Famous Speaking(A) Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Speaking(A) poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous speaking(a) poems. These examples illustrate what a famous speaking(a) poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Ellis Parker Butler
I know something wonderful—wonderful;
So strange it will quite startle you;
So strange and absurd and unusual
It seems it can hardly be true!
I know something wonderful—wonderful;
You’ll hardly believe it can be—
You know my appendix? Well, honest,
I’ve still got it inside of me!...Read more of this...
by
John McCrae
I saw a city filled with lust and shame,
Where men, like wolves, slunk through the grim half-light;
And sudden, in the midst of it, there came
One who spoke boldly for the cause of Right.
And speaking, fell before that brutish race
Like some poor wren that shrieking eagles tear,
While brute Dishonour, with her bloodless face
Stood by and smote his lips that moved...Read more of this...
by
Rg Gregory
don't be so lazy maisie maisie
don't be so lazy please
i know it's snowing
and a hard wind's blowing
but nobody knows
at the rate we're going
what time we'll get home tonight
keep to the path for me timothy timothy
keep to the path for me please
my legs are aching
and my poor back's breaking
and everyone knows
the track you're taking
will not fetch us home tonight
i know...Read more of this...
by
Lisel Mueller
Speaking of marvels, I am alive
together with you, when I might have been
alive with anyone under the sun,
when I might have been Abelard's woman
or the whore of a Renaissance pop
or a peasant wife with not enough food
and not enough love, with my children
dead of the plague. I might have slept
in an alcove next to the man
with the golden nose,...Read more of this...
by
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
WITH a bridegroom's joyous bearing,
Mounts Sir Curt his noble beast,
To his mistress' home repairing,
There to hold his wedding feast;
When a threatening foe advances
From a desert, rocky spot;
For the fray they couch their lances,
Not delaying, speaking not.
Long the doubtful fight continues,
Victory then for Curt declares;
Conqueror, though with wearied sinews,
Forward on his road he fares.
When he sees, though strange it may...Read more of this...
by
Mary Darby Robinson
I.
A Shepherd's Dog there was; and he
Was faithful to his master's will,
For well he lov'd his company,
Along the plain or up the hill;
All Seasons were, to him, the same
Beneath the Sun's meridian flame;
Or, when the wintry wind blew shrill and keen,
Still the Old Shepherd's Dog, was with his Master seen.
II.
His form was shaggy clothed; yet he
Was of a...Read more of this...
by
Carl Sandburg
THIS handful of grass, brown, says little. This quarter mile field of it, waving seeds ripening in the sun, is a lake of luminous firefly lavender.
Prairie roses, two of them, climb down the sides of a road ditch. In the clear pool they find their faces along stiff knives of grass, and cat-tails who speak and keep thoughts in...Read more of this...
by
Ezra Pound
Kung walked
by the dynastic temple
and into the cedar grove,
and then out by the lower river,
And with him Khieu Tchi
and Tian the low speaking
And "we are unknown," said Kung,
"You will take up charioteering?
"Then you will become known,
"Or perhaps I should take up charioterring, or archery?
"Or the practice of public speaking?"
And Tseu-lou said, "I would put the...Read more of this...
by
William Vaughn Moody
After seeing at Boston the statue of Robert Gould Shaw, killed while storming Fort Wagner, July 18, 1863, at the head of the first enlisted ***** regiment, the Fifty-fourth Massachusetts.
I
Before the solemn bronze Saint Gaudens made
To thrill the heedless passer's heart with awe,
And set here in the city's talk and trade
To the good memory of...Read more of this...
by
Henry Lawson
The centuries found me to nations unknown –
My people have crowned me and made me a throne;
My royal regalia is love, truth, and light –
A girl called Australia – I've come to my right.
Though no fields of conquest grew red at my birth,
My dead were the noblest and bravest on earth;
Their strong sons...Read more of this...
by
Walt Whitman
A GLIMPSE, through an interstice caught,
Of a crowd of workmen and drivers in a bar-room, around the stove, late of a winter
night—And I
unremark’d seated in a corner;
Of a youth who loves me, and whom I love, silently approaching, and seating himself near,
that
he
may hold me by the hand;
A long while, amid the...Read more of this...
by
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
"As unto the bow the cord is,
So unto the man is woman;
Though she bends him, she obeys him,
Though she draws him, yet she follows;
Useless each without the other!"
Thus the youthful Hiawatha
Said within himself and pondered,
Much perplexed by various feelings,
Listless, longing, hoping, fearing,
Dreaming still of Minnehaha,
Of the lovely Laughing Water,
In...Read more of this...
by
Conrad Aiken
1
Senlin sat before us and we heard him.
He smoked his pipe before us and we saw him.
Was he small, with reddish hair,
Did he light his pipe with a meditative stare
And a twinkling flame reflected in blue eyes?
'I am alone': said Senlin; 'in a forest of leaves
The single leaf that creeps and falls.
The...Read more of this...
by
Anne Bronte
'Maiden, thou wert thoughtless once
Of beauty or of grace,
Simple and homely in attire
Careless of form and face.
Then whence this change, and why so oft
Dost smooth thy hazel hair?
And wherefore deck thy youthful form
With such unwearied care?
'Tell us - and cease to tire our ears
With yonder hackneyed strain -
Why wilt thou play those simple tunes
So often o'er again?'
'Nay, gentle...Read more of this...
by
Omar Khayyam
My love shone forth, and I was overcome,
My heart was speaking, but my tongue was dumb;
Beside the water-brooks I died of thirst.
Was ever known so strange a martyrdom?...Read more of this...
by
G K Chesterton
Smile at us, pay us, pass us; but do not quite forget;
For we are the people of England, that never have spoken yet.
There is many a fat farmer that drinks less cheerfully,
There is many a free French peasant who is richer and sadder than we.
There are no folk in the whole world so helpless or so wise.
There is hunger...Read more of this...
by
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
The pages of thy book I read,
And as I closed each one,
My heart, responding, ever said,
"Servant of God! well done!"
Well done! Thy words are great and bold;
At times they seem to me,
Like Luther's, in the days of old,
Half-battles for the free.
Go on, until this land revokes
The old and chartered Lie,
The feudal curse, whose whips and yokes
Insult humanity.
A voice is...Read more of this...
by
Francesco Petrarch
SONNET LXXXIX. Sennuccio, i' vo' che sappi in qual maniera. HE RELATES TO HIS FRIEND SENNUCCIO HIS UNHAPPINESS, AND THE VARIED MOOD OF LAURA. To thee, Sennuccio, fain would I declare,To sadden life, what wrongs, what woes I find:Still glow my wonted flames; and, though resign'dTo Laura's fickle will, no change I...Read more of this...
by
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Spake full well, in language quaint and olden,
One who dwelleth by the castled Rhine,
When he called the flowers, so blue and golden,
Stars, that in earth's firmament do shine.
Stars they are, wherein we read our history,
As astrologers and seers of eld;
Yet not wrapped about with awful mystery,
Like the burning stars, which they beheld.
Wondrous truths, and manifold as wondrous,
God hath written...Read more of this...
by
Pablo Neruda
Day-colored wine,
night-colored wine,
wine with purple feet
or wine with topaz blood,
wine,
starry child
of earth,
wine, smooth
as a golden sword,
soft
as lascivious velvet,
wine, spiral-seashelled
and full of wonder,
amorous,
marine;
never has one goblet contained you,
one song, one man,
you are choral, gregarious,
at the least, you must be shared.
At times
you feed on mortal
memories;
your wave carries us
from tomb to tomb,
stonecutter of icy sepulchers,
and we weep
transitory tears;
your
glorious
spring dress
is different,
blood rises through...Read more of this...
by
Audre Lorde
I
is the total black, being spoken
from the earth's inside.
There are many kinds of open
how a diamond comes into a knot of flame
how sound comes into a words, coloured
by who pays what for speaking.
Some words are open like a diamond
on glass windows
singing out within the crash of sun
Then there are...Read more of this...
by
Charlotte Bronte
ARRANGING long-locked drawers and shelves
Of cabinets, shut up for years,
What a strange task we've set ourselves !
How still the lonely room appears !
How strange this mass of ancient treasures,
Mementos of past pains and pleasures;
These volumes, clasped with costly stone,
With print all faded, gilding gone;
These fans of leaves, from Indian trees
These...Read more of this...
by
Michael Ondaatje
Speaking to you
this hour
these days when
I have lost the feather of poetry
and the rains
of separation
surround us tock
tock like Go tablets
Everyone has learned
to move carefully
'Dancing' 'laughing' 'bad taste'
is a memory
a tableau behind trees of law
In the midst of love for you
my wife's suffering
anger in every direction
and the children wise
as tough shrubs
but they are not tough
--so I fear
how anything...Read more of this...
by
Ralph Waldo Emerson
EXULTING BEAUTY,phantom of an hour,
Whose magic spells enchain the heart,
Ah ! what avails thy fascinating pow'r,
Thy thrilling smile, thy witching art ?
Thy lip, where balmy nectar glows;
Thy cheek, where round the damask rose
A thousand nameless Graces move,
Thy mildly speaking azure eyes,
Thy golden hair, where cunning Love
In many a mazy ringlet...Read more of this...
by
Constantine P Cavafy
Honor to those who in the life they lead
define and guard a Thermopylae.
Never betraying what is right,
consistent and just in all they do
but showing pity also, and compassion;
generous when they're rich, and when they're poor,
still generous in small ways,
still helping as much as they can;
always speaking the truth,
yet without hating those who lie.
And even more honor is due to...Read more of this...
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