Famous Sold Poems by Famous Poets

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

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O Star of France

by Walt Whitman
 1
O STAR of France! 
The brightness of thy hope and strength and fame, 
Like some proud ship that led the fleet so long, 
Beseems to-day a wreck, driven by the gale—a mastless hulk; 
And ’mid its teeming, madden’d, half-drown’d crowds,
Nor helm nor helmsman. 

2
Dim, smitten star! 
Orb not of France alone—pale symbol of my soul, its dearest hopes, 
The...Read more of this...

A Dialogue Between the Resolved Soul And Created Pleasure

by Andrew Marvell
 Courage my Soul, now learn to wield
The weight of thine immortal Shield.
Close on thy Head thy Helmet bright.
Ballance thy Sword against the Fight.
See where an Army, strong as fair,
With silken Banners spreads the air.
Now, if thou bee'st that thing Divine,
In this day's Combat let it shine:
And shew that Nature wants an Art
To conquer one resolved Heart.

Pleasure
Welcome the Creations Guest,
Lord...Read more of this...

The Last Laugh

by John Betjeman
 I made hay while the sun shone.
My work sold.
Now, if the harvest is over
And the world cold,
Give me the bonus of laughter
As I lose hold....Read more of this...

I cannot buy it -- tis not sold --

by Emily Dickinson
 I cannot buy it -- 'tis not sold --
There is no other in the World --
Mine was the only one

I was so happy I forgot
To shut the Door And it went out
And I am all alone --

If I could find it Anywhere
I would not mind the journey there
Though it took all my store

But just to look it in the...Read more of this...

Love Among The Ruins

by Robert Browning
 I

Where the quiet-coloured end of evening smiles
 Miles and miles
On the solitary pastures where our sheep
 Half-asleep
Tinkle homeward thro' the twilight, stray or stop
 As they crop— 
Was the site once of a city great and gay,
 (So they say)
Of our country's very capital, its prince
 Ages since
Held his court in, gathered councils, wielding far
 Peace or war.

II

Now—the country...Read more of this...

Little Popeet - the Lost Child

by William Topaz McGonagall
 Near by the silent waters of the Mediterranean,
And at the door of an old hut stood a coloured man,
Whose dress was oriental in style and poor with wear,
While adown his furrowed cheeks ran many a tear. 

And the poor coloured man seemed very discontent,
And his grief overcame him at this moment;
And he wrung his hands in agony wild,
And he...Read more of this...

The Division Of Parts

by Anne Sexton
 1.
Mother, my Mary Gray,
once resident of Gloucester
and Essex County,
a photostat of your will
arrived in the mail today.
This is the division of money.
I am one third
of your daughters counting my bounty
or I am a queen alone
in the parlor still,
eating the bread and honey.
It is Good Friday.
Black birds pick at my window sill.
Your coat in my closet,
your bright stones on my...Read more of this...

America

by Allen Ginsberg
 America I've given you all and now I'm nothing. 
America two dollars and twentyseven cents January 
 17, 1956. 
I can't stand my own mind. 
America when will we end the human war? 
Go **** yourself with your atom bomb. 
I don't feel good don't bother me. 
I won't write my poem till I'm in my right mind. 
America...Read more of this...

The Cambaroora Star

by Henry Lawson
 So you're writing for a paper? Well, it's nothing very new 
To be writing yards of drivel for a tidy little screw; 
You are young and educated, and a clever chap you are, 
But you'll never run a paper like the CAMBAROORA STAR. 
Though in point of education I am nothing but a dunce, 
I myself -- you mayn't...Read more of this...

Friendship Between Ephelia And Ardelia

by Anne Kingsmill Finch
 Eph. What Friendship is, ARDELIA shew. 
Ard. 'Tis to love, as I love You. 
Eph. This Account, so short (tho' kind)
Suits not my enquiring Mind. 
Therefore farther now repeat; 
What is Friendship when complete? 
Ard. 'Tis to share all Joy and Grief; 
'Tis to lend all due Relief
From the Tongue, the Heart, the Hand; 
'Tis to mortgage House and...Read more of this...

The Poet And His Book

by Edna St. Vincent Millay
 Down, you mongrel, Death!
Back into your kennel!
I have stolen breath
In a stalk of fennel!
You shall scratch and you shall whine
Many a night, and you shall worry
Many a bone, before you bury
One sweet bone of mine!

When shall I be dead?
When my flesh is withered,
And above my head
Yellow pollen gathered
All the empty afternoon?
When sweet lovers pause and wonder
Whom am I that...Read more of this...

Vain Venture

by Robert William Service
 To have a business of my own
 With toil and tears,
I wore my fingers to the bone
 For weary years.
With stoic heart, for sordid gold
 In patient pain
My life and liberty I sold
 For others gain.

I scrimped and scraped, as cent by cent
 My savings grew;
I found a faded shop for rent,
 Made it like new.
Above the door the...Read more of this...

Fareweel To AOur Scottish Fame

by Robert Burns
 Fareweel to a' our Scottish fame,
Fareweel our ancient glory;
Fareweel ev'n to the Scottish name,
Sae famed in martial story!
Now Sark rins over Solway sands,
And Tweed rins to the ocean,
To mark where England's province stands— 
Such a parcel of rogues in a nation!

What force or guile could not subdue
Thro' many warlike ages,
Is wrought now by a coward few,
For hireling traitor's wages.
The...Read more of this...

Ode On The Insurrection In Candia

by Algernon Charles Swinburne
 STR. 1

I laid my laurel-leaf
At the white feet of grief,
Seeing how with covered face and plumeless wings,
With unreverted head
Veiled, as who mourns his dead,
Lay Freedom couched between the thrones of kings,
A wearied lion without lair,
And bleeding from base wounds, and vexed with alien air.

STR. 2

Who was it, who, put poison to thy mouth,
Who lulled with craft or chant thy...Read more of this...

Psalm 119 part 5

by Isaac Watts
 Delight in Scripture; or, The word of God dwelling in us.

ver. 97 

O how I love thy holy law!
'Tis daily my delight;
And thence my meditations draw
Divine advice by night.

ver. 148 

My waking eyes prevent the day
To meditate thy word;
My soul with longing melts away
To hear thy gospel, Lord.

ver. 3,13,54 

How doth thy word my heart engage!
How well employ my...Read more of this...

The Farewell

by Lucy Maud Montgomery
 Of A Virginia Slave Mother To Her Daughters Sold Into Southern Bondage

Gone, gone, -- sold and gone 
To the rice-swamp dank and lone. 
Where the slave-whip ceaseless swings 
Where the noisome insect stings 
Where the fever demon strews 
Poison with the falling dews 
Where the sickly sunbeams glare 
Through the hot and misty air; 
Gone, gone, -- sold and...Read more of this...

English Thornton

by Edgar Lee Masters
 Here! You sons of the men
Who fought with Washington at Valley Forge,
And whipped Black Hawk at Starved Rock,
Arise! Do battle with the descendants of those
Who bought land in the loop when it was waste sand,
And sold blankets and guns to the army of Grant,
And sat in legislatures in the early days,
Taking bribes from the railroads!
Arise! Do battle with the...Read more of this...

Distracted Druggist

by Robert William Service
 'A shilling's worth of quinine, please,'
 The customer demanded.
The druggist went down on his knees
 And from a cupboard handed
The waiting man a tiny flask:
 'Here, Sir, is what you ask.'

The buyer paid and went away,
 The druggist rubbed his glasses,
Then sudden shouted in dismay:
 'Of all the silly asses!'
And out into the street he ran
 To catch the...Read more of this...

Amateur Poet

by Robert William Service
 You see that sheaf of slender books
Upon the topmost shelf,
At which no browser ever looks,
Because they're by . . . myself;
They're neatly bound in navy blue,
But no one ever heeds;
Their print is clear and candid too,
Yet no one ever reads.

Poor wistful books! How much they cost
To me in time and gold!
I count them now as labour lost,
For none I...Read more of this...

No Romance sold unto

by Emily Dickinson
 No Romance sold unto
Could so enthrall a Man
As the perusal of
His Individual One --
'Tis Fiction's -- When 'tis small enough
To Credit -- 'Tisn't true!...Read more of this...

The Mower Against Gardens

by Andrew Marvell
 Luxurious Man, to bring his Vice in use,
Did after him the World seduce:
And from the Fields the Flow'rs and Plants allure,
Where Nature was most plain and pure.
He first enclos'd within the Gardens square
A dead and standing pool of Air:
And a more luscious Earth for them did knead,
Which stupifi'd them while it fed.
The Pink grew then as double as his...Read more of this...

The Broken Balance

by Robinson Jeffers
 I. Reference to a Passage in Plutarch's Life of Sulla

The people buying and selling, consuming pleasures, talking in the archways,
Were all suddenly struck quiet
And ran from under stone to look up at the sky: so shrill and mournful,
So fierce and final, a brazen
Pealing of trumpets high up in the air, in the summer blue over Tuscany.
They marvelled; the soothsayers...Read more of this...

The Press

by Rudyard Kipling
 "The Village That Voted the Earth Was Flat"-- A Diversity of Creatures
The Soldier may forget his Sword,
 The Sailorman the Sea,
The Mason may forget the Word
 And the Priest his Litany:
The Maid may forget both jewel and gem,
 And the Bride her wedding-dress--
But the Jew shall forget Jerusalem
 Ere we forget the Press!

Who once hath stood through the loaded...Read more of this...

The Baldness Of Chewed-Ear

by Robert William Service
 When Chewed-ear Jenkins got hitched up to Guinneyveer McGee,
His flowin' locks, ye recollect, wuz frivolous an' free;
But in old Hymen's jack-pot, it's a most amazin' thing,
Them flowin' locks jest disappeared like snow-balls in the Spring;
Jest seemed to wilt an' fade away like dead leaves in the Fall,
An' left old Chewed-ear balder than a white-washed cannon ball.

Now Missis Chewed-ear Jenkins,...Read more of this...

Lines Written In Recapitulation

by Edna St. Vincent Millay
 I could not bring this splendid world nor any trading beast
In charge of it, to defer, no, not to give ear, not in the least
Appearance, to my handsome prophecies,
which here I ponder and put by. 

I am left simpler, less encumbered, by the consciousness
that I shall by no pebble in my dirty sling
avail To slay one purple giant four...Read more of this...

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