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Famous Rumours Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry
...spake-- 
For bold in heart and act and word was he, 
Whenever slander breathed against the King-- 

`Sir, there be many rumours on this head: 
For there be those who hate him in their hearts, 
Call him baseborn, and since his ways are sweet, 
And theirs are bestial, hold him less than man: 
And there be those who deem him more than man, 
And dream he dropt from heaven: but my belief 
In all this matter--so ye care to learn-- 
Sir, for ye know that in King Uther's time 
The pr...Read more of this...
by Tennyson, Alfred Lord



...sweat enough, left flesh and bone 
On many a flinty furlong of this land. 
Also, the country-side is all on fire 
With rumours of a marching hitherward: 
Some say Vespasian cometh, some, his son. 
A black lynx snarled and pricked a tufted ear; 
Lust of my blood inflamed his yellow balls: 
I cried and threw my staff and he was gone. 
Twice have the robbers stripped and beaten me, 
And once a town declared me for a spy; 
But at the end, I reach Jerusalem, 
Since this poor cove...Read more of this...
by Browning, Robert
...e and dance
 Chills best and bravest blood,
And drops the reckless rider down
 The rotten, rain-soaked khud,
So long as rumours from the North
 Make loving wives afraid,
So long as Burma takes the boy
 Or typhoid kills the maid,
 If you love me as I love you
 What knife can cut our love in two?

By all that lights our daily life
 Or works our lifelong woe,
From Boileaugunge to Simla Downs
 And those grim glades below,
Where, heedless of the flying hoof
 And clamour overhead,
...Read more of this...
by Kipling, Rudyard
...oothe its weariness to death.

And many, called of hope and pride,
Fall ere the sunrise from our side.
Fresh lights and rumours of fresh fames
That shift and veer by night like flames,
Shouts and blown trumpets, ghosts that glide
Calling, and hail them by dead names,
Fears, angers, memories, dreams divide
Spirit from spirit, and wear out
Strong hearts of men with hope and doubt.

Till time beget and sorrow bear
The soul-sick eyeless child despair,
That comes among us, mad and...Read more of this...
by Swinburne, Algernon Charles
...he sight of murdered heroes is to hero-hearts a goad,
A thousand men are up in arms upon the Creswick road,
And wildest rumours in the air are flying up and down,
'Tis said the men of Ballarat will march on Melbourne town.
But not in vain those diggers died. Their comrades may rejoice,
For o'er the voice of tyranny is heard the people's voice;
It says: "Reform your rotten law, the diggers' wrongs make right,
Or else with them, our brothers now, we'll gather to the fight."

'T...Read more of this...
by Lawson, Henry



...in the sea
receives us with a sigh
aden winks and ogles in the dark
the sport of hate released

slowly away at midnight
rumours of bombs and riots
in the long wake
a disappointed sleep

nothing to write home about
except the heat


(3) crossing the line (xii)

  give me not england
in its glory dead nightmared with rotting seed
palmerston's perverted gunboat up the
yangtse's **** - lloyd george and winston churchill
rubbing men like salt into surly wounds
(we won those wars a...Read more of this...
by Gregory, Rg
...is sick, and knows not what he does.
What record, or what relic of my lord
Should be to aftertime, but empty breath
And rumours of a doubt? But were this kept,
Stored in some treasure-house of mighty kings,
Some one might show it at a joust of arms,
Saying, 'King Arthur's sword, Excalibur,
Wrought by the lonely maiden of the Lake.
Nine years she wrought it, sitting in the deeps
Upon the hidden bases of the hills.'
So might some old man speak in the aftertime
To all the people...Read more of this...
by Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...death of the poet was kept from his poems. But for him it was his last afternoon as himself,An afternoon of nurses and rumours;The provinces of his body revolted,The squares of his mind were empty,Silence invaded the suburbs,The current of his feeling failed; he became his admirers. Now he is scattered among a hundred citiesAnd wholly given over to unfamiliar affections,To find his happiness in another kind of woodAnd be punished under a foreign code of conscience.The words ...Read more of this...
by Auden, Wystan Hugh (W H)
...rose that undulates languorously as the breeze takes it,
resting upon its leaves in a faintness of perfume.

There are rumours about the First Consul. Malmaison is 
full of women,
and Paris is only two leagues distant. Madame Bonaparte 
stands
on the wooden bridge at sunset, and watches a black swan
pushing the pink and silver water in front of him as he swims,
crinkling its smoothness into pleats of changing colour with his 
breast.
Madame Bonaparte presses against the para...Read more of this...
by Lowell, Amy
...is sick, and knows not what he does.
What record, or what relic of my lord
Should be to aftertime, but empty breath
And rumours of a doubt? but were this kept,
Stored in some treasure-house of mighty kings,
Some one might show it at a joust of arms,
Saying, 'King Arthur's sword, Excalibur,
Wrought by the lonely maiden of the Lake;
Nine years she wrought it, sitting in the deeps
Upon the hidden bases of the hills.'
So might some old man speak in the aftertime
To all the people...Read more of this...
by Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...iskers, no teeth and one foot in the grave. 

I have lost my faith that the ticket tells where we are going. 
There are rumours the driver is mad - we are all being trucked 
To the abattoirs somewhere - the signals are jammed and unknowing 
We aim through the night full speed at a wrecked viaduct. 

But I do not believe them. The future is rumour and drivel; 
Only the past is assured. From the observation car 
I stand looking back and watching the landscape shrivel, 
Wonderin...Read more of this...
by Hope, Alec Derwent (A D)
...o
His sailor's bonnet,
His short coat, travel-tarnish'd,
With one arm bare!--
Art thou not he, whom fame
This long time rumours
The favour'd guest of Circe, brought by the waves?
Art thou he, stranger?
The wise Ulysses,
Laertes' son?


Ulysses.

I am Ulysses.
And thou, too, sleeper?
Thy voice is sweet.
It may be thou hast follow'd
Through the islands some divine bard,
By age taught many things,
Age and the Muses;
And heard him delighting
The chiefs and people
In the banquet, ...Read more of this...
by Arnold, Matthew
...Cannon, horses, soldiers, flags in line --
With blare of trumpets, mighty armies come.
Suddenly, each knows fear;
Swift rumours pass, that every one must hear,
The hostile banners blaze against the sky
And by the embassies mobs rage and cry.
Now war has come, and peace is at an end.
On Paris town the German troops descend.
They are turned back, and driven to Champagne.
And now, as to so many weary men,
The glorious temple gives them welcome, when
It meets them at the bottom o...Read more of this...
by Kilmer, Joyce
...an wont to fly
When Leila dwelt in his Serai.
Doth Leila there no longer dwell?
That tale can only Hassan tell:
Strange rumours in our city say
Upon that eve she fled away
When Rhamazan’s last sun was set,
And flashing from each minaret
Millions of lamps proclaimed the feast
Of Bairam through the boundless East.
‘Twas then she went as to the bath,
Which Hassan vainly searched in wrath;
For she was flown her master’s rage
In likeness of a Georgian page,
And far beyond the Mosl...Read more of this...
by Byron, George (Lord)
...sick, and knows not what he does. 
What record, or what relic of my lord 
Should be to aftertime, but empty breath 
And rumours of a doubt? But were this kept, 
Stored in some treasure-house of mighty kings, 
Some one might show it at a joust of arms, 
Saying, "King Arthur's sword, Excalibur, 
Wrought by the lonely maiden of the Lake. 
Nine years she wrought it, sitting in the deeps 
Upon the hidden bases of the hills." 
So might some old man speak in the aftertime 
To all th...Read more of this...
by Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...melot in the Vale, 
I cannot yield assent to this 
Extravagant hypothesis, 
The plain, shrewd Briton will dismiss 
Such rumours (Daily Mail). 
But in the streets of Roundabout 
Are no such factions found, 
Or theories to expound about, 
Or roll upon the ground about, 
In the happy town of Roundabout, 
That makes the world go round....Read more of this...
by Chesterton, G K
...world impart;

But it needs heaven-sent moments for this skill."

This said, he left them, and returned no more.— 
But rumours hung about the countryside,
That the lost Scholar long was seen to stray,
Seen by rare glimpses, pensive and tongue-tied,
In hat of antique shape, and cloak of grey,
The same the gypsies wore.
Shepherds had met him on the Hurst in spring;
At some lone alehouse in the Berkshire moors,
On the warm ingle-bench, the smock-frocked boors
Had found him seat...Read more of this...
by Arnold, Matthew
...onnet,
106 His short coat, travel-tarnish'd,
107 With one arm bare!--
108 Art thou not he, whom fame
109 This long time rumours
110 The favour'd guest of Circe, brought by the waves?
111 Art thou he, stranger?
112 The wise Ulysses,
113 Laertes' son? 

Ulysses. 

114 I am Ulysses. 
115 And thou, too, sleeper? 
116 Thy voice is sweet. 
117 It may be thou hast follow'd 
118 Through the islands some divine bard, 
119 By age taught many things, 
120 Age and the Muses; 
121 And hea...Read more of this...
by Arnold, Matthew
...e only
We think of the key, each in his prison
Thinking of the key, each confirms a prison
Only at nightfall, aetherial rumours
Revive for a moment a broken Coriolanus
DA
Damyata: The boat responded
Gaily, to the hand expert with sail and oar 
The sea was calm, your heart would have responded
Gaily, when invited, beating obedient
To controlling hands

I sat upon the shore
Fishing, with the arid plain behind me
Shall I at least set my lands in order?
London Bridge is falling d...Read more of this...
by Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)
...We think of the key, each in his prison
  Thinking of the key, each confirms a prison
  Only at nightfall, aetherial rumours
  Revive for a moment a broken Coriolanus
  DA
  Damyata: The boat responded
  Gaily, to the hand expert with sail and oar                            420
  The sea was calm, your heart would have responded
  Gaily, when invited, beating obedient
  To controlling hands

                                       I sat upon the shore
  Fishing, w...Read more of this...
by Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)

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Book: Reflection on the Important Things