Famous Tallies Poems by Famous Poets

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

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The Two Devines

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 It was shearing time at the Myall Lake, 
And then rose the sound through the livelong day 
Of the constant clash that the shear-blades make 
When the fastest shearers are making play; 
But there wasn't a man in the shearers' lines 
That could shear a sheep with the two Devines. 
They had rung the sheds of the east and...Read more of this...

Sonnet 122: Thy gift thy tables are within my brain

by William Shakespeare
 Thy gift, thy tables, are within my brain
Full charactered with lasting memory,
Which shall above that idle rank remain
Beyond all date even to eternity—
Or at the least, so long as brain and heart
Have faculty by nature to subsist;
Till each to razed oblivion yield his part
Of thee, thy record never can be missed.
That poor retention could not so much hold,
Nor need...Read more of this...

Sonnet CXXII

by William Shakespeare
  Thy gift, thy tables, are within my brain
Full character'd with lasting memory,
Which shall above that idle rank remain
Beyond all date, even to eternity;
Or at the least, so long as brain and heart
Have faculty by nature to subsist;
Till each to razed oblivion yield his part
Of thee, thy record never can be miss'd.
That poor retention could not so much hold,
Nor...Read more of this...

Affliction (III)

by George Herbert
 My heart did heave, and there came forth, 'O God'! 
By that I knew that thou wast in the grief, 
To guide and govern it to my relief, 
Making a sceptre of the rod: 
Hadst thou not had thy part, 
Sure the unruly sigh had broke my heart.

But since thy breath gave me both life and shape, 
Thou know'st...Read more of this...

The Hermit Goes Up Attic

by Maxine Kumin
 Up attic, Lucas Harrison, God rest
his frugal bones, once kept a tidy account
by knifecut of some long-gone harvest.
The wood was new. The pitch ran down to blunt 
the year: 1811, the score: 10, he carved
into the center rafter to represent
his loves, beatings, losses, hours, or maybe
the butternuts that taxed his back and starved
the red squirrels higher up each scabbed...Read more of this...

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