Famous Spend Poems by Famous Poets

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

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The Monster

by Robert William Service
 When we might make with happy heart
 This world a paradise,
With bombs we blast brave men apart,
 With napalm carbonize.
Where we might till the sunny soil,
 And sing for joy of life,
We spend our treasure and our toil
 In bloody strife.

The fields of wheat are sheening gold,
 The flocks have silver fleece;
The signs are sweetly manifold
 Of plenty, praise...Read more of this...

Sonnet 4: Unthrifty loveliness why dost thou spend

by William Shakespeare
 Unthrifty loveliness, why dost thou spend
Upon thy self thy beauty's legacy?
Nature's bequest gives nothing, but doth lend,
And being frank she lends to those are free.
Then, beauteous niggard why dost thou abuse,
The bounteous largess given thee to give?
Profitless usurer, why dost thou use
So great a sum of sums yet canst not live?
For having traffic with thyself alone,
Thou of thyself thy...Read more of this...

from Venus and Adonis

by William Shakespeare
 But, lo! from forth a copse that neighbours by,
A breeding jennet, lusty, young, and proud,
Adonis' trampling courser doth espy,
And forth she rushes, snorts and neighs aloud;
The strong-neck'd steed, being tied unto a tree,
Breaketh his rein, and to her straight goes he.

Imperiously he leaps, he neighs, he bounds,
And now his woven girths he breaks asunder;
The bearing earth with his hard...Read more of this...

Sonnet 146: Poor soul the centre of my sinful earth

by William Shakespeare
 Poor soul, the centre of my sinful earth,
My sinful earth these rebel powers array,
Why dost thou pine within and suffer dearth,
Painting thy outward walls so costly gay?
Why so large cost, having so short a lease,
Dost thou upon thy fading mansion spend?
Shall worms, inheritors of this excess,
Eat up thy charge? is this thy body's end?
Then soul live thou upon thy...Read more of this...

Certain Maxims Of Hafiz

by Rudyard Kipling
  I.
If It be pleasant to look on, stalled in the packed serai,
Does not the Young Man try Its temper and pace ere he buy?
If She be pleasant to look on, what does the Young Man say?
"Lo! She is pleasant to look on, give Her to me to-day!"

 II.
Yea, though a Kafir die, to him is remitted Jehannum
If he...Read more of this...

A Description of a City Shower

by Jonathan Swift
 Careful Observers may fortel the Hour 
(By sure Prognosticks) when to dread a Show'r: 
While Rain depends, the pensive Cat gives o'er 
Her Frolicks, and pursues her Tail no more. 
Returning Home at Night, you'll find the Sink 
Strike your offended Sense with double Stink. 
If you be wise, then go not far to Dine, 
You spend in Coach-hire...Read more of this...

The Lord of Burleigh

by Alfred Lord Tennyson
 IN her ear he whispers gaily, 
'If my heart by signs can tell, 
Maiden, I have watch'd thee daily, 
And I think thou lov'st me well.' 
She replies, in accents fainter, 
'There is none I love like thee.' 
He is but a landscape-painter, 
And a village maiden she. 
He to lips, that fondly falter, 
Presses his without reproof: 
Leads...Read more of this...

Sonnet IV: Unthrifty Loveliness Why Dost Thou Spend

by William Shakespeare
 Unthrifty loveliness, why dost thou spend
Upon thy self thy beauty's legacy?
Nature's bequest gives nothing, but doth lend,
And being frank she lends to those are free:
Then, beauteous niggard, why dost thou abuse
The bounteous largess given thee to give?
Profitless usurer, why dost thou use
So great a sum of sums, yet canst not live?
For having traffic with thy self alone,
Thou of thy...Read more of this...

Communion

by Paul Laurence Dunbar
In the silence of my heart,
I will spend an hour with thee,
When my love shall rend apart
All the veil of mystery:
All that dim and misty veil
That shut in between our souls
When Death cried, "Ho, maiden, hail!"
And your barque sped on the shoals.
On the shoals? Nay, wrongly said.
On the breeze of Death that sweeps
Far from life, thy soul has sped
Out into...Read more of this...

Mammy

by Robert William Service
 I often wonder how
 Life clicks because
They don't make women now
 Like Mammy was.
When broods of two or three
 Content most men,
How wonderful was she
 With children ten!

Though sixty years have gone,
 As I look back,
I see her rise at dawn,
 Our boots to black;
Pull us from drowsy bed,
 Wet sponge to pass,
And speed us porridge fed
 To morning...Read more of this...

Poem Reaching For Something

by Quincy Troupe
 we walk through a calligraphy of hats slicing off foreheads
ace-deuce cocked, they slant, razor sharp, clean through imagination, our
spirits knee-deep in what we have forgotten entrancing our bodies now to
dance, like enraptured water lilies
the rhythm in liquid strides of certain looks
eyeballs rippling through breezes
riffing choirs of trees, where a trillion slivers of sunlight prance across
filigreeing leaves, a zillion voices...Read more of this...

Sweet -- You forgot -- but I remembered

by Emily Dickinson
 Sweet -- You forgot -- but I remembered
Every time -- for Two --
So that the Sum be never hindered
Through Decay of You --

Say if I erred? Accuse my Farthings --
Blame the little Hand
Happy it be for You -- a Beggar's --
Seeking More -- to spend --

Just to be Rich -- to waste my Guineas
On so Best a Heart --
Just...Read more of this...

To Spend Uncounted Years Of Pain

by Arthur Hugh Clough
 To spend uncounted years of pain
Again, again, and yet again
In working out in heart and brain
The problem of our being here,
To gather facts from far and near
Upon the mind to hold them clear,
And knowing more may yet appear
Until one's latest breath to fear
The premature result to draw - 
Is this the object, end, and law,
And purpose of our being...Read more of this...

Psalm 116 part 1

by Isaac Watts
 Recovery from sickness.

I love the Lord; he heard my cries,
And pitied every groan;
Long as I live, when troubles rise,
I'll hasten to his throne.

I love the Lord; he bowed his ear,
And chased my griefs away;
O let my heart no more despair,
While I have breath to pray!

My flesh declined, my spirits fell,
And I drew near the dead;
While inward pangs and fears...Read more of this...

Cloris it is not thy disdaine

by Sidney Godolphin
 CLORIS, it is not thy disdaine 
 Can ever cover with dispaire 
 Or in cold ashes hide that care 
Which I have fedd with soe long paine, 
I may perhaps myne eyes refraine 5 
And fruiteless wordes noe more impart, 
But yet still serve, still serve thee in my hearte. 

What though I spend my haplesse dayes 
...Read more of this...

On John Dawson Butler Of C.C

by William Strode
 Dawson the Butler's dead: Although I think
Poets were ne'er infusde with single drinke
Ile spend a farthing muse; some watry verse
Will serve the turne to cast upon his hearse;
If any cannot weepe amongst us here
Take off his pott, and so squeeze out a tear:
Weepe, O his cheeses, weepe till yee bee good,
Yee that are dry or in the sun have...Read more of this...

The River of Leith

by William Topaz McGonagall
 As I stood upon the Dean Bridge and viewed the beautiful scenery,
I felt fascinated and my heart was full of glee,
And I exclaimed in an ecstasy of delight,
In all my travels I never saw such a sight. 

The scenery is so enchanting to look upon
That all tourists will say, "Dull care, be gone."
'Tis certainly a most lovely spot,
And once...Read more of this...

The Ballad Of The Proverbs

by Francois Villon
 So rough the goat will scratch, it cannot sleep.
So often goes the pot to the well that it breaks.
So long you heat iron, it will glow;
so heavily you hammer it, it shatters.
So good is the man as his praise;
so far he will go, and he's forgotten;
so bad he behaves, and he's despised.
So loud you cry Christmas, it comes.

So glib...Read more of this...

Love In A Life

by Robert Browning
 I

Room after room,
I hunt the house through
We inhabit together.
Heart, fear nothing, for, heart, thou shalt find her,
Next time, herself!—not the trouble behind her
Left in the curtain, the couch's perfume!
As she brushed it, the cornice-wreath blossomed anew,— 
Yon looking-glass gleamed at the wave of her feather.

II

Yet the day wears,
And door succeeds door;
I try the fresh fortune— 
Range the wide house...Read more of this...

Beautiful Village of Penicuik

by William Topaz McGonagall
 The village of Penicuik, with its neighbouring spinning mills,
Is most lovely to see, and the Pentland Hills;
And though of a barren appearance and some parts steep,
They are covered with fine pasture and sustain flocks of sheep. 

There, tourists while there should take a good look,
By viewing the surrounding beauties of Penicuik;
About three miles south-west is the romantic locality
Of Newhall,...Read more of this...

To-day is thine to spend, but not to-morrow,

by Omar Khayyam
To-day is thine to spend, but not to-morrow,
Counting on morrows breedeth naught but sorrow;
Oh! squander not this breath that heaven hath lent thee,
Nor make too sure another breath to borrow!...Read more of this...

Why spend life in vainglorious essay

by Omar Khayyam
Why spend life in vainglorious essay
All Being and Not-being to survey?
Since Death is ever pressing at your heels,
'Tis best to drink or dream your life away....Read more of this...

Class-Mates

by Robert William Service
 Bob Briggs went in for Government,
 And helps to run the State;
Some day they say he'll represent
 His party in debate:
But with punk politics his job,
 I do not envy Bob.

Jim Jones went in for writing books,
 Best sellers were his aim;
He's ten years younger than he looks,
 And licks the heels of Fame:
Though shop-girls make a fuss of...Read more of this...

A Strange Gentlewoman Passing By His Window

by William Strode
 As I out of a casement sent
Mine eyes as wand'ring as my thought,
Upon no certayne object bent,
But only what occasion brought,
A sight surpriz'd my hart at last,
Nor knewe I well what made it burne;
Amazement held me then so fast
I had no leasure to discerne.


Sure 'twas a Mortall, but her name,
Or happy parentage or place,
Or (that which did mee most...Read more of this...

Mount Zhongnan

by Wang Wei
 Its massive height near the City of Heaven 
Joins a thousand mountains to the corner of the sea. 
Clouds, when I look back, close behind me, 
Mists, when I enter them, are gone. 
A central peak divides the wilds 
And weather into many valleys. 
...Needing a place to spend the night, 
I call to a wood-cutter over the river...Read more of this...

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