Famous Says Poems by Famous Poets

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

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A Ballad of Ducks

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 The railway rattled and roared and swung 
With jolting and bumping trucks. 
The sun, like a billiard red ball, hung 
In the Western sky: and the tireless tongue 
Of the wild-eyed man in the corner told 
This terrible tale of the days of old, 
And the party that ought to have kept the ducks. 
"Well, it ain't all joy...Read more of this...

To-day is Friday, as the Moslem says,

by Omar Khayyam
To-day is Friday, as the Moslem says,
Drink then from bowls served up in quick relays;
Suppose on common days you drink one bowl,
To-day drink two, for 'tis the prince of days....Read more of this...

Pooch

by Robert William Service
 Nurse, won't you let him in?
He's barkin' an' scratchen' the door,
Makin' so dreffel a din
I jest can't sleep any more;
Out there in the dark an' the cold,
Hark to him scrape an' whine,
Breakin' his heart o' gold,
Poor little pooch o' mine.

Nurse, I was sat in ma seat
In front o' the barber shop,
When there he was lickin' ma feet
As if he...Read more of this...

Invocation To The Muses

by Edna St. Vincent Millay
 Read by the poet at The Public Ceremonial of The Naional Institute 
of Arts and Letters at Carnegie Hall, New York, January 18th, 1941.

Great Muse, that from this hall absent for long
Hast never been, 
Great Muse of Song,
Colossal Muse of mighty Melody,
Vocal Calliope,
With thine august and contrapuntal brow
And thy vast throat builded for Harmony,
For the strict monumental pure design,
And...Read more of this...

The dead kisses of departed years

by Emile Verhaeren
The dead kisses of departed years have put their seal on your face, and, beneath the melancholy and furrowing wind of age, many of the roses in your features have faded.
I see your mouth and your great eyes glow no more like a morning of festival, nor your head slowly recline in the black and massive garden of your hair.
Your...Read more of this...

The Correspondence School Instructor Says Goodbye To His Poetry Students

by Galway Kinnell
 Goodbye, lady in Bangor, who sent me
snapshots of yourself, after definitely hinting
you were beautiful; goodbye,
Miami Beach urologist, who enclosed plain
brown envelopes for the return of your very
Clinical Sonnet; goodbye, manufacturer
of brassieres on the Coast, whose eclogues
give the fullest treatment in literature yet
to the sagging-breast motif; goodbye, you in San Quentin,
who wrote, "Being German my hero is Hitler,"
instead of "Sincerely...Read more of this...

Picnic-time

by Eugene Field
 It's June ag'in, an' in my soul I feel the fillin' joy
That's sure to come this time o' year to every little boy;
For, every June, the Sunday-schools at picnics may be seen,
Where "fields beyont the swellin' floods stand dressed in livin' green";
Where little girls are skeered to death with spiders, bugs, and ants,
An' little boys get grass-stains on their...Read more of this...

What says the sea little shell?

by Stephen Crane
 "What says the sea, little shell?
What says the sea?
Long has our brother been silent to us,
Kept his message for the ships,
Awkward ships, stupid ships."

"The sea bids you mourn, O Pines,
Sing low in the moonlight.
He sends tale of the land of doom,
Of place where endless falls
A rain of women's tears,
And men in grey robes --
Men in grey robes --
Chant the...Read more of this...

What We Are

by William Bronk
 What we are? We say we want to become
what we are or what we have an intent to be.
We read the possibilities, or try.
We get to some. We think we know how to read.
We recognize a word, here and there,
a syllable: male, it says perhaps,
or female, talent -- look what you could do 

or love, it says, love is...Read more of this...

The Sun Says His Prayers

by Vachel Lindsay
 "The sun says his prayers," said the fairy,
Or else he would wither and die.
"The sun says his prayers," said the fairy,
"For strength to climb up through the sky.
He leans on invisible angels,
And Faith is his prop and his rod.
The sky is his crystal cathedral.
And dawn is his altar to God."...Read more of this...

An Apology for my fearfull temper

by Anne Kingsmill Finch
 Tis true of courage I'm no mistress
No Boadicia nor Thalestriss
Nor shall I e'er be famed hereafter
For such a Soul as Cato's Daughter
Nor active valour nor enduring 
Nor leading troops nor forts securing
Like Teckley's wife or Pucell valiant
Will e'er be reckonded for my talent
Who all things fear whilst day is shining
And my own shadow light declining 
And from the Spleen's...Read more of this...

Now Listen to Me and Ill Tell You My Views

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 Now listen to me and I'll tell you my views concerning the African war, 
And the man who upholds any different views, the same is a ritten Pro-Boer! 
(Though I'm getting a little bit doubtful myself, as it drags on week after week: 
But it's better not ask any questions at all -- let us silence all doubts with...Read more of this...

Says

by Walt Whitman
 1
I SAY whatever tastes sweet to the most perfect person, that is finally right. 
2
I say nourish a great intellect, a great brain; 
If I have said anything to the contrary, I hereby retract it. 

3
I say man shall not hold property in man; 
I say the least developed person on earth is just as important and sacred to...Read more of this...

Sonnet 84: Who is it that says most which can say more

by William Shakespeare
 Who is it that says most, which can say more,
Than this rich praise -- that you alone are you,
In whose confine immurèd is the store
Which should example where your equal grew?
Lean penury within that pen doth dwell
That to his subject lends not some small glory;
But he that writes of you, if he can tell
That you are you, so dignifies...Read more of this...

Manitoba Childe Roland

by Carl Sandburg
 LAST night a January wind was ripping at the shingles over our house and whistling a wolf
song under the eaves.

I sat in a leather rocker and read to a six-year-old girl the Browning poem, Childe
Roland to the Dark Tower Came.

And her eyes had the haze of autumn hills and it was beautiful to her and she could not
understand.

A man...Read more of this...

In Absence

by Sidney Lanier
 I.

The storm that snapped our fate's one ship in twain
Hath blown my half o' the wreck from thine apart.
O Love! O Love! across the gray-waved main
To thee-ward strain my eyes, my arms, my heart.
I ask my God if e'en in His sweet place,
Where, by one waving of a wistful wing,
My soul could straightway tremble face to face
With thee, with...Read more of this...

A Sick Child

by Randall Jarrell
 The postman comes when I am still in bed.
"Postman, what do you have for me today?"
I say to him. (But really I'm in bed.)
Then he says - what shall I have him say?

"This letter says that you are president
Of - this word here; it's a republic."
Tell them I can't answer right away.
"It's your duty." No, I'd rather just be...Read more of this...

470. Song—She says she loes me best of a'

by Robert Burns
 SAE flaxen were her ringlets,
 Her eyebrows of a darker hue,
Bewitchingly o’er-arching
 Twa laughing e’en o’ lovely blue;
Her smiling, sae wyling.
 Wad make a wretch forget his woe;
What pleasure, what treasure,
 Unto these rosy lips to grow!
Such was my Chloris’ bonie face,
 When first that bonie face I saw;
And aye my Chloris’ dearest charm—
 She says, she lo’es me...Read more of this...

Lament For Ignacio Sanchez Mejias

by Federico García Lorca
 1. Cogida and death 

At five in the afternoon. 
It was exactly five in the afternoon. 
A boy brought the white sheet 
at five in the afternoon. 
A frail of lime ready prepared 
at five in the afternoon. 
The rest was death, and death alone. 

The wind carried away the cottonwool 
at five in the afternoon. 
And the oxide...Read more of this...

Breaking The Charm

by Paul Laurence Dunbar
Caught Susanner whistlin'; well,
It's most nigh too good to tell.
'Twould 'a' b'en too good to see
Ef it had n't b'en fur me,
Comin' up so soft an' sly
That she didn' hear me nigh.
I was pokin' 'round that day,
An' ez I come down the way,
First her whistle strikes my ears,—
Then her gingham dress appears;
So with soft step up I slips.
Oh, them dewy,...Read more of this...

Lucille

by Robert William Service
 Of course you've heard of the Nancy Lee, and how she sailed away
On her famous quest of the Arctic flea, to the wilds of Hudson's Bay?
For it was a foreign Prince's whim to collect this tiny cuss,
And a golden quid was no more to him than a copper to coves like us.
So we sailed away and our hearts were...Read more of this...

Reason says Love says

by Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi
Reason says, “I will beguile him with the tongue;”
Love says, “Be silent. I will beguile him with the soul.”
The soul says to the heart, “Go, do not laugh at me and yourself. What is there that is not his, that I may beguile him thereby?” 

the red man says hello by Rg Gregory

 the red man says hello
the green tree says i'm here
all grown-ups are sleeping
only the children hear

decorations are delighted
presents hug the floor
the room in its festive hat
hides behind the door

through the glittering day
two worlds split the one
grown-ups lose their tempers 
children have the fun

the red man says goodbye
the green tree says next year
grown ups are exhausted
only the children hear...Read more of this...

438. Impromptu on Mrs. Riddell's Birthday

by Robert Burns
 OLD Winter, with his frosty beard,
Thus once to Jove his prayer preferred:
“What have I done of all the year,
To bear this hated doom severe?
My cheerless suns no pleasure know;
Night’s horrid car drags, dreary slow;
My dismal months no joys are crowning,
But spleeny English hanging, drowning.


“Now Jove, for once be mighty civil.
To counterbalance all this evil;
Give me, and I’ve no more...Read more of this...

Says Mister Doojabs

by Ellis Parker Butler
 Well, eight months ago one clear cold day,
I took a ramble up Broadway,
And with my hands behind my back
I strolled along on the streetcar track—
(I walked on the track, for walking there
Gives one, I think, a distinguished air.)

“Well, all of a sudden I felt a jar
And I said, “I’ll bet that’s a trolley car,”
And, sure enough, when I looked...Read more of this...

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