Famous Squire Poems by Famous Poets

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

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The Count Of Hapsburg

by Friedrich von Schiller
 At Aix-la-Chapelle, in imperial array,
In its halls renowned in old story,
At the coronation banquet so gay
King Rudolf was sitting in glory.
The meats were served up by the Palsgrave of Rhine,
The Bohemian poured out the bright sparkling wine,
And all the Electors, the seven,
Stood waiting around the world-governing one,
As the chorus of stars encircle the sun,
That honor might duly be given.

And...Read more of this...

The Fortune-Teller a Gypsy Tale

by Mary Darby Robinson
 LUBIN and KATE, as gossips tell,
Were Lovers many a day;
LUBIN the damsel lov'd so well,
That folks pretend to say
The silly, simple, doting Lad,
Was little less than loving mad:
A malady not known of late--
Among the little-loving Great!

KATE liked the youth; but woman-kind
Are sometimes giv'n to range.
And oft, the giddy Sex, we find,
(They know not why)
When most they promise, soonest change,
And...Read more of this...

Botany Bay Eclogues 03 - Humphrey And William

by Robert Southey
 (Time, Noon.)


HUMPHREY:

See'st thou not William that the scorching Sun
By this time half his daily race has run?
The savage thrusts his light canoe to shore
And hurries homeward with his fishy store.
Suppose we leave awhile this stubborn soil
To eat our dinner and to rest from toil!


WILLIAM:

Agreed. Yon tree whose purple gum bestows
A ready medicine for the sick-man's woes,
Forms with its shadowy...Read more of this...

Deborahs Parrot a Village Tale

by Mary Darby Robinson
 'Twas in a little western town
An ancient Maiden dwelt:
Her name was MISS, or MISTRESS, Brown,
Or DEBORAH, or DEBBY: She
Was doom'd a Spinster pure to be,
For soft delights her breast ne'er felt:
Yet, she had watchful Ears and Eyes
For ev'ry youthful neighbour,
And never did she cease to labour
A tripping female to surprize.

And why was she so wond'rous pure,
So stiff, so solemn--so...Read more of this...

The Old Huntsman

by Siegfried Sassoon
 I’ve never ceased to curse the day I signed 
A seven years’ bargain for the Golden Fleece. 
’Twas a bad deal all round; and dear enough 
It cost me, what with my daft management, 
And the mean folk as owed and never paid me, 
And backing losers; and the local bucks 
Egging me on with whiskys while I bragged...Read more of this...

548. The Dean of Faculty: A new Ballad

by Robert Burns
 DIRE was the hate at old Harlaw,
 That Scot to Scot did carry;
And dire the discord Langside saw
 For beauteous, hapless Mary:
But Scot to Scot ne’er met so hot,
 Or were more in fury seen, Sir,
Than ’twixt Hal and Bob for the famous job,
 Who should be the Faculty’s Dean, Sir.


This Hal for genius, wit and lore,
 Among the...Read more of this...

Dream Song 33: An apple arcd toward Kleitos; whose great King

by John Berryman
 An apple arc'd toward Kleitos; whose great King
wroth & of wine did study where his sword,
sneaked away, might be . . .
with swollen lids staggered up and clung
dim to the cloth of gold. An un-Greek word
blister, to him guard,

and the trumpeter would not sound, fisted. Ha,
they hustle Clitus out; by another door,
loaded, crowds he back in
who now must, chopped,...Read more of this...

The Rolling English Road

by G K Chesterton
 Before the Roman came to Rye or out to Severn strode,
The rolling English drunkard made the rolling English road.
A reeling road, a rolling road, that rambles round the shire,
And after him the parson ran, the sexton and the squire;
A merry road, a mazy road, and such as we did tread
The night we went to Birmingham by way of Beachy...Read more of this...

Cotton and Corn

by Thomas Moore
 Said Cotton to Corn, t'other day,
As they met and exchang'd salute--
(Squire Corn in his carriage so gay,
Poor Cotton, half famish'd on foot):


"Great Squire, if it isn't uncivil
To hint at starvation before you,
Look down on a poor hungry devil,
And give him some bread, I implore you!"


Quoth Corn, then, in answer to Cotton,
Perceiving he meant to make free --
"Low fellow, you've...Read more of this...

Breadfruit

by Philip Larkin
 Boys dream of native girls who bring breadfruit,
 Whatever they are,
As bribes to teach them how to execute
Sixteen sexual positions on the sand;
This makes them join (the boys) the tennis club,
Jive at the Mecca, use deodorants, and
On Saturdays squire ex-schoolgirls to the pub
 By private car.

Such uncorrected visions end in church
 Or registrar:
A mortgaged semi- with a silver birch;
Nippers;...Read more of this...

The LORD and the BRAMBLE

by Anne Kingsmill Finch
 To view his stately Walks and Groves, 
A Man of Pow'r and Place
Was hast'ning on; but as he roves,
His Foe the slighted Bramble proves, 
And stops his eager Pace. 
That Shrub was qualify'd to Bite;
And now there went a Tale, 
That this injurious partial Wight
Had bid his Gard'ner rid it quite, 
And throw it o'er the Pail. 

Often the...Read more of this...

520. Ballad on Mr. Heron's Election—No. 3

by Robert Burns
 ’TWAS in the seventeen hunder year
 O’ grace, and ninety-five,
That year I was the wae’est man
 Of ony man alive.


In March the three-an’-twentieth morn,
 The sun raise clear an’ bright;
But oh! I was a waefu’ man,
 Ere to-fa’ o’ the night.


Yerl Galloway lang did rule this land,
 Wi’ equal right and fame,
And thereto was his kinsmen join’d,
 The Murray’s...Read more of this...

The Mountain Castle

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
 THERE stands on yonder high mountain

A castle built of yore,
Where once lurked horse and horseman

In rear of gate and of door.

Now door and gate are in ashes,

And all around is so still;
And over the fallen ruins

I clamber just as I will.

Below once lay a cellar,

With costly wines well stor'd;
No more the glad maid with her pitcher

Descends there to draw...Read more of this...

The Boys

by Oliver Wendell Holmes
 HAS there any old fellow got mixed with the boys?
If there has, take him out, without making a noise.
Hang the Almanac's cheat and the Catalogue's spite!
Old Time is a liar! We're twenty to-night!

We're twenty! We're twenty! Who says we are more?
He's tipsy,-- young jackanapes!-- show him the door!
"Gray temples at twenty?"-- Yes ! white if we please;
Where the snow-flakes...Read more of this...

Tunbridge Wells

by John Wilmot
 At five this morn, when Phoebus raised his head
From Thetis' lap, I raised myself from bed,
And mounting steed, I trotted to the waters
The rendesvous of fools, buffoons, and praters,
Cuckolds, whores, citizens, their wives and daughters.

My squeamish stomach I with wine had bribed
To undertake the dose that was prescribed;
But turning head, a sudden curséd view
That innocent provision overthrew,
And without drinking,...Read more of this...

48. Epitaph on a Henpecked Squire

by Robert Burns
 AS father Adam first was fool’d,
 (A case that’s still too common,)
Here lies man a woman ruled,
 The devil ruled the woman....Read more of this...

The Last Rhyme of True Thomas

by Rudyard Kipling
 The King has called for priest and cup,
 The King has taken spur and blade
To dub True Thomas a belted knight,
 And all for the sake o' the songs he made.

They have sought him high, they have sought him low,
 They have sought him over down and lea;
They have found him by the milk-white thorn
 That guards the gates...Read more of this...

Friends Beyond

by Thomas Hardy
 WILLIAM Dewy, Tranter Reuben, Farmer Ledlow late at plough,
Robert's kin, and John's, and Ned's,
And the Squire, and Lady Susan, lie in Mellstock churchyard now!

"Gone," I call them, gone for good, that group of local hearts and
heads;
Yet at mothy curfew-tide,
And at midnight when the noon-heat breathes it back from walls and
leads,

They've a way of whispering to me--fellow-wight who yet abide--
In...Read more of this...

The Driver

by Friedrich von Schiller
 "What knight or what vassal will be so bold
As to plunge in the gulf below?
See! I hurl in its depths a goblet of gold,
Already the waters over it flow.
The man who can bring back the goblet to me,
May keep it henceforward,--his own it shall be."

Thus speaks the king, and he hurls from the height
Of the cliffs that, rugged and...Read more of this...

328. Poem on Pastoral Poetry

by Robert Burns
 HAIL, Poesie! thou Nymph reserv’d!
In chase o’ thee, what crowds hae swerv’d
Frae common sense, or sunk enerv’d
 ’Mang heaps o’ clavers:
And och! o’er aft thy joes hae starv’d,
 ’Mid a’ thy favours!


Say, Lassie, why, thy train amang,
While loud the trump’s heroic clang,
And sock or buskin skelp alang
 To death or marriage;
Scarce ane has tried the shepherd-sang
 But wi’ miscarriage?


In...Read more of this...

260. Sketch in Verse inscribed to the Right Hon. C. J. Fox

by Robert Burns
 HOW wisdom and Folly meet, mix, and unite,
How Virtue and Vice blend their black and their white,
How Genius, th’ illustrious father of fiction,
Confounds rule and law, reconciles contradiction,
I sing: If these mortals, the critics, should bustle,
I care not, not I—let the Critics go whistle!


 But now for a Patron whose name and whose glory,
At once may illustrate and honour...Read more of this...

The Dream of the Children

by George William Russell
 THE CHILDREN awoke in their dreaming
 While earth lay dewy and still:
They followed the rill in its gleaming
 To the heart-light of the hill.


Its sounds and sights were forsaking
 The world as they faded in sleep,
When they heard a music breaking
 Out from the heart-light deep.


It ran where the rill in its flowing
 Under the star-light gay,
With wonderful colour...Read more of this...

Epistle to Elizabeth, Countess of Rutland

by Ben Jonson
  XII. — EPISTLE TO ELIZABETH COUNTESS OF RUTLAND. That which, to boot with hell, is thought worth heaven, And for it, life, conscience, yea souls are given, Toils, by grave custom, up and down the court, To every squire, or groom, that will report Well or ill, only all the following year, Just to the weight their this day's presents...Read more of this...

Barclay Of Ury

by John Greenleaf Whittier
 Up the streets of Aberdeen,
By the kirk and college green,
Rode the Laird of Ury;
Close behind him, close beside,
Foul of mouth and evil-eyed,
Pressed the mob in fury.

Flouted him the drunken churl,
Jeered at him the serving-girl,
Prompt to please her master;
And the begging carlin, late
Fed and clothed at Ury's gate,
Cursed him as he passed her.

Yet, with calm and stately mien,
Up the streets...Read more of this...

Ode to the Goddess Ceres

by Thomas Moore
 Dear Goddess of Corn, whom the ancients we know,
(Among other odd whims of those comical bodies,)
Adorn'd with somniferous poppies, to show,
Thou wert always a true Country-gentleman's Goddess.

Behold in his best, shooting-jacket, before thee,
An eloquent 'Squire, who most humbly beseeches,
Great Queen of the Mark-lane (if the thing doesn't bore thee),
Thou'lt read o'er the last of his -- never-last speeches.

Ah! Ceres,...Read more of this...

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