Famous Style Poems by Famous Poets

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

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A Man (In Memory of H. of M.)

by Thomas Hardy
 I 

In Casterbridge there stood a noble pile, 
Wrought with pilaster, bay, and balustrade 
In tactful times when shrewd Eliza swayed. - 
 On burgher, squire, and clown 
It smiled the long street down for near a mile 

II 

But evil days beset that domicile; 
The stately beauties of its roof and wall 
Passed into sordid hands. Condemned to...Read more of this...

Canzone XVI

by Francesco Petrarch
[Pg 124] CANZONE XVI. Italia mia, benchè 'l parlar sia indarno. TO THE PRINCES OF ITALY, EXHORTING THEM TO SET HER FREE.  O my own Italy! though words are vainThe mortal wounds to close,Unnumber'd, that thy beauteous bosom stain,Yet may it soothe my painTo sigh forth Tyber's woes,Read more of this...

Sonnet LIV

by Francesco Petrarch
SONNET LIV. Mai non vedranno le mie luci asciutte. TO THE MEMORY OF GIACOMO COLONNA, WHO DIED BEFORE PETRARCH COULD REPLY TO A LETTER OF HIS.  Ne'er shall I see again with eyes unwet,Or with the sure powers of a tranquil mind,Those characters where Love so brightly shined,And his own hand affection...Read more of this...

The two little skeezucks

by Eugene Field
 There were two little skeezucks who lived in the isle
Of Boo in a southern sea;
They clambered and rollicked in heathenish style
In the boughs of their cocoanut tree.
They didn't fret much about clothing and such
And they recked not a whit of the ills
That sometimes accrue
From having to do
With tailor and laundry bills.

The two little skeezucks once heard of a Fair
Far...Read more of this...

The Geebung Polo Club

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 It was somewhere up the country, in a land of rock and scrub, 
That they formed an institution called the Geebung Polo Club. 
They were long and wiry natives from the rugged mountain side, 
And the horse was never saddled that the Geebungs couldn't ride; 
But their style of playing polo was irregular and rash -- 
They had mighty...Read more of this...

The Black Watch Memorial

by William Topaz McGonagall
 Ye Sons of Mars, it gives me great content
To think there has been erected a handsome monument
In memory of the Black Watch, which is magnificent to see,
Where they first were embodied at Aberfeldy. 

And as a Highland regiment they are worthy of what has been done for them,
Because a more courageous regiment we cannot find of men
Who have bravely...Read more of this...

Another Acrostic ( In the style of Father William )

by Lewis Carroll
 "Are you deaf, Father William!" the young man said, 
"Did you hear what I told you just now? 
"Excuse me for shouting! Don't waggle your head 
"Like a blundering, sleepy old cow! 
"A little maid dwelling in Wallington Town, 
"Is my friend, so I beg to remark: 
"Do you think she'd be pleased if a book were sent down...Read more of this...

Phenomenal Woman

by Maya Angelou
Pretty women wonder where my secret lies.
I'm not cute or built to suit a fashion model's size
But when I start to tell them,
They think I'm telling lies.
I say,
It's in the reach of my arms
The span of my hips,
The stride of my step,
The curl of my lips.
I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

I walk into a room
Just as cool as you please,
And to...Read more of this...

65. Song—Rantin Rovin Robin

by Robert Burns
 THERE 1 was a lad was born in Kyle,
But whatna day o’ whatna style,
I doubt it’s hardly worth the while
 To be sae nice wi’ Robin.


Chor.—Robin was a rovin’ boy,
 Rantin’, rovin’, rantin’, rovin’,
Robin was a rovin’ boy,
 Rantin’, rovin’, Robin!


Our monarch’s hindmost year but ane
Was five-and-twenty days begun, 2
’Twas then a blast o’ Janwar’ win’
 Blew hansel in...Read more of this...

Executive

by John Betjeman
 I am a young executive. No cuffs than mine are cleaner;
I have a Slimline brief-case and I use the firm's Cortina.
In every roadside hostelry from here to Burgess Hill
The ma?tres d'h?tel all know me well, and let me sign the bill.

You ask me what it is I do. Well, actually, you know,
I'm partly a liaison man, and partly P.R.O.
Essentially,...Read more of this...

Confused and Distraught

by Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi
Again I am raging,
I am in such a state by your soul that every
bond you bind, I break, by your soul.
I am like heaven, like the moon, like a candle by your glow;
I am all reason, all love, all soul, by your soul. My joy is of your doing, my hangover of your thorn;
whatever side you turn your...Read more of this...

The Silent Shearer

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 Weary and listless, sad and slow, 
Without any conversation, 
Was a man that worked on The Overflow, 
The butt of the shed and the station. 

The shearers christened him Noisy Ned, 
With an alias "Silent Waters", 
But never a needless word he said 
In the hut or the shearers' quarters. 

Which caused annoyance to Big Barcoo, 
The shed's unquestioned...Read more of this...

Waxwings

by Robert Francis
 Four Tao philosophers as cedar waxwings
chat on a February berry bush
in sun, and I am one.

Such merriment and such sobriety--
the small wild fruit on the tall stalk--
was this not always my true style?

Above an elegance of snow, beneath
a silk-blue sky a brotherhood of four
birds. Can you mistake us?

To sun, to feast, and to converse
and all together--for this I have...Read more of this...

Northern Farmer: New Style

by Alfred Lord Tennyson
 Dosn't thou 'ear my 'erse's legs, as they canters awaäy?
Proputty, proputty, proputty--that's what I 'ears 'em saäy.
Proputty, proputty, proputty--Sam, thou's an ass for thy paaïns:
Theer's moor sense i' one o' 'is legs, nor in all thy braaïns.
Woä--theer's a craw to pluck wi' tha, Sam; yon 's parson's 'ouse--
Dosn't thou knaw that a man mun be eäther a man or...Read more of this...

Soliloquy Of A Turkey

by Paul Laurence Dunbar
Dey 's a so't o' threatenin' feelin' in de blowin' of de breeze,
An' I 's feelin' kin' o' squeamish in de night;
I 's a-walkin' 'roun' a-lookin' at de diffunt style o' trees,
An' a-measurin' dey thickness an' dey height.
Fu' dey 's somep'n mighty 'spicious in de looks de da'kies give,
Ez dey pass me an' my fambly on de groun,'
So it 'curs...Read more of this...

Style

by Carl Sandburg
 STYLE--go ahead talking about style.
You can tell where a man gets his style just
as you can tell where Pavlowa got her legs
or Ty Cobb his batting eye.

Go on talking.
Only don't take my style away.
It's my face.
Maybe no good
but anyway, my face.
I talk with it, I sing with it, I see, taste and feel with it,
I know why I want...Read more of this...

The Amateur Rider

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 Him goin' to ride for us! Him -- with the pants and the eyeglass and all. 
Amateur! don't he just look it -- it's twenty to one on a fall. 
Boss must be gone off his head to be sending out steeplechase crack 
Out over fences like these with an object like that on his back. 
Ride! Don't tell...Read more of this...

A Leaf

by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Somebody said, in the crowd, last eve,
That you were married, or soon to be.
I have not thought of you, I believe,
Since last we parted. Let me see:
Five long Summers have passed since then –
Each has been pleasant in its own way –
And you are but one of a dozen men
Who have played the suitor a Summer day.

But, nevertheless, when...Read more of this...

Our Mat

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 It came from the prison this morning, 
Close-twisted, neat-lettered, and flat; 
It lies the hall doorway adorning, 
A very good style of a mat. 

Prison-made! how the spirit is moven 
As we think of its story of dread -- 
What wiles of the wicked are woven 
And spun in its intricate thread! 

The letters are new, neat and nobby,...Read more of this...

Style

by Howard Nemerov
 Flaubert wanted to write a novel
About nothing. It was to have no subject
And be sustained upon the style alone,
Like the Holy Ghost cruising above
The abyss, or like the little animals
In Disney cartoons who stand upon a branch
That breaks, but do not fall
Till they look down. He never wrote that novel,
And neither did he write another one
That would have been...Read more of this...

62. Epistle to William Simson

by Robert Burns
 I GAT your letter, winsome Willie;
Wi’ gratefu’ heart I thank you brawlie;
Tho’ I maun say’t, I wad be silly,
 And unco vain,
Should I believe, my coaxin billie
 Your flatterin strain.


But I’se believe ye kindly meant it:
I sud be laith to think ye hinted
Ironic satire, sidelins sklented
 On my poor Musie;
Tho’ in sic phraisin terms ye’ve penn’d it,
 I scarce...Read more of this...

Alexandreis

by Anne Killigrew
 I Sing the Man that never Equal knew, 
Whose Mighty Arms all Asia did subdue, 
Whose Conquests through the spacious World do ring, 
That City-Raser, King-destroying King, 
Who o're the Warlike Macedons did Reign, 
And worthily the Name of Great did gain. 
This is the Prince (if Fame you will believe,
To ancient Story any credit give.) 
Who when the...Read more of this...

stylised tulips

by Rg Gregory
 stylised tulips – this is what the card says
and they have that nineteen-twenties’ feel
of those bright young things a decade before us
who had a way of walking with their legs
bent back and their pelvis forward as if
inviting a kind of sexual depravity
with the no touch signs fervently displayed

stylised tulips – could be snakes though lurking 
in the undergrowth good...Read more of this...

I Have Lived With Shades

by Thomas Hardy
 I

I have lived with Shades so long,
So long have talked to them,
I sped to street and throng,
That sometimes they
In their dim style
Will pause awhile
To hear my say;

II

And take me by the hand,
And lead me through their rooms
In the To-Be, where Dooms
Half-wove and shapeless stand:
And show from there
The dwindled dust
And rot and rust
Of things that were.

III

"Now turn," they said to...Read more of this...

I Have Lived With Shades

by Thomas Hardy
 I 

I have lived with shades so long, 
And talked to them so oft, 
Since forth from cot and croft 
I went mankind among, 
 That sometimes they 
 In their dim style 
 Will pause awhile 
 To hear my say; 

II 

And take me by the hand, 
And lead me through their rooms 
In the To-be, where...Read more of this...

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