Famous Singer Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Mummys Curse

by Charles Simic
 Befriending an eccentric young woman
The sole resident of a secluded Victorian mansion.
She takes long walks in the evening rain,
And so do I, with my hair full of dead leaves.

In her former life, she was an opera singer.
She remembers the rich Neapolitan pastries,
Points to a bit of fresh whipped cream
Still left in the corner of her lower lip,
Tells me she...Read more of this...

The Late Singer

by William Carlos (WCW) Williams
 Here it is spring again 
and I still a young man! 
I am late at my singing. 
The sparrow with the black rain on his breast 
has been at his cadenzas for two weeks past:
What is it that is dragging at my heart? 
The grass by the back door 
is stiff with sap. 
The old maples are opening 
their...Read more of this...

A Singer of the Bush

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 There is waving of grass in the breeze
And a song in the air,
And a murmur of myriad bees
That toil everywhere.
There is scent in the blossom and bough,
And the breath of the Spring
Is as soft as a kiss on a brow --
And Spring-time I sing.

There is drought on the land, and the stock
Tumble down in their tracks
Or follow -- a...Read more of this...

The Fair Singer

by Andrew Marvell
 To make a final conquest of all me,
Love did compose so sweet an Enemy,
In whom both Beauties to my death agree,
Joyning themselves in fatal Harmony;
That while she with her Eyes my Heart does bind,
She with her Voice might captivate my Mind.

I could have fled from One but singly fair:
My dis-intangled Soul it self might save,
Breaking the curled trammels of...Read more of this...

On Torture: A Public Singer

by Hilaire Belloc
 Torture will give a dozen pence or more 
To keep a drab from bawling at his door. 
The public taste is quite a different thing- 
Torture is positively paid to sing....Read more of this...

To My Fairy Fancies

by Sarojini Naidu
 NAY, no longer I may hold you, 
In my spirit's soft caresses, 
Nor like lotus-leaves enfold you 
In the tangles of my tresses. 
Fairy fancies, fly away 
To the white cloud-wildernesses, 
Fly away!


Nay, no longer ye may linger 
With your laughter-lighted faces, 
Now I am a thought-worn singer 
In life's high and lonely places. 
Fairy fancies, fly away, 
To...Read more of this...

The North Star Whispers to the Blacksmiths Son

by Vachel Lindsay
 THE North Star whispers: "You are one 
Of those whose course no chance can change. 
You blunder, but are not undone, 
Your spirit-task is fixed and strange. 

"When here you walk, a bloodless shade, 
A singer all men else forget. 
Your chants of hammer, forge and spade 
Will move the prarie-village yet. 

"That young, stiff-necked, reviling town 
Beholds your...Read more of this...

The Singer

by Adela Florence Cory Nicolson
   O beautiful Stars, when you see me go
     Hither and thither, in search of love,
   Do you think me faithless, who gleam and glow
     Serene and fixed in the blue above?
            O Stars, so golden, it...Read more of this...

The Master Singer

by George William Russell
 A LAUGHTER in the diamond air, a music in the trembling grass;
And one by one the words of light as joydrops through my being pass:
“I am the sunlight in the heart, the silver moon-glow in the mind;
My laughter runs and ripples through the wavy tresses of the wind.
I am the fire upon the hills, the dancing flame that leads...Read more of this...

This Month the Almonds Bloom at Kandahar

by Adela Florence Cory Nicolson
   The singer only sang the Joy of Life,
     For all too well, alas! the singer knew
   How hard the daily toil, how keen the strife,
     How salt the falling tear; the joys how few.

   He who thinks hard soon finds it hard to live,
 ...Read more of this...

Song of the Future

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 'Tis strange that in a land so strong 
So strong and bold in mighty youth, 
We have no poet's voice of truth 
To sing for us a wondrous song. 
Our chiefest singer yet has sung 
In wild, sweet notes a passing strain, 
All carelessly and sadly flung 
To that dull world he thought so vain. 

"I care for nothing,...Read more of this...

Beat! Beat! Drums!

by Walt Whitman
 1
BEAT! beat! drums!—Blow! bugles! blow! 
Through the windows—through doors—burst like a ruthless force, 
Into the solemn church, and scatter the congregation; 
Into the school where the scholar is studying; 
Leave not the bridegroom quiet—no happiness must he have now with his bride;
Nor the peaceful farmer any peace, plowing his field or gathering his grain; 
So fierce you whirr and...Read more of this...

The Singer

by Alexander Pushkin
 Did you attend? He sang by grove ripe - 
The bard of love, the singer of his mourning.
When fields were silent by the early morning,
To sad and simple sounds of a pipe
Did you attend?

Did you behold in dark of forest leaf 
The bard of love, the singer of his sadness?
The trace of tears, the smile, the utter paleness,
The quiet...Read more of this...

A Recantation

by Rudyard Kipling
 1917

(To Lyde of the Music Halls)


What boots it on the Gods to call?
 Since, answered or unheard,
We perish with the Gods and all
 Things made--except the Word.

Ere certain Fate had touched a heart
 By fifty years made cold,
I judged thee, Lyde, and thy art
 O'erblown and over-bold.

But he--but he, of whom bereft
 I suffer vacant days--
He on his shield...Read more of this...

Singer in the Prison The

by Walt Whitman
 1
 O sight of shame, and pain, and dole! 
 O fearful thought—a convict Soul! 
RANG the refrain along the hall, the prison, 
Rose to the roof, the vaults of heaven above, 
Pouring in floods of melody, in tones so pensive, sweet and strong, the like whereof was
 never
 heard,
Reaching the far-off sentry, and the armed guards, who ceas’d...Read more of this...

The Wife of the Mind

by Charles Webb
 Sharecroppers' child, she was more schooled
In slaughtering pigs and coaxing corn out of
The ground than in the laws of Math, the rules
Of Grammar. Seventeen, she fell in love
With the senior quarterback, and nearly
Married him, but—the wedding just a week
Away—drove her trousseau back to Penney's,
Then drove on past sagging fences, flooding creeks,
And country bars to huge Washington State,
Where, feeling like...Read more of this...

A Singer

by William Allingham
 That which he did not feel, he would not sing; 
What most he felt, religion it was to hide 
In a dumb darkling grotto, where the spring 
Of tremulous tears, arising unespied, 
Became a holy well that durst not glide 
Into the day with moil or murmuring; 
Whereto, as if to some unlawful thing, 
He sto]e, musing or praying...Read more of this...

French Quarter Singer

by Jennifer Reeser
 Strumming your polished guitar with long, nail-lightened fingers,
where are you now, leaning forward a peasant-dressed arm –
lark on the near side of midnight, my crescent curb lady,
ear to your sound, dangling each with a silver folk charm?
Sweet was your voice for an evening, amid the brash jazzy –
seamless soprano, your scales a tough, platinum thread.
Angel on brick, tipping jar...Read more of this...

Carol of Words

by Walt Whitman
 1
EARTH, round, rolling, compact—suns, moons, animals—all these are words to be
 said; 
Watery, vegetable, sauroid advances—beings, premonitions, lispings of the future, 
Behold! these are vast words to be said. 

Were you thinking that those were the words—those upright lines? those curves,
 angles,
 dots? 
No, those are not the words—the substantial words are in the ground and sea,
They are in...Read more of this...

Gone

by Carl Sandburg
 Everybody loved Chick Lorimer in our town.
 Far off
 Everybody loved her.
So we all love a wild girl keeping a hold
On a dream she wants.
Nobody knows now where Chick Lorimer went.
Nobody knows why she packed her trunk. . a few
 old things
And is gone,
 Gone with her little chin
 Thrust ahead of her
 And her soft hair blowing careless
...Read more of this...

For James Simmons

by Barry Tebb
 Sitting in outpatients

With my own minor ills

Dawn’s depression lifts

To the lilt of amitryptilene,

A double dose for a day’s journey

To a distant ward.



The word was out that Simmons

Had died eighteen months after

An aneurism at sixty seven.



The meeting he proposed in his second letter

Could never happen: a few days later

A Christmas card in Gaelic - Nollaig Shona -

Then silence, an unbearable...Read more of this...

A Minor Poet

by Amy Levy
 "What should such fellows as I do,
Crawling between earth and heaven?"


Here is the phial; here I turn the key
Sharp in the lock. Click!--there's no doubt it turned.
This is the third time; there is luck in threes--
Queen Luck, that rules the world, befriend me now
And freely I'll forgive you many wrongs!
Just as the draught began to work, first time,
Tom Leigh,...Read more of this...

Im A Jazz Singer She Replied

by James A Emanuel
 He dug what she said:
bright jellies, smooth marmalade
spread on warm brown bread.

"Jazz" from drowsy lips
orchids lift to honeybees
floating on long sips.

"Jazz": quick fingerpops
pancake on a griddle-top
of memories. Stop.

"Jazz": mysterious
as nutmeg, missing fingers,
gold, Less serious.

"Jazz": cool bannister.
Don't need no stair. Ways to climb
when the sax is there....Read more of this...

Songs For A Colored Singer

by Elizabeth Bishop
 I

A washing hangs upon the line, 
 but it's not mine. 
None of the things that I can see 
 belong to me. 
The neighbors got a radio with an aerial; 
 we got a little portable. 
They got a lot of closet space; 
 we got a suitcase. 

I say, "Le Roy, just how much are we owing?
Something...Read more of this...

Room 5: The Concert Singer

by Robert William Service
 I'm one of these haphazard chaps
Who sit in cafes drinking;
A most improper taste, perhaps,
Yet pleasant, to my thinking.
For, oh, I hate discord and strife;
I'm sadly, weakly human;
And I do think the best of life
Is wine and song and woman.

Now, there's that youngster on my right
Who thinks himself a poet,
And so he toils from morn to night
And vainly hopes to...Read more of this...

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