Get Your Premium Membership

Famous Run On Poems by Famous Poets

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

See also:

by Suckling, Sir John
...usiness of the kitchen's great, 
For it is fit that man should eat; 
Nor was it there denied. 
Passion o' me, how I run on! 
There's that that would be thought upon, 
I trow, besides the bride.

Now hats fly off, and youths carouse, 
Healths first go round, and then the house: 
The bride's came thick and thick; 
And when 'twas named another's health, 
Perhaps he made it hers by stealth. 
And who could help it, Dick?

O' th' sudden, up they rise and dance; 
Then si...Read more of this...



by Riley, James Whitcomb
...oin' to cry no more, no more!

Oo! I'm so wickud! - An' my breath's so hot -
Ist like I run an' don't res' none
But ist run on when I ought to not;
Yes, an' my chin
An' lip's all warpy, an' teeth's so fast,
An' 's a place in my throat I can't swaller past -
An' they all hurt so!
An' oh, my-oh!
I'm a-startin' ag'in -
I'm a-startin ag'in, but I won't, fer shore! -
I ist ain't goin' to cry no more, no more!...Read more of this...

by de la Mare, Walter
...eks spent attending to others.
Your thoughts turn to whether
butter will last the week, how much
longer the car can run on its partial tank of gas....Read more of this...

by Pope, Alexander
...es will mend their Pace.
What Crouds of these, impenitently bold,
In Sounds and jingling Syllables grown old,
Still run on Poets in a raging Vein,
Ev'n to the Dregs and Squeezings of the Brain;
Strain out the last, dull droppings of their Sense,
And Rhyme with all the Rage of Impotence!

Such shameless Bards we have; and yet 'tis true,
There are as mad, abandon'd Criticks too.
The Bookful Blockhead, ignorantly read,
With Loads of Learned Lumber in his Head,
With his o...Read more of this...

by Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
...an, 
Hands unskilful, feet unwilling; 
Bring a wife with nimble fingers, 
Heart and hand that move together, 
Feet that run on willing errands!"
Smiling answered Hiawatha: 
'In the land of the Dacotahs 
Lives the Arrow-maker's daughter, 
Minnehaha, Laughing Water, 
Handsomest of all the women. 
I will bring her to your wigwam, 
She shall run upon your errands, 
Be your starlight, moonlight, firelight, 
Be the sunlight of my people!"
Still dissuading said Nokomis: 
"Bring ...Read more of this...



by Lanier, Sidney
...ith winds returned, --
The river raped their little herd away.

What myriad righteous errands high
Thy flames MIGHT run on! In that hour
Thou slewest the child, oh why
Not rather slay Calamity,
Breeder of Pain and Doubt, infernal Power?

Or why not plunge thy blades about
Some maggot politician throng
Swarming to parcel out
The body of a land, and rout
The maw-conventicle, and ungorge Wrong?

What the cloud doeth
The Lord knoweth,
The cloud knoweth not.
What the artis...Read more of this...

by Trumbull, John
...caverns!
What dungeons open on our fears!
What horsewhips whistle round our ears!
Tar, yet in embryo in the pine,
Shall run on Tories' backs to shine;
Trees, rooted fair in groves of sallows,
Are growing for our future gallows;
And geese unhatch'd, when pluck'd in fray,
Shall rue the feathering of that day.


"For me, before that fatal time,
I mean to fly th' accursed clime,
And follow omens, which of late
Have warn'd me of impending fate.


"For late in visions of th...Read more of this...

by Jonson, Ben
...!
Indicting and arraigning every day
Something they call a play.
Let their fastidious, vain
Commission of the brain
Run on and rage, sweat, censure, and condemn;
They were not made for thee, less thou for them.

Say that thou pour'st them wheat,
And they will acorns eat;
'Twere simple fury still thyself to waste
On such as have no taste!
To offer them a surfeit of pure bread
Whose appetites are dead!
No, give them grains their fill,
Husks, draff to drink and swill:
If...Read more of this...

by Williams, William Carlos (WCW)
...ds straining out from 
a center: inevitable postures infinitely 
repeated— 
 two—twofour—twoeight! 
Porters in red hats run on narrow platforms. 
This way ma'am! 
 —important not to take 
the wrong train! 
 Lights from the concrete 
ceiling hang crooked but— 
 Poised horizontal 
on glittering parallels the dingy cylinders 
packed with a warm glow—inviting entry— 
pull against the hour. But brakes can 
hold a fixed posture till— 
 The whistle! 

Not twoeight. Not t...Read more of this...

by Olds, Sharon
...I have heard about the civilized, 
the marriages run on talk, elegant and honest, rational. But you and I are 
savages. You come in with a bag, 
hold it out to me in silence. 
I know Moo Shu Pork when I smell it 
and understand the message: I have 
pleased you greatly last night. We sit 
quietly, side by side, to eat, 
the long pancakes dangling and spilling, 
fragrant sauce dripping out, 
...Read more of this...

by Paterson, Andrew Barton
...The news came down on the Castlereagh, and went to the world at large, 
That twenty thousand travelling sheep, with Saltbush Bill in charge, 
Were drifting down from a dried-out run to ravage the Castlereagh; 
And the squatters swore when they heard the news, and wished they were well away: 
For the name and the fame of Saltbush Bill were over the country-...Read more of this...

by Service, Robert William
...e-worms of the vintage of last Spring."
But sadly still was Barman Bill, then sighed as one bereft:
"There's been a run on cocktails, Boss; there ain't an ice-worm left.
Yet wait . . . By gosh! it seems to me that some of extra size
Were picked and put away to show the scientific guys."
Then deeply in a drawer he sought, and there he found a jar,
The which with due and proper pride he put upon the bar;
And in it, wreathed in queasy rings, or rolled int...Read more of this...

by Lawson, Henry
...ithdrawn. 

He was offered shares for nothing in the richest of the mines, 
And he could have made a fortune had he run on other lines; 
They abused him for his leaders, and they parodied his rhymes, 
And they told him that his paper was a mile behind the times. 
`Let the times alone,' said Charlie, `they're all right, you needn't fret; 
For I started long before them, and they haven't caught me yet. 
But,' says he to me, `they're coming, and they're not so very f...Read more of this...

by Lawson, Henry
...ks. 

And the `rise and fall of seasons' suits the rise and fall of rhyme, 
But we know that western seasons do not run on schedule time; 
For the drought will go on drying while there's anything to dry, 
Then it rains until you'd fancy it would bleach the sunny sky -- 
Then it pelters out of reason, for the downpour day and night 
Nearly sweeps the population to the Great Australian Bight. 
It is up in Northern Queensland that the seasons do their best, 
But it's dou...Read more of this...

by Benet, Stephen Vincent
... So. 
And all the dusk I shall sit here alone, 
With many powers in my hands -- ah, see 
How the blurred labels run on the old jars! 
Opium -- and a cruel and sleepy scent, 
The harsh taste of white poppies; India -- 
The writhing woods a-crawl with monstrous life, 
Save where the deodars are set like spears, 
And a calm pool is mirrored ebony; 
Opium -- brown and warm and slender-breasted 
She rises, shaking off the cool black water, 
And twisting up her hair, that r...Read more of this...

by Browning, Robert
...ples a dry brain, fills you its ins-and-outs,
Gives your life's hour-glass a shake when the thin sand doubts
Whether to run on or stop short, and guarantees
Age is not all made of stark sloth and arrant ease.
I have seen my little lady once more,
Jacynth, the Gipsy, Berold, and the rest of it,
For to me spoke the Duke, as I told you before;
I always wanted to make a clean breast of it:
And now it is made---why, my heart's blood, that went trickle,
Trickle, but anon, in su...Read more of this...

by Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
...woman,
Hands unskilful, feet unwilling;
Bring a wife with nimble fingers,
Heart and hand that move together,
Feet that run on willing errands!"

Smiling answered Hiawatha:
"In the land of the Dacotahs
Lives the Arrow-maker's daughter,
Minnehaha, Laughing Water,
Handsomest of all the women.
I will bring her to your wigwam,
She shall run upon your errands,
Be your starlight, moonlight, firelight,
Be the sunlight of my people!"

Still dissuading said Nokomis:
"Bring not to ...Read more of this...

by Petrarch, Francesco
...of fateSings on the wind, or heaven prolongs my date.I see my hours run on with cruel speed,And in my doom the fate of all I read;A certain doom, which nature's self must feelWhen the dread sentence checks the mundane wheel.Go! court the smiles of Hope, ye thoughtless crew!Her fairy scenes disclos...Read more of this...

by Yeats, William Butler
...l dream.
And when it's vanished still declare,
With only bed and bedstead there,
That heavens had opened.
Gyres run on;
When that greater dream had gone
Calvert and Wilson, Blake and Claude,
Prepared a rest for the people of God,
Palmer's phrase, but after that
Confusion fell upon our thought.

 V

Irish poets, earn your trade,
Sing whatever is well made,
Scorn the sort now growing up
All out of shape from toe to top,
Their unremembering hearts and heads
Base-born...Read more of this...

by Nash, Ogden
...no, Lord Byron, before I'll believe that this Assyrian was
actually like a wolf I must have some kind of proof;
Did he run on all fours and did he have a hairy tail and a big red
mouth and big white teeth and did he say Woof Woof?
Frankly I think it is very unlikely, and all you were entitled to say,
at the very most,
Was that the Assyrian cohorts came down like a lot of Assyrian
cohorts about to destroy the Hebrew host.
But that wasn't fancy enough for Lord Byron, oh de...Read more of this...

Dont forget to view our wonderful member Run On poems.


Book: Reflection on the Important Things