Famous Stave Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Stave poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous stave poems. These examples illustrate what a famous stave poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Gordon, Adam Lindsay
...s first framed without fashion,
Song shaped without form.
Whence gather'd?--The locust's glad chirrup
May furnish a stave;
The ring os rowel and stirrup,
The wash of a wave.
The chauntof a marsh frog in rushes
That chimes through the pauses and hushes
Of nightfall, the torrent that gushes,
The tempests that rave.
In the deep'ning of dawn, when it dapples
The dusk of the sky,
With streaks like the redd'ning of apples,
The ripening of rye.
To eastward, when clu...Read more of this...
by
Moody, William Vaughn
...thou not put the scorn
And instant tragic question from thine eye?
Do thy dark brows yet crave
That swift and angry stave --
Unmeet for this desirous morn --
That I have striven, striven to evade?
Gazing on him, must I not deem they err
Whose careless lips in street and shop aver
As common tidings, deeds to make his cheek
Flush from the bronze, and his dead throat to speak?
Surely some elder singer would arise,
Whose harp hath leave to threaten and to mourn
Above...Read more of this...
by
Robinson, Edwin Arlington
...rly back to the same dust,
Each in his time; and the old, ordered stars
That sang together, Ben, will sing the same
Old stave to-morrow."
When he talks like that,
There's nothing for a human man to do
But lead him to some grateful nook like this
Where we be now, and there to make him drink.
He'll drink, for love of me, and then be sick;
A sad sign always in a man of parts,
And always very ominous. The great
Should be as large in liquor as in love, --
And our gre...Read more of this...
by
Browne, William
...twenty twenty couples to him flock:
And now within his reach the thin leaves wave,
With one hand only then he holds his stave,
And with the other grasping first the leaves,
A pretty bough he in his fist receives;
Then to his girdle making fast the hook,
His other hand another bough hath took;
His first, a third, and that, another gives,
To bring him to the place where his root lives.
Then, as a nimble squirrel from the wood,
Ranging the hedges for his filberd-food,
Sits p...Read more of this...
by
Whitman, Walt
...rope-twisting, distilling, sign-painting,
lime-burning, cotton-picking—electro-plating, electrotyping, stereotyping,
Stave-machines, planing-machines, reaping-machines, ploughing-machines,
thrashing-machines,
steam
wagons,
The cart of the carman, the omnibus, the ponderous dray;
Pyrotechny, letting off color’d fire-works at night, fancy figures and jets;
Beef on the butcher’s stall, the slaughter-house of the butcher, the butcher in his
killing-clothes,
The pens of ...Read more of this...
by
Gregory, Rg
...cherries are so vulnerable
blinking their way from green
to polished red in trees
guileless to stave off birds
a murmur does its rounds
and when the bright day comes
and ripeness throws its coyness
in the air a seething mesh
of wings and whetted beaks
(knowing its cherry-right)
falls upon the fleshy fruit
and rips it to the stone
then birds become the foe
of people leaden in their legs
who gasp below (fists raised
at butchery so sweet)
nets and s...Read more of this...
by
Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...,
Moist as they were, wine-heated from the feast;
And answered with such craft as women use,
Guilty or guiltless, to stave off a chance
That breaks upon them perilously, and said:
'Earl, if you love me as in former years,
And do not practise on me, come with morn,
And snatch me from him as by violence;
Leave me tonight: I am weary to the death.'
Low at leave-taking, with his brandished plume
Brushing his instep, bowed the all-amorous Earl,
And the stout Princ...Read more of this...
by
Paterson, Andrew Barton
...--
No matter, the end of the course is
The same: "Re a Gentleman, One."
He struggles awhile to keep going,
To stave off detection and shame;
But creditors, clamorous growing,
Ere long put an end to the game.
At length the poor soldier of Satan
His course to a finish has run --
And just think of Windeyer waiting
To deal with "A Gentleman, One"!
And some face it boldly, and brazen
The shame and the utter disgrace;
While others, more sensitive, hasten
Th...Read more of this...
by
Smart, Christopher
...ejoice with Gelotophye another laughing plant.
Let Tollfree, house of Tollfree rejoice with Fern of Trees -- Lord stave off evil this day.
Let Clare, house of Clare rejoice with Galeotes a kind of Lizard at enmity with serpents. Lord receive the soul of Dr Wilcox Master of Clare Hall.
Let Wilmot, house of Wilmot rejoice with Epipetros an herb coming up spontaneous (of the seed of the earth) but never flowers.
Let Anstey, house of Anstey rejoice wit...Read more of this...
by
McGonagall, William Topaz
...s way
During the livelong summer day,
As he admires the beautiful scenery while passing along,
And singing to himself a stave of a song.
Thou cheerest the tourist while amongst the Highland hills,
As he views their beautiful sparkling rills
Glittering like diamonds by the golden rays,
While the hills seem to offer up to God their praise.
While the bee from flower to flower does roam
To gather honey, and carry it home;
While it hums its little song in the beautiful...Read more of this...
by
Service, Robert William
...ived so long,
To my fond recollection
Is that for women, wine and song
I've had a predilection.
Full many a bawdy stave I've sung
With wenches of my choosing,
But of the joys that kept me young
The best was boozing.'
The Second: 'I'm a sage revered
Because I was a fool
And with the bourgeon of my beard
I kept my ardour cool.
On health I have conserved my hold
By never dissipating:
And that is why a hundred old
I'm celebrating.'
The Third: 'The explan...Read more of this...
by
Hardy, Thomas
...was graying
The headstoned grass,
A band all in white
Like the saints in church-glass,
Singing and playing
The ancient stave
By the choirmaster's grave.
Such the tenor man told
When he had grown old....Read more of this...
by
Service, Robert William
...repair
With Bobby Burns, a drouthy pair,
The glass to clink;
And oftenwhiles, when not too "fou,"
They'd roar a bawdy stave or two,
From midnight muk to morning dew,
And drink and drink.
And Grandfather, with eye aglow
And proper pride, would often show
An old armchair where long ago
The Bard would sit;
Reciting there with pawky glee
"The Lass that Made the Bed for Me;"
Or whiles a rhyme about the flea
That ne'er was writ.
Then I would seek the Poet's chair
And...Read more of this...
by
Hugo, Victor
...a limpid bay
Reflected, bask in the clear wave!
The javelin and its buffalo prey,
The laughter and the joyous stave!
The tent, the manger! these describe
A hunting and a fishing tribe
Free as the air—their arrows fly
Swifter than lightning through the sky!
By them is breathed the purest air,
Where'er their wanderings may chance!
Children and maidens young and fair,
And warriors circling in the dance!
Upon the beach, around the fire,
Now...Read more of this...
by
Service, Robert William
...ary,
I'll die as a soldier dies on the Field of Glory.
So give me a strong right arm for a wrong's swift righting;
Stave of a song on my lips as my sword is smiting;
Death in my boots may-be, but fighting, fighting....Read more of this...
by
Cather, Willa
...IN the tavern of my heart
Many a one has sat before,
Drunk red wine and sung a stave,
And, departing, come no more.
When the night was cold without,
And the ravens croaked of storm,
They have sat them at my hearth,
Telling me my house was warm.
As the lute and cup went round,
They have rhymed me well in lay;--
When the hunt was on at morn,
Each, departing, went his way.
On the walls, in compliment,
Some would sc...Read more of this...
by
Khayyam, Omar
...When I am dead, with wine my body lave,
For obit chant a bacchanalian stave,
And, if you need me at the day of doom,
Beneath the tavern threshold seek my grave....Read more of this...
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