Famous Ruled Out Poems by Famous Poets

These are examples of famous Ruled Out 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 out poems. These examples illustrate what a famous ruled out poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).

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The Outlaws

by Rudyard Kipling
 Through learned and laborious years
 They set themselves to find
Fresh terrors and undreamed-of fears
 To heap upon mankind.

ALl that they drew from Heaven above
 Or digged from earth beneath,
They laid into their treasure-trove
 And arsenals of death:

While, for well-weighed advantage sake,
 Ruler and ruled alike
Built up the faith they meant to break
 When the fit hour should strike.

They traded...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...

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...

Farewell To The Muse

by George (Lord) Byron
 Thou Power! who hast ruled me through Infancy's days,
Young offspring of Fancy, 'tis time we should part;
Then rise on the gale this the last of my lays,
The coldest effusion which springs from my heart.

This bosom, responsive to rapture no more,
Shall hush thy wild notes, nor implore thee to sing;
The feelings of childhood, which taught thee to soar,
Are wafted far...Read more of this...

The Death of Nicou

by Thomas Chatterton
 On Tiber's banks, Tiber, whose waters glide 
In slow meanders down to Gaigra's side; 
And circling all the horrid mountain round, 
Rushes impetuous to the deep profound; 
Rolls o'er the ragged rocks with hideous yell; 
Collects its waves beneath the earth's vast shell; 
There for a while in loud confusion hurl'd, 
It crumbles mountains down and shakes the world....Read more of this...

Sonnet CXLI

by Francesco Petrarch
SONNET CXLI. Fera stella (se 'l cielo ha forza in noi). TO PINE FOR HER IS BETTER THAN TO ENJOY HAPPINESS WITH ANY OTHER.  Ill-omen'd was that star's malignant gleamThat ruled my hapless birth; and dim the mornThat darted on my infant eyes the beam;And harsh the wail, that told a man...Read more of this...

Ii

by Paul Laurence Dunbar
'T was in the radiant summer weather,
When God looked, smiling, from the sky;
And we went wand'ring much together
By wood and lane, Ione and I,
Attracted by the subtle tie
Of common thoughts and common tastes,
Of eyes whose vision saw the same,
And freely granted beauty's claim
Where others found but worthless wastes.
We paused to hear the far bells ringing
Across the distance, sweet and clear.
We...Read more of this...

Marriage And Feasts

by Victor Hugo
 ("La salle est magnifique.") 
 
 {IV. Aug. 23, 1839.} 


 The hall is gay with limpid lustre bright— 
 The feast to pampered palate gives delight— 
 The sated guests pick at the spicy food, 
 And drink profusely, for the cheer is good; 
 And at that table—where the wise are few— 
 Both sexes and all...Read more of this...

At Castle Boterel

by Thomas Hardy
 As I drive to the junction of lane and highway, 
And the drizzle bedrenches the waggonette, 
I look behind at the fading byway, 
And see on its slope, now glistening wet, 
Distinctly yet

Myself and a girlish form benighted
In dry March weather. We climb the road
Beside a chaise. We had just alighted
To ease the sturdy pony's load
When he sighed and...Read more of this...

Cleared

by Rudyard Kipling
 Help for a patriot distressed, a spotless spirit hurt,
Help for an honourable clan sore trampled in the dirt!
From Queenstown Bay to Donegal, O listen to my song,
The honourable gentlemen have suffered grievous wrong.

Their noble names were mentioned -- O the burning black disgrace! --
By a brutal Saxon paper in an Irish shooting-case;
They sat upon it for a year, then...Read more of this...

The Vain King

by Henry Van Dyke
 In robes of Tyrian blue the King was drest,
A jewelled collar shone upon his breast,
A giant ruby glittered in his crown -----
Lord of rich lands and many a splendid town.
In him the glories of an ancient line
Of sober kings, who ruled by right divine,
Were centred; and to him with loyal awe
The people looked for leadership and law.
Ten thousand knights,...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...

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...

The Year of the Rose

by Algernon Charles Swinburne
 From the depths of the green garden-closes
Where the summer in darkness dozes
Till autumn pluck from his hand
An hour-glass that holds not a sand;
From the maze that a flower-belt encloses
To the stones and sea-grass on the strand
How red was the reign of the roses
Over the rose-crowned land!

The year of the rose is brief;
From the first blade blown to the sheaf,
From...Read more of this...

Inheritance—His

by Audre Lorde
 I. 
My face resembles your face
less and less each day. When I was young
no one mistook whose child I was.
Features build coloring
alone among my creamy fine-boned sisters
marked me Byron's daughter.

No sun set when you died, but a door
opened onto my mother. After you left
she grieved her crumpled world aloft
an iron fist sweated with business symbols
a printed blotter dwell in...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...

Psalm 145 part 1

by Isaac Watts
 v.1-7,11-13 
C. M.
The greatness of God.

Long as I live I'll bless thy name,
My King, my God of love;
My work and joy shall be the same
In the bright world above.

Great is the Lord, his power unknown,
And let his praise be great;
I'll sing the honors of thy throne,
Thy works of grace repeat.

Thy grace shall dwell upon my tongue;
And while my lips...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...

To Posterity

by Bertolt Brecht
 Indeed I live in the dark ages!
A guileless word is an absurdity. A smooth forehead betokens
A hard heart. He who laughs
Has not yet heard
The terrible tidings.

Ah, what an age it is
When to speak of trees is almost a crime
For it is a kind of silence about injustice!
And he who walks calmly across the street,
Is he not out of reach...Read more of this...

To a Usurper

by Eugene Field
 Aha! a traitor in the camp,
A rebel strangely bold,--
A lisping, laughing, toddling scamp,
Not more than four years old!

To think that I, who've ruled alone
So proudly in the past,
Should be ejected from my throne
By my own son at last!

He trots his treason to and fro,
As only babies can,
And says he'll be his mamma's beau
When he's a "gweat, big man"!

You stingy...Read more of this...

Frogs in chorus

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 The chorus frogs in the big lagoon 
Would sing their songs to the silvery moon. 
Tenor singers were out of place, 
For every frog was a double bass. 
But never a human chorus yet 
Could beat the accurate time they set. 
The solo singer began the joke; 
He sang, "As long as I live I'll croak, 
Croak, I'll croak,"...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...

If A Tree Could Wander

by Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi
Oh, if a tree could wander      and move with foot and wings! It would not suffer the axe blows      and not the pain of saws! For would the sun not wander 

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...

The Challenge of Thor

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
 I am the God Thor,
I am the War God,
I am the Thunderer!
Here in my Northland, 
My fastness and fortress, 
Reign I forever!
Here amid icebergs 
Rule I the nations; 
This is my hammer, 
Mi?lner the mighty; 
Giants and sorcerers 
Cannot withstand it!

These are the gauntlets 
Wherewith I wield it, 
And hurl it afar off; 
This is my girdle; 
Whenever I...Read more of this...

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