Famous Steals Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Clowns Houses

by Dame Edith Sitwell
 BENEATH the flat and paper sky 
The sun, a demon's eye, 
Glowed through the air, that mask of glass; 
All wand'ring sounds that pass

Seemed out of tune, as if the light 
Were fiddle-strings pulled tight. 
The market-square with spire and bell 
Clanged out the hour in Hell;

The busy chatter of the heat 
Shrilled like a parakeet; 
And shuddering at...Read more of this...

Ancestors

by Siegfried Sassoon
BEHOLD these jewelled merchant Ancestors 
Foregathered in some chancellery of death;
Calm provident discreet they stroke their beards
And move their faces slowly in the gloom 
And barter monstrous wealth with speech subdued 5
Lustreless eyes and acquiescent lids.
And oft in pauses of their conference 
They listen to the measured breath of night¡¯s
Hushed sweep of wind aloft the swaying trees
In dimly gesturing gardens;...Read more of this...

The Bliss Of Absence

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
 DRINK, oh youth, joy's purest ray
From thy loved one's eyes all day,

And her image paint at night!
Better rule no lover knows,
Yet true rapture greater grows,

When far sever'd from her sight.

Powers eternal, distance, time,
Like the might of stars sublime,

Gently rock the blood to rest,
O'er my senses softness steals,
Yet my bosom lighter feels,

And I daily am more blest.

Though I can forget...Read more of this...

Sonnet CXLIII

by Francesco Petrarch
SONNET CXLIII. Per mezzo i boschi inospiti e selvaggi. EVER THINKING ON HER, HE PASSES FEARLESS AND SAFE THROUGH THE FOREST OF ARDENNES.  Through woods inhospitable, wild, I rove,Where armèd travellers bend their fearful way;[Pg 164]Nor danger dread, save from that sun of love,Bright sun! which darts a soul-enflaming...Read more of this...

The Old Year and the New

by Fannie Isabelle Sherrick
Low at my feet there lies to-night
  A crushed and withered rose;
Within its heart of fading red
  No crimson fire glows;
For o'er its leaves the frost of death
  Steals like an icy breath;
And soon 't will vanish from my sight,
  A thing of gloom and death.
Ah! beauteous flower, once thou wert
  My pleasure and my...Read more of this...

Lines to Him Who Will Understand Them

by Mary Darby Robinson
 THOU art no more my bosom's FRIEND; 
Here must the sweet delusion end, 
That charm'd my senses many a year, 
Thro' smiling summers, winters drear.­ 
O, FRIENDSHIP! am I doom'd to find 
Thou art a phantom of the mind? 
A glitt'ring shade, an empty name, 
An air-born vision's vap'rish flame? 
And yet, the dear DECEIT so long 
Has wak'd...Read more of this...

Sonnet XVII: Love Steals Unheeded

by Mary Darby Robinson
 Love steals unheeded o'er the tranquil mind, 
As Summer breezes fan the sleeping main,
Slow through each fibre creeps the subtle pain,
'Till closely round the yielding bosom twin'd.
Vain is the hope the magic to unbind,
The potent mischief riots in the brain,
Grasps ev'ry thought, and burns in ev'ry vein,
'Till in the heart the Tyrant lives enshrin'd.
Oh! Victor strong! bending the vanquish'd...Read more of this...

230. The Fête Champêtre

by Robert Burns
 O WHA will to Saint Stephen’s House,
 To do our errands there, man?
O wha will to Saint Stephen’s House
 O’ th’ merry lads of Ayr, man?
Or will we send a man o’ law?
 Or will we send a sodger?
Or him wha led o’er Scotland a’
 The meikle Ursa-Major? 1


Come, will ye court a noble lord,
 Or buy a score...Read more of this...

Stanzas to Flora

by Mary Darby Robinson
 LET OTHERS wreaths of ROSES twine
With scented leaves of EGLANTINE;
Enamell'd buds and gaudy flow'rs,
The pride of FLORA'S painted bow'rs;
Such common charms shall ne'er be wove
Around the brows of him I LOVE. 

Fair are their beauties for a day, 
But swiftly do they fade away; 
Each PINK sends forth its choicest sweet 
AURORA'S warm embrace to meet; 
And each inconstant...Read more of this...

At His Grave

by Alfred Austin
 LEAVE me a little while alone, 
Here at his grave that still is strown 
With crumbling flower and wreath; 
The laughing rivulet leaps and falls, 
The thrush exults, the cuckoo calls, 
And he lies hush’d beneath. 

With myrtle cross and crown of rose, 
And every lowlier flower that blows, 
His new-made couch is dress’d; 
Primrose and cowslip, hyacinth wild,...Read more of this...

Sensibility

by Robert William Service
 I

Once, when a boy, I killed a cat.
I guess it's just because of that
A cat evokes my tenderness,
And takes so kindly my caress.
For with a rich, resonant purr
It sleeks an arch or ardent fur
So vibrantly against my shin;
And as I tickle tilted chin
And rub the roots of velvet ears
Its tail in undulation rears.
Then tremoring with all its might,
In blissful...Read more of this...

Morning

by Paul Laurence Dunbar
 O'ER fallow plains and fertile meads,
AURORA lifts the torch of day;
The shad'wy brow of Night recedes,
Cold dew-drops fall from every spray;
Now o'er the thistle's rugged head,
Thin veils of filmy vapour fly,
On ev'ry violet's perfum'd bed
The sparkling gems of Nature lie. 

The hill's tall brow is crown'd with gold,
The Milk-maid trills her jocund lay,
The Shepherd-boy unpens his fold,
The Lambs along...Read more of this...

Modern Love XXII: What May the Woman

by George Meredith
 What may the woman labour to confess?
There is about her mouth a nervous twitch.
'Tis something to be told, or hidden:--which?
I get a glimpse of hell in this mild guess.
She has desires of touch, as if to feel
That all the household things are things she knew.
She stops before the glass. What sight in view?
A face that seems the latest to...Read more of this...

Canzone XVII

by Francesco Petrarch
CANZONE XVII. Di pensier in pensier, di monte in monte. DISTANCE AND SOLITUDE.  From hill to hill I roam, from thought to thought,With Love my guide; the beaten path I fly,For there in vain the tranquil life is sought:If 'mid the waste well forth a lonely rill,Or deep embosom'd a low...Read more of this...

The Bush Girl

by Henry Lawson
 So you rode from the range where your brothers “select,” 

Through the ghostly grey bush in the dawn--- 

You rode slowly at first, lest her heart should suspect 

That you were glad to be gone; 

You had scarcely the courage to glance back at her 

By the homestead receding from view, 

And you breathed with relief as you rounded...Read more of this...

County Guy

by Sir Walter Scott
 Ah! County Guy, the hour is nigh,
The sun has left the lea,
The orange flower perfumes the bower,
The breeze is on the sea.
The lark his lay who thrill'd all day
Sits hush'd his partner nigh:
Breeze, bird, and flower confess the hour,
But where is County Guy?

The village maid steals through the shade,
Her shepherd's suit to hear;
To beauty shy, by lattice high,
Sings high-born...Read more of this...

The Sleeper

by Edgar Allan Poe
 At midnight, in the month of June,
I stand beneath the mystic moon.
An opiate vapor, dewy, dim,
Exhales from out her golden rim,
And, softly dripping, drop by drop,
Upon the quiet mountain top,
Steals drowsily and musically
Into the universal valley.
The rosemary nods upon the grave;
The lily lolls upon the wave;
Wrapping the fog about its breast,
The ruin molders into rest;
Looking like Lethe, see! the...Read more of this...

The Italian In England

by Robert Browning
 That second time they hunted me
From hill to plain, from shore to sea,
And Austria, hounding far and wide
Her blood-hounds through the countryside,
Breathed hot and instant on my trace,— 
I made six days a hiding-place
Of that dry green old aqueduct
Where I and Charles, when boys, have plucked
The fire-flies from the roof above,
Bright creeping throuoh the moss they love.
—How long it...Read more of this...

Sonnet 20: A womans face with Natures own hand painted

by William Shakespeare
 A woman's face with Nature's own hand painted
Hast thou, the master-mistress of my passion;
A woman's gentle heart, but not acquainted
With shifting change, as is false women's fashion;
An eye more bright than theirs, less false in rolling,
Gilding the object whereupon it gazeth;
A man in hue, all hues in his controlling,
Which steals men's eyes and women's souls amazeth.
And for a woman...Read more of this...

The Resignation

by Thomas Chatterton
 O God, whose thunder shakes the sky, 
Whose eye this atom globe surveys, 
To thee, my only rock, I fly, 
Thy mercy in thy justice praise. 

The mystic mazes of thy will, 
The shadows of celestial light, 
Are past the pow'r of human skill,-- 
But what th' Eternal acts is right. 

O teach me in the trying hour, 
When...Read more of this...

Legend of the Albino Farm

by Erin Belieu
 Omaha, Nebraska They do not sleep nights
but stand between

rows of glowing corn and
cabbages grown on acres past

the edge of the city.
Surrendered flags,

their nightgowns furl and
unfurl around their legs.

Only women could be this
white. Like mules,

they are sterile
and it appears that

their mouths are always
open. Because they are thin

as weeds, the albinos
look hungry. If you drive out

to the farm, tree branches will
point...Read more of this...

Life

by Charlotte Bronte
 "What is this world?­thy school, O misery!
"Our only lesson is to learn to suffer." 

- YOUNG. 


LOVE, thou sportive fickle boy, 
Source of anguish, child of joy, 
Ever wounding­ever smiling, 
Soothing still, and still beguiling; 
What are all thy boasted treasures, 
Tender sorrows, transient pleasures? 
Anxious hopes, and jealous fears, 
LAUGHING HOURS, and MOURNING YEARS. 

What is FRIENDSHIP'S soothing...Read more of this...

Lines Written by the Side of a River

by Mary Darby Robinson
 FLOW soft RIVER, gently stray, 
Still a silent waving tide 
O'er thy glitt'ring carpet glide, 
While I chaunt my ROUNDELAY, 
As I gather from thy bank, 
Shelter'd by the poplar dank, 
King-cups, deck'd in golden pride, 
Harebells sweet, and daisies pied; 
While beneath the evening sky, 
Soft the western breezes fly. 
Gentle RIVER, should'st thou be 
Touch'd with mournful...Read more of this...

The Living Temple

by Oliver Wendell Holmes
 NOT in the world of light alone, 
Where God has built his blazing throne, 
Nor yet alone in earth below, 
With belted seas that come and go, 
And endless isles of sunlit green, 
Is all thy Maker's glory seen: 
Look in upon thy wondrous frame,--
Eternal wisdom still the same!

The smooth, soft air with pulse-like waves 
Flows murmuring through its...Read more of this...

By The Arno

by Oscar Wilde
 The oleander on the wall
Grows crimson in the dawning light,
Though the grey shadows of the night
Lie yet on Florence like a pall.

The dew is bright upon the hill,
And bright the blossoms overhead,
But ah! the grasshoppers have fled,
The little Attic song is still.

Only the leaves are gently stirred
By the soft breathing of the gale,
And in the almond-scented vale
The lonely nightingale...Read more of this...

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