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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The Choirmasters Burial

by Thomas Hardy
 He often would ask us
That, when he died,
After playing so many
To their last rest,
If out of us any
Should here abide,
And it would not task us,
We would with our lutes
Play over him
By his grave-brim
The psalm he liked best—
The one whose sense suits
"Mount Ephraim"—
And perhaps we should seem
To him, in Death's dream,
Like the seraphim.

As soon as I knew
That his spirit was...Read more of this...

In re a Gentleman One

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 We see it each day in the paper, 
And know that there's mischief in store; 
That some unprofessional caper 
Has landed a shark on the shore. 
We know there'll be plenty of trouble 
Before they get through with the fun, 
Because he's been coming the double 
On clients, has "Gentleman, One". 
Alas for the gallant attorney, 
Intent upon cutting...Read more of this...

The Beautiful Sun

by William Topaz McGonagall
 Beautiful Sun! with thy golden rays,
To God, the wise Creator, be all praise;
For thou nourisheth all the creation,
Wherever there is found to be animation. 

Without thy heat we could not live,
Then praise to God we ought to give;
For thou makest the fruits and provisions to grow,
To nourish all creatures on earth below. 

Thou makest the hearts of the old...Read more of this...

The Centenarians

by Robert William Service
 I asked of ancient gaffers three
 The way of their ripe living,
And this is what they told to me
 Without Misgiving.

The First: 'The why I've lived 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...Read more of this...

An Ode in Time of Hesitation

by William Vaughn Moody
 After seeing at Boston the statue of Robert Gould Shaw, killed while storming Fort Wagner, July 18, 1863, at the head of the first enlisted ***** regiment, the Fifty-fourth Massachusetts.


I 

Before the solemn bronze Saint Gaudens made 
To thrill the heedless passer's heart with awe, 
And set here in the city's talk and trade 
To the good memory of...Read more of this...

The Old Armchair

by Robert William Service
 In all the pubs from Troon to Ayr
Grandfather's father would 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...Read more of this...

The Song Of The Soldier-Born

by Robert William Service
 Give me the scorn of the stars and a peak defiant;
Wail of the pines and a wind with the shout of a giant;
Night and a trail unknown and a heart reliant.

Give me to live and love in the old, bold fashion;
A soldier's billet at night and a soldier's ration;
A heart that leaps to the fight with a soldier's passion.

For...Read more of this...

The Tavern

by Willa Cather
 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...Read more of this...

When I am dead, with wine my body lave,

by Omar Khayyam
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...

Britannias Pastorals

by William Browne
 Now as an angler melancholy standing
Upon a green bank yielding room for landing,
A wriggling yellow worm thrust on his hook,
Now in the midst he throws, then in a nook:
Here pulls his line, there throws it in again,
Mendeth his cork and bait, but all in vain,
He long stands viewing of the curled stream;
At last a hungry pike, or well-grown bream
Snatch...Read more of this...

cherries and birds

by Rg Gregory
 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...Read more of this...

A Dedication

by Adam Lindsay Gordon
 They are rhymes rudely strung with intent less 
Of sound than of words,
In lands where bright blossoms are scentless,
And songless bright birds;
Where, with fire and fierce drought on her tresses,
Insatiable Summer oppresses
Sere woodlands and sad wildernesses,
And faint flocks and herds. 
Where in drieariest days, when all dews end,
And all winds are warm,
Wild Winter's large floodgates are loosen'd,
And floods, freed...Read more of this...

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