Famous Topples Poems by Famous Poets

These are examples of famous Topples poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous topples poems. These examples illustrate what a famous topples poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).

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To A Young Beauty

by William Butler Yeats
 Dear fellow-artist, why so free
With every sort of company,
With every Jack and Jill?
Choose your companions from the best;
Who draws a bucket with the rest
Soon topples down the hill.

You may, that mirror for a school,
Be passionate, not bountiful
As common beauties may,
Who were not born to keep in trim
With old Ezekiel's cherubim
But those of Beauvarlet.

I know what wages beauty gives,
How hard...Read more of this...

Demolition

by Mark Doty
 The intact facade's now almost black 
in the rain; all day they've torn at the back 
of the building, "the oldest concrete structure 
in New England," the newspaper said. By afternoon, 
when the backhoe claw appears above 
three stories of columns and cornices, 

the crowd beneath their massed umbrellas cheer. 
Suddenly the stairs seem to climb down themselves, 
atomized...Read more of this...

Embrace Noir

by Nick Flynn
 I go back to the scene where the two men embrace
& grapple a handgun at stomach level between them.

They jerk around the apartment like that
holding on to each other, their cheeks

almost touching. One is shirtless, the other
wears a suit, the one in the suit came in through a window

to steal documents or diamonds, it doesn't matter anymore 
which, what's...Read more of this...

Written among the Euganean Hills North Italy

by Percy Bysshe Shelley
MANY a green isle needs must be 
In the deep wide sea of Misery, 
Or the mariner, worn and wan, 
Never thus could voyage on 
Day and night, and night and day, 5 
Drifting on his dreary way, 
With the solid darkness black 
Closing round his vessel's track; 
Whilst above, the sunless sky 
Big with clouds, hangs heavily, 10 
And...Read more of this...

In Memoriam A. H. H.

by Alfred Lord Tennyson
Strong Son of God, immortal Love,
   Whom we, that have not seen thy face,
   By faith, and faith alone, embrace,
Believing where we cannot prove;
 
Thine are these orbs of light and shade;
   Thou madest Life in man and brute;
   Thou madest Death; and lo, thy foot
Is on the skull which thou hast...Read more of this...

On Rabbi Kooks Street

by Yehuda Amichai
 On Rabbi Kook's Street 
I walk without this good man-- 
A streiml he wore for prayer 
A silk top hat he wore to govern, 
fly in the wind of the dead 
above me, float on the water 
of my dreams. 

I come to the Street of Prophets--there are none. 
And the Street of Ethiopians--there are a few. I'm 
looking...Read more of this...

Mad Girls Love Song

by Sylvia Plath
 "I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;
I lift my lids and all is born again.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

The stars go waltzing out in blue and red,
And arbitrary blackness gallops in:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed
And sung me moon-struck, kissed me...Read more of this...

In Memoriam A. H. H.: 15. To-night the winds begin to rise

by Alfred Lord Tennyson
 To-night the winds begin to rise
And roar from yonder dropping day:
The last red leaf is whirl'd away,
The rooks are blown about the skies;
The forest crack'd, the waters curl'd,
The cattle huddled on the lea;
And wildly dash'd on tower and tree
The sunbeam strikes along the world:
And but for fancies, which aver
That all thy motions gently pass
Athwart a plane of molten glass,
I...Read more of this...

The Princess (The Conclusion)

by Alfred Lord Tennyson
 So closed our tale, of which I give you all 
The random scheme as wildly as it rose: 
The words are mostly mine; for when we ceased 
There came a minute's pause, and Walter said, 
'I wish she had not yielded!' then to me, 
'What, if you drest it up poetically?' 
So prayed the men, the women: I gave...Read more of this...

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