Famous Speech Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Speech poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous speech poems. These examples illustrate what a famous speech poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Trees in groves,
Kine in droves,
In ocean sport the scaly herds,
Wedge-like cleave the air the birds,
To northern lakes fly wind-borne ducks,
Browse the mountain sheep in flocks,
Men consort in camp and town,
But the poet dwells alone.
God who gave to him the lyre,
Of all mortals the desire,
For all breathing men's behoof,
Straitly charged him, "Sit aloof;"
Annexed a warning, poets say,
To the bright premium,—
Ever...Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
'Nay; I don't need a hearing aid'
I told Mama-in-law;
'For if I had I'd be afraid
Of your eternal jaw;
Although at me you often shout,
I'm undisturbed;
To tell the truth I can't make out
A single word.'
And it's the same with others who
Attempt to gab at me;
I listen to their point of view
And solemnly agree.
To story stale...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
Speech is one symptom of Affection
And Silence one --
The perfectest communication
Is heard of none --
Exists and its indorsement
Is had within --
Behold, said the Apostle,
Yet had not seen!...Read more of this...
by
Imamu Amiri Baraka
African blues
does not know me. Their steps, in sands
of their own
land. A country
in black & white, newspapers
blown down pavements
of the world. Does
not feel
what I am.
Strength
in the dream, an oblique
suckling of nerve, the wind
throws up sand, eyes
are something locked in
hate, of hate, of hate, to
walk abroad, they conduct
their deaths apart
from my own. Those
heads, I call
my "people."
(And who are they. People. To...Read more of this...
by
Lewis Carroll
I'll tell thee everything I can;
There's little to relate.
I saw an aged aged man,
A-sitting on a gate.
"Who are you, aged man?" I said,
"And how is it you live?"
And his answer trickled through my head
Like water through a sieve.
He said, "I look for butterflies
That sleep among the wheat:
I make them into mutton-pies,
And sell them in the street.
I sell them unto...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
"Speech" -- is a prank of Parliament --
"Tears" -- is a trick of the nerve --
But the Heart with the heaviest freight on --
Doesn't -- always -- move --...Read more of this...
by
Robert Southey
Author Note: Divers Princes and Noblemen being assembled in a beautiful and fair
Palace, which was situate upon the river Rhine, they beheld a boat or
small barge make toward the shore, drawn by a Swan in a silver chain,
the one end fastened about her neck, the other to the vessel; and in it
an unknown soldier, a man of a comely...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
I fear a Man of frugal Speech --
I fear a Silent Man --
Haranguer -- I can overtake --
Or Babbler -- entertain --
But He who weigheth -- While the Rest --
Expend their furthest pound --
Of this Man -- I am wary --
I fear that He is Grand --...Read more of this...
by
Walter Savage Landor
I strove with none, for none was worth my strife:
Nature I loved, and, next to Nature, Art:
I warm'd both hands before the fire of Life;
It sinks; and I am ready to depart....Read more of this...
by
William Matthews
What did I think, a storm clutching a clarinet
and boarding a downtown bus, headed for lessons?
I had pieces to learn by heart, but at twelve
you think the heart and memory are different.
"'It's a poor sort of memory that only works
backwards,' the Queen remarked." Alice in Wonderland.
Although I knew the way music can fill a room,
even with loneliness, which is...Read more of this...
by
Fernando Pessoa
Something in me was born before the stars
And saw the sun begin from far away.
Our yellow, local day on its wont jars,
For it hath communed with an absolute day.
Through my Thought's night, as a worn robe's heard trail
That I have never seen, I drag this past
That saw the Possible like a dawn grow pale
On the lost night before it, mute...Read more of this...
by
Edwin Arlington Robinson
Though for your sake I would not have you now
So near to me tonight as now you are,
God knows how much a stranger to my heart
Was any cold word that I may have written;
And you, poor woman that I made my wife,
You have had more of loneliness, I fear,
Than I—though I have been the...Read more of this...
by
William Butler Yeats
I ranted to the knave and fool,
But outgrew that school,
Would transform the part,
Fit audience found, but cannot rule
My fanatic heart.
I sought my betters: though in each
Fine manners, liberal speech,
Turn hatred into sport,
Nothing said or done can reach
My fanatic heart.
Out of Ireland have we come.
Great hatred, little room,
Maimed us at the start.
I carry from my mother's womb
A fanatic heart....Read more of this...
by
Henry Van Dyke
It pleased the Lord of Angels (praise His name!)
To hear, one day, report from those who came
With pitying sorrow, or exultant joy,
To tell of earthly tasks in His employ:
For some were sorry when they saw how slow
The stream of heavenly love on earth must flow;
And some were glad because their eyes had seen,
Along its banks, fresh flowers and living...Read more of this...
by
Kathleen Raine
A Gaelic bard they praise who in fourteen adjectives
Named the one indivisible soul of his glen;
For what are the bens and the glens but manifold qualities,
Immeasurable complexities of soul?
What are these isles but a song sung by island voices?
The herdsman sings ancestral memories
And the song makes the singer wise,
But only while he sings
Songs that were old when the old...Read more of this...
by
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
And wilt thou have me fashion into speech
The love I bear thee, finding words enough,
And hold the torch out, while the winds are rough,
Between our faces, to cast light on each?—
I drop it at thy feet. I cannot teach
My hand to hold my spirit so far off
From myself—me—that I should bring thee proof
In words, of love hid in me...Read more of this...
by
Edgar Lee Masters
At first you will know not what they mean,
And you may never know,
And we may never tell you: --
These sudden flashes in your soul,
Like lambent lightning on snowy clouds
At midnight when the moon is full.
They come in solitude, or perhaps
You sit with your friend, and all at once
A silence falls on speech, and his eyes
Without a flicker glow at...Read more of this...
by
Alfred Lord Tennyson
How thought you that this thing could captivate?
What are those graces that could make her dear,
Who is not worth the notice of a sneer,
To rouse the vapid devil of her hate?
A speech conventional, so void of weight,
That after it has buzzed about one's ear,
'Twere rich refreshment for a week to hear
The dentist...Read more of this...
by
Joseph Brodsky
...and when "the future" is uttered, swarms of mice
rush out of the Russian language and gnaw a piece
of ripened memory which is twice
as hole-ridden as real cheese.
After all these years it hardly matters who
or what stands in the corner, hidden by heavy drapes,
and your mind resounds not with a seraphic "doh",
only their rustle. Life, that no one dares
to...Read more of this...
by
Francesco Petrarch
SONNET XXIX. Due gran nemiche insieme erano aggiunte. THE UNION OF BEAUTY AND VIRTUE IS DISSOLVED BY HER DEATH. Two mortal foes in one fair breast combined,Beauty and Virtue, in such peace alliedThat ne'er rebellion ruffled that pure mind,But in rare union dwelt they side by side;By Death they now are...Read more of this...
by
Emile Verhaeren
Young and kindly spring who clothes our garden with beauty makes lucid our voices and words, and steeps them in his limpidity.
The breeze and the lips of the leaves babble, and slowly shed in us the syllables of their brightness.
But the best in us turns away and flees material words; a mute and mild and simple rapture, better than all...Read more of this...
by
Sidney Lanier
At midnight, death's and truth's unlocking time,
When far within the spirit's hearing rolls
The great soft rumble of the course of things --
A bulk of silence in a mask of sound, --
When darkness clears our vision that by day
Is sun-blind, and the soul's a ravening owl
For truth and flitteth here and there about
Low-lying woody tracts of time and oft
Is minded...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
Of Silken Speech and Specious Shoe
A Traitor is the Bee
His service to the newest Grace
Present continually
His Suit a chance
His Troth a Term
Protracted as the Breeze
Continual Ban propoundeth He
Continual Divorce....Read more of this...
by
Delmore Schwartz
Athlete, virtuoso,
Training for happiness,
Bend arm and knee, and seek
The body's sharp distress,
For pain is pleasure's cost,
Denial is route
To speech before the millions
Or personal with the flute.
The ape and great Achilles,
Heavy with their fate,
Batter doors down, strike
Small children at the gate,
Driven by love to this,
As knock-kneed Hegel said,
To seek with a sword their peace,
That the child may be taken away
From...Read more of this...
by
James Wright
Nightfall, that saw the morning-glories float
Tendril and string against the crumbling wall,
Nurses him now, his skeleton for grief,
His locks for comfort curled among the leaf.
Shuttles of moonlight weave his shadow tall,
Milkweed and dew flow upward to his throat.
Now catbird feathers plume the apple mound,
And starlings drowse to winter up the ground.
thickened away from speech by fear, I move
Around the...Read more of this...
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