Famous Temper Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Temper poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous temper poems. These examples illustrate what a famous temper poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Paul Laurence Dunbar
It's hot to-day. The bees is buzzin'
Kinder don't-keer-like aroun'
An' fur off the warm air dances
O'er the parchin' roofs in town.
In the brook the cows is standin';
Childern hidin' in the hay;
Can't keep none of 'em a workin',
'Cause it's hot to-day.
It's hot to-day. The sun is blazin'
Like a great big ball o' fire;
Seems as ef instead o' settin'
It keeps mountin' higher an'...Read more of this...
by
George Herbert
How should I praise thee, Lord! how should my rhymes
Gladly engrave thy love in steel,
If what my soul doth feel sometimes
My soul might ever feel!
Although there were some forty heav'ns, or more,
Sometimes I peer above them all;
Sometimes I hardly reach a score,
Sometimes to hell I fall.
O rack me not to such a vast extent;
Those distances belong to thee:
The world's...Read more of this...
by
Robert Graves
NEAR Clapham village, where fields began,
Saint Edward met a beggar man.
It was Christmas morning, the church bells tolled,
The old man trembled for the fierce cold.
Saint Edward cried, “It is monstrous sin
A beggar to lie in rags so thin!
An old gray-beard and the frost so keen:
I shall give him my fur-lined gaberdine.”
He stripped...Read more of this...
by
Katherine Philips
I Have examin'd and do find,
Of all that favour me
There's none I grieve to leave behind
But only only thee.
To part with thee I needs must die,
Could parting sep'rate thee and I.
But neither Chance nor Complement
Did element our Love ;
'Twas sacred Sympathy was lent
Us from the Quire above.
That Friendship Fortune did create,
Still fears a wound from Time or Fate.
Our chang'd...Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
The harridan who holds the inn
At which I toss a pot,
Is old and uglier than sin,--
I'm glad she knows me not.
Indeed, for me it's hard to think,
Although my pow's like snow,
She was the lass so fresh and pink
I courted long ago.
I wronged her, yet it's sadly true
She wanted to be wronged:
They mostly do, although...Read more of this...
by
Anne Kingsmill Finch
Tis true of courage I'm no mistress
No Boadicia nor Thalestriss
Nor shall I e'er be famed hereafter
For such a Soul as Cato's Daughter
Nor active valour nor enduring
Nor leading troops nor forts securing
Like Teckley's wife or Pucell valiant
Will e'er be reckonded for my talent
Who all things fear whilst day is shining
And my own shadow light declining
And from the Spleen's...Read more of this...
by
Phillis Wheatley
Apollo's wrath to man the dreadful spring
Of ills innum'rous, tuneful goddess, sing!
Thou who did'st first th' ideal pencil give,
And taught'st the painter in his works to live,
Inspire with glowing energy of thought,
What Wilson painted, and what Ovid wrote.
Muse! lend thy aid, nor let me sue in vain,
Tho' last and meanest of the rhyming train!
O guide my pen in lofty...Read more of this...
by
William Topaz McGonagall
Alas! Beautiful Summer now hath fled,
And the face of Nature doth seem dead,
And the leaves are withered, and falling off the trees,
By the nipping and chilling autumnal breeze.
The pleasures of the little birds are all fled,
And with the cold many of them will be found dead,
Because the leaves of the trees are scattered in the blast,
And makes...Read more of this...
by
Rg Gregory
(a) radical
ban all fires
and places where people congregate
to create comfort
put an end to sleep
good cooking
and the delectation of wine
tear lovers apart
piss on the sun and moon
degut all heavenly harmony
strike out across the bitter ice
and the poisonous marshes
make (if you dare) a better world
(b) expect poison from standing water
(iii)
lake erie
why not as a joke one night
pick up your...Read more of this...
by
Friedrich von Schiller
Can I, my friend, with thee condole?--
Can I conceive the woes that try men,
When late repentance racks the soul
Ensnared into the toils of hymen?
Can I take part in such distress?--
Poor martyr,--most devoutly, "Yes!"
Thou weep'st because thy spouse has flown
To arms preferred before thine own;--
A faithless wife,--I grant the curse,--
And yet, my friend, it might be worse!
Just hear another's tale...Read more of this...
by
Ann Taylor
There were two little girls, neither handsome nor plain;
One's name was Eliza, the other's was Jane:
They were both of one height, as I've heard people say,
They were both of one age, I believe, to a day.
'Twas fancied by some, who but slightly had seen them,
That scarcely a difference was there between them;
But no...Read more of this...
by
Robert Burns
THERE was a lass, they ca’d her Meg,
And she held o’er the moors to spin;
There was a lad that follow’d her,
They ca’d him Duncan Davison.
The moor was dreigh, and Meg was skeigh,
Her favour Duncan could na win;
For wi’ the rock she wad him knock,
And aye she shook the temper-pin.
As o’er the moor they lightly foor,
...Read more of this...
by
Robinson Jeffers
I am heaping the bones of the old mother
To build us a hold against the host of the air;
Granite the blood-heat of her youth
Held molten in hot darkness against the heart
Hardened to temper under the feet
Of the ocean cavalry that are maned with snow
And march from the remotest west.
This is the primitive rock, here in the wet
Quarry under the shadow...Read more of this...
by
William Topaz McGonagall
Success to the good and skilful Dr Murison,
For golden opinions he has won
From his patients one and all,
And from myself, McGonagall.
He is very skilful and void of pride;
He was so to me when at my bedside,
When I turned badly on the 25th of July,
And was ill with inflammation, and like to die.
He told me at once what...Read more of this...
by
William Wordsworth
A simple child, dear brother Jim, That lightly draws its breath, And feels its life in every limb, What should it know of death? I met a little cottage girl, She was eight years old, she said; Her hair was thick with many a curl That cluster'd round her head. She had a rustic, woodland air, And she was wildly clad; Her eyes were fair, and very fair, —Her...Read more of this...
by
Amy Lowell
A face seen passing in a crowded street,
A voice heard singing music, large and free;
And from that moment life is changed, and we
Become of more heroic temper, meet
To freely ask and give, a man complete
Radiant because of faith, we dare to be
What Nature meant us. Brave idolatry
Which can conceive a hero! No deceit,
No knowledge taught by unrelenting years,
Can quench...Read more of this...
by
William Blake
'What is the price of Experience? do men buy it for a song?
Or wisdom for a dance in the street? No, it is bought with the price
Of all that a man hath, his house, his wife, his children.
Wisdom is sold in the desolate market where none come to buy,
And in the wither'd field where the farmer plows for...Read more of this...
by
William Blake
1.1 "What is the price of Experience? do men buy it for a song?
1.2 Or wisdom for a dance in the street? No, it is bought with the price
1.3 Of all that a man hath, his house, his wife, his children.
1.4 Wisdom is sold in the desolate market where none come to buy,
1.5 And in the wither'd field...Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
Here in the Autumn of my days
My life is mellowed in a haze.
Unpleasant sights are none to clear,
Discordant sounds I hardly hear.
Infirmities like buffers soft
Sustain me tranquilly aloft.
I'm deaf to duffers, blind to bores,
Peace seems to percolate my pores.
I fold my hands, keep quiet mind,
In dogs and children joy I find.
With temper tolerant and mild,
Myself you'd almost think a...Read more of this...
by
George Herbert
It cannot be. Where is that mighty joy,
Which just now took up all my heart?
Lord, if thou must needs use thy dart,
Save that, and me; or sin for both destroy.
The grosser world stand to thy word and art;
But thy diviner world of grace
Thou suddenly dost raise and race,
And ev'ry day a new Creator art
O...Read more of this...
by
Henry Van Dyke
A tale that the poet Rückert told
To German children, in days of old;
Disguised in a random, rollicking rhyme
Like a merry mummer of ancient time,
And sent, in its English dress, to please
The little folk of the Christmas trees.
A little fir grew in the midst of the wood
Contented and happy, as young trees should.
His body was straight and...Read more of this...
by
Amy Lowell
Now what in the name of the sun and the stars
Is the meaning of this most unholy of wars?
Do men find life so full of humour and joy
That for want of excitement they smash up the toy?
Fifteen millions of soldiers with popguns and horses
All bent upon killing, because their "of courses"
Are not quite the same. All these men by...Read more of this...
by
John Keats
It keeps eternal whisperings around
Desolate shores, and with its mighty swell
Gluts twice ten thousand caverns, till the spell
Of Hecate leaves them their old shadowy sound.
Often 'tis in such gentle temper found,
That scarcely will the very smallest shell
Be moved for days from whence it sometime fell,
When last the winds of heaven were unbound.
Oh ye! who have your eye-balls vexed and...Read more of this...
by
Alan Seeger
Ruggiero, to amaze the British host,
And wake more wonder in their wondering ranks,
The bridle of his winged courser loosed,
And clapped his spurs into the creature's flanks;
High in the air, even to the topmost banks
Of crudded cloud, uprose the flying horse,
And now above the Welsh, and now the Manx,
And now across the sea...Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
How often do I wish I were
What people call a character;
A ripe and cherubic old chappie
Who lives to make his fellows happy;
With in his eyes a merry twinkle,
And round his lips a laughing wrinkle;
Who radiating hope and cheer
Grows kindlier with every year.
For this ideal let me strive,
And keep the lad in me alive;
Nor argument nor anger know,
But my own...Read more of this...
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