Famous Sale Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Sale poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous sale poems. These examples illustrate what a famous sale poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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...w
How much we pay or what it is we buy.”
He waited, gazing at me as if asking
The worth of what the universe had for sale
For one confessed remorse. Avon, I knew,
Had driven the wheels too fast, and not for gold.
“If you had given him then your hand,” I said,
“And spoken, though it strangled you, the truth,
I should not have the melancholy honor
Of sitting here alone with you this evening.
If only you had shaken hands with him,
And said the truth, he would have gone...Read more of this...
by
Robinson, Edwin Arlington
...r, where you'd arrived
early for the dance. But after
a moment's anxiety you were okay
because it was really a sidewalk
sale, and the shoes you were wearing,
or not wearing, were fine for that.
*
"Help me," I said. And tried to hoist
my arm. But it just lay there, aching,
unable to rise on its own. Even after
you said, "What is it? What's wrong?"
it stayed put -- deaf, unmoved
by any expression of fear or amazement.
We shouted at it, and grew afraid
when it didn't answer. ...Read more of this...
by
Carver, Raymond
...
He nursed his cotton, cursed his grain,
Fretted for news that made him fret again,
Snatched at each telegram of Future Sale,
And thrilled with Bulls' or Bears' alternate wail --
In hope or fear alike for ever pale.
And thus from year to year, through hope and fear,
With many a curse and many a secret tear,
Striving in vain his cloud of debt to clear,
At last
He woke to find his foolish dreaming past,
And all his best-of-life the easy prey
Of squandering scamps and quacks tha...Read more of this...
by
Lanier, Sidney
...the ground,
And dogwood, slopes the settlers terraced; pine
We cut at Christmas, berries, hollies, anise,
And cones for sale in Mister Haymore’s yard
In town, below the Courthouse Square. James Haymore,
One of the two good teachers at Boys’ High,
Ironic and demanding, chemistry;
Mary Lou Culver taught us English: essays,
Plot summaries, outlines, meters, kinds of clauses
(Noun, adjective, and adverb, five at a time),
Written each day and then revised, and she
Up half the nigh...Read more of this...
by
Bowers, Edgar
...him, and his babes
In those far-off seven happy years were born;
But finding neither light nor murmur there
(A bill of sale gleam'd thro' the drizzle) crept
Still downward thinking `dead or dead to me!'
Down to the pool and narrow wharf he went,
Seeking a tavern which of old he knew,
A front of timber-crost antiquity,
So propt, worm-eaten, ruinously old,
He thought it must have gone; but he was gone
Who kept it; and his widow, Miriam Lane,
With daily-dwindling profits held...Read more of this...
by
Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...y bellez ful bryyght of brende golde rungen.
Such a fole vpon folde, ne freke that hym rydes,
Watz neuer sene in that sale wyth syyght er that tyme,
with yyghe.
He loked as layt so lyyght,
So sayd al that hym syyghe;
Hit semed as no mon myyght
Vnder his dynttez dryyghe.
Whether hade he no helme ne hawbergh nauther,
Ne no pysan ne no plate that pented to armes,
Ne no schafte ne no schelde to schwue ne to smyte,
Bot in his on honde he hade a holyn bobbe,
That is g...Read more of this...
by
Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)
...its facsimile. Like jokes
or war, it's all in the timing.
I sell men back their worse suspicions:
that everything's for sale,
and piecemeal. They gaze at me and see
a chain-saw murder just before it happens,
when thigh, ass, inkblot, crevice, tit, and nipple
are still connected.
Such hatred leaps in them,
my beery worshippers! That, or a bleary
hopeless love. Seeing the rows of heads
and upturned eyes, imploring
but ready to snap at my ankles,
I understand floods and earthqu...Read more of this...
by
Atwood, Margaret
...in the same action
from her own body, anywhere --
even from a broken web.
The cabin in the stand of pines
is still for sale. I know this. Know the print
of the last foot, the hand that slammed and locked the door,
then stopped to wreathe the rain-smashed clematis
back on the trellis
for no one's sake except its own.
I know the chart nailed to the wallboards
the icy kettle squatting on the burner.
The hands that hammered in those nails
emptied that kettle one last time
are th...Read more of this...
by
Rich, Adrienne
...m another state,
A zealot full of fluid inspiration,
Who in the name of fluid inspiration,
But in the best style of bad salesmanship,
Angrily tried to male me write a protest
(In verse I think) against the Volstead Act.
He didn't even offer me a drink
Until I asked for one to steady him.
This is called having an idea to sell.
It never could have happened in New Hampshire.
The only person really soiled with trade
I ever stumbled on in old New Hampshire
Was someone who had ju...Read more of this...
by
Frost, Robert
...range and wonderful are too much with us.
The protea of the antipodes—a great,
globed, blazing honeybee of a bloom—
for sale in the supermarket! We are in
our decadence, we are not entitled.
What have we done to deserve
all the produce of the tropics—
this fiery trove, the largesse of it
heaped up like cannonballs, these pineapples, bossed
and crested, standing like troops at attention,
these tiers, these balconies of green, festoons
grown sumptuous with stoop labor?
The exo...Read more of this...
by
Clampitt, Amy
...ste il collo
per tempo al pan de li angeli, del quale
vivesi qui ma non sen vien satollo,
metter potete ben per l'alto sale
vostro navigio, servando mio solco
dinanzi a l'acqua che ritorna equale.
Que' gloriosi che passaro al Colco
non s'ammiraron come voi farete,
quando Ias?n vider fatto bifolco.
La concreata e perpetua sete
del deiforme regno cen portava
veloci quasi come 'l ciel vedete.
Beatrice in suso, e io in lei guardava;
e forse in tanto in quanto un quadrel posa
...Read more of this...
by
Alighieri, Dante
...n experience with the Cleveland Wrecking Yard be-
gan two days ago when I heard about a used trout stream
they had on sale out at the Yard. So I caught the Number 15
bus on Columbus Avenue and went out there for the first time.
There were two ***** boys sitting behind me on the bus.
They were talking about Chubby Checker and the Twist. They
thought that Chubby Checker was only fifteen years old be-
cause he didn't have a mustache. Then they talked about some
other gu...Read more of this...
by
Brautigan, Richard
...nto li Ebrei
vedevan lui verso la calda parte.
Ma se a te piace, volontier saprei
quanto avemo ad andar; ché 'l poggio sale
più che salir non posson li occhi miei».
Ed elli a me: «Questa montagna è tale,
che sempre al cominciar di sotto è grave;
e quant'om più va sù, e men fa male.
Però, quand'ella ti parrà soave
tanto, che sù andar ti fia leggero
com'a seconda giù andar per nave,
allor sarai al fin d'esto sentiero;
quivi di riposar l'affanno aspetta.
Più non rispondo, e ...Read more of this...
by
Alighieri, Dante
...reek that helps fill the Huron;
The squaw, wrapt in her yellow-hemm’d cloth, is offering moccasins and
bead-bags for sale;
The connoisseur peers along the exhibition-gallery with half-shut eyes bent
sideways;
As the deck-hands make fast the steamboat, the plank is thrown for the
shore-going passengers;
The young sister holds out the skein, while the elder sister winds it off in a
ball, and stops now and then for the knots;
The one-year wife is recovering and ...Read more of this...
by
Whitman, Walt
...old Dutch jugs
Glared from one shelf, where Toby mugs
Endlessly drank the foaming ale,
Its froth grown dusty, awaiting sale.
The glancing light of the burning wood
Played over a group of jars which stood
On a distant shelf, it seemed the sky
Had lent the half-tones of his blazonry
To paint these porcelains with unknown hues
Of reds dyed purple and greens turned blues,
Of lustres with so evanescent a sheen
Their colours are felt, but never seen.
Strange winged dragons writhe ...Read more of this...
by
Lowell, Amy
...book-stall
Flaunted it out in bills, what airs were sung,
What singers hired. Pictures of the young
"Maestro" were for sale. The town was mad.
Only Charlotta felt depressed and sad.
Each day now brought a struggle 'twixt her will
And Heinrich's. 'Twixt her love for Theodore
And him. Sometimes she wished to kill
Herself to solve her problem. For a score
Of reasons Heinrich tempted her. He bore
Her moods with patience, and so surely urged
Himself upon her, she was slowly merge...Read more of this...
by
Lowell, Amy
...ies, sighed:
"Comrade, I trust you, and understand. Keep my secret!" And so he died.
Smith was buried -- up soared his sales; lured you his books in every store;
Exquisite, whimsy, heart-wrung tales; men devoured them and craved for more.
So when it slyly got about Brown had a posthumous manuscript,
Jones, the publisher, sought him out, into his pocket deep he dipped.
"A thousand dollars?" Brown shook his head. "The story is not for sale, " he said.
Jones went away, then ot...Read more of this...
by
Service, Robert William
...insure
Its life in some Office of note:
This the Banker suggested, and offered for hire
(On moderate terms), or for sale,
Two excellent Policies, one Against Fire,
And one Against Damage From Hail.
Yet still, ever after that sorrowful day,
Whenever the Butcher was by,
The Beaver kept looking the opposite way,
And appeared unaccountably shy.
II.--THE BELLMAN'S SPEECH.
Fit the Second.
THE BELLMAN'S SPEECH.
The Bellman himself they all praised to the skies--
Such ...Read more of this...
by
Carroll, Lewis
...es, miles about,
Are with mosque and minaret
Among sandy gardens set,
And the rich goods from near and far
Hang for sale in the bazaar;--
Where the Great Wall round China goes,
And on one side the desert blows,
And with the voice and bell and drum,
Cities on the other hum;--
Where are forests hot as fire,
Wide as England, tall as a spire,
Full of apes and cocoa-nuts
And the ***** hunters' huts;--
Where the knotty crocodile
Lies and blinks in the Nile,
And the r...Read more of this...
by
St. Vincent Millay, Edna
...r shop,
that sells samosas now, not beer on tick,
to the Kashmir Muslim Club that was the Co-op.
House after house FOR SALE where we'd played cricket
with white roses cut from flour-sacks on our caps,
with stumps chalked on the coal-grate for our wicket,
and every one bought now by 'coloured chaps',
dad's most liberal label as he felt
squeezed by the unfamiliar, and fear
of foreign food and faces, when he smelt
curry in the shop where he'd bought beer.
And growing frailer,...Read more of this...
by
Harrison, Tony
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