Famous Simon Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Helen of Tyre

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
 What phantom is this that appears
Through the purple mist of the years,
Itself but a mist like these?
A woman of cloud and of fire;
It is she; it is Helen of Tyre,
The town in the midst of the seas. 

O Tyre! in thy crowded streets
The phantom appears and retreats,
And the Israelites that sell
Thy lilies and lions of brass,
Look up as they...Read more of this...

Epistle to Neruda

by Yevgeny Yevtushenko
 Superb,
 Like a seasoned lion,
Neruda buys bread in the shop.
He asks for it to be wrapped in paper
And solemly puts it under his arm:
"Let someone at least think
that at some time
 I bought a book…"
Waving his hand in farewell,
like a Roman
 rather dreamily royal, 
in the air scented with mollusks, 
 oysters,
 rice, 
he walks with the bread through...Read more of this...

Memento

by Yevgeny Yevtushenko
 Like a reminder of this life 
of trams, sun, sparrows, 
and the flighty uncontrolledness 
of streams leaping like thermometers, 
and because ducks are quacking somewhere 
above the crackling of the last, paper-thin ice, 
and because children are crying bitterly 
(remember children's lives are so sweet!) 
and because in the drunken, shimmering starlight 
the new moon whoops it up, 
and...Read more of this...

Ballad of the Goodly Fere

by Ezra Pound
 Simon Zelotes speaking after the Crucifixion.
Fere=Mate, Companion.

Ha' we lost the goodliest fere o' all
For the priests and the gallows tree?
Aye lover he was of brawny men,
O' ships and the open sea.

When they came wi' a host to take Our Man
His smile was good to see,
"First let these go!" quo' our Goodly Fere,
"Or I'll see ye damned," says he.

Aye he...Read more of this...

Oxford Anthology Of Twentieth Century Poetry'

by Barry Tebb
 To Simon Jenner



NO ARMITAGE (I’d like to see his rage)

NO DUHIG (one dig long overdue)

NO GREENLAW (M & S might sue)

NO IMLAH (ditto the TLS)

NO CRICHTON SMITH or JAMIE

(Tuma’s not haggis-crazy)

NO CONSTANTINE (who’ll miss his donnish whine?)

NO LONGLEY (the QMP tick didn’t do the trick)

NO PORTER (long overdue for slaughter)

NO MAXWELL, MORRISON or MOTION

(to miss that lot I’d swim...Read more of this...

Sonnet LVII

by Francesco Petrarch
SONNET LVII. Per mirar Policleto a prova fiso. ON THE PORTRAIT OF LAURA PAINTED BY SIMON MEMMI.  Had Policletus seen her, or the restWho, in past time, won honour in this art,A thousand years had but the meaner partShown of the beauty which o'ercame my breast.But Simon sure, in Paradise the...Read more of this...

Sonnet LVIII

by Francesco Petrarch
[Pg 81] SONNET LVIII. Quando giunse a Simon l' alto concetto. HE DESIRES ONLY THAT MEMMI HAD BEEN ABLE TO IMPART SPEECH TO HIS PORTRAIT OF LAURA.  When, at my word, the high thought fired his mind,Within that master-hand which placed the pen,Had but the painter, in his fair work,...Read more of this...

Simple Simon

by Mother Goose
Simple Simon met a pieman,
    Going to the fair;
Says Simple Simon to the pieman,
    "Let me taste your ware."

Says the pieman to Simple Simon,
    "Show me first your penny,"
Says Simple Simon to the pieman,
    "Indeed, I have not any."

Simple Simon went a-fishing
    For to catch...Read more of this...

Simon the Cyrenian Speaks

by Countee Cullen
 He never spoke a word to me,
And yet He called my name;
He never gave a sign to me,
And yet I knew and came. 
At first I said, "I will not bear
His cross upon my back;
He only seeks to place it there
Because my skin is black."

But He was dying for a dream,
And He was very meek,
And in His eyes there...Read more of this...

E Tenebris

by Oscar Wilde
 Come down, O Christ, and help me! reach Thy hand,
For I am drowning in a stormier sea
Than Simon on Thy lake of Galilee:
The wine of life is spilt upon the sand,
My heart is as some famine-murdered land
Whence all good things have perished utterly,
And well I know my soul in Hell must lie
If I this night before God's throne should...Read more of this...

Zone

by Guillaume Apollinaire
ZONE 


In the end you are tired of this ancient world 
Shepherd oh Eiffel Tower the herd of bridges is bleating this morning 

You've had enough of living in Greek and Roman antiquity 

Here even the cars look antique 
Only religion has stayed new religion 
Has stayed simple like the hangars at Port-Aviation 

You alone in Europe are not ancient...Read more of this...

Poem To Be Placed In A Bottle And Cast Out To Sea

by Barry Tebb
 for Ken Kesey and his merry pranksters in a bus called ‘Further...’





Dear _______ and here’s where the problem begins

For who shall I address this letter to?

Friends are few and very special, muses in the main

I must confess, the first I lost just fifty years ago.

Perhaps the best.



I searched for years and wrote en route

‘Bridge Over the Aire’ after that...Read more of this...

The Quality Of Sprawl

by Les Murray
 Sprawl is the quality
of the man who cut down his Rolls-Royce
into a farm utility truck, and sprawl
is what the company lacked when it made repeated efforts
to buy the vehicle back and repair its image. 

Sprawl is doing your farm work by aeroplane, roughly,
or driving a hitchhiker that extra hundred miles home.
It is the rococo of being your own still...Read more of this...

PG Wooster Just as he Useter

by Ogden Nash
 Bound to your bookseller, leap to your library,
Deluge your dealer with bakshish and bribary,
Lean on the counter and never say when,
Wodehouse and Wooster are with us again.

Flourish the fish-slice, your buttons unloosing,
Prepare for the fabulous browsing and sluicing,
And quote, til you're known as the neighborhood nuisance,
The gems that illumine the browsance and sluicance.

Oh, fondle each gem, and after you...Read more of this...

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