Famous Smithy Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Bonnie Kilmany

by William Topaz McGonagall
 Bonnie Kilmany, in the County of Fife,
Is a healthy spot to reside in to lengthen one's life.
The scenery there in the summer time is truly grand,
Especially the beautiful hills and the woodland. 

Chorus --

Then, bonnie Annie, will you go with me
And leave the crowded city of Dundee,
And breathe the pure, fragrant air
In the Howe of Kilmany, so lovely and...Read more of this...

Aspens

by Edward Thomas
 All day and night, save winter, every weather,
Above the inn, the smithy and the shop, 
The aspens at the cross-roads talk together
Of rain, until their last leaves fall from the top.

Out of the blacksmith's cavern comes the ringing
Of hammer, shoe and anvil; out of the inn
The clink, the hum, the roar, the random singing -
The sounds that for these...Read more of this...

Back Home

by Vladimir Mayakovsky
 Thoughts, go your way home.
Embrace,
 depths of the soul and the sea.
In my view,
 it is
 stupid
to be
 always serene.
My cabin is the worst
 of all cabins - 
All night above me
 Thuds a smithy of feet.
All night,
 stirring the ceiling’s calm,
dancers stampede
 to a moaning motif:
“Marquita,
 Marquita,
Marquita my darling,
why won’t you,
 Marquita,
why won’t you love me …”
But why
...Read more of this...

Boaz Asleep

by Victor Hugo
 ("Booz s'était couché.") 
 
 {Bk. II. vi.} 


 At work within his barn since very early, 
 Fairly tired out with toiling all the day, 
 Upon the small bed where he always lay 
 Boaz was sleeping by his sacks of barley. 
 
 Barley and wheat-fields he possessed, and well, 
 Though rich, loved justice; wherefore...Read more of this...

Octaves

by Edwin Arlington Robinson
 I 

We thrill too strangely at the master's touch;
We shrink too sadly from the larger self
Which for its own completeness agitates
And undetermines us; we do not feel -- 
We dare not feel it yet -- the splendid shame
Of uncreated failure; we forget,
The while we groan, that God's accomplishment
Is always and unfailingly at hand. 

II 

Tumultuously void of a clean...Read more of this...

The Village Blacksmith

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
UNDER a spreading chestnut tree 
The village smithy stands; 
The smith, a mighty man is he, 
With large and sinewy hands; 
And the muscles of his brawny arms 5 
Are strong as iron bands. 

His hair is crisp, and black, and long, 
His face is like the tan; 
His brow is wet with honest sweat, 
He earns whate'er he can,...Read more of this...

The Ballad Of The Brand

by Robert William Service
 'Twas up in a land long famed for gold, where women were far and rare,
Tellus, the smith, had taken to wife a maiden amazingly fair;
Tellus, the brawny worker in iron, hairy and heavy of hand,
Saw her and loved her and bore her away from the tribe of a Southern land;
Deeming her worthy to queen his home and mother him...Read more of this...

The Ballad of the Bolivar

by Rudyard Kipling
 Seven men from all the world, back to Docks again,
Rolling down the Ratcliffe Road drunk and raising Cain:
Give the girls another drink 'fore we sign away --
We that took the Bolivar out across the Bay!

We put out from Sunderland loaded down with rails;
 We put back to Sunderland 'cause our cargo shifted;
We put out from Sunderland -- met the...Read more of this...

The Sycamores

by John Greenleaf Whittier
 In the outskirts of the village 
On the river's winding shores 
Stand the Occidental plane-trees, 
Stand the ancient sycamores. 

One long century hath been numbered, 
And another half-way told 
Since the rustic Irish gleeman 
Broke for them the virgin mould. 

Deftly set to Celtic music 
At his violin's sound they grew, 
Through the moonlit eves of summer, 
Making Amphion's...Read more of this...

On Woman

by William Butler Yeats
 May God be praised for woman
That gives up all her mind,
A man may find in no man
A friendship of her kind
That covers all he has brought
As with her flesh and bone,
Nor quarrels with a thought
Because it is not her own.

Though pedantry denies,
It's plain the Bible means
That Solomon grew wise
While talking with his queens.
Yet never could, although
They say he counted...Read more of this...

April Byeway

by Edmund Blunden
    Friend whom I never saw, yet dearest friend,
    Be with me travelling on the byeway now
    In April's month and mood: our steps shall bend
    By the shut smithy with its penthouse brow
    Armed round with many a felly and crackt plough:
  ...Read more of this...

To Be Carved On A Stone At Thoor Ballylee

by William Butler Yeats
 I, the poet William Yeats,
With old mill boards and sea-green slates,
And smithy work from the Gort forge,
Restored this tower for my wife George;
And may these characters remain
When all is ruin once again....Read more of this...

The Fitzroy Blacksmith

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 Under the spreading deficit, 
The Fitzroy Smithy stands; 
The smith, a spendthrift man is he, 
With too much on his hands; 
But the muscles of his brawny jaw 
Are strong as iron bands. 
Pay out, pay put, from morn till night, 
You can hear the sovereigns go; 
Or you'll hear him singing "Old Folks at Home", 
In a deep...Read more of this...

Song of the Forge

by Li Po
 The forge-fire sets a glow in the heavens,
the hammer thunders, showering the smoke with sparks.

A ruddy smithy, the white face of the moon,
and the hammer, ringing down cold dark canyons....Read more of this...

The Legend Of The Horseshoe

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
 WHAT time our Lord still walk'd the earth,
Unknown, despised, of humble birth,
And on Him many a youth attended
(His words they seldom comprehended),
It ever seem'd to Him most meet
To hold His court in open street,
As under heaven's broad canopy
One speaks with greater liberty.
The teachings of His blessed word
From out His holy mouth were heard;
Each market to a fane turn'd He
With...Read more of this...

The Laboratory

by Robert Browning
 ANCIEN REGIME

I

Now that I, tying thy glass mask tightly,
May gaze through these faint smokes curling whitely,
As thou pliest thy trade in this devil's-smithy— 
Which is the poison to poison her, prithee?

II

He is with her; and they know that I know
Where they are, what they do: they believe my tears flow
While they laugh, laugh at me, at me fled to...Read more of this...

A Disqualified Jockeys Story

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 You see, the thing was this way -- there was me, 
That rode Panopply, the Splendor mare, 
And Ikey Chambers on the Iron Dook, 
And Smith, the half-caste rider on Regret, 
And that long bloke from Wagga -- him that rode 
Veronikew, the Snowy River horse. 
Well, none of them had chances -- not a chance 
Among the lot,...Read more of this...

The Secret Rose

by William Butler Yeats
 Far-off, most secret, and inviolate Rose,
Enfold me in my hour of hours; where those
Who sought thee in the Holy Sepulchre,
Or in the wine-vat, dwell beyond the stir
And tumult of defeated dreams; and deep
Among pale eyelids, heavy with the sleep
Men have named beauty. Thy great leaves enfold
The ancient beards, the helms of ruby and gold
Of the crowned Magi; and the...Read more of this...

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