Famous Rid Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Attack of the Squash People

by Marge Piercy
 And thus the people every year 
in the valley of humid July 
did sacrifice themselves 
to the long green phallic god 
and eat and eat and eat. 
They're coming, they're on us, 
the long striped gourds, the silky 
babies, the hairy adolescents, 
the lumpy vast adults 
like the trunks of green elephants. 
Recite fifty zucchini recipes! 

Zucchini tempura; creamed...Read more of this...

The Critick and the Writer of Fables

by Anne Kingsmill Finch
 Weary, at last, of the Pindarick way, 
Thro' which advent'rously the Muse wou'd stray; 
To Fable I descend with soft Delight, 
Pleas'd to Translate, or easily Endite: 
Whilst aery Fictions hastily repair 
To fill my Page, and rid my Thoughts of Care, 
As they to Birds and Beasts new Gifts impart, 
And Teach, as Poets shou'd, whilst they Divert....Read more of this...

Heretics Tragedy The

by Robert Browning
 A MIDDLE-AGE INTERLUDE.

ROSA MUNDI; SEU, FULCITE ME FLORIBUS.
A CONCEIT OF MASTER GYSBRECHT,
CANON-REGULAR OF SAID JODOCUS-BY-THE-BAR,
YPRES CITY. CANTUQUE, _Virgilius._ 
AND HATH OFTEN BEEN SUNG 
AT HOCK-TIDE AND FESTIVALES. GAVISUS
ERAM, _Jessides._

(It would seem to be a glimpse from the
burning of Jacques du Bourg-Mulay, at Paris,
A. D. 1314; as distorted by the refraction from
Flemish brain to brain, during the course of
a couple...Read more of this...

Leave knowledge and take the cup in thy hand. Disturb

by Omar Khayyam
Leave knowledge and take the cup in thy hand. Disturb
thyself not about Paradise or Hell, but seek rather
the Koocer [the celestial river of wine]. Sell thy silken
turban to buy wine and have no more fear. Rid thyself
of that head-dress and envelop thy head in a simple woolen
band [emblem of Sufism]....Read more of this...

The Legend Of The Horseshoe

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
 WHAT time our Lord still walk'd the earth,
Unknown, despised, of humble birth,
And on Him many a youth attended
(His words they seldom comprehended),
It ever seem'd to Him most meet
To hold His court in open street,
As under heaven's broad canopy
One speaks with greater liberty.
The teachings of His blessed word
From out His holy mouth were heard;
Each market to a fane turn'd He
With...Read more of this...

Dane-Geld

by Rudyard Kipling
 A.D. 980-1016

It is always a temptation to an armed and agile nation
 To call upon a neighbour and to say: --
"We invaded you last night -- we are quite prepared to fight,
 Unless you pay us cash to go away."

And that is called asking for Dane-geld,
 And the people who ask ti explain
That you've only to pay 'em the...Read more of this...

The Ballad Of Pious Pete

by Robert William Service
 "The North has got him." --Yukonism.


I tried to refine that neighbor of mine, honest to God, I did.
I grieved for his fate, and early and late I watched over him like a kid.
I gave him excuse, I bore his abuse in every way that I could;
I swore to prevail; I camped on his trail; I plotted and planned for...Read more of this...

The revolution will not be televised

by Gil Scott-Heron
You will not be able to stay home, brother
 You will not be able to plug in, turn on and cop out
 You will not be able to lose yourself on skag
 And skip out for beer during commercials
 Because the revolution will not be televised

The revolution will not be televised
 The revolution will not be brought to you by...Read more of this...

bird of fire - a caution

by Rg Gregory
 the dream of the white bird flying
offers a freedom as tasty as nectar
how our lips purse to the goddess’s pap
at the want of such swoops through the air

to be rid of the drag on our legs
the sloshing through drudgery and mire
the daily entangling with bramble
the hurt of our hair caught in barbs

when there in the bowl of our eye
that...Read more of this...

People

by Dejan Stojanovic
Some people complain there are too many people on earth, 
Some people complain about secret societies, 
Some people accuse others of not being able to wake up early. 
Almost all people complain about something. 

No people get rid of themselves to solve problem No.1, 
No people disclose their own agendas to solve problem No.2, 
No people learn how to discipline...Read more of this...

For the Better

by Anne Kingsmill Finch
 A Quack, to no true Skill in Physick bred, 
With frequent Visits cursed his Patient's Bed; 
Enquiring, how he did his Broths digest, 
How chim'd his Pulse, and how he took his Rest:
If shudd'ring Cold by Burnings was pursu'd,
And at what time the Aguish Fit renew'd. 
The waining Wretch, each day become more faint, 
In like proportion doubles his...Read more of this...

Sea-adventurers' Song

by Victor Hugo
 ("En partant du Golfe d'Otrante.") 
 
 {Bk. XXVIII.} 


 We told thirty when we started 
 From port so taut and fine, 
 But soon our crew were parted, 
 Till now we number nine. 
 
 Tom Robbins, English, tall and straight, 
 Left us at Aetna light; 
 He left us to investigate 
 What made...Read more of this...

My Happiest Dream

by Victor Hugo
 ("J'aime à me figure.") 
 
 {Bk. III. vii. and viii.} 


 I love to look, as evening fails, 
 On vestals streaming in their veils, 
 Within the fane past altar rails, 
 Green palms in hand. 
 My darkest moods will always clear 
 When I can fancy children near, 
 With rosy lips a-laughing—dear, 
 Light-dancing...Read more of this...

London Voluntaries IV: Out of the Poisonous East

by William Ernest Henley
 Out of the poisonous East,
Over a continent of blight,
Like a maleficent Influence released
From the most squalid cellerage of hell,
The Wind-Fiend, the abominable--
The Hangman Wind that tortures temper and light--
Comes slouching, sullen and obscene,
Hard on the skirts of the embittered night;
And in a cloud unclean
Of excremental humours, roused to strife
By the operation of some ruinous change,
Wherever his evil mandate run...Read more of this...

Two Quatrains

by Edwin Arlington Robinson
 I

As eons of incalculable strife 
Are in the vision of one moment caught, 
So are the common, concrete things of life 
Divinely shadowed on the walls of Thought. 


II

We shriek to live, but no man ever lives
Till he has rid the ghost of human breath; 
We dream to die, but no man ever dies 
Till he has quit the...Read more of this...

I Hate This City

by Adela Florence Cory Nicolson
   I hate this City, seated on the Plain,
     The clang and clamour of the hot Bazar,
   Knowing, amid the pauses of my pain,
     This month the Almonds bloom in Kandahar.

   The Almond-trees, that sheltered my Delight,
     Screening my happiness as evening...Read more of this...

The Times Are Nightfall

by Gerard Manley Hopkins
 The times are nightfall, look, their light grows less; 
The times are winter, watch, a world undone: 
They waste, they wither worse; they as they run 
Or bring more or more blazon man’s distress. 
And I not help. Nor word now of success:
All is from wreck, here, there, to rescue one— 
Work which to see scarce so much as...Read more of this...

Pauls Wife

by Robert Frost
 To drive Paul out of any lumber camp
All that was needed was to say to him,
"How is the wife, Paul?"--and he'd disappear.
Some said it was because be bad no wife,
And hated to be twitted on the subject;
Others because he'd come within a day
Or so of having one, and then been Jilted;
Others because he'd had one once, a good one,
Who'd...Read more of this...

Sonnet CXXXIX

by William Shakespeare
 O, call not me to justify the wrong
That thy unkindness lays upon my heart;
Wound me not with thine eye but with thy tongue;
Use power with power and slay me not by art.
Tell me thou lovest elsewhere, but in my sight,
Dear heart, forbear to glance thine eye aside:
What need'st thou wound with cunning when thy might
Is more than my o'er-press'd...Read more of this...

False money is not current among us. The broom has

by Omar Khayyam
False money is not current among us. The broom has
rid our joyous dwelling of it completely. An old man,
returning from the tavern, said to me: Drink wine, my
friend, for other lives shall follow yours in your long
sleep....Read more of this...

Maveric

by Spike Milligan
 Maveric Prowles
Had Rumbling Bowles
That thundered in the night.
It shook the bedrooms all around
And gave the folks a fright.
The doctor called;
He was appalled
When through his stethoscope
He heard the sound of a baying hound,
And the acrid smell of smoke.
Was there a cure?
'The higher the fewer'
The learned doctor said,
Then turned poor Maveric inside out
And stood him on his head.
'Just as I though
You've...Read more of this...

The Death Of Kwasind

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
 Far and wide among the nations
Spread the name and fame of Kwasind;
No man dared to strive with Kwasind,
No man could compete with Kwasind.
But the mischievous Puk-Wudjies,
They the envious Little People,
They the fairies and the pygmies,
Plotted and conspired against him.
"If this hateful Kwasind," said they,
"If this great, outrageous fellow
Goes on thus a little longer,
Tearing everything he touches,
Rending everything to pieces,
Filling...Read more of this...

The Last Hero

by G K Chesterton
 The wind blew out from Bergen, from the dawning to the day
There was a wreck of trees, a fall of towers, a score of miles away
And drifted like a livid leaf I go before the tide
Spewed out of house and stable, beggared of flag and bride
The heavens are bowed about my head, raging like seraph wars
With rains that might...Read more of this...

302. Elegy on Willie Nicol's Mare

by Robert Burns
 PEG NICHOLSON was a good bay mare,
 As ever trod on airn;
But now she’s floating down the Nith,
 And past the mouth o’ Cairn.


Peg Nicholson was a good bay mare,
 An’ rode thro’ thick and thin;
But now she’s floating down the Nith,
 And wanting even the skin.


Peg Nicholson was a good bay mare,
 And ance she bore a priest;
But...Read more of this...

A Birthday

by Aleister Crowley
 "Aug." 10, 1911.

Full moon to-night; and six and twenty years
Since my full moon first broke from angel spheres!
A year of infinite love unwearying ---
No circling seasons, but perennial spring!
A year of triumph trampling through defeat,
The first made holy and the last made sweet
By this same love; a year of wealth and woe,
Joy, poverty, health, sickness --- all one glow
In...Read more of this...

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