Famous Three Way Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Three Way poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous three way poems. These examples illustrate what a famous three way poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
See also:
by
William Butler Yeats
`O cruel Death, give three things back,'
Sang a bone upon the shore;
`A child found all a child can lack,
Whether of pleasure or of rest,
Upon the abundance of my breast':
A bone wave-whitened and dried in the wind.
`Three dear things that women know,'
Sang a bhone upon the shore;
`A man if I but held him so
When my body was alive
Found all the...Read more of this...
by
Robert Herrick
Three lovely sisters working were,
As they were closely set,
Of soft and dainty maiden-hair,
A curious Armilet.
I, smiling, ask'd them what they did,
Fair Destinies all three?
Who told me they had drawn a thread
Of life, and 'twas for me.
They shew'd me then how fine 'twas spun
And I replied thereto;
'I care not now how soon 'tis done,
Or cut, if cut by you.'...Read more of this...
by
Eugene Field
I shall tell you in rhyme how, once on a time,
Three tailors tramped up to the inn Ingleheim,
On the Rhine, lovely Rhine;
They were broke, but the worst of it all, they were curst
With that malady common to tailors--a thirst
For wine, lots of wine.
"Sweet host," quoth the three, "we're hard up as can be,
Yet skilled in the practice of cunning...Read more of this...
by
George Meredith
We three are on the cedar-shadowed lawn;
My friend being third. He who at love once laughed,
Is in the weak rib by a fatal shaft
Struck through, and tells his passion's bashful dawn
And radiant culmination, glorious crown,
When 'this' she said: went 'thus': most wondrous she.
Our eyes grow white, encountering that we are three,
Forgetful; then...Read more of this...
by
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
But only three in all God's universe
Have heard this word thou hast said,—Himself, beside
Thee speaking, and me listening! and replied
One of us . . . that was God, . . . and laid the curse
So darkly on my eyelids, as to amerce
My sight from seeing thee,—that if I had died,
The deathweights, placed there, would have signified
Less absolute exclusion. 'Nay'...Read more of this...
by
William Butler Yeats
I
The Roaring Tinker if you like,
But Mannion is my name,
And I beat up the common sort
And think it is no shame.
The common breeds the common,
A lout begets a lout,
So when I take on half a score
I knock their heads about.
From mountain to mountain ride the fierce horsemen.
All Mannions come from Manannan,
Though rich on every shore
He never lay behind four...Read more of this...
by
Anne Kingsmill Finch
Come unto these yellow sands,
And then take hands:
Court'sied when you have, and kiss'd,--
The wild waves whist--
Foot it featly here and there;
And, sweet sprites, the burthen bear.
Hark, hark!
Bow, wow,
The watch-dogs bark:
Bow, wow.
Hark, hark! I hear
The strain of strutting chanticleer
Cry, Cock-a-diddle-dow!
--from The Tempest
Tell me where is Fancy bred,
Or in the heart or in the head?
How begot, how nourishèd?
Reply, reply.
It is engender'd...Read more of this...
by
Carl Sandburg
THREE tailors of Tooley Street wrote: We, the People.
The names are forgotten. It is a joke in ghosts.
Cutters or bushelmen or armhole basters, they sat
cross-legged stitching, snatched at scissors, stole each
other thimbles.
Cross-legged, working for wages, joking each other
as misfits cut from the cloth of a Master Tailor,
they sat and spoke their thoughts of the glory of
The People, they met...Read more of this...
by
Mother Goose
Three children sliding on the ice
Upon a summer's day,
As it fell out, they all fell in,
The rest they ran away.
Oh, had these children been at school,
Or sliding on dry ground,
Ten thousand pounds to one penny
They had not then been drowned.
Ye parents who have children...Read more of this...
by
Carl Sandburg
1THE DOWN drop of the blackbird,
The wing catch of arrested flight,
The stop midway and then off: off for triangles, circles, loops of new hieroglyphs—
This is April’s way: a woman:
“O yes, I’m here again and your heart
knows I was coming.”
2White pigeons rush at the sun,
A marathon of wing feats is on:
“Who most loves danger? Who most loves wings? Who...Read more of this...
by
John Berryman
Three 'coons come at his garbage. He be cross,
I figuring porcupine & took Sir poker
unbarring Mr door,
& then screen door. Ah, but the little 'coon,
hardly a foot (not counting tail) got in with
two more at the porch-edge
and they swirled, before some two swerve off
this side of crab tree, and my dear friend held
with the torch in his tiny...Read more of this...
by
Henry Lawson
He'd been for years in Sydney "a-acting of the goat",
His name was Joseph Swallow, "the Great Australian Pote",
In spite of all the stories and sketches that he wrote.
And so his friends held meetings (Oh, narrow souls were theirs!)
To advertise their little selves and Joseph's own affairs.
They got up a collection for Joseph unawares.
They...Read more of this...
by
Charles Kingsley
1 Three fishers went sailing away to the west,
2 Away to the west as the sun went down;
3 Each thought on the woman who loved him the best,
4 And the children stood watching them out of the town;
5 For men must work, and women must weep,
6 And there's little to earn, and many to keep,
7 Though the harbour bar...Read more of this...
by
Carl Sandburg
JABOWSKY’S place is on a side street and only the rain washes the dusty three balls.
When I passed the window a month ago, there rested in proud isolation:
A family bible with hasps of brass twisted off, a wooden clock with pendulum gone,
And a porcelain crucifix with the glaze nicked where the left elbow of Jesus is represented.
I passed to-day...Read more of this...
by
William Shakespeare
URNS and odours bring away!
Vapours, sighs, darken the day!
Our dole more deadly looks than dying;
Balms and gums and heavy cheers,
Sacred vials fill'd with tears,
And clamours through the wild air flying!
Come, all sad and solemn shows,
That are quick-eyed Pleasure's foes!
We convent naught else but woes....Read more of this...
by
Carl Sandburg
THREE violins are trying their hearts.
The piece is MacDowell’s Wild Rose.
And the time of the wild rose
And the leaves of the wild rose
And the dew-shot eyes of the wild rose
Sing in the air over three violins.
Somebody like you was in the heart of MacDowell.
Somebody like you is in three violins....Read more of this...
by
William Butler Yeats
They hold their public meetings where
Our most renowned patriots stand,
One among the birds of the air,
A stumpier on either hand;
And all the popular statesmen say
That purity built up the State
And after kept it from decay;
And let all base ambition be,
For intellect would make us proud
And pride bring in impurity:
The three old rascals laugh aloud....Read more of this...
by
William Butler Yeats
I
Remember all those renowned generations,
They left their bodies to fatten the wolves,
They left their homesteads to fatten the foxes,
Fled to far countries, or sheltered themselves
In cavern, crevice, or hole,
Defending Ireland's soul.
Be still, be still, what can be said?
My father sang that song,
But time amends old wrong,
All that is finished, let it fade.
Remember all those renowned generations,
Remember all that have...Read more of this...
by
Lucy Maud Montgomery
The poet sang of a battle-field
Where doughty deeds were done,
Where stout blows rang on helm and shield
And a kingdom's fate was spun
With the scarlet thread of victory,
And honor from death's grim revelry
Like a flame-red flower was won!
So bravely he sang that all who heard
With the sting of the fight and the triumph were stirred,
And they cried, "Let us blazon...Read more of this...
by
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Three Kings came riding from far away,
Melchior and Gaspar and Baltasar;
Three Wise Men out of the East were they,
And they travelled by night and they slept by day,
For their guide was a beautiful, wonderful star.
The star was so beautiful, large, and clear,
That all the other stars of the sky
Became a white mist in the atmosphere,
And by this they...Read more of this...
by
Edna St. Vincent Millay
I
The first rose on my rose-tree
Budded, bloomed, and shattered,
During sad days when to me
Nothing mattered.
Grief of grief has drained me clean;
Still it seems a pity
No one saw,—it must have been
Very pretty.
II
Let the little birds sing;
Let the little lambs play;
Spring is here; and so 'tis spring;—
But not in the old way!
I recall a...Read more of this...
by
William Butler Yeats
'Though to my feathers in the wet,
I have stood here from break of day.
I have not found a thing to eat,
For only rubbish comes my way.
Am I to live on lebeen-lone?'
Muttered the old crane of Gort.
'For all my pains on lebeen-lone?'
King Guaire walked amid his court
The palace-yard and river-side
And there to three old beggars said,
'You that have wandered far...Read more of this...
by
George William Russell
IT was the fairy of the place,
Moving within a little light,
Who touched with dim and shadowy grace
The conflict at its fever height.
It seemed to whisper “Quietness,”
Then quietly itself was gone:
Yet echoes of its mute caress
Were with me as the years went on.
It was the warrior within
Who called “Awake, prepare for fight:
Yet lose not memory in the din:
Make of thy...Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
That Barret, the painter of pictures, what feeling for color he had!
And Fanning, the maker of music, such melodies mirthful and mad!
And Harley, the writer of stories, so whimsical, tender and glad!
To hark to their talk in the trenches, high heart unfolding to heart,
Of the day when the war would be over, and each would be true to his...Read more of this...
by
William Butler Yeats
Three old hermits took the air
By a cold and desolate sea,
First was muttering a prayer,
Second rummaged for a flea;
On a windy stone, the third,
Giddy with his hundredth year,
Sang unnoticed like a bird:
'Though the Door of Death is near
And what waits behind the door,
Three times in a single day
I, though upright on the shore,
Fall asleep when I should pray.'
So the...Read more of this...
Dont forget to view our wonderful member Three Way poems.