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Famous Stolen Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry
...used to talk? 
¡°Jack London, 
money, 
love, 
passion.¡± 
But I saw one thing only: 
you, a Gioconda, 
had to be stolen! 

And you were stolen. 

In love, I shall gamble again, 
the arch of my brows ablaze. 
What of it! 
Homeless tramps often find 
shelter in a burnt-out house! 

You¡¯re teasing me now? 
¡°You have fewer emeralds of madness 
than a beggar has kopeks!¡± 
But remember! 
When they teased Vesuvius, 
Pompeii perished! 

Hey! 
Gentlemen! 
...Read more of this...
by Mayakovsky, Vladimir



...ur enemies, 
Bidding us never sheathe our valiant sword 
Till we have changed our birthright for a gourd 
Of wild pulse stolen from a barbarian's hut; 
Showing how wise it is to cast away 
The symbols of our spiritual sway, 
That so our hands with better ease 
May wield the driver's whip and grasp the jailer's keys. 


VIII 

Was it for this our fathers kept the law? 
This crown shall crown their struggle and their ruth? 
Are we the eagle nation Milton saw 
Mewing its mighty ...Read more of this...
by Moody, William Vaughn
...e
Had ceased from building, a black skin of oil
Meet for the wrestlers, a great boar the fierce and white-tusked
spoil

Stolen from Artemis that jealous maid
To please Athena, and the dappled hide
Of a tall stag who in some mountain glade
Had met the shaft; and then the herald cried,
And from the pillared precinct one by one
Went the glad Greeks well pleased that they their simple vows had
done.

And the old priest put out the waning fires
Save that one lamp whose restless ru...Read more of this...
by Wilde, Oscar
...h
As doth the voice of love: there's not a breath
Will mingle kindly with the meadow air,
Till it has panted round, and stolen a share
Of passion from the heart!"--

 Upon a bough
He leant, wretched. He surely cannot now
Thirst for another love: O impious,
That he can even dream upon it thus!--
Thought he, "Why am I not as are the dead,
Since to a woe like this I have been led
Through the dark earth, and through the wondrous sea?
Goddess! I love thee not the less: from thee
B...Read more of this...
by Keats, John
...seem'd, a great mist-blotted light
Flared on him, and he came upon the place. 

Then down the long street having slowly stolen,
His heart foreshadowing all calamity,
His eyes upon the stones, he reach'd the home
Where Annie lived and loved him, and his babes
In those far-off seven happy years were born;
But finding neither light nor murmur there
(A bill of sale gleam'd thro' the drizzle) crept
Still downward thinking `dead or dead to me!' 

Down to the pool and narrow wharf h...Read more of this...
by Tennyson, Alfred Lord



...h of the sunrise, flashing buttocks under barns and naked in the lake,
who went out whoring through Colorado in myriad stolen night-cars, N.C., secret hero of these poems, cocksman and Adonis of Denver—joy to the memory of his innumerable lays of girls in empty lots & diner backyards, moviehouses’ rickety rows, on mountaintops in caves or with gaunt waitresses in familiar roadside lonely petticoat upliftings & especially secret gas-station solipsisms of johns, & hometown all...Read more of this...
by Ginsberg, Allen
...ng for gold.

You, the Turk, the Swede, the German, the Scot ...
You the Ashanti, the Yoruba, the Kru, bought
Sold, stolen, arriving on a nightmare
Praying for a dream.

Here, root yourselves beside me.

I am the Tree planted by the River,
Which will not be moved.

I, the Rock, I the River, I the Tree
I am yours--your Passages have been paid.

Lift up your faces, you have a piercing need
For this bright morning dawning for you.

History, despite its wrenchin...Read more of this...
by Angelou, Maya
...ving for gold.
You, the Turk, the Swede, the German, the Scot...
You the Ashanti, the Yoruba, the Kru,
Bought, sold, stolen, arriving on a nightmare
Praying for a dream.
Here, root yourselves beside me.
I am the tree planted by the river,
Which will not be moved.
I, the rock, I the river, I the tree
I am yours--your passages have been paid.
Lift up your faces, you have a piercing need
For this bright morning dawning for you.
History, despite its wrenching pain,
C...Read more of this...
by Angelou, Maya
...guards ascended, mute, and sad, 
For Man; for of his state by this they knew, 
Much wondering how the subtle Fiend had stolen 
Entrance unseen. Soon as the unwelcome news 
From Earth arrived at Heaven-gate, displeased 
All were who heard; dim sadness did not spare 
That time celestial visages, yet, mixed 
With pity, violated not their bliss. 
About the new-arrived, in multitudes 
The ethereal people ran, to hear and know 
How all befel: They towards the throne supreme, 
Acco...Read more of this...
by Milton, John
...ssage to the tree of life: 
Lest Paradise a receptacle prove 
To Spirits foul, and all my trees their prey; 
With whose stolen fruit Man once more to delude. 
He ceased; and the arch-angelick Power prepared 
For swift descent; with him the cohort bright 
Of watchful Cherubim: four faces each 
Had, like a double Janus; all their shape 
Spangled with eyes more numerous than those 
Of Argus, and more wakeful than to drouse, 
Charmed with Arcadian pipe, the pastoral reed 
Of Herm...Read more of this...
by Milton, John
...n do I sit as in a drowsy pew
To hear a priest expounding th' heavenly will,
Defiling wonder that he never knew
With stolen words of measured good and ill;
For to the love that knows their counselling,
Out of my love contempt alone I bring.
X 	Not love of you is most that I can bring,
Since what I am to love you is the test,
And should I love you more than any thing
You would but be of idle love possessed,
A mere love wandering in appetite,
Counting your glories an...Read more of this...
by Drinkwater, John
...ing bell and dirge of death: 
Jest, anecdote, and love-lorn tale, 
The latest culprit sent to jail; 
Its hue and cry of stolen and lost, 
Its vendue sales and goods at cost, 
And traffic calling loud for gain. 
We felt the stir of hall and street, 
The pulse of life that round us beat; 
The chill embargo of the snow 
Was melted in the genial glow; 
Wide swung again our ice-locked door, 
And all the world was ours once more! 

Clasp, Angel of the backword look 
And folded wing...Read more of this...
by Whittier, John Greenleaf
...all thoughts he went;
He marked the tilt of the pagan camp,
The paling of pine, the sentries' tramp,
And the one great stolen altar-lamp
Over Guthrum in his tent.

By scrub and thorn in Ethandune 
That night the foe had lain;
Whence ran across the heather grey
The old stones of a Roman way; 
And in a wood not far away
The pale road split in twain.

He marked the wood and the cloven ways
With an old captain's eyes,
And he thought how many a time had he
Sought to see Doom he c...Read more of this...
by Chesterton, G K
...ducked downstair 
With half the pins out of her hair. 
I went inside the lit room rollen 
Her scented handkerchief I'd stolen. 
"What would you fancy, Saul?" they said. 
"A gin punch hot and then to bed." 
"Jane, fetch the punch bowl to the gemmen; 
And mind you don't put too much lemon. 
Our good friend Saul has had a fight of it, 
Now smoke up, boys, and make a night of it." 

The room was full of men and stink 
Of bad cigars and heavy drink. 
Riley was nodding to the floo...Read more of this...
by Masefield, John
...f Wampum, 
From the regions of the North-Wind, 
From the kingdom of Wabasso, 
From the land of the White Rabbit.
He had stolen the Belt of Wampum 
From the neck of Mishe-Mokwa, 
From the Great Bear of the mountains, 
From the terror of the nations, 
As he lay asleep and cumbrous 
On the summit of the mountains, 
Like a rock with mosses on it, 
Spotted brown and gray with mosses.
Silently he stole upon him 
Till the red nails of the monster 
Almost touched him, almost scared h...Read more of this...
by Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
...captive hold.'—
     But here the lay made sudden stand,
     The harp escaped the Minstrel's hand!
     Oft had he stolen a glance, to spy
     How Roderick brooked his minstrelsy:
     At first, the Chieftain, to the chime,
     With lifted hand kept feeble time;
     That motion ceased,—yet feeling strong
     Varied his look as changed the song;
     At length, no more his deafened ear
     The minstrel melody can hear;
     His face grows sharp,—his hands are...Read more of this...
by Scott, Sir Walter
...e thy rest,
To-morrow will I say thee what me lest.*" *pleases

This messenger drank sadly* ale and wine, *steadily
And stolen were his letters privily
Out of his box, while he slept as a swine;
And counterfeited was full subtilly
Another letter, wrote full sinfully,
Unto the king, direct of this mattere
From his Constable, as ye shall after hear.

This letter said, the queen deliver'd was
Of so horrible a fiendlike creature,
That in the castle none so hardy* was *brave
That ...Read more of this...
by Chaucer, Geoffrey
...tarving for gold.
You, the Turk, the Swede, the German, the Scot...
You the Ashanti, the Yoruba, the Kru,
Bought, sold, stolen, arriving on a nightmare
Praying for a dream.
Here, root yourselves beside me.
I am the tree planted by the river,
Which will not be moved.
I, the rock, I the river, I the tree
I am yours--your passages have been paid.
Lift up your faces, you have a piercing need
For this bright morning dawning for you.
History, despite its wrenching pain,
Cannot be u...Read more of this...
by Angelou, Maya
...ef like mine? 

Betwixt two thieves I spend my utmost breath, 
As he that for some robbery suffereth.
Alas! what have I stolen from you? death: 
Was ever grief like mine? 

A king my title is, prefixt on high; 
Yet by my subjects am condemn'd to die
A servile death in servile company; 
Was ever grief like mine? 

They gave me vinegar mingled with gall, 
But more with malice: yet, when they did call, 
With Manna, Angels' food, I fed them all: 
Was ever grief like mine? 

They ...Read more of this...
by Herbert, George
...long-ago rooms,
Where memories lie.

Offering me, as to a child, an attic,
Gatherings of days too few.
Baubles of stolen kisses.
Trinkets of borrowed loves.
Trunks of secret words,

I cry....Read more of this...
by Angelou, Maya

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Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry