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
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
Phillis Wheatley
I.
A BIRD delicious to the taste,
On which an army once did feast,
Sent by an hand unseen;
A creature of the horned race,
Which Britain's royal standards grace;
A gem of vivid green;
II.
A town of gaiety and sport,
Where beaux and beauteous nymphs resort,
And gallantry doth reign;
A Dardan hero fam'd of old
For youth and beauty, as we're told,
And by a monarch slain;
III.
A peer of...Read more of this...
by
Ann Taylor
Poor Martha is old, and her hair is turn'd grey,
And her hearing has left her for many a year;
Ten to one if she knows what it is that you say,
Though she puts her poor wither'd hand close to her ear.
I've seen naughty children run after her fast,
And cry, "Martha, run, there's a bullock so...Read more of this...
by
Elizabeth Bishop
On the fair green hills of Rio
There grows a fearful stain:
The poor who come to Rio
And can't go home again.
On the hills a million people,
A million sparrows, nest,
Like a confused migration
That's had to light and rest,
Building its nests, or houses,
Out of nothing at all, or air.
You'd think a breath would end them,
They perch...Read more of this...
by
Kenneth Patchen
when we were here together in a place we did not know, nor one
another.
A bit of grass held between the teeth for a moment, bright hair on the
wind.
What we were we did not know, nor even the grass or the flame of
hair turning to ash on the wind.
But they lied about that. From the beginning they lied....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
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
Edwin Arlington Robinson
“Gawaine, Gawaine, what look ye for to see,
So far beyond the faint edge of the world?
D’ye look to see the lady Vivian,
Pursued by divers ominous vile demons
That have another king more fierce than ours?
Or think ye that if ye look far enough
And hard enough into the feathery west
Ye’ll have a glimmer of the...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
I eat oatmeal for breakfast.
I make it on the hot plate and put skimmed milk on it.
I eat it alone.
I am aware it is not good to eat oatmeal alone.
Its consistency is such that is better for your mental health
if somebody eats it with you.
That is why I often think up an imaginary companion to have...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
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...
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
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
William Topaz McGonagall
'Twas in the year of 1866, and on a very beautiful day,
That eighty-two passengers, with spirits light and gay,
Left Gravesend harbour, and sailed gaily away
On board the steamship "London,"
Bound for the city of Melbourne,
Which unfortunately was her last run,
Because she was wrecked on the stormy main,
Which has caused many a heart to throb with pain,
Because they will ne'er look...Read more of this...
by
Austin Clarke
When night stirred at sea,
An the fire brought a crowd in
They say that her beauty
Was music in mouth
And few in the candlelight
Thought her too proud,
For the house of the planter
Is known by the trees.
Men that had seen her
Drank deep and were silent,
The women were speaking
Wherever she went --
As a bell that is rung
Or a wonder told shyly
And O she...Read more of this...
by
Carl Sandburg
HAVE I told any man to be a liar for my sake?
Have I sold ice to the poor in summer and coal to the poor in winter for the sake of daughters who nursed brindle bull terriers and led with a leash their dogs clothed in plaid wool jackets?
Have I given any man an earful too much of my...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
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
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
Anne Sexton
Consider
a girl who keeps slipping off,
arms limp as old carrots,
into the hypnotist's trance,
into a spirit world
speaking with the gift of tongues.
She is stuck in the time machine,
suddenly two years old sucking her thumb,
as inward as a snail,
learning to talk again.
She's on a voyage.
She is swimming further and further back,
up like a salmon,
struggling into her mother's pocketbook.
Little doll child,
come here...Read more of this...
by
Coventry Patmore
'IF I were dead, you'd sometimes say, Poor Child!'
The dear lips quiver'd as they spake,
And the tears brake
From eyes which, not to grieve me, brightly smiled.
Poor Child, poor Child!
I seem to hear your laugh, your talk, your song.
It is not true that Love will do no wrong.
Poor Child!
And did you think,...Read more of this...
by
Edgar Lee Masters
The sudden death of Eugene Carman
Put me in line to be promoted to fifty dollars a month,
And I told my wife and children that night.
But it didn't come, and so I thought
Old Rhodes suspected me of stealing
The blankets I took and sold on the side
For money to pay a doctor's bill for my little girl.
Then like a bolt old...Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
My tangoing seemed to delight her;
With me it was love at first sight.
I mentioned That I was a writer:
She asked me: "What is it you write?"
"Oh, only best-sellers," I told her.
Their titles? . . . She shook her blonde head;
The atmosphere seemed to grow colder:
Not one of my books had she read.
Oh, she was a beauty ensnaring,
And I was...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...
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