Famous Portly Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Pagett M.P

by Rudyard Kipling
 The toad beneath the harrow knows
Exactly where eath tooth-point goes.
The butterfly upon the road
Preaches contentment to that toad.


Pagett, M.P., was a liar, and a fluent liar therewith --
He spoke of the heat of India as the "Asian Solar Myth";
Came on a four months' visit, to "study the East," in November,
And I got him to sign an agreement vowing to...Read more of this...

The Deficit Demon

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 It was the lunatic poet escaped from the local asylum, 
Loudly he twanged on his banjo and sang with his voice like a saw-mill, 
While as with fervour he sang there was borne o'er the shuddering wildwood, 
Borne on the breath of the poet a flavour of rum and of onions. 
He sang of the Deficit Demon that dqelt...Read more of this...

Demon And Beast

by William Butler Yeats
 For certain minutes at the least
That crafty demon and that loud beast
That plague me day and night
Ran out of my sight;
Though I had long perned in the gyre,
Between my hatred and desire.
I saw my freedom won
And all laugh in the sun.

The glittering eyes in a death's head
Of old Luke Wadding's portrait said
Welcome, and the Ormondes all
Nodded upon the wall,
And...Read more of this...

Stans Puer ad Mensam

by Sir Walter Raleigh
 Attend my words, my gentle knave, 
And you shall learn from me 
How boys at dinner may behave 
With due propriety. 

Guard well your hands: two things have been 
Unfitly used by some; 
The trencher for a tambourine, 
The table for a drum. 

We could not lead a pleasant life, 
And 'twould be finished soon, 
If peas were eaten...Read more of this...

Sonnet V

by Edmund Spenser
 RVdely thou wrongest my deare harts desire,
In finding fault with her too portly pride:
the thing which I doo most in her admire,
is of the world vnworthy most enuide.
For in those lofty lookes is close implide,
scorn of base things, & sdeigne of soule dishonor:
thretning rash eies which gaze on her so wide,
that loosely they ne dare to looke vpon her.
Such...Read more of this...

Behold As Goblins Dark Of Mien

by Robert Louis Stevenson
 BEHOLD, as goblins dark of mien
And portly tyrants dyed with crime
Change, in the transformation scene,
At Christmas, in the pantomime,

Instanter, at the prompter's cough,
The fairy bonnets them, and they
Throw their abhorred carbuncles off
And blossom like the flowers in May.

- So mankind, to angelic eyes,
So, through the scenes of life below,
In life's ironical disguise,
A travesty of man, ye go:

But fear not:...Read more of this...

On A Great Hollow Tree

by William Strode
 Preethee stand still awhile, and view this tree
Renown'd and honour'd for antiquitie
By all the neighbour twiggs; for such are all
The trees adjoyning, bee they nere so tall,
Comparde to this: if here Jacke Maypole stood
All men would sweare 'twere but a fishing rodde.
Mark but the gyant trunk, which when you see
You see how many woods and groves there bee
Compris'd within...Read more of this...

Walter Von Der Vogelweid

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
 Vogelweid the Minnesinger,
When he left this world of ours,
Laid his body in the cloister,
Under Wurtzburg's minster towers.

And he gave the monks his treasures,
Gave them all with this behest:
They should feed the birds at noontide
Daily on his place of rest;

Saying, "From these wandering minstrels
I have learned the art of song;
Let me now repay the lessons
They have taught so well and...Read more of this...

Poet And Peer

by Robert William Service
 They asked the Bard of Ayr to dine;
The banquet hall was fit and fine,
 With gracing it a Lord;
The poet came; his face was grim
To find the place reserved for him
 Was at the butler's board.

So when the gentry called him in,
He entered with a knavish grin
 And sipped a glass of wine;
But when they asked would he recite
Something...Read more of this...

The Funeral of Youth: Threnody

by Rupert Brooke
 The Day that Youth had died,
There came to his grave-side, 
In decent mourning, from the country’s ends, 
Those scatter’d friends 
Who had lived the boon companions of his prime,
And laughed with him and sung with him and wasted, 
In feast and wine and many-crown’d carouse, 
The days and nights and dawnings of the time 
When Youth kept open house,...Read more of this...

Bantams in Pine-Woods

by Wallace Stevens
Chieftain Iffucan of Azcan in caftan
Of tan with henna hackles, halt!

Damned universal cock, as if the sun
Was blackamoor to bear your blazing tail.

Fat! Fat! Fat! Fat! I am the personal.
Your world is you. I am my world.

You ten-foot poet among inchlings. Fat!
Begone! An inchling bristles in these pines,

Bristles, and points their Appalachian tangs,
And fears not portly Azcan nor his hoos....Read more of this...

The Absinthe Drinkers

by Robert William Service
 He's yonder, on the terrace of the Cafe de la Paix,
The little wizened Spanish man, I see him every day.
He's sitting with his Pernod on his customary chair;
He's staring at the passers with his customary stare.
He never takes his piercing eyes from off that moving throng,
That current cosmopolitan meandering along:
Dark diplomats from Martinique, pale Rastas from Peru,
An Englishman from...Read more of this...

Poem 9

by Edmund Spenser
 LOe where she comes along with portly pace,
Lyke Phoebe from her chamber of the East,
Arysing forth to run her mighty race,
Clad all in white, that seemes a virgin best.
So well it her beseemes that ye would weene
Some angell she had beene.
Her long loose yellow locks lyke golden wyre,
Sprinckled with perle, and perling flowres a tweene,
Doe lyke a golden mantle...Read more of this...

Circumstantial Evidence

by Ellis Parker Butler
 She does not mind a good cigar
 (The kind, that is, I smoke);
She thinks all men quite stupid are,
 (But laughs whene’er I joke).

She says she does not care for verse
 (But praises all I write);
She says that punning is a curse,
 (But then mine are so bright!)

She does not like a big moustache
 (You see that mine is...Read more of this...

Funeral Of Youth The: Threnody

by Rupert Brooke
 The day that YOUTH had died,
There came to his grave-side,
In decent mourning, from the country's ends,
Those scatter'd friends
Who had lived the boon companions of his prime,
And laughed with him and sung with him and wasted,
In feast and wine and many-crown'd carouse,
The days and nights and dawnings of the time
When YOUTH kept open house,
Nor left untasted
Aught of his high emprise...Read more of this...

A little bread -- a crust -- a crumb

by Emily Dickinson
 A little bread -- a crust -- a crumb --
A little trust -- a demijohn --
Can keep the soul alive --
Not portly, mind! but breathing -- warm --
Conscious -- as old Napoleon,
The night before the Crown!

A modest lot -- A fame petite --
A brief Campaign of sting and sweet
Is plenty! Is enough!
A Sailor's business is the shore!
A Soldier's --...Read more of this...

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