Famous Steal Poems by Famous Poets

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

See also:

from the Ansty Experience

by Rg Gregory
 (a)
they seek to celebrate the word
not to bring their knives out on a poem
dissecting it to find a heart
whose beat lies naked on a table
not to score in triumph on a line
no sensitive would put a nostril to
but simply to receive it as an
offering glimpsing the sacred there

poem probes the poet's once-intention
but each time said budges its truth
afresh (leaving...Read more of this...

454. Epistle from Esopus to Maria

by Robert Burns
 FROM those drear solitudes and frowsy cells,
Where Infamy with sad Repentance dwells;
Where turnkeys make the jealous portal fast,
And deal from iron hands the spare repast;
Where truant ’prentices, yet young in sin,
Blush at the curious stranger peeping in;
Where strumpets, relics of the drunken roar,
Resolve to drink, nay, half, to whore, no more;
Where tiny thieves not destin’d yet to swing,
Beat hemp...Read more of this...

Plot not of nights, thy fellows' peace to blight,

by Omar Khayyam
Plot not of nights, thy fellows' peace to blight,
So that they cry to God the live-long night;
Nor plume thee on thy wealth and might, which thieves
May steal by night, or death, or fortune's might....Read more of this...

The Sliprails And The Spur

by Henry Lawson
 The colours of the setting sun
Withdrew across the Western land—
He raised the sliprails, one by one,
And shot them home with trembling hand;
Her brown hands clung—her face grew pale—
Ah! quivering chin and eyes that brim!—
One quick, fierce kiss across the rail,
And, 'Good-bye, Mary!' 'Good-bye, Jim!'

Oh, he rides hard to race the pain
Who rides from love, who rides from home;
But he...Read more of this...

Commandeering

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 Our hero was a Tommy with a conscience free from care, 
And such an open countenance that when he breathed the air 
He mopped up all the atmosphere -- so little went to spare 
You could hardly say he breathed, he "commandeered" it. 
For nowadays you'll notice when a man is "on the make", 
And other people's property is...Read more of this...

I Am 25

by Gregory Corso
 With a love a madness for Shelley
Chatterton Rimbaud
and the needy-yap of my youth
 has gone from ear to ear:
 I HATE OLD POETMEN!
Especially old poetmen who retract
who consult other old poetmen
who speak their youth in whispers,
saying:--I did those then
 but that was then
 that was then--
O I would quiet old men
say to them:--I am your friend
 what you once...Read more of this...

An Evangelists Wife

by Edwin Arlington Robinson
 “Why am I not myself these many days,
You ask? And have you nothing more to ask? 
I do you wrong? I do not hear your praise 
To God for giving you me to share your task? 

“Jealous—of Her? Because her cheeks are pink,
And she has eyes? No, not if she had seven. 
If you should only steal an hour...Read more of this...

Florentine Pilgrim

by Robert William Service
 "I'll do the old dump in a day,"
He told me in his brittle way.
"Two more, I guess, I'll give to Rome
Before I hit the trail for home;
But while I'm there I kindo' hope
To have an audience with the Pope."

We stood upon the terraced height
With sunny Florence in our sight.
I gazed and gazed, too moved to speak
Until he queried: "What's...Read more of this...

Sonnet 92: But do thy worst to steal thy self away

by William Shakespeare
 But do thy worst to steal thy self away,
For term of life thou art assurèd mine,
And life no longer than thy love will stay,
For it depends upon that love of thine.
Then need I not to fear the worst of wrongs,
When in the least of them my life hath end;
I see a better state to me belongs
Than that, which on...Read more of this...

Just lost when I was saved!

by Emily Dickinson
 Just lost, when I was saved!
Just felt the world go by!
Just girt me for the onset with Eternity,
When breath blew back,
And on the other side
I heard recede the disappointed tide!

Therefore, as One returned, I feel
Odd secrets of the line to tell!
Some Sailor, skirting foreign shores --
Some pale Reporter, from the awful doors
Before the Seal!

Next time, to stay!
Next time, the...Read more of this...

Who dares to take this life from me Knows no better

by T Wignesan
for Eric Mottram

"Nur wenn das Herz erschlossen,

Dann ist die Erde schön."

Goethe.

I

An important thing in living
Is to know when to go;
He who does not know this
Has not far to go,
Though death may come and go
When you do not know.


Come, give me your hand,
Together shoulder and cheek to shoulder
We'll go, sour kana in cheeks
And in the mornings cherry sticks
To gum: the infectious...Read more of this...

Sunrise Along Shore

by Lucy Maud Montgomery
 Athwart the harbor lingers yet
The ashen gleam of breaking day,
And where the guardian cliffs are set
The noiseless shadows steal away;
But all the winnowed eastern sky
Is flushed with many a tender hue,
And spears of light are smiting through
The ranks where huddled sea-mists fly.

Across the ocean, wan and gray,
Gay fleets of golden ripples come,
For at the birth-hour of the day
The roistering,...Read more of this...

Ode to the Muse

by Mary Darby Robinson
 O, let me seize thy pen sublime
That paints, in melting dulcet rhyme, 
The glowing pow'r, the magic art, 
Th' extatic raptures of the Heart; 
Soft Beauty's timid smile serene,
The dimples of Love's sportive mien; 
The sweet descriptive tale to trace; 
To picture Nature's winning grace;
To steal the tear from Pity's eye; 
To catch the sympathetic sigh; 
O teach me,...Read more of this...

Chaplin

by A S J Tessimond
 The sun, a heavy spider, spins in the thirsty sky.
The wind hides under cactus leaves, in doorway corners. Only the wry

Small shadow accompanies Hamlet-Petrouchka's march - the slight
Wry sniggering shadow in front of the morning, turning at noon, behind towards night.

The plumed cavalcade has passed to tomorrow, is lost again;
But the wisecrack-mask, the quick-flick-fanfare of the cane remain.

Diminuendo of...Read more of this...

Nay Tell Me Not Dear

by Thomas Moore
 Nay, tell me not, dear, that the goblet drowns 
One charm of feeling, one fond regret; 
Believe me, a few of thy angry frowns 
Are all I've sunk in its bright wave yet. 
Ne'er hath a beam 
Been lost in the stream 
That ever was shed from thy form or soul; 
The spell of those eyes, 
The balm of...Read more of this...

Sonnet 40: Take all my loves my love yea take them all

by William Shakespeare
 Take all my loves, my love, yea, take them all;
What hast thou then more than thou hadst before?
No love, my love, that thou mayst true love call;
All mine was thine, before thou hadst this more.
Then if for my love, thou my love receivest,
I cannot blame thee, for my love thou usest;
But yet be blamed, if thou thy self deceivest
By...Read more of this...

Sonnet CIV

by William Shakespeare
 To me, fair friend, you never can be old,
For as you were when first your eye I eyed,
Such seems your beauty still. Three winters cold
Have from the forests shook three summers' pride,
Three beauteous springs to yellow autumn turn'd
In process of the seasons have I seen,
Three April perfumes in three hot Junes burn'd,
Since first I saw you fresh, which yet...Read more of this...

To The Grasshopper

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
 AFTER ANACREON.

[The strong resemblance of this fine poem to 
Cowley's Ode bearing the same name, and beginning "Happy insect! 
what can be," will be at once seen.]

HAPPY art thou, darling insect,
Who, upon the trees' tall branches,
By a modest draught inspired,
Singing, like a monarch livest!
Thou possessest as thy portion
All that on the plains thou seest,
All that by the hours is...Read more of this...

Mine -- by the Right of the White Election!

by Emily Dickinson
 Mine -- by the Right of the White Election!
Mine -- by the Royal Seal!
Mine -- by the Sign in the Scarlet prison --
Bars -- cannot conceal!

Mine -- here -- in Vision -- and in Veto!
Mine -- by the Grave's Repeal --
Tilted -- Confirmed --
Delirious Charter!
Mine -- long as Ages steal!...Read more of this...

The Garden by the Bridge

by Adela Florence Cory Nicolson
   The Desert sands are heated, parched and dreary,
     The tigers rend alive their quivering prey
   In the near Jungle; here the kites rise, weary,
     Too gorged with living food to fly away.

   All night the hungry jackals howl together
     Over the...Read more of this...

Verses on Sir Joshua Reynolds Painted Window at New College Oxford

by Thomas Warton
 Ah, stay thy treacherous hand, forbear to trace
Those faultless forms of elegance and grace!
Ah, cease to spread the bright transparent mass,
With Titian's pencil, o'er the speaking glass!
Nor steal, by strokes of art with truth combin'd,
The fond illusions of my wayward mind!
For long, enamour'd of a barbarous age,
A faithless truant to the classic page;
Long have I lov'd to catch the...Read more of this...

Poor Honest Men

by Rudyard Kipling
 Your jar of Virginny
Will cost you a guinea,
Which you reckon too much by five shillings or ten;
But light your churchwarden
And judge it according,
When I've told you the troubles of poor honest men.

From the Capes of the Delaware,
As you are well aware,
We sail which tobacco for England-but then,
Our own British cruisers,
They watch us come through, sirs,
And they press half a...Read more of this...

A Spot

by Thomas Hardy
 In years defaced and lost, 
 Two sat here, transport-tossed, 
 Lit by a living love 
The wilted world knew nothing of: 
 Scared momently 
 By gaingivings, 
 Then hoping things 
 That could not be. 

 Of love and us no trace 
 Abides upon the place; 
 The sun and shadows wheel, 
Season and season sereward...Read more of this...

Bill and Joe

by Oliver Wendell Holmes
 COME, dear old comrade, you and I
Will steal an hour from days gone by,
The shining days when life was new,
And all was bright with morning dew,
The lusty days of long ago,
When you were Bill and I was Joe.

Your name may flaunt a titled trail
Proud as a cockerel's rainbow tail,
And mine as brief appendix wear
As Tam O'Shanter's luckless mare;
To-day, old...Read more of this...

Sonnet XXII: Love Banishd Heavn

by Michael Drayton
 Love, banish'd Heav'n, on Earth was held in scorn, 
Wand'ring abroad in need and beggary, 
And wanting friends, though of a Goddess born, 
Yet crav'd the alms of such as passed by. 
I, like a man devout and charitable, 
Clothed the naked, lodg'd this wand'ring guest, 
With sighs and tears still furnishing his table 
With what might make the...Read more of this...

Dont forget to view our wonderful member Steal poems.

Get a Premium Membership
Turn off ads, get more exposure for your poetry, and get more features with a Premium Membership.
Book: Diverse Voices: The Poetry of Human Rights and the Pursuit of Peace