Famous Sell Out Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Sams Racehorse

by Marriott Edgar
 When Sam Small retired from the Army 
He'd a pension of ninepence a day,
And seven pounds fourteen and twopence 
He'd saved from his rations and pay.

He knew this 'ere wasn't a fortune, 
But reckoned with prudence and care
He'd find some investment to save him 
From hard work and things like that there.

He thought he'd invest in a race orse,...Read more of this...

Reconstruction

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 So, the bank has bust it's boiler! And in six or seven year 
It will pay me all my money back -- of course! 
But the horse will perish waiting while the grass is germinating, 
And I reckon I'll be something like the horse. 

There's the ploughing to be finished and the ploughmen want their pay, 
And I'd like...Read more of this...

Oh My Love

by Nizar Qabbani
 Oh, my love
If you were at the level of my madness,
You would cast away your jewelry,
Sell all your bracelets,
And sleep in my eyes....Read more of this...

The Mountain Squatter

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 Here in my mountain home, 
On rugged hills and steep, 
I sit and watch you come, 
O Riverinia Sheep! 
You come from the fertile plains 
Where saltbush (sometimes) grows, 
And flats that (when it rains) 
Will blossom like the rose. 

But when the summer sun 
Gleams down like burnished brass, 
You have to leave your run 
And hustle off...Read more of this...

I sweep the tavern threshold with my hair,

by Omar Khayyam
I sweep the tavern threshold with my hair,
For both world's good and ill I take no care;
Should the two worlds roll to my house, like balls,
When drunk, for one small coin I'd sell the pair!...Read more of this...

A Walgett Episode

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 The sun strikes down with a blinding glare; 
The skies are blue and the plains are wide, 
The saltbush plains that are burnt and bare 
By Walgett out on the Barwon side -- 
The Barwon River that wanders down 
In a leisurely manner by Walgett Town. 
There came a stranger -- a "Cockatoo" -- 
The word means farmer, as...Read more of this...

Ballade

by Paul Laurence Dunbar
By Mystic's banks I held my dream.
(I held my fishing rod as well,)
The vision was of dace and bream,
A fruitless vision, sooth to tell.
But round about the sylvan dell
Were other sweet Arcadian shrines,
Gone now, is all the rural spell,
Arcadia has trolley lines.
Oh, once loved, sluggish, darkling stream,
For me no more, thy waters swell,
Thy music now the engines' scream,
Thy fragrance now...Read more of this...

Satires of Circumstance in Fifteen Glimpses VIII: In the St

by Thomas Hardy
 He enters, and mute on the edge of a chair
Sits a thin-faced lady, a stranger there,
A type of decayed gentility;
And by some small signs he well can guess
That she comes to him almost breakfastless.
"I have called -- I hope I do not err --
I am looking for a purchaser
Of some score volumes of the works
Of eminent divines I own,...Read more of this...

Advice to the Grub Street Verse-writers

by Jonathan Swift
 Ye poets ragged and forlorn,
Down from your garrets haste;
Ye rhymers, dead as soon as born,
Not yet consign'd to paste;
I know a trick to make you thrive;
O, 'tis a quaint device:
Your still-born poems shall revive,
And scorn to wrap up spice.
Get all your verses printed fair,
Then let them well be dried;
And Curll must have a special care
To leave the margin wide.

Lend...Read more of this...

The Owners Of The Little Box

by Vasko Popa
 Line the inside of the little box 
With your precious skin 
And make yourself cozy 
Just as you would in your own home 

Make space voyages inside her 
Gather stars make time squirt its milk 
And sleep in the clouds 

Just don't go around pretending 
You're more important than her length 
And wiser than her width 

If you do...Read more of this...

The Waving Of The Corn

by Sidney Lanier
 Ploughman, whose gnarly hand yet kindly wheeled
Thy plough to ring this solitary tree
With clover, whose round plat, reserved a-field,
In cool green radius twice my length may be --
Scanting the corn thy furrows else might yield,
To pleasure August, bees, fair thoughts, and me,
That here come oft together -- daily I,
Stretched prone in summer's mortal ecstasy,
Do stir with thanks to thee,...Read more of this...

378. Song—Bessy and her Spinnin Wheel

by Robert Burns
 O LEEZE me on my spinnin’ wheel,
And leeze me on my rock and reel;
Frae tap to tae that cleeds me bien,
And haps me biel and warm at e’en;
I’ll set me down and sing and spin,
While laigh descends the simmer sun,
Blest wi’ content, and milk and meal,
O leeze me on my spinnin’ wheel.


On ilka hand the burnies trot,
And meet below...Read more of this...

Baseball and Writing

by Marianne Moore
 Fanaticism?No.Writing is exciting
and baseball is like writing.
You can never tell with either
how it will go
or what you will do;
generating excitement--
a fever in the victim--
pitcher, catcher, fielder, batter.
Victim in what category?
Owlman watching from the press box?
To whom does it apply?
Who is excited?Might it be I?

It's a pitcher's battle all the way--a duel--
a catcher's, as, with cruel
puma paw, Elston Howard lumbers...Read more of this...

Going Home

by Robert William Service
 I'm goin' 'ome to Blighty -- ain't I glad to 'ave the chance!
I'm loaded up wiv fightin', and I've 'ad my fill o' France;
I'm feelin' so excited-like, I want to sing and dance,
 For I'm goin' 'ome to Blighty in the mawnin'.

I'm goin' 'ome to Blighty: can you wonder as I'm gay?
I've got a wound I wouldn't sell for...Read more of this...

Sonnet 21: So is it not with me as with that muse

by William Shakespeare
 So is it not with me as with that muse,
Stirred by a painted beauty to his verse,
Who heaven it self for ornament doth use
And every fair with his fair doth rehearse,
Making a couplement of proud compare
With sun and moon, with earth and sea's rich gems,
With April's first-born flowers, and all things rare
That heaven's air in this huge rondure hems.
O,...Read more of this...

The Task: Book II The Time-Piece (excerpts)

by William Cowper
 England, with all thy faults, I love thee still--
My country! and, while yet a nook is left
Where English minds and manners may be found,
Shall be constrain'd to love thee. Though thy clime
Be fickle, and thy year most part deform'd
With dripping rains, or wither'd by a frost,
I would not yet exchange thy sullen skies,
And fields without a flow'r, for warmer...Read more of this...

Albert and the Lion

by Marriott Edgar
 There's a famous seaside place called Blackpool,
That's noted for fresh air and fun,
And Mr and Mrs Ramsbottom
Went there with young Albert, their son.

A grand little lad was young Albert,
All dressed in his best; quite a swell
With a stick with an 'orse's 'ead 'andle,
The finest that Woolworth's could sell.

They didn't think much of the Ocean:
The waves, they were fiddlin' and...Read more of this...

To please the righteous life itself I sell,

by Omar Khayyam
To please the righteous life itself I sell,
And, though they tread me down, never rebel;
Men say, «Inform us what and where is hell?»
Ill company will make this earth a hell....Read more of this...

Albert and His Savings

by Marriott Edgar
 One day, little Albert Ramsbottom
To see 'ow much money 'e'd got
Stuck a knife in 'is money-box slot 'ole
And fiddled and fished out the lot.

It amounted to fifteen and fourpence
Which 'e found by a few simple sums
Were ninety two tuppenny ices
Or twice that in penn'orths of gums.

The sound of the chinkin' of money
Soon brought father's 'ead round the door
He said,...Read more of this...

On The Borders

by Les Murray
 We're driving across tableland
somewhere in the world;
it is almost bare of trees.

Upland near void of features
always moves me, but not to thought;
it lets me rest from thinking.

I feel no need to interpret it
as if it were art. Too much
of poetry is criticism now.

That hawk, clinging to
the eaves of the wind, beating
its third wing, its tail

isn't mine to sell. And...Read more of this...

Young Lambs To Sell

by Mother Goose
If I'd as much money as I could tell,
I never would cry young lambs to sell;
Young lambs to sell, young lambs to sell;
I never would cry young lambs to sell....Read more of this...

The Prodigal Son

by Rudyard Kipling
 Here come I to my own again, 
Fed, forgiven and known again, 
Claimed by bone of my bone again 
And cheered by flesh of my flesh. 
The fatted calf is dressed for me, 
But the husks have greater rest for me, 
I think my pigs will be best for me, 
So I'm off to the Yards afresh.

I never was...Read more of this...

Let us sell the diadem of Khan, the crown of Kai, let

by Omar Khayyam
Let us sell the diadem of Khan, the crown of Kai, let
us sell it and buy the sound of a flute let us sell the
turban and the silken cassock, yea, for a cup of wine let
us sell the chaplet which in itself contains naught but
hypocrisy....Read more of this...

Bill Bowls the Sailor

by William Topaz McGonagall
 'Twas about the beginning of the present century,
Bill Bowls was pressed, and sent to sea;
And conveyed on board the Waterwitch without delay,
Scarce getting time to bid farewell to the villagers of Fairway · 

And once on board the "Waterwitch," he resolved to do his duty,
And God willing, he'd marry Nelly Blyth, the village beauty;
And he'd fight for Old England,...Read more of this...

Take care, take good care of making noise in a tavern!

by Omar Khayyam
Take care, take good care of making noise in a tavern!
Pass the time there, but avoid all agitation. Sell the
turban, sell the book [the Koran] to buy wine. Finally,
let us pass through the medresseh [school of the mosques],
but let us not stop there....Read more of this...

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