Famous Stall Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Stall poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous stall poems. These examples illustrate what a famous stall poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Robert William Service
A fat man sat in an orchestra stall and his cheeks were wet with tears,
As he gazed at the primadonna tall, whom he hadn't seen in years.
"Oh don't you remember" he murmured low "that Spring in Montparnasse,
When hand in hand we used to go to our nightly singing class.
Ah me those days so gay and glad, so full of...Read more of this...
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...
by
Robert William Service
On this festive first of May,
Wending wistfully my way
Three sad sights I saw today.
The first was such a lovely lad
He lit with grace the sordid street;
Yet in a monk's robe he was clad,
With tonsured head and sandalled feet.
Though handsome as a movie star
His eyes had holiness in them,
As if he saw afaint, afar
A stable-stall in Bethlehem.
The second was a...Read more of this...
by
Joyce Kilmer
(For the Rev. James B. Dollard)
The Kings of the earth are men of might,
And cities are burned for their delight,
And the skies rain death in the silent night,
And the hills belch death all day!
But the King of Heaven, Who made them all,
Is fair and gentle, and very small;
He lies in the straw, by the oxen's stall --
Let them think...Read more of this...
by
Oscar Wilde
The apple trees are hung with gold,
And birds are loud in Arcady,
The sheep lie bleating in the fold,
The wild goat runs across the wold,
But yesterday his love he told,
I know he will come back to me.
O rising moon! O Lady moon!
Be you my lover's sentinel,
You cannot choose but know him well,
For he is shod with purple shoon,
You cannot choose...Read more of this...
by
Philip Freneau
Though skilled in Latin and in Greek,
And earning fifty cents a week,
Such knowledge, and the income, too,
Should teach you better what to do:
The meanest drudges, kept in pay,
Can pocket fifty cents a day.
Why stay in such a tasteless land,
Where all must on a level stand,
(Excepting people, at their ease,
Who choose the level where they please:)
See Irving gone to Britain's...Read more of this...
by
Andrew Barton Paterson
You never heard tell of the story?
Well, now, I can hardly believe!
Never heard of the honour and glory
Of Pardon, the son of Reprieve?
But maybe you're only a Johnnie
And don't know a horse from a hoe?
Well, well, don't get angry, my sonny,
But, really, a young un should know.
They bred him out back...Read more of this...
by
Anne Kingsmill Finch
No sooner, FLAVIO, was you gone,
But, your Injunction thought upon,
ARDELIA took the Pen;
Designing to perform the Task,
Her FLAVIO did so kindly ask,
Ere he returned agen.
Unto Parnassus strait she sent,
And bid the Messenger, that went
Unto the Muses Court,
Assure them, she their Aid did need,
And begg'd they'd use their utmost Speed,
Because the Time was short.
The hasty...Read more of this...
by
Thomas Carew
Now that the winter's gone, the earth hath lost
Her snow-white robes, and now no more the frost
Candies the grass, or casts an icy cream
Upon the silver lake or crystal stream;
But the warm sun thaws the benumbed earth,
And makes it tender; gives a sacred birth
To the dead swallow; wakes in hollow tree
The drowsy...Read more of this...
by
Les Murray
From the metal poppy
this good blast of trance
arriving as shock, private cloudburst blazing down,
worst in a boarding-house greased tub, or a barrack with competitions,
best in a stall, this enveloping passion of Australians:
tropics that sweat for you, torrent that braces with its heat,
inflames you with its chill, action sauna, inverse bidet,
sleek vertical coruscating ghost of your inner river,
reminding all your...Read more of this...
by
D. H. Lawrence
There are four men mowing down by the Isar;
I can hear the swish of the scythe-strokes, four
Sharp breaths taken: yea, and I
Am sorry for what's in store.
The first man out of the four that's mowing
Is mine, I claim him once and for all;
Though it's sorry I am, on his young feet, knowing
None...Read more of this...
by
Osip Mandelstam
I have studied the Science of departures,
in night’s sorrows, when a woman’s hair falls down.
The oxen chew, there’s the waiting, pure,
in the last hours of vigil in the town,
and I reverence night’s ritual cock-crowing,
when reddened eyes lift sorrow’s load and choose
to stare at distance, and a woman’s crying
is mingled with the singing of the Muse.
Who knows, when the word...Read more of this...
by
Edgar Lee Masters
I was Willie Metcalf.
They used to call me "Doctor Meyers"
Because, they said, I looked like him.
And he was my father, according to Jack McGuire.
I lived in the livery stable,
Sleeping on the floor
Side by side with Roger Baughman's bulldog,
Or sometimes in a stall.
I could crawl between the legs of the wildest horses
Without getting kicked -- we knew each other.
On spring...Read more of this...
by
Andrew Barton Paterson
My son, if you go to the races to battle with Ikey and Mo,
Remember, it's seldom the pigeon can pick out the eye of the crow;
Remember, they live by the business; remember, my son, and go slow.
If ever an owner should tell you, "Back mine" -- don't you be such a flat.
He knows his own...Read more of this...
by
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
To an apple-woman's stall
Once some children nimbly ran;
Longing much to purchase all,
They with joyous haste began
Snatching up the piles there raised,
While with eager eyes they gazed
On the rosy fruit so nice;
But when they found out the price,
Down they threw the whole they'd got,
Just as if they were red hot.
* * * * *
The man who gratis will his...Read more of this...
by
Arthur Symons
My life is like a music-hall,
Where, in the impotence of rage,
Chained by enchantment to my stall,
I see myself upon the stage
Dance to amuse a music-hall.
'Tis I that smoke this cigarette,
Lounge here, and laugh for vacancy,
And watch the dancers turn; and yet
It is my very self I see
Across the cloudy cigarette....Read more of this...
by
Horace
The touch of Zephyr and of Spring has loosen'd Winter's thrall;
The well-dried keels are wheel'd again to sea:
The ploughman cares not for his fire, nor cattle for their stall,
And frost no more is whitening all the lea.
...Read more of this...
by
Edna St. Vincent Millay
I shall die, but
that is all that I shall do for Death.
I hear him leading his horse out of the stall;
I hear the clatter on the barn-floor.
He is in haste; he has business in Cuba,
business in the Balkans, many calls to make this morning.
But I will not hold the bridle
while he clinches the girth.
And he may mount...Read more of this...
by
Marriott Edgar
When Sam Small retired from the Army
He'd a pension of ninepence a day,
And seven pounds fourteen and twopence
He'd saved from his rations and pay.
He knew this 'ere wasn't a fortune,
But reckoned with prudence and care
He'd find some investment to save him
From hard work and things like that there.
He thought he'd invest in a race orse,...Read more of this...
by
Ben Jonson
LXXVIII. — TO HORNET. HORNET, thou hast thy wife drest for the stall, To draw thee custom: but herself gets all....Read more of this...
by
William Topaz McGonagall
Welcome, sweet Christmas, blest be the morn
That Christ our Saviour was born!
Earth's Redeemer, to save us from all danger,
And, as the Holy Record tells, born in a manger.
Chorus --
Then ring, ring, Christmas bells,
Till your sweet music o'er the kingdom swells,
To warn the people to respect the morn
That Christ their Saviour was born.
The snow was on the ground when...Read more of this...
by
John Milton
XI
A Book was writ of late call'd Tetrachordon;
And wov'n close, both matter, form and stile;
The Subject new: it walk'd the Town a while,
Numbring good intellects; now seldom por'd on.
Cries the stall-reader, bless us! what a word on
A title page is this! and some in file
Stand spelling fals, while one might walk to Mile-
End Green. Why is it harder Sirs...Read more of this...
by
Donald Hall
All winter your brute shoulders strained against collars, padding
and steerhide over the ash hames, to haul
sledges of cordwood for drying through spring and summer,
for the Glenwood stove next winter, and for the simmering range.
In April you pulled cartloads of manure to spread on the fields,
dark manure of Holsteins, and knobs of your own clustered with oats.
All summer you mowed the...Read more of this...
by
Katharine Tynan
Our father, ere he went
Out with his brother, Death,
Smiling and well-content
As a bridegroom goeth,
Sweetly forgiveness prayed
From man or beast whom he
Had ever injured
Or burdened needlessly.
'Verily,' then said he,
'I crave before I pass
Forgiveness full and free
Of my little brother, the ass.
Many a time and oft,
When winds and ways were hot,
He...Read more of this...
by
Richard Wilbur
The horse beneath me seemed
To know what course to steer
Through the horror of snow I dreamed,
And so I had no fear,
Nor was I chilled to death
By the wind’s white shudders, thanks
To the veils of his patient breath
And the mist of sweat from his flanks.
It seemed that all night through,
Within my hand no rein
And nothing...Read more of this...
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