Famous Ring Poems by Famous Poets

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

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The Marble Faun

by Victor Hugo
 ("Il semblait grelotter.") 
 
 {XXXVI., December, 1837.} 


 He seemed to shiver, for the wind was keen. 
 'Twas a poor statue underneath a mass 
 Of leafless branches, with a blackened back 
 And a green foot—an isolated Faun 
 In old deserted park, who, bending forward, 
 Half-merged himself in the entangled boughs, 
 Half in...Read more of this...

Fifteen False Propositions Against God - Section XIII

by Jack Spicer
 Hush now baby don't say a word
Mama's going to buy you a mocking bird
The third
Joyful mystery.
The joy that descends on you when all the trees are cut down
and all the fountains polluted and you are still alive waiting
for an absent savior. The third
Joyful mystery.
If the mocking bird don't sing
Mama's going to buy you a diamond ring
The diamond ring is...Read more of this...

Ring Out, Wild Bells

by Alfred Lord Tennyson
Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,
The flying cloud, the frosty light;
The year is dying in the night;
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.

Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.

Ring out the grief that saps the mind,
For those that...Read more of this...

The Battle of Gujrat

by William Topaz McGonagall
 'Twas in the year of 1849, and on the 20th of February,
Lord Gough met and attacked Shere Sing right manfully.
The Sikh Army numbered 40,000 in strength,
And showing a front about two miles length. 

It was a glorious morning, the sun was shining in a cloudless sky;
And the larks were singing merrily in the heavens high;
And 'twas about nine o'clock...Read more of this...

The Hosts

by Alan Seeger
 Purged, with the life they left, of all 
That makes life paltry and mean and small, 
In their new dedication charged 
With something heightened, enriched, enlarged, 
That lends a light to their lusty brows 
And a song to the rhythm of their tramping feet, 
These are the men that have taken vows, 
These are the hardy, the flower, the...Read more of this...

The Visionary

by Robert William Service
 If fortune had not granted me
 To suck the Muse's teats,
I think I would have liked to be
 A sweeper of the streets;
And city gutters glad to groom,
 Have heft a bonny broom.

There--as amid the crass and crush
 The limousines swished by,
I would have leaned upon my brush
 With visionary eye:
Deeming despite their loud allure
 That I was rich,...Read more of this...

The Talking Oak

by Alfred Lord Tennyson
 Once more the gate behind me falls; 
Once more before my face 
I see the moulder'd Abbey-walls, 
That stand within the chace. 

Beyond the lodge the city lies, 
Beneath its drift of smoke; 
And ah! with what delighted eyes 
I turn to yonder oak. 

For when my passion first began, 
Ere that, which in me burn'd, 
The love, that...Read more of this...

On Kileys Run

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 The roving breezes come and go 
On Kiley's Run, 
The sleepy river murmurs low, 
And far away one dimly sees 
Beyond the stretch of forest trees -- 
Beyond the foothills dusk and dun -- 
The ranges sleeping in the sun 
On Kiley's Run. 

'Tis many years since first I came 
To Kiley's Run, 
More years than I would care...Read more of this...

You said to me, one evening

by Emile Verhaeren
You said to me, one evening, words so beautiful that doubtless the flowers that leaned towards us suddenly loved us, and one among them, in order to touch us both, fell upon our knees.
You spoke to me of a time nigh at hand when our years like over-ripe fruit would be ready for the gathering, how the knell of destiny...Read more of this...

Wedding-Ring

by Denise Levertov
 My wedding-ring lies in a basket 
as if at the bottom of a well. 
Nothing will come to fish it back up 
and onto my finger again. 
 It lies 
among keys to abandoned houses, 
nails waiting to be needed and hammered 
into some wall, 
telephone numbers with no names attached, 
idle paperclips. 
 It can't be given away...Read more of this...

Man is the whole creation's summary,

by Omar Khayyam
Man is the whole creation's summary,
The precious apple of great wisdom's eye;
The circle of existence is a ring,
Whereof the signet is humanity....Read more of this...

There is a morn by men unseen

by Emily Dickinson
 There is a morn by men unseen --
Whose maids upon remoter green
Keep their Seraphic May --
And all day long, with dance and game,
And gambol I may never name --
Employ their holiday.

Here to light measure, move the feet
Which walk no more the village street --
Nor by the wood are found --
Here are the birds that sought the sun
When last year's...Read more of this...

The Ring Of Polycrates - A Ballad

by Friedrich von Schiller
 Upon his battlements he stood,
And downward gazed in joyous mood,
On Samos' Isle, that owned his sway,
"All this is subject to my yoke;"
To Egypt's monarch thus he spoke,--
"That I am truly blest, then, say!"

"The immortals' favor thou hast known!
Thy sceptre's might has overthrown
All those who once were like to thee.
Yet to avenge them one lives still;
I cannot call thee blest,...Read more of this...

The Wedding Ring Dance

by Anne Sexton
 I dance in circles holding
the moth of the marriage,
thin, sticky, fluttering
its skirts, its webs.
The moth oozing a tear,
or is it a drop of urine?
The moth, grinning like a pear,
or is it teeth
clamping the iron maiden shut?

The moth,
who is my mother,
who is my father,
who was my lover,
floats airily out of my hands
and I dance slower,
pulling off the fat diamond engagement...Read more of this...

Discordants

by Conrad Aiken
 I. (Bread and Music)

Music I heard with you was more than music, 
And bread I broke with you was more than bread; 
Now that I am without you, all is desolate; 
All that was once so beautiful is dead. 

Your hands once touched this table and this silver, 
And I have seen your fingers hold this glass. 
These things...Read more of this...

The Shepheardes Calender: October

by Edmund Spenser
 OCTOBER: Ægloga DecimaPIERCE & CUDDIE
Cuddie, for shame hold up thy heavye head,
And let us cast with what delight to chace,
And weary thys long lingring Phoebus race.
Whilome thou wont the shepheards laddes to leade,
In rymes, in ridles, and in bydding base:
Now they in thee, and thou in sleepe art dead.

CUDDY
Piers, I have pyped erst so long with payne,
That all mine...Read more of this...

Real Estate News

by Carl Sandburg
 ARMOUR AVENUE was the name of this street and door signs on empty houses read “The Silver Dollar,” “Swede Annie” and the Christian names of madams such as “Myrtle” and “Jenny.”
Scrap iron, rags and bottles fill the front rooms hither and yon and signs in Yiddish say Abe Kaplan & Co. are running junk shops in whore houses of...Read more of this...

A Ring Presented to Julia

by Robert Herrick
 Julia, I bring 
To thee this Ring. 
Made for thy finger fit; 
To shew by this, 
That our love is 
(Or sho'd be) like to it. 

Close though it be, 
The joynt is free: 
So when Love's yoke is on, 
It must not gall, 
Or fret at all 
With hard oppression. 

But it must play 
Still either way; 
And...Read more of this...

Ring A Ring O' Roses

by Mother Goose
Ring a ring o' roses,
A pocketful of posies.
Tisha! Tisha!
We all fall down....Read more of this...

The Garden in Winter

by Lucy Maud Montgomery
 Frosty-white and cold it lies 
Underneath the fretful skies; 
Snowflakes flutter where the red 
Banners of the poppies spread, 
And the drifts are wide and deep 
Where the lilies fell asleep. 

But the sunsets o'er it throw 
Flame-like splendor, lucent glow, 
And the moonshine makes it gleam 
Like a wonderland of dream, 
And the sharp winds all the day...Read more of this...

Poem 20

by Edmund Spenser
 BVt let stil Silence trew night watches keepe,
That sacred peace may in assurance rayne,
And tymely sleep, when it is tyme to sleepe,
May poure his limbs forth on your pleasant playne,
The whiles an hundred little winged loues,
Like diuers fethered doues,
Shall fly and flutter round about your bed,
And in the secret darke, that none reproues,
Their prety stealthes shal worke, & snares...Read more of this...

The Wedding Ring

by Robert William Service
 I pawned my sick wife's wedding ring,
To drink and make myself a beast.
I got the most that it would bring,
Of golden coins the very least.
With stealth into her room I crept
And stole it from her as she slept.

I do not think that she will know,
As in its place I left a band
Of brass that has a brighter glow
And gleamed...Read more of this...

Ring Out Your Bells

by Sir Philip Sidney
 Ring out your bells, let mourning shows be spread;
For Love is dead--
All love is dead, infected
With plague of deep disdain;
Worth, as nought worth, rejected,
And Faith fair scorn doth gain.
From so ungrateful fancy,
From such a female franzy,
From them that use men thus,
Good Lord, deliver us!

Weep, neighbours, weep; do you not hear it said
That Love is dead?
His death-bed, peacock's folly;
His winding-sheet...Read more of this...

One Ring

by J R R Tolkien
 Ash nazg durbatulûk, ash nazg gimbatul,
Ash nazg thrakutulûk agh burzum-ishi krimpatul.

Three Rings for the Elven-kings under the sky,
Seven for the dwarf-lords in their halls of stone,
Nine for Mortal Men doomed to die,
One for the Dark Lord on his dark throne,
In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.
One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them,
One Ring...Read more of this...

The Ring of Stars

by Robert Desnos
 In order to make a star with five branches
Where six would have been the same
A circle must first be drawn
In order to make a star with five branches ...

A ring!

One did not take so many precuations
In order to make a tree from many branches
Trees that hide the stars
Trees!
You, full of nests and song birds
Covered with branches and leaves
That you...Read more of this...

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