hotels were provided with crude assembly rooms for strolling players.


The youth played in the blear hotel.
The rafters gleamed with glories strange.
And winds of mourning Elsinore
Howling at chance and fate and change;
Voices of old Europe's dead
Disturbed the new-built cattle-shed,
The street, the high and solemn range.

The while the coyote barked afar
All shadowy was the battlement.
The ranch-...Read more of this...

by Smart, Christopher
...feet high in general. 

For they had degenerated also from the strength of their fathers. 

For I prophecy that players and mimes will not be named amongst us. 

For I prophecy in the favour of dancing which in mutual benevolence is for the glory of God. 

For I prophecy that the exactions of Moab will soon be at an end. 

For the Moabites even the French are in their chastisement for humiliation. 

For I prophecy that the Reformation will make way in ...Read more of this...

by Robinson, Edwin Arlington
...et ortolans.
Wise books of every lore of every land 
Are there to fill his days, if he require them, 
And there are players of all instruments— 
Flutes, hautboys, drums, and viols; and she sings 
To Merlin, till he trembles in her arms
And there forgets that any town alive 
Had ever such a name as Camelot. 
So Vivian holds him with her love, they say, 
And he, who has no age, has not grown old. 
I swear to nothing, but that’s what they say.
That’s being buried...Read more of this...

by Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
...her pieces,
And upright among the others
One Ininewug was standing,
Even as crafty Pau-Puk-Keewis
Stood alone among the players,
Saying, "Five tens! mine the game is,"
Twenty eyes glared at him fiercely,
Like the eyes of wolves glared at him,
As he turned and left the wigwam,
Followed by his Meshinauwa,
By the nephew of Iagoo,
By the tall and graceful stripling,
Bearing in his arms the winnings,
Shirts of deer-skin, robes of ermine,
Belts of wampum, pipes and weapons.
"Ca...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...
Bathing, supporting, merging all the rest—maternity of all the rest; 
And with it every instrument in multitudes,
The players playing—all the world’s musicians, 
The solemn hymns and masses, rousing adoration, 
All passionate heart-chants, sorrowful appeals, 
The measureless sweet vocalists of ages, 
And for their solvent setting, Earth’s own diapason,
Of winds and woods and mighty ocean waves; 
A new composite orchestra—binder of years and climes—ten-fold renewer, 
As of t...Read more of this...

by Edgar, Marriott
...British-born swimmers had tried it, 
But that was as far as they'd got.

So great was the outcry in England, 
Darts Players neglected their beer,
And the Chanc'Ior proclaimed from the Woolsack
As Joe Lee were the chap for this 'ere.

For in swimming baths all round the country
Joe were noted for daring and strength; 
Quite often he'd dived in the deep end,
And thought nothing of swimming a length.

So they wrote him, C/o Workhouse Master, 
Joe were spending the su...Read more of this...

by Paterson, Andrew Barton
...at the stockmen never pass, 
For they bear a crude inscription saying, `Stranger, drop a tear, 
For the Cuff and Collar players and the Geebung boys lie here.' 
And on misty moonlit evenings, while the dingoes howl around, 
You can see their shadows flitting down that phantom polo ground; 
You can hear the loud collisions as the flying players meet, 
And the rattle of the mallets, and the rush of ponies' feet, 
Till the terrified spectator rides like blazes to the pub -- ...Read more of this...

by Lowell, Amy
...on sheen,
Long streaks of black, the under lacquer, shine out clean.
Four desks, adjustable, to suit the heights of players
Sitting to viols or standing up to sing, four layers
Of music to serve every instrument, are there,
And on the apex a large flat-topped golden pear.
It burns in red and yellow, dusty, smouldering lights,
When the sun flares the old barn-chamber with its flights
And skips upon the crystal knobs of dim sideboards,
Legless and mouldy, and hops, glin...Read more of this...

by Masters, Edgar Lee
...s and John Cabanis
The deadly strife? His daughter Flossie, she,
Returning from her wandering with a troop
Of strolling players, walked the village streets,
Her bracelets tinkling and with sparkling rings
And words of serpent wisdom and a smile
Of cunning in her eyes. Then Thomas Rhodes,
Who ruled the church and ruled the bank as well,
Made known his disapproval of the maid;
And all Spoon River whispered and the eyes
Of all the church frowned on her, till she knew
They fe...Read more of this...

by Yeats, William Butler
...h
Knows I have lived so long.

From mountain to mountain ride the fierce horsemen.

 III

Come gather round me, players all:
Come praise Nineteen-Sixteen,
Those from the pit and gallery
Or from the painted scene
That fought in the Post Office
Or round the City Hall,
praise every man that came again,
Praise every man that fell.

From mountain to mountain ride the fierce horsemen.

Who was the first man shot that day?
The player Connolly,
Close to the City Hall ...Read more of this...

by Ferlinghetti, Lawrence
...unded & swim nowhere
An orchestra onstage in Omaha
keeps on playing Handel's Water Music
Horns fill with water
ans bass players float away on their instruments
clutching them like lovers horizontal
Chicago's Loop becomes a rollercoaster
Skyscrapers filled like water glasses
Great Lakes mixed with Buddhist brine
Great Books watered down in Evanston
Milwaukee beer topped with sea foam
Beau Fleuve of Buffalo suddenly become salt
Manhatten Island swept clean in sixteen seconds
bu...Read more of this...

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Book: Reflection on the Important Things