Famous Quondam Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Fortune And Wisdom

by Friedrich von Schiller
 Enraged against a quondam friend,
To Wisdom once proud Fortune said
"I'll give thee treasures without end,
If thou wilt be my friend instead."

"My choicest gifts to him I gave,
And ever blest him with my smile;
And yet he ceases not to crave,
And calls me niggard all the while."

"Come, sister, let us friendship vow!
So take the money, nothing loth;
Why always labor at the...Read more of this...

A Game of Fives

by Lewis Carroll
 Five little girls, of Five, Four, Three, Two, One:
Rolling on the hearthrug, full of tricks and fun. 

Five rosy girls, in years from Ten to Six:
Sitting down to lessons - no more time for tricks. 

Five growing girls, from Fifteen to Eleven:
Music, Drawing, Languages, and food enough for seven! 

Five winsome girls, from Twenty to Sixteen:
Each young man that...Read more of this...

247. Ode Sacred to the Memory of Mrs. Oswald of Auchencruive

by Robert Burns
 DWELLER in yon dungeon dark,
 Hangman of creation! mark,
 Who in widow-weeds appears,
 Laden with unhonour’d years,
 Noosing with care a bursting purse,
 Baited with many a deadly curse?


STROPHE View the wither’d Beldam’s face;
 Can thy keen inspection trace
Aught of Humanity’s sweet, melting grace?
 Note that eye, ’tis rheum o’erflows;
 Pity’s flood there never rose,
 See these hands ne’er...Read more of this...

Horace and Lydia Reconciled

by Eugene Field
 HORACE

When you were mine in auld lang syne,
And when none else your charms might ogle,
I'll not deny,
Fair nymph, that I
Was happier than a Persian mogul.

LYDIA

Before she came--that rival flame!--
(Was ever female creature sillier?)
In those good times,
Bepraised in rhymes,
I was more famed than Mother Ilia!

HORACE

Chloe of Thrace! With what a grace
Does she at song or harp employ her!
I'd gladly die
If...Read more of this...

Symptom Recital

by Dorothy Parker
 I do not like my state of mind;
I'm bitter, querulous, unkind.
I hate my legs, I hate my hands,
I do not yearn for lovelier lands.
I dread the dawn's recurrent light;
I hate to go to bed at night.
I snoot at simple, earnest folk.
I cannot take the gentlest joke.
I find no peace in paint or type.
My world is but a lot of...Read more of this...

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