Famous Rhymed Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Presences

by William Butler Yeats
 This night has been so strange that it seemed
As if the hair stood up on my head.
From going-down of the sun I have dreamed
That women laughing, or timid or wild,
In rustle of lace or silken stuff,
Climbed up my creaking stair. They had read
All I had rhymed of that monstrous thing
Returned and yet unrequited love.
They stood in the door and...Read more of this...

Shepherd And Goatherd

by William Butler Yeats
 Shepherd. That cry's from the first cuckoo of the year.
I wished before it ceased.

Goatherd. Nor bird nor beast
Could make me wish for anything this day,
Being old, but that the old alone might die,
And that would be against God's providence.
Let the young wish. But what has brought you here?
Never until this moment have we met
Where my goats browse on the...Read more of this...

The Tavern

by Willa Cather
 IN the tavern of my heart 
Many a one has sat before, 
Drunk red wine and sung a stave, 
And, departing, come no more. 
When the night was cold without, 
And the ravens croaked of storm, 
They have sat them at my hearth, 
Telling me my house was warm. 

As the lute and cup went round, 
They have rhymed...Read more of this...

Sensibility

by Robert William Service
 I

Once, when a boy, I killed a cat.
I guess it's just because of that
A cat evokes my tenderness,
And takes so kindly my caress.
For with a rich, resonant purr
It sleeks an arch or ardent fur
So vibrantly against my shin;
And as I tickle tilted chin
And rub the roots of velvet ears
Its tail in undulation rears.
Then tremoring with all its might,
In blissful...Read more of this...

Rhymed Distichs

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
 RHYMED DISTICHS.

[The Distichs, of which these are given as a 
specimen, are about forty in number.]

WHO trusts in God,
Fears not His rod.

THIS truth may be by all believed:
Whom God deceives, is well deceived.

HOW? when? and where?--No answer comes from high;
Thou wait'st for the Because, and yet thou ask'st not Why?

IF the whole is ever to gladden thee,
That whole in...Read more of this...

Lovers Gifts XXVIII: I Dreamt

by Rabindranath Tagore
 I dreamt that she sat by my head, tenderly ruffling my hair with
her fingers, playing the melody of her touch. I looked at her face
and struggled with my tears, till the agony of unspoken words burst
my sleep like a bubble.
I sat up and saw the glow of the Milky Way above my window,
like a world of silence on fire,...Read more of this...

Lines to a Don

by Hilaire Belloc
 Remote and ineffectual Don
That dared attack my Chesterton,
With that poor weapon, half-impelled,
Unlearnt, unsteady, hardly held,
Unworthy for a tilt with men--
Your quavering and corroded pen;
Don poor at Bed and worse at Table,
Don pinched, Don starved, Don miserable;
Don stuttering, Don with roving eyes,
Don nervous, Don of crudities;
Don clerical, Don ordinary,
Don self-absorbed and solitary;
Don here-and-there, Don epileptic;
Don puffed and empty, Don dyspeptic;
Don...Read more of this...

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