Famous Ruled Poems by Famous Poets

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

See also:

To Wolcott Balestier

by Rudyard Kipling
 Beyond the path of the outmost sun through utter darkness hurled --
Further than ever comet flared or vagrant star-dust swirled --
Live such as fought and sailed and ruled and loved and made our world.

They are purged of pride because they died, they know the worth of their bays,
They sit at wine with the Maidens Nine and the Gods of...Read more of this...

Amabel

by Thomas Hardy
 I MARKED her ruined hues,
Her custom-straitened views,
And asked, "Can there indwell
My Amabel?"

I looked upon her gown,
Once rose, now earthen brown;
The change was like the knell
Of Amabel.

Her step's mechanic ways
Had lost the life of May's;
Her laugh, once sweet in swell,
Spoilt Amabel.

I mused: "Who sings the strain
I sang ere warmth did wane?
Who thinks its numbers spell
His Amabel?"--

Knowing that, though Love cease,
Love's...Read more of this...

Juggling Jerry

by George Meredith
 Pitch here the tent, while the old horse grazes:
By the old hedge-side we'll halt a stage.
It's nigh my last above the daisies:
My next leaf'll be man's blank page.
Yes, my old girl! and it's no use crying:
Juggler, constable, king, must bow.
One that outjuggles all's been spying
Long to have me, and he has me now.

We've travelled times to this old common:
Often...Read more of this...

In the Stable

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 What! you don't like him; well, maybe -- we all have our fancies, of course: 
Brumby to look at, you reckon? Well, no; he's a thoroughbred horse; 
Sired by a son of old Panic -- look at his ears and his head -- 
Lop-eared and Roman-nosed, ain't he? -- well, that's how the Panics are bred. 
Gluttonous, ugly and...Read more of this...

Drakes Drum

by Sir Henry Newbolt
 Drake he's in his hammock an' a thousand miles away, 
(Capten, art tha sleepin' there below?) 
Slung atween the round shot in Nombre Dios Bay, 
An' dreamin' arl the time O' Plymouth Hoe. 
Yarnder lumes the Island, yarnder lie the ships, 
Wi' sailor lads a-dancing' heel-an'-toe, 
An' the shore-lights flashin', an' the night-tide dashin', 
He sees et arl so...Read more of this...

The Lesson

by Roger McGough
 Chaos ruled OK in the classroom
as bravely the teacher walked in
the nooligans ignored him
hid voice was lost in the din

"The theme for today is violence
and homework will be set
I'm going to teach you a lesson
one that you'll never forget"

He picked on a boy who was shouting
and throttled him then and there
then garrotted the girl behind him
(the one with grotty...Read more of this...

Planetarium

by Adrienne Rich
 Thinking of Caroline Herschel (1750-1848), 
astronomer, sister of William; and others.

A woman in the shape of a monster
a monster in the shape of a woman
the skies are full of them

a woman 'in the snow
among the Clocks and instruments
or measuring the ground with poles'

in her 98 years to discover
8 comets

She whom the moon ruled
like us
levitating into the night sky
riding the...Read more of this...

Civilization

by Jennifer Reeser
 Send your army home to their wives and children.
It is late. Your soldiers are burdened, thirsty.
Lock the doors, the windows, and here in darkness
 lie down beside me.

Speak of anything we possess in common:
ground or law or sense. Only speak it softly.
Spiders crawl the crevices. Violent voices
 ruin their balance,

and they’ll fall – intuit – upon our faces,
where I...Read more of this...

Koening Of The River

by Derek Walcott
 Koening knew now there was no one on the river.
Entering its brown mouth choking with lilies
and curtained with midges, Koenig poled the shallop
past the abandoned ferry and the ferry piles
coated with coal dust. Staying aboard, he saw, up
in a thick meadow, a sand-colored mule,
untethered, with no harness, and no signs
of habitation round the ruined factory wheel
locked hard in rust,...Read more of this...

A Christmas Ghost Story

by Thomas Hardy
 South of the Line, inland from far Durban,
A mouldering soldier lies--your countryman.
Awry and doubled up are his gray bones,
And on the breeze his puzzled phantom moans
Nightly to clear Canopus: "I would know
By whom and when the All-Earth-gladdening Law
Of Peace, brought in by that Man Crucified,
Was ruled to be inept, and set aside?

And what of logic or of truth appears
In...Read more of this...

Sonnet CLIII

by Francesco Petrarch
SONNET CLIII. Se Virgilio ed Omero avessin visto. THE MOST FAMOUS POETS OF ANTIQUITY WOULD HAVE SUNG HER ONLY, HAD THEY SEEN HER.  Had tuneful Maro seen, and Homer old,The living sun which here mine eyes behold,The best powers they had join'd of either lyre,Sweetness and strength, that fame she might acquire;Read more of this...

Sonnet LX

by Francesco Petrarch
SONNET LX. Ite, rime dolenti, al duro sasso. HE PRAYS THAT SHE WILL BE NEAR HIM AT HIS DEATH, WHICH HE FEELS APPROACHING.  Go, plaintive verse, to the cold marble go,Which hides in earth my treasure from these eyes;[Pg 291]There call on her who answers from yon skies,Although the...Read more of this...

Maple

by Robert Frost
 Her teacher's certainty it must be Mabel
Made Maple first take notice of her name.
She asked her father and he told her, "Maple—
Maple is right."
"But teacher told the school
There's no such name."
"Teachers don't know as much
As fathers about children, you tell teacher.
You tell her that it's M-A-P-L-E.
You ask her if she knows a maple tree.
Well, you were named after a...Read more of this...

Last Words To A Dumb Friend

by Thomas Hardy
 Pet was never mourned as you,
Purrer of the spotless hue,
Plumy tail, and wistful gaze
While you humoured our ***** ways,
Or outshrilled your morning call
Up the stairs and through the hall--
Foot suspended in its fall--
While, expectant, you would stand
Arched, to meet the stroking hand;
Till your way you chose to wend
Yonder, to your tragic end.

Never another pet for me!
Let your place all...Read more of this...

The Fight at Eureka Stockade

by Henry Lawson
 "Was I at Eureka?" His figure was drawn to a youthful height,
And a flood of proud recollections made the fire in his grey eyes bright;
With pleasure they lighted and glisten'd, tho' the digger was grizzled and old,
And we gathered about him and listen'd while the tale of Eureka he told.

"Ah, those were the days," said the digger, "twas a...Read more of this...

The Expatriates

by Anne Sexton
 My dear, it was a moment
to clutch for a moment
so that you may believe in it
and believing is the act of love, I think,
even in the telling, wherever it went.

In the false New England forest
where the misplanted Norwegian trees
refused to root, their thick synthetic
roots barging out of the dirt to work on the air,
we held hands and walked on...Read more of this...

Forest Of Europe

by Derek Walcott
 The last leaves fell like notes from a piano
and left their ovals echoing in the ear;
with gawky music stands, the winter forest
looks like an empty orchestra, its lines
ruled on these scattered manuscripts of snow.

The inlaid copper laurel of an oak
shines though the brown-bricked glass above your head
as bright as whisky, while the wintry breath
of lines from Mandelstam, which you...Read more of this...

A Ballad of John Nicholson

by Sir Henry Newbolt
 It fell in the year of Mutiny, 
At darkest of the night, 
John Nicholson by Jal?ndhar came, 
On his way to Delhi fight. 

And as he by Jal?ndhar came, 
He thought what he must do, 
And he sent to the Rajah fair greeting, 
To try if he were true. 

"God grant your Highness length of days, 
And friends when...Read more of this...

On the Garden Wall

by Vachel Lindsay
 OH, once I walked a garden 
In dreams. 'Twas yellow grass. 
And many orange-trees grew there 
In sand as white as glass. 
The curving, wide wall-border 
Was marble, like the snow. 
I walked that wall a fairy-prince 
And, pacing quaint and slow, 
Beside me were my pages, 
Two giant, friendly birds. 
Half swan they were, half peacock. 
They spake...Read more of this...

The Atavist

by Robert William Service
 What are you doing here, Tom Thorne, on the white top-knot o' the world,
Where the wind has the cut of a naked knife and the stars are rapier keen?
Hugging a smudgy willow fire, deep in a lynx robe curled,
You that's a lord's own son, Tom Thorne -- what does your madness mean?

Go home, go home to your clubs, Tom...Read more of this...

The Princess (The Conclusion)

by Alfred Lord Tennyson
 So closed our tale, of which I give you all 
The random scheme as wildly as it rose: 
The words are mostly mine; for when we ceased 
There came a minute's pause, and Walter said, 
'I wish she had not yielded!' then to me, 
'What, if you drest it up poetically?' 
So prayed the men, the women: I gave...Read more of this...

The Bankrupt Peace-Maker

by Vachel Lindsay
 I opened the ink-well and smoke filled the room.
The smoke formed the giant frog-cat of my doom.
His web feet left dreadful slime tracks on the floor.
He had hammer and nails that he laid by the door.
He sprawled on the table, claw-hands in my hair.
He looked through my heart to the mud that was there.
Like a black-mailer hating his victim...Read more of this...

On first looking into Chapmans Homer

by John Keats
MUCH have I travell'd in the realms of gold  
And many goodly states and kingdoms seen; 
Round many western islands have I been 
Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold. 
Oft of one wide expanse had I been told 5 
That deep-brow'd Homer ruled as his demesne: 
Yet did I never breathe its pure serene 
Till I heard Chapman...Read more of this...

The Power Of Woman

by Friedrich von Schiller
 Mighty art thou, because of the peaceful charms of thy presence;
That which the silent does not, never the boastful can do.
Vigor in man I expect, the law in its honors maintaining,
But, through the graces alone, woman e'er rules or should rule.
Many, indeed, have ruled through the might of the spirit and action,
But then thou noblest of crowns, they were...Read more of this...

Dedication To A Book Of Stories Selected From The Irish Novelists

by William Butler Yeats
 There was a green branch hung with many a bell
When her own people ruled this tragic Eire;
And from its murmuring greenness, calm of Faery,
A Druid kindness, on all hearers fell.

It charmed away the merchant from his guile,
And turned the farmer's memory from his cattle,
And hushed in sleep the roaring ranks of battle:
And all grew friendly for a little while.

Ah,...Read more of this...

Dont forget to view our wonderful member Ruled poems.

Get a Premium Membership
Turn off ads, get more exposure for your poetry, and get more features with a Premium Membership.
Book: Diverse Voices: The Poetry of Human Rights and the Pursuit of Peace