Famous Slender Poems by Famous Poets

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

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I Now O Friend Whom Noiselessly The Snows

by Robert Louis Stevenson
 I NOW, O friend, whom noiselessly the snows
Settle around, and whose small chamber grows
Dusk as the sloping window takes its load:

* * * * *

The kindly hill, as to complete our hap,
Has ta'en us in the shelter of her lap;
Well sheltered in our slender grove of trees
And ring of walls, we sit between her knees;
A disused quarry, paved with...Read more of this...

The Fifth Ode Of Horace. Lib. I

by John Milton
 Quis multa gracilis te puer in Rosa
Rendred almost word for word without Rhyme according to the
Latin Measure, as near as the Language permit.

WHAT slender Youth bedew'd with liquid odours
Courts thee on Roses in some pleasant Cave,
Pyrrha for whom bind'st thou
In wreaths thy golden Hair,
Plain in thy neatness; O how oft shall he
On Faith and changed Gods complain: and Seas
Rough...Read more of this...

Light Hearted Author

by William Carlos (WCW) Williams
 The birches are mad with green points 
the wood's edge is burning with their green, 
burning, seething—No, no, no. 
The birches are opening their leaves one 
by one. Their delicate leaves unfold cold 
and separate, one by one. Slender tassels 
hang swaying from the delicate branch tips— 
Oh, I cannot say it. There is no word. 
Black is split...Read more of this...

Blind Mans Buff

by William Blake
 When silver snow decks Susan's clothes,
And jewel hangs at th' shepherd's nose,
The blushing bank is all my care,
With hearth so red, and walls so fair;
`Heap the sea-coal, come, heap it higher,
The oaken log lay on the fire.'
The well-wash'd stools, a circling row,
With lad and lass, how fair the show!
The merry can of nut-brown ale,
The laughing jest, the love-sick tale,
Till,...Read more of this...

A Tale of Starvation

by Amy Lowell
 There once was a man whom the gods didn't love,
And a disagreeable man was he.
He loathed his neighbours, and his neighbours hated him,
And he cursed eternally.
He damned the sun, and he damned the stars,
And he blasted the winds in the sky.
He sent to Hell every green, growing thing,
And he raved at the birds as they fly.
His oaths were many,...Read more of this...

Trilogy of Passion: II. ELEGY

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
 When man had ceased to utter his lament,

 A god then let me tell my tale of sorrow.

WHAT hope of once more meeting is there now
In the still-closed blossoms of this day?
Both heaven and hell thrown open seest thou;
What wav'ring thoughts within the bosom play
No longer doubt! Descending from the sky,
She lifts thee in her arms to realms on...Read more of this...

Battle Of Brunanburgh

by Alfred Lord Tennyson
 Athelstan King,
Lord among Earls,
Bracelet-bestower and
Baron of Barons,
He with his brother,
Edmund Atheling,
Gaining a lifelong
Glory in battle,
Slew with the sword-edge
There by Brunanburh,
Brake the shield-wall,
Hew'd the lindenwood,
Hack'd the battleshield,
Sons of Edward with hammer'd brands. 

Theirs was a greatness
Got from their Grandsires--
Theirs that so often in
Strife with their enemies
Struck for their hoards and their hearths and their homes. 

Bow'd the spoiler,
Bent the Scotsman,
Fell...Read more of this...

50. Another on the said Occasion

by Robert Burns
 ONE Queen Artemisia, as old stories tell,
When deprived of her husband she loved so well,
In respect for the love and affection he show’d her,
She reduc’d him to dust and she drank up the powder.
But Queen Netherplace, of a diff’rent complexion,
When called on to order the fun’ral direction,
Would have eat her dead lord, on a slender pretence,
Not to show her...Read more of this...

On Mr. Miltons Paradise Lost

by Andrew Marvell
 When I beheld the Poet blind, yet bold,
In slender Book his vast Design unfold,
Messiah Crown'd, Gods Reconcil'd Decree,
Rebelling Angels, the Forbidden Tree,
Heav'n, Hell, Earth, Chaos, All; the Argument
Held me a while misdoubting his Intent,
That he would ruine (for I saw him strong)
The sacred Truths to Fable and old Song,
(So Sampson groap'd the Temples Posts in spight)
The World o'rewhelming to...Read more of this...

Late Light

by Philip Levine
 Rain filled the streets 
once a year, rising almost 
to door and window sills, 
battering walls and roofs 
until it cleaned away the mess 
we'd made. My father told 
me this, he told me it ran 
downtown and spilled into 
the river, which in turn 
emptied finally into the sea. 
He said this only once 
while I sat on...Read more of this...

What slender youth (QUIS MULTA GRACILIS)

by Horace
     What slender youth, besprinkled with perfume,
         Courts you on roses in some grotto's shade?
       Fair Pyrrha, say, for whom
         Your yellow hair you braid,
     So trim, so simple! Ah!...Read more of this...

The Strange Music

by G K Chesterton
 Other loves may sink and settle, other loves may loose and slack, 
But I wander like a minstrel with a harp upon his back, 
Though the harp be on my bosom, though I finger and I fret, 
Still, my hope is all before me: for I cannot play it yet. 

In your strings is hid a music that no...Read more of this...

Far in the Further East

by Adela Florence Cory Nicolson
   Far in the Further East the skilful craftsman
       Fashioned this fancy for the West's delight.
   This rose and azure Dragon, crouching softly
       Upon the satin skin, close-grained and white.

   And you lay silent, while his slender needles
    ...Read more of this...

Wine should be drunk in the company of slender creatures

by Omar Khayyam
Wine should be drunk in the company of slender creatures
who ravish the heart with the color of their cheeks.
Art thou bitten by the serpent of grief, friend—drink, then,
of this antidote. I myself drink of it and plume myself
on the strength of it; would that it might be propitious!
If you drink it not, why not be willing that I should?
Go, eat...Read more of this...

Song by Gulbaz

by Adela Florence Cory Nicolson
   Love, let me thank you for this!
     Now we have drifted apart,
   Wandered away from the sea,—
     For the fresh touch of your kiss,
   For the young warmth of your heart,
     For your youth given to me.

   Thanks: for...Read more of this...

Sonnet V

by William Shakespeare
 Not undelightful, friend, our rustic ease
To grateful hearts; for by especial hap,
Deep nested in the hill's enormous lap,
With its own ring of walls and grove of trees,
Sits, in deep shelter, our small cottage - nor
Far-off is seen, rose carpeted and hung
With clematis, the quarry whence she sprung,
O mater pulchra filia pulchrior,
Whither in early spring, unharnessed folk,
We join the pairing...Read more of this...

Elegy VIII: The Comparison

by John Donne
 As the sweet sweat of roses in a still,
As that which from chafed musk-cats' pores doth trill,
As the almighty balm of th' early East,
Such are the sweat drops of my mistress' breast,
And on her brow her skin such lustre sets,
They seem no sweat drops, but pearl coronets.
Rank sweaty froth thy Mistress's brow defiles,
Like spermatic issue of ripe menstruous boils,
Or...Read more of this...

If only out of vanity

by Staceyann Chin
If only out of vanity
I have wondered what kind of woman I will be
when I am well past the summer of my raging youth
Will I still be raising revolutionary flags
and making impassioned speeches
that stir up anger in the hearts of pseudo-liberals
dressed in navy-blue conservative wear

In those years when I am grateful
I still have a good sturdy bladder
that does not leak...Read more of this...

550. Song—A Lass wi' a Tocher

by Robert Burns
 AWA’ wi’ your witchcraft o’ Beauty’s alarms,
The slender bit Beauty you grasp in your arms,
O, gie me the lass that has acres o’ charms,
O, gie me the lass wi’ the weel-stockit farms.


Chorus.—Then hey, for a lass wi’ a tocher,
Then hey, for a lass wi’ a tocher;
Then hey, for a lass wi’ a tocher;
 The nice yellow guineas for me.


Your...Read more of this...

Meditations In Time Of Civil War

by William Butler Yeats
 I. Ancestral Houses

Surely among a rich man's flowering lawns,
Amid the rustle of his planted hills,
Life overflows without ambitious pains;
And rains down life until the basin spills,
And mounts more dizzy high the more it rains
As though to choose whatever shape it wills
And never stoop to a mechanical
Or servile shape, at others' beck and call.

Mere dreams, mere dreams! Yet Homer had...Read more of this...

The Iron Gate

by Oliver Wendell Holmes
 WHERE is this patriarch you are kindly greeting?
Not unfamiliar to my ear his name,
Nor yet unknown to many a joyous meeting
In days long vanished,-- is he still the same,

Or changed by years, forgotten and forgetting,
Dull-eared, dim-sighted, slow of speech and thought,
Still o'er the sad, degenerate present fretting,
Where all goes wrong, and nothing as it ought?

Old age, the graybeard! Well,...Read more of this...

The Captive Dove

by Anne Bronte
 Poor restless dove, I pity thee; 
And when I hear thy plaintive moan, 
I mourn for thy captivity, 
And in thy woes forget mine own. 

To see thee stand prepared to fly, 
And flap those useless wings of thine, 
And gaze into the distant sky, 
Would melt a harder heart than mine. 

In vain-in vain! Thou canst not rise:...Read more of this...

The Rape of the Lock: Canto 2

by Alexander Pope
 Not with more glories, in th' etherial plain, 
The sun first rises o'er the purpled main,
Than, issuing forth, the rival of his beams
Launch'd on the bosom of the silver Thames.
Fair nymphs, and well-dress'd youths around her shone,
But ev'ry eye was fix'd on her alone.
On her white breast a sparkling cross she wore,
Which Jews might kiss, and infidels adore.
Her lively...Read more of this...

0 Remain Dear One..

by Mihai Eminescu
"O remain, dear one, I love you, 
Stay with me in my fair land, 
For your dreamings and longings 
Only I can understand. 

You, who like a prince reclining 
O'er the pool with heaven starred; 
You who gaze up from the water 
With such earnest deep regard. 

Stay, for where the lapping wavelets 
Shake the tall and tasseled grass, 
I...Read more of this...

Afridi Love

by Adela Florence Cory Nicolson
   Since, Oh, Beloved, you are not even faithful
     To me, who loved you so, for one short night,
   For one brief space of darkness, though my absence
     Did but endure until the dawning light;

   Since all your beauty—which was mine—you squandered
    ...Read more of this...

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