Famous Told Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Told poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous told poems. These examples illustrate what a famous told poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Emily Dickinson
He told a homely tale
And spotted it with tears --
Upon his infant face was set
The Cicatrice of years --
All crumpled was the cheek
No other kiss had known
Than flake of snow, divided with
The Redbreast of the Barn --
If Mother -- in the Grave --
Or Father -- on the Sea --
Or Father in the Firmament --
Or Brethren, had he --
If Commonwealth...Read more of this...
by
John Clare
I saw her crop a rose
Right early in the day,
And I went to kiss the place
Where she broke the rose away
And I saw the patten rings
Where she o'er the stile had gone,
And I love all other things
Her bright eyes look upon.
If she looks upon the hedge or up the leafing tree,
The whitethorn or the brown oak are made dearer...Read more of this...
by
Philip Levine
The air lay soffly on the green fur
of the almond, it was April
and I said, I begin again
but my hands burned in the damp earth
the light ran between my fingers
a black light like no other
this was not home, the linnet
settling on the oleander
the green pod swelling
the leaf slowly untwisting
the...Read more of this...
by
Vachel Lindsay
A chant to which it is intended a group of children shall dance and improvise pantomime led by their dancing-teacher.
I
A master deep-eyed
Ere his manhood was ripe,
He sang like a thrush,
He could play any pipe.
So dull in the school
That he scarcely could spell,
He read but a bit,
And he figured not well.
A bare-footed fool,
Shod only with grace;
Long hair streaming down
Round a...Read more of this...
by
James Henry Leigh Hunt
It was the pleasant season yet,
When the stones at cottage doors
Dry quickly, while the roads are wet,
After the silver showers.
The green leaves they looked greener still,
And the thrush, renewing his tune,
Shook a loud note from his gladsome bill
Into the bright blue noon.
Robin Hood's mother looked out, and said
"It were a shame and a sin
For fear of getting a wet...Read more of this...
by
Rudyard Kipling
Now Tomlinson gave up the ghost in his house in Berkeley Square,
And a Spirit came to his bedside and gripped him by the hair --
A Spirit gripped him by the hair and carried him far away,
Till he heard as the roar of a rain-fed ford the roar of the Milky Way:
Till he heard the roar of the Milky Way...Read more of this...
by
Adela Florence Cory Nicolson
Against the planks of the cabin side,
(So slight a thing between them and me,)
The great waves thundered and throbbed and sighed,
The great green waves of the Indian sea!
Your face was white as the foam is white,
...Read more of this...
by
Robert Louis Stevenson
THEY tell me, lady, that to-day
On that unknown Australian strand -
Some time ago, so far away -
Another lady joined the band.
She joined the company of those
Lovelily dowered, nobly planned,
Who, smiling, still forgive their foes
And keep their friends in close command.
She, lady, as I learn, was one
Among the many rarely good;
And destined still to be a sun
Through every dark and...Read more of this...
by
Sidney Lanier
A Story of Christmas Eve.
Strange that the termagant winds should scold
The Christmas Eve so bitterly!
But Wife, and Harry the four-year-old,
Big Charley, Nimblewits, and I,
Blithe as the wind was bitter, drew
More frontward of the mighty fire,
Where wise Newfoundland Fan foreknew
The heaven that Christian dogs desire --
Stretched o'er the rug, serene and grave,
Huge nose on heavy paws reclined,
With never a drowning...Read more of this...
by
Ann Taylor
AND has my darling told a lie?
Did she forget that GOD was by?
That GOD, who saw the things she did,
From whom no action can be hid;
Did she forget that GOD could see
And hear, wherever she might be?
He made your eyes, and can discern
Whichever way you think to turn;
He made your ears, and he can...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
Who were "the Father and the Son"
We pondered when a child,
And what had they to do with us
And when portentous told
With inference appalling
By Childhood fortified
We thought, at least they are no worse
Than they have been described.
Who are "the Father and the Son"
Did we demand Today
"The Father and the Son" himself
Would doubtless specify --
But had they the felicity
When we desired...Read more of this...
by
Friedrich von Schiller
A gentle was Fridolin,
And he his mistress dear,
Savern's fair Countess, honored in
All truth and godly fear.
She was so meek, and, ah! so good!
Yet each wish of her wayward mood,
He would have studied to fulfil,
To please his God, with earnest will.
From the first hour when daylight shone
Till rang the vesper-chime,
He lived but for her will alone,
And deemed e'en that scarce...Read more of this...
by
Oliver Wendell Holmes
HAS there any old fellow got mixed with the boys?
If there has, take him out, without making a noise.
Hang the Almanac's cheat and the Catalogue's spite!
Old Time is a liar! We're twenty to-night!
We're twenty! We're twenty! Who says we are more?
He's tipsy,-- young jackanapes!-- show him the door!
"Gray temples at twenty?"-- Yes ! white if we please;
Where the snow-flakes...Read more of this...
by
Paul Laurence Dunbar
She told her beads with down-cast eyes,
Within the ancient chapel dim;
[Pg 107]And ever as her fingers slim
Slipt o'er th' insensate ivories,
My rapt soul followed, spaniel-wise.
Ah, many were the beads she wore;
But as she told them o'er and o'er,
They did not number all my sighs.
My heart was filled with unvoiced cries
And prayers and pleadings unexpressed;
But while I burned with...Read more of this...
by
Galway Kinnell
The bud
stands for all things,
even for those things that don't flower,
for everything flowers, from within, of self-blessing;
though sometimes it is necessary
to reteach a thing its loveliness,
to put a hand on its brow
of the flower
and retell it in words and in touch
it is lovely
until it flowers again from within, of self-blessing;...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
Elizabeth told Essex
That she could not forgive
The clemency of Deity
However -- might survive --
That secondary succor
We trust that she partook
When suing -- like her Essex
For a reprieving Look --...Read more of this...
by
Sidney Lanier
not much chance,
completely cut loose from
purpose,
he was a young man
riding a bus
through North Carolina
on the wat to somewhere
and it began to snow
and the bus stopped
at a little cafe
in the hills
and the passengers
entered.
he sat at the counter
with the others,
he ordered and the
food arived.
the meal was
particularly
good
and the
coffee.
the waitress was
unlike the women
he had
known.
she was unaffected,
there was a...Read more of this...
by
Algernon Charles Swinburne
I.
Gone, O gentle heart and true,
Friend of hopes foregone,
Hopes and hopeful days with you
Gone?
Days of old that shone
Saw what none shall see anew,
When we gazed thereon.
Soul as clear as sunlit dew,
Why so soon pass on,
Forth from all we loved and knew
Gone?
II.
Friend of many a season fled,
What may sorrow send
Toward thee now from lips that said
'Friend'?
Sighs and songs to blend
Praise...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
None who saw it ever told it
'Tis as hid as Death
Had for that specific treasure
A departing breath --
Surfaces may be invested
Did the Diamond grow
General as the Dandelion
Would you serve it so?...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
I never told the buried gold
Upon the hill -- that lies --
I saw the sun -- his plunder done
Crouch low to guard his prize.
He stood as near
As stood you here --
A pace had been between --
Did but a snake bisect the brake
My life had forfeit been.
That was a wondrous booty --
I hope 'twas honest gained.
Those were the fairest ingots
That...Read more of this...
by
Charles Bukowski
I see you drinking at a fountain with tiny
blue hands, no, your hands are not tiny
they are small, and the fountain is in France
where you wrote me that last letter and
I answered and never heard from you again.
you used to write insane poems about
ANGELS AND GOD, all in upper case, and you
knew famous artists and most of them
were your...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
A Secret told --
Ceases to be a Secret -- then --
A Secret -- kept --
That -- can appal but One --
Better of it -- continual be afraid --
Than it --
And Whom you told it to -- beside --...Read more of this...
by
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Last night I knelt low at my lady’s feet.
One soft, caressing hand played with my hair,
And one I kissed and fondled. Kneeling there,
I deemed my meed of happiness complete.
She was so fair, so full of witching wiles –
Of fascinating tricks of mouth and eye;
So womanly withal, but not too shy –
And all my heaven was compassed...Read more of this...
by
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
I told you the winter would go, love,
I told you the winter would go,
That he'd flee in shame when the south wind came,
And you smiled when I told you so.
You said the blustering fellow
Would never yield to a breeze,
That his cold, icy breath had frozen to death
The flowers, the birds, and trees.
And I told you...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
I haven't told my garden yet --
Lest that should conquer me.
I haven't quite the strength now
To break it to the Bee --
I will not name it in the street
For shops would stare at me --
That one so shy -- so ignorant
Should have the face to die.
The hillsides must not know it --
Where I have rambled so --
Nor tell the...Read more of this...
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