Famous Tally Poems by Famous Poets

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

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The Solitary Huntsman

by Ogden Nash
 The solitary huntsman
No coat of pink doth wear,
But midnight black from cap to spur
Upon his midnight mare.
He drones a tuneless jingle
In lieu of tally-ho:
“I’ll catch a fox
And put him in a box
And never let him go.”

The solitary huntsman,
He follows silent hounds.
No horn proclaims his joyless sport,
And never a hoofbeat sounds.
His hundred hounds, his thousands,
Their master’s will they know:
To catch...Read more of this...

The Yarn of the Loch Achray

by John Masefield
 The Loch Achray was a clipper tall
With seven-and-twenty hands in all.
Twenty to hand and reef and haul,
A skipper to sail and mates to bawl
'Tally on to the tackle-fall,
Heave now 'n' start her, heave 'n' pawl!'
Hear the yarn of a sailor,
An old yarn learned at sea.

Her crew were shipped and they said 'Farewell,
So-long, my Tottie, my lovely gell;
We sail to-day...Read more of this...

Renascence

by D. H. Lawrence
We have bit no forbidden apple,
    Eve and I,
Yet the splashes of day and night
Falling round us no longer dapple
The same Eden with purple and white.

This is our own still valley
    Our Eden, our home,
But day shows it vivid with feeling
And the pallor of night does not tally
With dark sleep that once covered its...Read more of this...

A Runnable Stag

by John Davidson
 When the pods went pop on the broom, green broom, 
And apples began to be golden-skinn'd, 
We harbour'd a stag in the Priory coomb, 
And we feather'd his trail up-wind, up-wind, 
We feather'd his trail up-wind- 
A stag of warrant, a stag, a stag, 
A runnable stag, a kingly crop, 
Brow, bay and tray and three on top, 
A...Read more of this...

Anchor Song

by Rudyard Kipling
 Heh! Walk her round. Heave, ah heave her short again!
 Over, snatch her over, there, and hold her on the pawl.
Loose all sail, and brace your yards back and full --
 Ready jib to pay her off and heave short all!
 Well, ah fare you well; we can stay no more with you, my love --
 Down, set down...Read more of this...

With Antecedents

by Walt Whitman
 1
WITH antecedents; 
With my fathers and mothers, and the accumulations of past ages; 
With all which, had it not been, I would not now be here, as I am: 
With Egypt, India, Phenicia, Greece and Rome; 
With the Kelt, the Scandinavian, the Alb, and the Saxon;
With antique maritime ventures,—with laws, artizanship, wars and journeys; 
With the poet, the skald,...Read more of this...

The Sons of Martha

by Rudyard Kipling
 The Sons of Mary seldom bother, for they have inherited that good part;
But the Sons of Martha favour their Mother of the careful soul and the troubled heart.
And because she lost her temper once, and because she was rude to the Lord her Guest,
Her Sons must wait upon Mary's Sons, world without end, reprieve, or rest.

It is their care...Read more of this...

Sonnet CCV

by Francesco Petrarch
SONNET CCV. Fresco ambroso fiorito e verde colle. HE CONGRATULATES HIS HEART ON ITS REMAINING WITH HER.  O hill with green o'erspread, with groves o'erhung!Where musing now, now trilling her sweet lay,Most like what bards of heavenly spirits say,Sits she by fame through every region sung:My heart, which wisely unto her...Read more of this...

An Imperial Rescript

by Rudyard Kipling
 Now this is the tale of the Council the German Kaiser decreed,
To ease the strong of their burden, to help the weak in their need,
He sent a word to the peoples, who struggle, and pant, and sweat,
That the straw might be counted fairly and the tally of bricks be set.

The Lords of Their Hands assembled; from the East and...Read more of this...

The Confessor a Sanctified Tale

by Mary Darby Robinson
 When SUPERSTITION rul'd the land
And Priestcraft shackled Reason,
At GODSTOW dwelt a goodly band,
Grey monks they were, and but to say
They were not always giv'n to pray,
Would have been construed Treason.
Yet some did scoff, and some believ'd
That sinners were themselves deceiv'd;
And taking Monks for more than men
They prov'd themselves, nine out of ten,
Mere dupes of these Old Fathers hoary;
But read--and...Read more of this...

Break of Day

by Siegfried Sassoon
 There seemed a smell of autumn in the air 
At the bleak end of night; he shivered there 
In a dank, musty dug-out where he lay, 
Legs wrapped in sand-bags,—lumps of chalk and clay 
Spattering his face. Dry-mouthed, he thought, ‘To-day
We start the damned attack; and, Lord knows why, 
Zero’s at nine; how bloody if I’m done in 
Under...Read more of this...

Roadways

by John Masefield
 ONE road leads to London, 
One road leads to Wales, 
My road leads me seawards 
To the white dipping sails. 

One road leads to the river, 
And it goes singing slow; 
My road leads to shipping, 
Where the bronzed sailors go. 

Leads me, lures me, calls me 
To salt green tossing sea; 
A road without earth's road-dust 
Is the...Read more of this...

Gregory Corso

by Gregory Corso
 Budger of history Brake of time You Bomb
 Toy of universe Grandest of all snatched sky I cannot hate you
 Do I hate the mischievous thunderbolt the jawbone of an ass
 The bumpy club of One Million B.C. the mace the flail the axe
 Catapult Da Vinci tomahawk Cochise flintlock Kidd dagger Rathbone
 Ah and the sad desparate gun...Read more of this...

Indications The

by Walt Whitman
 THE indications, and tally of time; 
Perfect sanity shows the master among philosophs; 
Time, always without flaw, indicates itself in parts; 
What always indicates the poet, is the crowd of the pleasant company of singers, and their
 words; 
The words of the singers are the hours or minutes of the light or dark—but the words
 of
 the
 maker of...Read more of this...

Warble for Lilac-Time

by Walt Whitman
 WARBLE me now, for joy of Lilac-time, 
Sort me, O tongue and lips, for Nature’s sake, and sweet life’s sake—and
 death’s the same as life’s, 
Souvenirs of earliest summer—birds’ eggs, and the first berries; 
Gather the welcome signs, (as children, with pebbles, or stringing shells;) 
Put in April and May—the hylas croaking in the ponds—the elastic air,
Bees, butterflies, the...Read more of this...

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