Famous Spoke Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Beowulf (Modern English)

...ness,
every day hearing the joy loud in the hall.
The voice of harps was there and the ringing song
of the scop. One spoke who knew best,
of the creation of men, relating from long before.
He told that the Almighty made the earth,
a shining-bright plain, so surrounded by waters.
He established both sun and moon, victorious and triumphant,
the lamps of light for those living on land,
and ornamented all the corners of the earth
with limbs and leaves—he also shaped lif...Read more of this...
by Anonymous,


Dickinson Poems by Number

...d catch the Mint
That never ceased to fall—
And just my Basket—
Let me think—I'm sure
That this was all—

I never spoke—unless addressed—
And then, 'twas brief and low—
I could not bear to live—aloud—
The Racket shamed me so—

And if it had not been so far—
And any one I knew
Were going—I had often thought
How noteless—I could die—

536

The Heart asks Pleasure—first—
And then—Excuse from Pain—
And then—those little Adonynes
That deaden suffering—

And ...Read more of this...
by Dickinson, Emily

Evangeline: A Tale of Acadie

...As apart by the window she stood, with her hand in her lover's,
Blushing Evangeline heard the words that her father had spoken,
And, as they died on his lips, the worthy notary entered.



III

Bent like a laboring oar, that toils in the surf of the ocean,
Bent, but not broken, by age was the form of the notary public;
Shocks of yellow hair, like the silken floss of the maize, hung
Over his shoulders; his forehead was high; and glasses with horn bows
Sat astride on his nose, ...Read more of this...
by Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth

Forgotten Language

...Once I spoke the language of the flowers,
Once I understood each word the caterpillar said,
Once I smiled in secret at the gossip of the starlings,
And shared a conversation with the housefly
in my bed.
Once I heard and answered all the questions
of the crickets,
And joined the crying of each falling dying
flake of snow,
Once I spoke the language of the flowers. . ...Read more of this...
by Silverstein, Shel

Lara

...'d a feeling that recall'd to these 
That fever'd moment of his mind's disease. 
Was it a dream? was his the voice that spoke 
Those strange wild accents; his the cry that broke 
Their slumber? his the oppress'd o'er-labour'd heart 
That ceased to beat, the look that made them start? 
Could he who thus had suffer'd, so forget 
When such as saw that suffering shudder yet? 
Or did that silence prove his memory fix'd 
Too deep for words, indelible, unmix'd 
In that corroding sec...Read more of this...
by Byron, George (Lord)


Sea Dreams

...howl in tune
With nothing but the Devil!' 

`"True" indeed!
One of our town, but later by an hour
Here than ourselves, spoke with me on the shore;
While you were running down the sands, and made
The dimpled flounce of the sea-furbelow flap,
Good man, to please the child. She brought strange news.
Why were you silent when I spoke to-night?
I had set my heart on your forgiving him
Before you knew. We MUST forgive the dead.' 

`Dead! who is dead?' 

`The man your eye pursued.
A...Read more of this...
by Tennyson, Alfred Lord

The Ballad of the White Horse

...ce was like an open word
When brave men speak and choose,
The very colours of her coat
Were better than good news.

She spoke not, nor turned not,
Nor any sign she cast,
Only she stood up straight and free,
Between the flowers in Athelney,
And the river running past.

One dim ancestral jewel hung
On his ruined armour grey,
He rent and cast it at her feet:
Where, after centuries, with slow feet,
Men came from hall and school and street
And found it where it lay.

"Mother of Go...Read more of this...
by Chesterton, G K

The Break Away

...O CAMP DIRECTORS.
There was a song, our song on your cassette,
that played over and over
and baptised the prodigals.
It spoke the unspeakable,
as the rain will on an attic roof,
letting the animal join its soul
as we kneeled before a miracle--
forgetting its knife.

The daisies confer
in the old-married kitchen
papered with blue and green chefs
who call out pies, cookies, yummy,
at the charcoal and cigarette smoke
they wear like a yellowy salve.
The daisies absorb it all--
th...Read more of this...
by Sexton, Anne

The Dream

...is face
The tablet of unutterable thoughts
Was traced—and then it faded as it came,
And he stood calm and quiet, and he spoke
The fitting vows, but heard not his own words,
And all things reeled around him; he could see
Not that which was, nor that which should have been— 
But the old mansion, and the accustomed hall,
And the remembered chambers, and the place,
The day, the hour, the sunshine, and the shade,
All things pertaining to that place and hour,
And her who was his de...Read more of this...
by Byron, George (Lord)

The Ghosts

...e said.

While he considered, Brown's wife lay clutched in the tentacles of pain;
Then came the doctor, grave and grey; spoke of decline, of nervous strain;
Hinted Egypt, the South of France -- Brown with terror was tiger-gripped.
Where was the money? What the chance? Pitiful God! . . . the manuscript!
A thousand dollars! his only hope! he gazed and gazed at the garret wall. . . .
Reached at last for the envelope, turned to his wife and told her all.
Told of his friend, his p...Read more of this...
by Service, Robert William

The Holy Grail

..., 
That most of us would follow wandering fires, 
Came like a driving gloom across my mind. 
Then every evil word I had spoken once, 
And every evil thought I had thought of old, 
And every evil deed I ever did, 
Awoke and cried, "This Quest is not for thee." 
And lifting up mine eyes, I found myself 
Alone, and in a land of sand and thorns, 
And I was thirsty even unto death; 
And I, too, cried, "This Quest is not for thee." 

`And on I rode, and when I thought my thirst 
Wo...Read more of this...
by Tennyson, Alfred Lord

The Hunting Of The Snark

...IT IV.--THE HUNTING.

Fit the fourth.

THE HUNTING.


The Bellman looked uffish, and wrinkled his brow.
 "If only you'd spoken before!
It's excessively awkward to mention it now,
 With the Snark, so to speak, at the door!

"We should all of us grieve, as you well may believe,
 If you never were met with again--
But surely, my man, when the voyage began,
 You might have suggested it then?

"It's excessively awkward to mention it now--
 As I think I've already remarked."
And th...Read more of this...
by Carroll, Lewis

The Lady of the Lake

...ronnan's cell;
     Rather through realms beyond the sea,
     Seeking the world's cold charity
     Where ne'er was spoke a Scottish word,
     And ne'er the name of Douglas heard
     An outcast pilgrim will she rove,
     Than wed the man she cannot love.
     XIV.

     'Thou shak'st, good friend, thy tresses gray,—
     That pleading look, what can it say
     But what I own?—I grant him brave,
     But wild as Bracklinn's thundering wave;
     And generous,...Read more of this...
by Scott, Sir Walter

The Princess (prologue)

...andaled foot: 
'That's your light way; but I would make it death 
For any male thing but to peep at us.' 

Petulant she spoke, and at herself she laughed; 
A rosebud set with little wilful thorns, 
And sweet as English air could make her, she: 
But Walter hailed a score of names upon her, 
And 'petty Ogress', and 'ungrateful Puss', 
And swore he longed at college, only longed, 
All else was well, for she-society. 
They boated and they cricketed; they talked 
At wine, in clubs...Read more of this...
by Tennyson, Alfred Lord

The Raven

...dared to dream before;
    But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token,
    And the only word there spoken was the whispered word, “Lenore?”
This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word, “Lenore!”—
            Merely this and nothing more.

    Back into the chamber turning, all my soul within me burning,
Soon again I heard a tapping somewhat louder than before.
    “Surely,” said I, “surely that is something at my window lattice;
      Let ...Read more of this...
by Poe, Edgar Allan

The Three Voices

...," he faintly said,
"Are not willing to be fed:
Nor are they well without the bread." 

Her visage scorched him ere she spoke:
"There are," she said, "a kind of folk
Who have no horror of a joke. 

"Such wretches live: they take their share
Of common earth and common air:
We come across them here and there: 

"We grant them - there is no escape -
A sort of semi-human shape
Suggestive of the man-like Ape." 

"In all such theories," said he,
"One fixed exception there must be.
...Read more of this...
by Carroll, Lewis

The Vision of Judgment

...the aggression upon France, — like all other exaggeration, necessarily begets opposition. In whatever manner he may be spoken of in this new 'Vision,' his public career will not be more favourably transmitted by history. Of his private virtues (although a little expense to the nation) there can be no doubt. 

With regard to the supernatural personages treated of, I can only say that I know as much about them, and (as an honest man) have a better right to talk of them than Ro...Read more of this...
by Byron, George (Lord)

The Waste Land

...ited for rain, while the black clouds
Gathered far distant, over Himavant.
The jungle crouched, humped in silence.
Then spoke the thunder 
DA
Datta: what have we given?
My friend, blood shaking my heart
The awful daring of a moment's surrender
Which an age of prudence can never retract
By this, and this only, we have existed
Which is not to be found in our obituaries
Or in memories draped by the beneficent spider
Or under seals broken by the lean solicitor
In our empty rooms ...Read more of this...
by Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)

The White Cliffs

...dras.

A little thing happened, just before
We left— the evening papers came;
John, flicking them over to find a score,
Spoke for the first time a certain name—
The name of a town in a distant land
Etched on our hearts by a murderer's hand.

Mother and son exchanged a glance, 
A curious glance of strength and dread. 
I thought: what matter to them if Franz 
Ferdinand dies? One of them said: 
This might be serious.' 'Yes, you're right.' 
The other answered, 'It really might.' ...Read more of this...
by Miller, Alice Duer

The Witch Of Atlas

...go
Their inborn thirst of death; the pard unstrung
His sinews at her feet, and sought to know,
With looks whose motions spoke without a tongue,
How he might be as gentle as the doe.
The magic circle of her voice and eyes
All savage natures did imparadise.

And old Silenus, shaking a green stick
Of lilies, and the Wood-gods in a crew,
Came blithe as in the olive-copses thick
Cicade are, drunk with the noonday dew;
And Dryope and Faunus followed quick,
Teazing the God to sing t...Read more of this...
by Shelley, Percy Bysshe

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