Famous Sat Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Song (She Sat And Sang Alway)

by Christina Rossetti
 She sat and sang alway
By the green margin of a stream,
Watching the fishes leap and play
Beneath the glad sunbeam.

I sat and wept alway
Beneath the moon's most shadowy beam,
Watching the blossoms of the May
Weep leaves into the stream.

I wept for memory;
She sang for hope that is so fair:
My tears were swallowed by the sea;
Her songs died on the air....Read more of this...

Sorry I Missed You

by Barry Tebb
 (or ‘Huddersfield the Second Poetry Capital of England Re-visited’)



What was it Janice Simmons said to me as James lay dying in Ireland?

“Phone Peter Pegnall in Leeds, an ex-pupil of Jimmy’s. He’s organising

A benefit reading, he’d love to hear from you and have your help.”



‘Like hell he would’ I thought but I phoned him all the same

At his converted farmhouse...Read more of this...

Manners

by Elizabeth Bishop
 For a Child of 1918

My grandfather said to me
as we sat on the wagon seat,
"Be sure to remember to always
speak to everyone you meet."

We met a stranger on foot.
My grandfather's whip tapped his hat.
"Good day, sir. Good day. A fine day."
And I said it and bowed where I sat.

Then we overtook a boy we knew
with his big pet crow...Read more of this...

The Crucifixion of Christ

by William Topaz McGonagall
 Composed, by Special Request, 18th June 1890


Then Pilate, the Roman Governor, took Jesus and scourged Him,
And the soldiers platted a crown of thorns, and thought it no sin
To put it on His head, while meekly Jesus stands;
They put on Him a purple robe, and smote Him with their hands. 

Then Pilate went forth again, and said unto them,
Behold, I...Read more of this...

Necrological

by John Crowe Ransom
 The friar had said his paternosters duly 
And scourged his limbs, and afterwards would have slept; 
But with much riddling his head became unruly, 
He arose, from the quiet monastery he crept. 

Dawn lightened the place where the battle had been won. 
The people were dead -- it is easy he thought to die -- 
These dead remained, but...Read more of this...

Death In The Lounge Bar

by Vernon Scannell
 The bar he went inside was not 
A place he often visited; 
He welcomed anonymity; 
No one to switch inquisitive 
Receivers on, no one could see, 
Or wanted to, exactly what 
He was, or had been, or would be; 
A quiet brown place, a place to drink 
And let thought simmer like good stock, 
No mirrors to distract, no...Read more of this...

Always the Mob

by Carl Sandburg
 JESUS emptied the devils of one man into forty hogs and the hogs took the edge of a high rock and dropped off and down into the sea: a mob.

The sheep on the hills of Australia, blundering fourfooted in the sunset mist to the dark, they go one way, they hunt one sleep, they find one pocket of grass...Read more of this...

The Book of Thel

by William Blake
 THEL'S MOTTO 

1 Does the Eagle know what is in the pit? 
2 Or wilt thou go ask the Mole?
3 Can Wisdom be put in a silver rod?
4 Or Love in a golden bowl? 

I 

1.1 The daughters of the Seraphim led round their sunny flocks, 
1.2 All but the youngest: she in paleness sought the secret air,
1.3 To...Read more of this...

Last Words To A Dumb Friend

by Thomas Hardy
 Pet was never mourned as you,
Purrer of the spotless hue,
Plumy tail, and wistful gaze
While you humoured our ***** ways,
Or outshrilled your morning call
Up the stairs and through the hall--
Foot suspended in its fall--
While, expectant, you would stand
Arched, to meet the stroking hand;
Till your way you chose to wend
Yonder, to your tragic end.

Never another pet for me!
Let your place all...Read more of this...

A Boy Named Sue

by Shel Silverstein
 Well, my daddy left home when I was three,
and he didn't leave much to Ma and me,
just this old guitar and a bottle of booze.
Now I don't blame him because he run and hid,
but the meanest thing that he ever did was
before he left he went and named me Sue.

Well, he must have thought it was quite a joke,
and...Read more of this...

Troll Sat Alone on His Seat of Stone

by J R R Tolkien
 Troll sat alone on his seat of stone,
And munched and mumbled a bare old bone;
For many a year he had gnawed it near,
For meat was hard to come by.
Done by! Gum by!
In a cave in the hills he dwelt alone,
And meat was hard to come by.

Up came Tom with his big boots on.
Said he to Troll: 'Pray, what is...Read more of this...

Why We Tell Stories

by Lisel Mueller
 For Linda Foster


I
Because we used to have leaves
and on damp days
our muscles feel a tug,
painful now, from when roots
pulled us into the ground

and because our children believe
they can fly, an instinct retained
from when the bones in our arms
were shaped like zithers and broke
neatly under their feathers

and because before we had lungs
we knew how far it was to the bottom
as...Read more of this...

Of Old Sat Freedom on the Heights

by Alfred Lord Tennyson
 Of old sat Freedom on the heights,
The thunders breaking at her feet:
Above her shook the starry lights:
She heard the torrents meet.
There in her place she did rejoice,
Self-gather'd in her prophet-mind,
But fragments of her mighty voice
Came rolling on the wind.
Then stept she down thro' town and field
To mingle with the human race,
And part by part to men reveal'd
The fulness of...Read more of this...

A Meeting With Despair

by Thomas Hardy
 AS evening shaped I found me on a moor
Which sight could scarce sustain:
The black lean land, of featureless contour,
Was like a tract in pain.

"This scene, like my own life," I said, "is one
Where many glooms abide;
Toned by its fortune to a deadly dun--
Lightless on every side.

I glanced aloft and halted, pleasure-caught
To see the contrast there:
The ray-lit clouds gleamed glory;...Read more of this...

There was an Old Man of the Coast

by Edward Lear
There was an Old Man of the Coast,Who placidly sat on a post;But when it was cold he relinquished his hold,And called for some hot buttered toast. ...Read more of this...

Imagining you'd come to say goodbye..

by Jennifer Reeser
 Imagining you’d come to say goodbye,
I made a doll of raffia and string.
I gave her thatch hair, and a broomstick skirt
of patchwork satin rags. Around each eye
I stitched thick lashes. Such a touching thing
she was! That even you could not debate –
impassive, undemanding and inert.
Yes, surely she’d cause you yourself to sigh.
Around her breast, I sewed a loden ring
to...Read more of this...

The Code

by Robert Frost
 There were three in the meadow by the brook 
Gathering up windrows, piling cocks of hay, 
With an eye always lifted toward the west 
Where an irregular sun-bordered cloud 
Darkly advanced with a perpetual dagger 
Flickering across its bosom. Suddenly 
One helper, thrusting pitchfork in the ground, 
Marched himself off the field and home. One stayed. 
The town-bred farmer...Read more of this...

Of Old Sat Freedom

by Alfred Lord Tennyson
 Of old sat Freedom on the heights,
The thunders breaking at her feet:
Above her shook the starry lights:
She heard the torrents meet.

There in her place she did rejoice,
Self-gather'd in her prophet-mind,
But fragments of her mighty voice
Came rolling on the wind.

Then stept she down thro' town and field
To mingle with the human race,
And part by part to men reveal'd
The fullness of...Read more of this...

The Mountain sat upon the Plain

by Emily Dickinson
 The Mountain sat upon the Plain
In his tremendous Chair --
His observation omnifold,
His inquest, everywhere --

The Seasons played around his knees
Like Children round a sire --
Grandfather of the Days is He
Of Dawn, the Ancestor --...Read more of this...

A Vision of Beauty

by George William Russell
 WHERE we sat at dawn together, while the star-rich heavens shifted,
We were weaving dreams in silence, suddenly the veil was lifted.
By a hand of fire awakened, in a moment caught and led
Upward to the heaven of heavens—through the star-mists overhead
Flare and flaunt the monstrous highlands; on the sapphire coast of night
Fall the ghostly froth and fringes of the ocean...Read more of this...

By the Rivers of Babylon We Sat Down and Wept

by George (Lord) Byron
 We sat down and wept by the waters 
Of Babel, and thought of the day 
When our foe, in the hue of his slaughters, 
Made Salem's high places his prey; 
And ye, oh her desolate daughters! 
Were scattered all weeping away. 

While sadly we gazed on the river 
Which rolled on in freedom below, 
They demanded the song; but,...Read more of this...

Saltbush Bill J.P

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 Beyond the land where Leichhardt went, 
Beyond Sturt's Western track, 
The rolling tide of change has sent 
Some strange J.P.'s out back. 
And Saltbush Bill, grown old and grey, 
And worn for want of sleep, 
Received the news in camp one day 
Behind the travelling sheep 

That Edward Rex, confiding in 
His known integrity, 
By hand and seal on...Read more of this...

Dream Song 29: There sat down once a thing

by John Berryman
 There sat down, once, a thing on Henry's heart
só heavy, if he had a hundred years
& more, & weeping, sleepless, in all them time
Henry could not make good.
Starts again always in Henry's ears
the little cough somewhere, an odour, a chime.

And there is another thing he has in mind
like a grave Sienese face a thousand years
would fail to blur the...Read more of this...

The Ballad of the Anti-Puritan

by G K Chesterton
 They spoke of Progress spiring round, 
Of light and Mrs Humphrey Ward-- 
It is not true to say I frowned, 
Or ran about the room and roared; 
I might have simply sat and snored-- 
I rose politely in the club 
And said, `I feel a little bored; 
Will someone take me to a pub?' 

The new world's wisest did...Read more of this...

I

by Paul Laurence Dunbar
Love is the light of the world, my dear,
Heigho, but the world is gloomy;
The light has failed and the lamp down hurled,
Leaves only darkness to me.
Love is the light of the world, my dear,
Ah me, but the world is dreary;
The night is down, and my curtain furled
But I cannot sleep, though weary.
Love is the light of the world, my dear,
Alas...Read more of this...

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