Famous Tale Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Tale poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous tale poems. These examples illustrate what a famous tale poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Shakespeare, William
...ful story from a sistering vale,
My spirits to attend this double voice accorded,
And down I laid to list the sad-tuned tale;
Ere long espied a fickle maid full pale,
Tearing of papers, breaking rings a-twain,
Storming her world with sorrow's wind and rain.
Upon her head a platted hive of straw,
Which fortified her visage from the sun,
Whereon the thought might think sometime it saw
The carcass of beauty spent and done:
Time had not scythed all that youth begun,
Nor yout...Read more of this...
by
Whitman, Walt
...t has been better told or done before?
Have you not imported this, or the spirit of it, in some ship?
Is it not a mere tale? a rhyme? a prettiness? is the good old cause in it?
Has it not dangled long at the heels of the poets, politicians, literats, of enemies’
lands?
Does it not assume that what is notoriously gone is still here?
Does it answer universal needs? will it improve manners?
Does it sound, with trumpet-voice, the proud victory of the Union, in that secession...Read more of this...
by
Wilde, Oscar
...oundered bark,
Vermilion-finned with eyes of bossy gold
Like flakes of crimson light, and the great deep
His glassy-portaled chamber will unfold,
And we will see the painted dolphins sleep
Cradled by murmuring halcyons on the rocks
Where Proteus in quaint suit of green pastures his monstrous
flocks.
And tremulous opal-hued anemones
Will wave their purple fringes where we tread
Upon the mirrored floor, and argosies
Of fishes flecked with tawny scales will thread
The drif...Read more of this...
by
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
...eauty and strength of woman's devotion,
List to the mournful tradition still sung by the pines of the forest;
List to a Tale of Love in Acadie, home of the happy.
PART THE FIRST
I
In the Acadian land, on the shores of the Basin of Minas,
Distant, secluded, still, the little village of Grand-Pre
Lay in the fruitful valley. Vast meadows stretched to the eastward,
Giving the village its name, and pasture to flocks without number.
Dikes, that the hands of the far...Read more of this...
by
Alighieri, Dante
...g are.
Gladly the dreads I felt, too dire to tell,
The hopeless, pathless, lightless hours forgot,
I turn my tale to that which next befell,
When the dawn opened, and the night was not.
The hollowed blackness of that waste, God wot,
Shrank, thinned, and ceased. A blinding splendour hot
Flushed the great height toward which my footsteps fell,
And though it kindled from the nether hell,
Or from the Star that all men leads, alike
It showed me whe...Read more of this...
by
Byron, George (Lord)
...music, and received no guest?
All was not well, they deem'd — but where the wrong?
Some knew perchance — but 'twere a tale too long;
And such besides were too discreetly wise,
To more than hint their knowledge in surmise;
But if they would — they could" — around the board,
Thus Lara's vassals prattled of their lord.
X.
It was the night — and Lara's glassy stream
The stars are studding, each with imaged beam:
So calm, the waters scarcely seem to stray,
And...Read more of this...
by
Wordsworth, William
...mpulses of Soul and Sense Had thrill'd my guileless Genevieve, The Music, and the doleful Tale, The rich and balmy Eve; And Hopes, and Fears that kindle Hope, An undistinguishable Throng! And gentle Wishes long subdued, Subdued and cherish'd long! She wept with pity and delight, She blush'd with love and...Read more of this...
by
Wilde, Oscar
...y heart like some encroaching sea,
And drowned all thoughts of black Gethsemane.
VI.
O lone Ravenna! many a tale is told
Of thy great glories in the days of old:
Two thousand years have passed since thou didst see
Caesar ride forth to royal victory.
Mighty thy name when Rome's lean eagles flew
From Britain's isles to far Euphrates blue;
And of the peoples thou wast noble queen,
Till in thy streets the Goth and Hun were seen.
Discrowned by man, deserted by ...Read more of this...
by
Ashbery, John
...nfluenced by it, until no part
Remains that is surely you. Those voices in the dusk
Have told you all and still the tale goes on
In the form of memories deposited in irregular
Clumps of crystals. Whose curved hand controls,
Francesco, the turning seasons and the thoughts
That peel off and fly away at breathless speeds
Like the last stubborn leaves ripped
From wet branches? I see in this only the chaos
Of your round mirror which organizes everything
Around the polestar...Read more of this...
by
Whitman, Walt
...that have shed tears;
For me children, and the begetters of children.
Undrape! you are not guilty to me, nor stale, nor discarded;
I see through the broadcloth and gingham, whether or no;
And am around, tenacious, acquisitive, tireless, and cannot be shaken away.
8
The little one sleeps in its cradle;
I lift the gauze, and look a long time, and silently brush away flies with my
hand.
The youngster and the red-faced girl turn aside up the bush...Read more of this...
by
Chesterton, G K
...ly coloured
As the broidery of Bayeux
The England of that dawn remains,
And this of Alfred and the Danes
Seems like the tales a whole tribe feigns
Too English to be true.
Of a good king on an island
That ruled once on a time;
And as he walked by an apple tree
There came green devils out of the sea
With sea-plants trailing heavily
And tracks of opal slime.
Yet Alfred is no fairy tale;
His days as our days ran,
He also looked forth for an hour
On peopled plains and sk...Read more of this...
by
Byron, George (Lord)
...er met or never parted,
We had ne'er been broken-hearted." — Burns
TO
THE RIGHT HONOURABLE LORD HOLLAND,
THIS TALE IS INSCRIBED,
WITH EVERY SENTIMENT OF REGARD AND RESPECT,
BY HIS GRATEFULLY OBLIGED AND SINCERE FRIEND,
BYRON.
THE BRIDE OF ABYDOS
_________
CANTO THE FIRST.
I.
Know ye the land where cypress and myrtle
Are emblems of deeds that are done in their clime,
Where the rage of the vulture, the love of the turtle,
Now melt into s...Read more of this...
by
Wordsworth, William
...perceive How patiently you've waited, And I'm afraid that you expect Some tale will be related. O reader! had you in your mind Such stores as silent thought can bring, O gentle reader! you would find A tale in every thing. What more I have to say is short, I hope you'll kindly take it; It is no tale; but should you thin...Read more of this...
by
Carroll, Lewis
...boyish garb for boyish task,
Eager she wields her spade; yet loves as well
Rest on a friendly knee, intent to ask
The tale he loves to tell.
Rude spirits of the seething outer strife,
Unmeet to read her pure and simple spright,
Deem, if you list, such hours a waste of life,
Empty of all delight!
Chat on, sweet Maid, and rescue from annoy
Hearts that by wiser talk are unbeguiled.
Ah, happy he who owns that tenderest joy,
The heart-love of a child!
Away, fond t...Read more of this...
by
Wordsworth, William
...he ran, and how she walked, And all that to herself she talked, Would surely be a tedious tale. In high and low, above, below, In great and small, in round and square, In tree and tower was Johnny seen, In bush and brake, in black and green, 'Twas Johnny, Johnny, every where. She's past the bridge that's in the dale, And now th...Read more of this...
by
Chaucer, Geoffrey
...w forbear.
I have, God wot, a large field to ear* *plough;
And weake be the oxen in my plough;
The remnant of my tale is long enow.
I will not *letten eke none of this rout*. *hinder any of
Let every fellow tell his tale about, this company*
And let see now who shall the supper win.
There *as I left*, I will again begin. *where I left off*
This Duke, of whom I make mentioun,
When he was come almost unto the town,
In all his weal, and in his moste pride...Read more of this...
by
Scott, Sir Walter
...Or woe or pity claimed a sigh,
Or filial love was glowing there,
Or meek devotion poured a prayer,
Or tale of injury called forth
The indignant spirit of the North.
One only passion unrevealed
With maiden pride the maid concealed,
Yet not less purely felt the flame;—
O, need I tell that passion's name?
XX.
Impatient of the silent horn,
Now on the gale her voice was borne:—
'Father!' she cried; the rocks...Read more of this...
by
Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...s at Ascalon:
A good knight he! we keep a chronicle
With all about him'--which he brought, and I
Dived in a hoard of tales that dealt with knights,
Half-legend, half-historic, counts and kings
Who laid about them at their wills and died;
And mixt with these, a lady, one that armed
Her own fair head, and sallying through the gate,
Had beat her foes with slaughter from her walls.
'O miracle of women,' said the book,
'O noble heart who, being strait-besieged
By t...Read more of this...
by
Byron, George (Lord)
...> The whole action passes on the outside of heaven; and Chaucer's 'Wife of Bath,' Pulci's 'Morgante Maggiore,' Swift's 'Tale of a Tub,' and the other
works above referred to, are cases in point of the freedom with which saints, &c. may be permitted to converse in works not intended to be serious.
Q.R.
*** Mr. Southey being, as he says, a good Christian and vindictive, threatens, I understand, a reply to this our answer. It is to be hoped that his v...Read more of this...
by
Miller, Alice Duer
...And took off our seamen for no other reason
Except that they needed crews that season.
I can get angry still at the tale
Of their letting the Alabama sail,
And Palmerston being insolent
To Lincoln and Seward over the Trent.
All very long ago, you'll say,
But whenever I go up Boston-way,
I drive through Concord—that neck of the wood,
Where once the embattled farmers stood,
And I think of Revere, and the old South Steeple,
And I say, by heck, we're the only people
W...Read more of this...
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