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Famous Runaway Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Sidney, Sir Philip
...tempting plague, are diuels in true defining.

You, then, vngrateful theefe, you murdring Tyran, you,
You rebell runaway, to lord and lady vntrue,
You witch, you Diuell (alas) you still of me beloued,
You see what I can say; mend yet your froward mind,
And such skill in my Muse, you, reconcil'd, shall find,
That all these cruell words your praises shalbe proued.


Sixt Song.


O you that heare this voice,
O you that see this face,
Say whether of the...Read more of this...



by Wilde, Oscar
...uch that any lad so beautiful could seem,

Nor deemed him born of mortals, and one said,
'It is young Hylas, that false runaway
Who with a Naiad now would make his bed
Forgetting Herakles,' but others, 'Nay,
It is Narcissus, his own paramour,
Those are the fond and crimson lips no woman can allure.'

And when they nearer came a third one cried,
'It is young Dionysos who has hid
His spear and fawnskin by the river side
Weary of hunting with the Bassarid,
And wise indeed we...Read more of this...

by Stevenson, Robert Louis
...thering brambles;
Here is a tramp who stands and gazes;
And here is the green for stringing the daisies!
Here is a cart runaway in the road
Lumping along with man and load;
And here is a mill, and there is a river:
Each a glimpse and gone forever!...Read more of this...

by Wilde, Oscar
...se august
And inextinguishable might can slay
The soul with honeyed drugs, - alas! I must
From such sweet ruin play the runaway,
Although too constant memory never can
Forget the arched splendour of those brows Olympian

Which for a little season made my youth
So soft a swoon of exquisite indolence
That all the chiding of more prudent Truth
Seemed the thin voice of jealousy, - O hence
Thou huntress deadlier than Artemis!
Go seek some other quarry! for of thy too perilous blis...Read more of this...

by Russell, George William
...I PAUSED beside the cabin door and saw the King of Kings at play,
Tumbled upon the grass I spied the little heavenly runaway.
The mother laughed upon the child made gay by its ecstatic morn,
And yet the sages spake of It as of the Ancient and Unborn.
I heard the passion breathed amid the honeysuckle scented glade,
And saw the King pass lightly from the beauty that he had betrayed.
I saw him pass from love to love; and yet the pure allowed His claim
To be the pu...Read more of this...



by Zaran, Lisa
...by the time you arrive, 
the storm has already been through here. 
you are not in your own element. 
you are a runaway. 

but, then she is there, standing right in front 
of you, wet with rain, slender as a branch. 
you watch as she makes her way over 
and your heart gardens, rupturing red. 

Originally Published in Lily, Volume 1, Issue 8, July 2004
Copyright © Lisa Zaran, 2004...Read more of this...

by Frost, Robert
...sacred.
But here is not a question of what's sacred;
Rather of what to face or run away from.
I'd hate to be a runaway from nature.
And neither would I choose to be a puke
Who cares not what be does in company,
And when he can't do anything, falls back
On words, and tries his worst to make words speak
Louder than actions, and sometimes achieves it.
It seems a narrow choice the age insists on
8ow about being a good Greek, for instance)
That course, they tell m...Read more of this...

by Tate, James
...is eyes
are crawling with maggots, I refuse to say
have a nice day Suzie just because she's desperate
and her life is a runaway carriage rushing toward a cliff
now can I? Would you let her get away with that kind of crap?
Who are you anyway? And what kind of disorganization is this?
Baron of the Holy Grail? Well it's about time you got here.
I was worried, I was starting to fret....Read more of this...

by Taylor, Edward
...is eyes
are crawling with maggots, I refuse to say
have a nice day Suzie just because she's desperate
and her life is a runaway carriage rushing toward a cliff
now can I? Would you let her get away with that kind of crap?
Who are you anyway? And what kind of disorganization is this?
Baron of the Holy Grail? Well it's about time you got here.
I was worried, I was starting to fret....Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...s—her head was bare—her coarse straight locks
 descended upon her voluptuous limbs and reach’d to her feet.

The runaway slave came to my house and stopt outside; 
I heard his motions crackling the twigs of the woodpile; 
Through the swung half-door of the kitchen I saw him limpsy and weak, 
And went where he sat on a log, and led him in and assured him, 
And brought water, and fill’d a tub for his sweated body and bruis’d
 feet,
And gave him a room that enter’d ...Read more of this...

by Riley, James Whitcomb
...d and run
Purt' nigh away! -- an' it's all in fun!
Nen he skeered ag'in at a' old tin can ...
 Whoa! y' old runaway Raggedy Man!
 Raggedy! Raggedy! Raggedy Man!


An' The Raggedy Man, he knows most rhymes,
An' tells 'em, ef I be good, sometimes:
Knows 'bout Giunts, an' Griffuns, an' Elves,
An' the Squidgicum-Squees 'at swallers the'rselves:
An', wite by the pump in our pasture-lot,
He showed me the hole 'at the Wunks is got,
'At lives 'way deep in the ground, an' ...Read more of this...

by Frost, Robert
...Once when the snow of the year was beginning to fall,
We stopped by a mountain pasture to say 'Whose colt?'
A little Morgan had one forefoot on the wall,
The other curled at his breast. He dipped his head
And snorted at us. And then he had to bolt.
We heard the miniature thunder where he fled,
And we saw him, or thought we saw him, dim and grey...Read more of this...

by Browning, Elizabeth Barrett
...I.
I stand on the mark beside the shore
Of the first white pilgrim's bended knee,
Where exile turned to ancestor,
And God was thanked for liberty.
I have run through the night, my skin is as dark,
I bend my knee down on this mark . . .
I look on the sky and the sea.

II.
O pilgrim-souls, I speak to you!
I see you come out proud ...Read more of this...

by Browning, Elizabeth Barrett
...I.
I stand on the mark beside the shore
Of the first white pilgrim's bended knee,
Where exile turned to ancestor,
And God was thanked for liberty.
I have run through the night, my skin is as dark,
I bend my knee down on this mark . . .
I look on the sky and the sea.

II.
O pilgrim-souls, I speak to you!
I see you come out proud ...Read more of this...

by Abercrombie, Lascelles
...in 
To India. First he would sail, and then 
Again he would not. But, my Lord, I swear 
I never guesst he was a runaway. 

Stranger 
Well, he shall have his mind and go with you 
To India: a good slave he is, but bears 
A restless thought. He has slipt off before, 
And vexes me still to be watching him. 
We'll make a bargain of him. 

Captain I, my Lord? 
I have no need of slaves: I am too poor. 

Stranger 
For twenty silver pieces he is yours....Read more of this...

by Duhamel, Denise
...yfriend and they
always found good food in the dumpsters at least they could eat pizza and 
candy and not meat loaf the runaway actress was Sally Field or at least
someone who looked like Sally Field as a teenager the Flying Nun propelled 
by the huge wings on the sides of her wimple Arnold the Pig getting drafted
in Green Acres my understanding then of Vietnam I read Go Ask Alice and 
The Peter Pan Bag books that were designed to keep a young girl home but 
there were the se...Read more of this...

by Sexton, Anne
...If you danced from midnight
to six A.M. who would understand?

The runaway boy
who chucks it all
to live on the Boston Common
on speed and saltines,
pissing in the duck pond,
rapping with the street priest,
trading talk like blows,
another missing person,
would understand.

The paralytic's wife
who takes her love to town,
sitting on the bar stool,
downing stingers and peanuts,
singing "That ole Ace down in the hole,"
wo...Read more of this...

by Byron, George (Lord)
...were singing out of tune, 
And hoarse with having little else to do, 
Excepting to wind up the sun and moon, 
Or curb a runaway young star or two, 
Or wild colt of a comet, which too soon 
Broke out of bounds o'er th' ethereal blue, 
Splitting some planet with its playful tail, 
As boats are sometimes by a wanton whale. 

III 

The guardian seraphs had retired on high, 
Finding their charges past all care below; 
Terrestrial business fill'd nought in the sky 
Save the rec...Read more of this...

by Burgos, Julia de
...sun paints me.

You are a housewife, resigned, submissive,
tied to the prejudices of men; not me;
unbridled, I am a runaway Rocinante
snorting horizons of God's justice.

You in yourself have no say; everyone governs you;
your husband, your parents, your family,
the priest, the dressmaker, the theatre, the dance hall,
the auto, the fine furnishings, the feast, champagne,
heaven and hell, and the social, "what will they say."

Not in me, in me only my heart govern...Read more of this...

by Jonson, Ben
...ed Love, a little boy,
Almost naked, wanton, blind;
Cruel now, and then as kind?
If he be amongst ye, say?
He is Venus' runaway.

She that will but now discover
Where the winged wag doth hover,
Shall to-night receive a kiss,
How or where herself would wish:
But who brings him to his mother,
Shall have that kiss, and another.

He hath marks about him plenty:
You shall know him among twenty.
All his body is a fire,
And his breath a flame entire,
That, being shot lik...Read more of this...

Dont forget to view our wonderful member Runaway poems.


Book: Shattered Sighs