Famous Speak Poems by Famous Poets

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

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How long will you speak of Yassin and Berat, O cupbearer?

by Omar Khayyam
How long will you speak of Yassin and Berat, O cupbearer?
Give me a treatise upon the tavern, O cupbearer!
The day that it is closed will be for me the night of
Berat, O cupbearer!...Read more of this...

To Speak of Woe That Is in Marriage

by Robert Lowell
It is the future generation that presses into being by means of these exuberant feelings and supersensible soap bubbles of ours. 

Schopenhauer



The hot night makes us keep our bedroom windows open.
Our magnolia blossoms. Life begins to happen.
My hopped up husband drops his home disputes,
and hits the streets to cruise for prostitutes,
free-lancing out along the razor's edge.
This screwball might kill his...Read more of this...

Canzone VI

by Francesco Petrarch
CANZONE VI. Quando il suave mio fido conforto. SHE APPEARS TO HIM, AND, WITH MORE THAN WONTED AFFECTION, ENDEAVOURS TO CONSOLE HIM.  When she, the faithful soother of my pain,This life's long weary pilgrimage to cheer,Vouchsafes beside my nightly couch to appear,With her sweet speech attempering reason's strain;O'ercome by tenderness, and...Read more of this...

Psalm 77 part 1

by Isaac Watts
 Melancholy assaulting, and hope prevailing.

To God I cried with mournful voice,
I sought his gracious ear,
In the sad day when troubles rose,
And filled the night with fear.

Sad were my days, and dark my nights,
My soul refused relief;
I thought on God the just and wise,
But thoughts increased my grief.

Still I complained, and still oppressed,
My heart began to break;
My God, thy wrath...Read more of this...

A Bush Lawyer

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 When Ironbark the turtle came to Anthony's lagoon 
The hills were hid behind a mist of equinoctal rain, 
The ripple of the rivulets was like a cheerful tune 
And wild companions waltzed among the grass as tall as grain. 
But Ironbark the turtle cared no whit for all of these; 
The ripple of the rivulets, the rustle of the...Read more of this...

I have a King who does not speak

by Emily Dickinson
 I have a King, who does not speak --
So -- wondering -- thro' the hours meek
I trudge the day away --
Half glad when it is night, and sleep,
If, haply, thro' a dream, to peep
In parlors, shut by day.

And if I do -- when morning comes --
It is as if a hundred drums
Did round my pillow roll,
And shouts fill all...Read more of this...

A Creed

by John Masefield
 I HOLD that when a person dies 
His soul returns again to earth; 
Arrayed in some new flesh-disguise 
Another mother gives him birth. 
With sturdier limbs and brighter brain 
The old soul takes the road again. 

Such is my own belief and trust; 
This hand, this hand that holds the pen, 
Has many a hundred times been dust 
And...Read more of this...

Sonnet XLI: Why Do I Speak of Joy

by Michael Drayton
 Love's Lunacy

Why do I speak of joy, or write of love, 
When my heart is the very den of horror, 
And in my soul the pains of Hell I prove, 
With all his torments and infernal terror? 
What should I say? What yet remains to do? 
My brain is dry with weeping all too long, 
My sighs be spent...Read more of this...

The Good Man in Hell

by Edwin Muir
 If a good man were ever housed in Hell
By needful error of the qualities,
Perhaps to prove the rule or shame the devil,
Or speak the truth only a stranger sees,

Would he, surrendering quick to obvious hate,
Fill half eternity with cries and tears,
Or watch beside Hell's little wicket gate
In patience for the first ten thousand years,

Feeling the curse climb slowly to...Read more of this...

Speak God Of Visions

by Emily Brontë
 O, thy bright eyes must answer now,
When Reason, with a scornful brow,
Is mocking at my overthrow!
O, thy sweet tongue must plead for me,
And tell why I have chosen thee!

Stern Reason is to judgment come,
Arrayed in all her forms of gloom:
Wilt thou, my advocate, be dumb?
No, radiant angel, speak and say
Why I did cast the world away;

Why I have presevered...Read more of this...

Yes the Dead Speak to Us

by Carl Sandburg
 YES, the Dead speak to us.
This town belongs to the Dead, to the Dead and to the Wilderness.

Back of the clamps on a fireproof door they hold the papers of the Dead in a house here
And when two living men fall out, when one says the Dead spoke a Yes, and the other says the Dead spoke a No,...Read more of this...

Speak the Truth to the People

by Mari Evans
Speak the truth to the people
Talk sense to the people
Free them with honesty
Free the people with Love and Courage for their Being
Spare them the fantasy
Fantasy enslaves
A slave is enslaved
Can be enslaved by unwisdom
Can be re-enslaved while in flight from the enemy
Can be enslaved by his brother whom he loves
His brother whom he trusts whom he loves
His brother whom he trusts
His...Read more of this...

Modern Love XXXIV: Madam Would Speak With Me

by George Meredith
 Madam would speak with me. So, now it comes:
The Deluge or else Fire! She's well, she thanks
My husbandship. Our chain on silence clanks.
Time leers between, above his twiddling thumbs.
Am I quite well? Most excellent in health!
The journals, too, I diligently peruse.
Vesuvius is expected to give news:
Niagara is no noisier. By stealth
Our eyes dart scrutinizing snakes. She's glad
I'm happy, says...Read more of this...

Sonnet VI: Some Lovers Speak

by Sir Philip Sidney
 Some lovers speak when they their Muses entertain, 
Of hopes begot by fear, of wot not what desires: 
Of force of heav'nly beams, infusing hellish pain: 
Of living deaths, dear wounds, fair storms, and freezing fires. 

Some one his song in Jove, and Jove's strange tales attires, 
Broidered with bulls and swans, powdered with golden rain; 
Another humbler wit...Read more of this...

Mabel Osborne

by Edgar Lee Masters
 Your red blossoms amid green leaves
Are drooping, beautiful geranium!
But you do not ask for water.
You cannot speak! You do not need to speak --
Everyone knows that you are dying of thirst,
Yet they do not bring water!
They pass on, saying:
"The geranium wants water."
And I, who had happiness to share
And longed to share your happiness;
I who loved you, Spoon River,
And craved...Read more of this...

To Speak of Woe That Is in Marriage

by Robert Lowell
 "It is the future generation that presses into being by means of
 these exuberant feelings and supersensible soap bubbles of ours."
 --Schopenhauer

"The hot night makes us keep our bedroom windows open.
Our magnolia blossoms. Life begins to happen.
My hopped up husband drops his home disputes,
and hits the streets to cruise for prostitutes,
free-lancing out along the razor's edge.
This screwball might kill...Read more of this...

Quantum Est Quod Desit

by Thomas Moore
 'Twas a new feeling - something more
Than we had dar'd to own before,
Which then we hid not;
We saw it in each other's eye,
And wish'd in every broken sigh
To speak, but did not!

She felt my lips' impassion'd touch;
'Twas the first time I dar'd so much,
And yet, she chid not;
But whisper'd o'er my burning brow,
'Oh! do you doubt I love you...Read more of this...

How long will you speak to me of the mosque, of

by Omar Khayyam
How long will you speak to me of the mosque, of
prayer and fasting? Go rather to the tavern and intoxicate
yourself, and even for that ask alms. O Khayyam!
drink wine, drink; for this earth of which thou
art composed will be made into cups, bowls, and pitchers.
371...Read more of this...

the stars speak in your tongue

by Razvan Tupa
A Romanian body is the other 
to whom you transfer all that you are 

you always had a cousin at school who’d seen who’d done it all 
he was the Romanian body for each of us 
who’d trafficked in luxury cars for each of us 
as our debt as our possibility 
the same for any fear in the hair on...Read more of this...

Speak Roughly to Your Little Boy

by Lewis Carroll
 And with that she
began nursing her child again, singing a sort of
lullaby to it as she did so, and giving it a vio­ 
lent shake at the end of every line: -- --
"Speak roughly to your little boy, 
And beat him when he sneezes; 
He only does it to annoy, 
Because he knows it teases."CHORUS
(in which the cook and...Read more of this...

Speak Of The North! A Lonely Moor

by Charlotte Bronte
 Speak of the North! A lonely moor
Silent and dark and tractless swells,
The waves of some wild streamlet pour
Hurriedly through its ferny dells.

Profoundly still the twilight air,
Lifeless the landscape; so we deem
Till like a phantom gliding near
A stag bends down to drink the stream.

And far away a mountain zone,
A cold, white waste of snow-drifts lies,
And one star, large and soft...Read more of this...

I Do Not Speak

by Stevie Smith
 I do not ask for mercy for understanding for peace
And in these heavy days I do not ask for release
I do not ask that suffering shall cease.

I do not pray to God to let me die
To give an ear attentive to my cry
To pause in his marching and not hurry by.

I do not ask for anything I do not...Read more of this...

To try to speak and miss the way

by Emily Dickinson
 To try to speak, and miss the way
And ask it of the Tears,
Is Gratitude's sweet poverty,
The Tatters that he wears --

A better Coat if he possessed
Would help him to conceal,
Not subjugate, the Mutineer
Whose title is "the Soul."...Read more of this...

The Battle of Abu Klea

by William Topaz McGonagall
 Ye sons of Mars, come join with me,
And sing in praise of Sir Herbert Stewart's little army,
That made ten thousand Arabs flee
At the charge of the bayonet at Abu Klea. 

General Stewart's force was about fifteen hundred all told,
A brave little band, but, like lions bold,
They fought under their brave and heroic commander,
As gallant and as skilful as the...Read more of this...

I Speak Not

by George (Lord) Byron
 I speak not, I trace not, I breathe not thy name;
There is grief in the sound, there is guilt in the fame;
But the tear that now burns on my cheek may impart
The deep thoughts that dwell in that silence of heart.
Too brief for our passion, too long for our peace,
Were those hours - can their joy or their bitterness...Read more of this...

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