Famous Sorts Poems by Famous Poets

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

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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...

The Glove

by Robert Browning
 (PETER RONSARD _loquitur_.)

``Heigho!'' yawned one day King Francis,
``Distance all value enhances!
``When a man's busy, why, leisure
``Strikes him as wonderful pleasure:
`` 'Faith, and at leisure once is he?
``Straightway he wants to be busy.
``Here we've got peace; and aghast I'm
``Caught thinking war the true pastime.
``Is there a reason in metre?
``Give us your speech, master Peter!''
I who, if mortal dare say so,
Ne'er...Read more of this...

A list of some observation

by Joseph Brodsky
A list of some observation. In a corner it's warm.
A glance leaves an imprint on anything it's dwelt on.
Water is glass's most public form.
Man is more frightening than its skeleton.
A nowhere winter evening with wine. A black
porch resists an osier's stiff assaults.
Fixed on an elbow the body bulks
like a glacier's debris a moraine of sorts.
A millennium hence they'll no doubt...Read more of this...

Reasonable Interest

by Ellis Parker Butler
 I want to know how Bernard Shaw
Likes beefsteak—fairly done, or raw?
I want to know what kinds of shoes
M. Maeterlinck and Howells use.

I have great curiosity
Regarding George Ade’s new boot tree.
Has Carolyn Wells of late employed
Hairpins of wire or celluliod?

What kind of soap does London like?
Does Robert Chambers ever “hike”?
Or did he ever? Or, if not,
Does he like cabbage, cheese,...Read more of this...

For the love which I bring thee, I am ready to undergo

by Omar Khayyam
For the love which I bring thee, I am ready to undergo
all sorts of blame, and if I violate my vow, I submit
to the penalty. Oh! had I to endure until the last day
the torment that thou causest me, that space of time
would still seem too short....Read more of this...

Sonnet LXX

by Edmund Spenser
 FResh spring the herald of loues mighty king,
In whose cote armour richly are displayd,
all sorts of flowers the which on earth do spring
in goodly colours gloriously arrayd.
Goe to my loue, where she is carelesse layd,
yet in her winters bowre not well awake:
tell her the ioyous time wil not be staid
vnlesse she doe him by the forelock take.
Bid her therefore...Read more of this...

The Celebrated Woman - An Epistle By A Married Man

by Friedrich von Schiller
 Can I, my friend, with thee condole?--
Can I conceive the woes that try men,
When late repentance racks the soul
Ensnared into the toils of hymen?
Can I take part in such distress?--
Poor martyr,--most devoutly, "Yes!"
Thou weep'st because thy spouse has flown
To arms preferred before thine own;--
A faithless wife,--I grant the curse,--
And yet, my friend, it might be worse!
Just hear another's tale...Read more of this...

Warble for Lilac-Time

by Walt Whitman
 WARBLE me now, for joy of Lilac-time, 
Sort me, O tongue and lips, for Nature’s sake, and sweet life’s sake—and
 death’s the same as life’s, 
Souvenirs of earliest summer—birds’ eggs, and the first berries; 
Gather the welcome signs, (as children, with pebbles, or stringing shells;) 
Put in April and May—the hylas croaking in the ponds—the elastic air,
Bees, butterflies, the...Read more of this...

The image as in a Hexagram:

by Lew Welch
 The image, as in a Hexagram:

The hermit locks his door against the blizzard.
He keeps the cabin warm.

All winter long he sorts out all he has.
What was well started shall be finished.
What was not, should be thrown away.

In spring he emerges with one garment
and a single book.

The cabin is very clean.

Except for that, you'd never guess
anyone lived there....Read more of this...

Good-Children Street

by Eugene Field
 There's a dear little home in Good-Children street -
My heart turneth fondly to-day
Where tinkle of tongues and patter of feet
Make sweetest of music at play;
Where the sunshine of love illumines each face
And warms every heart in that old-fashioned place.

For dear little children go romping about
With dollies and tin tops and drums,
And, my! how they frolic and scamper and shout
Till...Read more of this...

Wet-weather Talk

by James Whitcomb Riley
 It hain't no use to grumble and complane;
 It's jest as cheap and easy to rejoice. --
When God sorts out the weather and sends rain,
 W'y rain's my choice.


Men ginerly, to all intents --
 Although they're apt to grumble some --
Puts most theyr trust in Providence,
 And takes things as they come --
 That is, the commonality
 Of men...Read more of this...

O We Are The Outcasts

by Charles Bukowski
 ah, christ, what a CREW:
more
poetry, always more
P O E T R Y .

if it doesn't come, coax it out with a 
laxative. get your name in LIGHTS,
get it up there in
8 1/2 x 11 mimeo.

keep it coming like a miracle.

ah christ, writers are the most sickening
of all the louts!
yellow-toothed, slump-shouldered,
gutless, flea-bitten and
obvious . . . in tinker-toy rooms
with their...Read more of this...

The New Freethinker

by G K Chesterton
 John Grubby who was short and stout 
And troubled with religious doubt, 
Refused about the age of three 
To sit upon the curate's knee; 
(For so the eternal strife must rage 
Between the spirit of the age 
And Dogma, which, as is well known, 
Does simply hate to be outgrown). 
Grubby, the young idea that shoots, 
Outgrew the ages...Read more of this...

Sonnet XXVI

by Edmund Spenser
 SWeet is the Rose, but growes vpon a brere;
Sweet is the Iunipere, but sharpe his bough;
sweet is the Eglantine, but pricketh nere;
sweet is the firbloome, but his braunches rough.
Sweet is the Cypresse, but his rynd is tough,
sweet is the nut, but bitter is his pill;
sweet is the broome-flowre, but yet sowre enough;
and sweet is Moly, but his root is...Read more of this...

There Was An Old Person Of Nice

by Edward Lear
 There was an old person of Nice, 
Whose associates were usually Geese. 
They walked out together, in all sorts of weather. 
That affable person of Nice!...Read more of this...

Dora Williams

by Edgar Lee Masters
 When Reuben Pantier ran away and threw me
I went to Springfield. There I met a lush,
Whose father just deceased left him a fortune.
He married me when drunk. My life was wretched.
A year passed and one day they found him dead.
That made me rich. I moved on to Chicago.
After a time met Tyler Rountree, villain.
I moved on to New York....Read more of this...

Cairo Jag

by Keith Douglas
 Shall I get drunk or cut myself a piece of cake,
a pasty Syrian with a few words of English
or the Turk who says she is a princess--she dances
apparently by levitation? Or Marcelle, Parisienne
always preoccupied with her dull dead lover:
she has all the photographs and his letters
tied in a bundle and stamped Decede in mauve ink.
All this takes place in...Read more of this...

Middle-Age Enthusiasms

by Thomas Hardy
 To M. H.

WE passed where flag and flower
Signalled a jocund throng;
We said: "Go to, the hour
Is apt!"--and joined the song;
And, kindling, laughed at life and care,
Although we knew no laugh lay there.

We walked where shy birds stood
Watching us, wonder-dumb;
Their friendship met our mood;
We cried: "We'll often come:
We'll come morn, noon, eve, everywhen!"
--We doubted we should come again.

We joyed to...Read more of this...

The Land

by Rudyard Kipling
 When Julius Fabricius, Sub-Prefect of the Weald,
In the days of Diocletian owned our Lower River-field,
He called to him Hobdenius-a Briton of the Clay,
Saying: "What about that River-piece for layin'' in to hay?"

And the aged Hobden answered: "I remember as a lad
My father told your father that she wanted dreenin' bad.
An' the more that you neeglect her the less you'll...Read more of this...

A list of some observation..

by Joseph Brodsky
 A list of some observation. In a corner, it's warm.
A glance leaves an imprint on anything it's dwelt on.
Water is glass's most public form.
Man is more frightening than its skeleton.
A nowhere winter evening with wine. A black
porch resists an osier's stiff assaults.
Fixed on an elbow, the body bulks
like a glacier's debris, a moraine of sorts.
A millennium hence, they'll no...Read more of this...

Painted Head

by John Crowe Ransom
 By dark severance the apparition head 
Smiles from the air a capital on no 
Column or a Platonic perhaps head 
On a canvas sky depending from nothing; 

Stirs up an old illusion of grandeur 
By tickling the instinct of heads to be 
Absolute and to try decapitation 
And to play truant from the body bush; 

But too happy and...Read more of this...

Model For The Laureate

by William Butler Yeats
 On thrones from China to Peru
All sorts of kings have sat
That men and women of all sorts
proclaimed both good and great;
And what's the odds if such as these
For reason of the State
Should keep their lovers waiting,
 Keep their lovers waiting?

Some boast of beggar-kings and kings
Of rascals black and white
That rule because a strong right arm
Puts all men in a...Read more of this...

Now with its joyful prime my age is rife,

by Omar Khayyam
Now with its joyful prime my age is rife,
I quaff enchanting wine, and list to fife;
Chide not at wine for all its bitter taste,
Its bitterness sorts well with human life!...Read more of this...

231. Epistle to Robert Graham Esq. of Fintry

by Robert Burns
 WHEN Nature her great master-piece design’d,
And fram’d her last, best work, the human mind,
Her eye intent on all the mazy plan,
She form’d of various parts the various Man.


 Then first she calls the useful many forth;
Plain plodding Industry, and sober Worth:
Thence peasants, farmers, native sons of earth,
And merchandise’ whole genus take their birth:
Each prudent cit a warm existence finds,
And...Read more of this...

The Garden

by Edwin Arlington Robinson
 There is a fenceless garden overgrown 
With buds and blossoms and all sorts of leaves; 
And once, among the roses and the sheaves, 
The Gardener and I were there alone. 
He led me to the plot where I had thrown
The fennel of my days on wasted ground, 
And in that riot of sad weeds I found 
The fruitage of...Read more of this...

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