Famous To Be Honest With You Poems by Famous Poets

These are examples of famous To Be Honest With You poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous to be honest with you poems. These examples illustrate what a famous to be honest with you poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).

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Massachusetts To Virginia

by John Greenleaf Whittier
 The blast from Freedom's Northern hills, upon its Southern way,
Bears greeting to Virginia from Massachusetts Bay:
No word of haughty challenging, nor battle bugle's peal,
Nor steady tread of marching files, nor clang of horsemen's steel,

No trains of deep-mouthed cannon along our highways go;
Around our silent arsenals untrodden lies the snow;
And to the land-breeze of our ports, upon their errands far,
A...Read more of this...

An honest Tear

by Emily Dickinson
 An honest Tear
Is durabler than Bronze --
This Cenotaph
May each that dies --

Reared by itself --
No Deputy suffice --
Gratitude bears
When Obelisk decays...Read more of this...

A Paralell Between Bowling And Preferment

by William Strode
 Preferment, like a Game at bowles,
To feede our hope with diverse play
Heer quick it runnes, there soft it rowles:
The Betters make and shew the way.


As upper ground, so great Allies
Doe many cast on theyr desire:
Some uppe are thrust, and forc't to rise,
When those are stopt that would aspire.


Some whose heate and zeale exceed
Thrive well by Rubbs that curb theyr...Read more of this...

The drum

by Eugene Field
 I'm a beautiful red, red drum,
And I train with the soldier boys;
As up the street we come,
Wonderful is our noise!
There's Tom, and Jim, and Phil,
And Dick, and Nat, and Fred,
While Widow Cutler's Bill
And I march on ahead,
With a r-r-rat-tat-tat
And a tum-titty-um-tum-tum -
Oh, there's bushels of fun in that
For boys with a little red drum!

The Injuns came last night
While the...Read more of this...

Ommission

by Robert William Service
 What man has not betrayed
 Some sacred trust?
If haply you are made
 Of honest dust,
Vaunt not of glory due,
 Of triumph won:
Think, think of duties you
 Have left undone.

But if in mercy hope,
 Despite your sin,
The gates of Heaven ope'
 To let you in:
Pray, pray that when God reads
 Your judgement due,
He may forget good deeds
 You did not...Read more of this...

I Keep Six Honest..

by Rudyard Kipling
 I keep six honest serving-men
 (They taught me all I knew);
Their names are What and Why and When
 And How and Where and Who.
I send them over land and sea,
 I send them east and west;
But after they have worked for me,
 I give them all a rest.


I let them rest from nine till five,
 For I am busy...Read more of this...

252. Lines to John M'Murdo of Drumlanrig

by Robert Burns
 O COULD I give thee India’s wealth,
 As I this trifle send;
Because thy joy in both would be
 To share them with a friend.


But golden sands did never grace
 The Heliconian stream;
Then take what gold could never buy—
 An honest bard’s esteem....Read more of this...

Sonnet X: To Nothing Fitter

by Michael Drayton
 To nothing fitter can I thee compare 
Than to the son of some rich penny-father, 
Who, having now brought on his end with care, 
Leaves to his son all he had heap'd together; 
This new rich novice, lavish of his chest, 
To one man gives, doth on another spend, 
Then here he riots, yet among the rest 
Haps to...Read more of this...

Waring

by Robert Browning
 I

What's become of Waring
Since he gave us all the slip,
Chose land-travel or seafaring,
Boots and chest, or staff and scrip,
Rather than pace up and down
Any longer London-town?

Who'd have guessed it from his lip,
Or his brow's accustomed bearing,
On the night he thus took ship,
Or started landward?—little caring
For us, it seems, who supped together,
(Friends of his too, I remember)
And walked home through...Read more of this...

Cleared

by Rudyard Kipling
 Help for a patriot distressed, a spotless spirit hurt,
Help for an honourable clan sore trampled in the dirt!
From Queenstown Bay to Donegal, O listen to my song,
The honourable gentlemen have suffered grievous wrong.

Their noble names were mentioned -- O the burning black disgrace! --
By a brutal Saxon paper in an Irish shooting-case;
They sat upon it for a year, then...Read more of this...

505. Epitaph for Mr. Gabriel Richardson Brewer

by Robert Burns
 HERE Brewer Gabriel’s fire’s extinct,
 And empty all his barrels:
He’s blest—if, as he brew’d, he drink,
 In upright, honest morals....Read more of this...

190. Song—Lady Onlie Honest Luckie

by Robert Burns
 A’ THE lads o’ Thorniebank,
 When they gae to the shore o’ Bucky,
They’ll step in an’ tak a pint
 Wi’ Lady Onlie, honest Lucky.


Chorus.—Lady Onlie, honest Lucky,
 Brews gude ale at shore o’ Bucky;
I wish her sale for her gude ale,
 The best on a’ the shore o’ Bucky.


Her house sae bien, her curch sae clean
 I wat she...Read more of this...

My Hour

by Robert William Service
 Day after day behold me plying
My pen within an office drear;
The dullest dog, till homeward hieing,
Then lo! I reign a king of cheer.
A throne have I of padded leather,
A little court of kiddies three,
A wife who smiles whate'er the weather,
A feast of muffins, jam and tea.

The table cleared, a romping battle,
A fairy tale, a "Children, bed,"
A kiss, a hug,...Read more of this...

Owl Against Robin

by Sidney Lanier
 Frowning, the owl in the oak complained him
Sore, that the song of the robin restrained him
Wrongly of slumber, rudely of rest.
"From the north, from the east, from the south and the west,
Woodland, wheat-field, corn-field, clover,
Over and over and over and over,
Five o'clock, ten o'clock, twelve, or seven,
Nothing but robin-songs heard under heaven:
How can we sleep?

`Peep!' you whistle, and `cheep!...Read more of this...

Lo! In Thine Honest Eyes I Read

by Robert Louis Stevenson
 LO! in thine honest eyes I read
The auspicious beacon that shall lead,
After long sailing in deep seas,
To quiet havens in June ease.

Thy voice sings like an inland bird
First by the seaworn sailor heard;
And like road sheltered from life's sea
Thine honest heart is unto me....Read more of this...

Jack Honest or the Widow and Her Son

by William Topaz McGonagall
 Jack Honest was only eight years of age when his father died,
And by the death of his father, Mrs Honest was sorely tried;
And Jack was his father's only joy and pride,
And for honesty Jack couldn't be equalled in the country-side. 

So a short time before Jack's father died,
'Twas loud and bitterly for Jack he cried,
And bade him sit down...Read more of this...

Manhattan Streets I Saunter'd Pondering

by Walt Whitman
 1
MANHATTAN’S streets I saunter’d, pondering, 
On time, space, reality—on such as these, and abreast with them, prudence. 

2
After all, the last explanation remains to be made about prudence; 
Little and large alike drop quietly aside from the prudence that suits immortality. 

The Soul is of itself;
All verges to it—all has reference to what ensues; 
All that a person does,...Read more of this...

Senec. Traged. Ex Thyeste Chor.2

by Andrew Marvell
 Translated.

Senec. Traged. ex Thyeste Chor.2.
Stet quicunque volet potens
Aulae culmine lubrico &c.

Climb at Court for me that will
Tottering favors Pinacle;
All I seek is to lye still.
Settled in some secret Nest
In calm Leisure let me rest;
And far of the publick Stage
Pass away my silent Age.
Thus when without noise, unknown,
I have liv'd out all my span,
I shall dye, without a groan,
An old...Read more of this...

Sonnet

by Louise Bogan
 Oh, for some honest lover's ghost,
Some kind unbodied post
Sent from the shades below!
I strangely long to know
Whether the noble chaplets wear
Those that their mistress' scorn did bear
Or those that were used kindly.

For whatsoe'er they tell us here
To make those sufferings dear,
'Twill there, I fear, be found
That to the being crowned
T' have loved alone will not suffice,
Unless we also have...Read more of this...

Consort with honest and intelligent men. Flee a thousand

by Omar Khayyam
Consort with honest and intelligent men. Flee a thousand
miles away from the ignorant. If a man of mind
give thee poison, drink it; if an ignorant one present
thee an antidote, pour it upon the ground....Read more of this...

Poor Honest Men

by Rudyard Kipling
 Your jar of Virginny
Will cost you a guinea,
Which you reckon too much by five shillings or ten;
But light your churchwarden
And judge it according,
When I've told you the troubles of poor honest men.

From the Capes of the Delaware,
As you are well aware,
We sail which tobacco for England-but then,
Our own British cruisers,
They watch us come through, sirs,
And they press half a...Read more of this...

The stoddards

by Eugene Field
 When I am in New York, I like to drop around at night,
To visit with my honest, genial friends, the Stoddards hight;
Their home in Fifteenth street is all so snug, and furnished so,
That, when I once get planted there, I don't know when to go;
A cosy cheerful refuge for the weary homesick guest,
Combining Yankee comforts with the freedom of...Read more of this...

January 1795

by Mary Darby Robinson
 Pavement slipp'ry, people sneezing,
Lords in ermine, beggars freezing ;
Titled gluttons dainties carving,
Genius in a garret starving.

Lofty mansions, warm and spacious ;
Courtiers clinging and voracious ;
Misers scarce the wretched heeding ;
Gallant soldiers fighting, bleeding.

Wives who laugh at passive spouses ;
Theatres, and meeting-houses ;
Balls, where simp'ring misses languish ;
Hospitals, and groans of anguish.

Arts and sciences bewailing ;
Commerce drooping, credit failing ;
Placemen...Read more of this...

The Joy Of Being Poor

by Robert William Service
 I

Let others sing of gold and gear, the joy of being rich;
But oh, the days when I was poor, a vagrant in a ditch!
When every dawn was like a gem, so radiant and rare,
And I had but a single coat, and not a single care;
When I would feast right royally on bacon, bread and beer,
And dig into a stack...Read more of this...

The Snapped Thread

by Robert Graves
 Desire, first, by a natural miracle
United bodies, united hearts, blazed beauty;
Transcended bodies, transcended hearts.

Two souls, now unalterably one
In whole love always and for ever,
Soar out of twilight, through upper air,
Let fall their sensous burden.

Is it kind, though, is it honest even,
To consort with none but spirits-
Leaving true-wedded hearts like ours
In enforced night-long separation,
Each to its random bodily inclination,
The thread...Read more of this...

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