Famous Tradition Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Tradition poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous tradition poems. These examples illustrate what a famous tradition poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Robert William Service
I never kill a fly because
I think that what we have of laws
To regulate and civilize
Our daily life - we owe to flies.
Apropos, I'll tell you of Choo, the spouse
Of the head of the hunters, Wung;
Such a beautiful cave they had for a house,
And a brood of a dozen young.
And Wung would start by the dawn's red light
On the...Read more of this...
by
Alfred Lord Tennyson
MY father left a park to me,
But it is wild and barren,
A garden too with scarce a tree,
And waster than a warren:
Yet say the neighbours when they call,
It is not bad but good land,
And in it is the germ of all
That grows within the woodland.
O had I lived when song was...Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
Said President MacConnachie to Treasurer MacCall:
"We ought to have a piper for our next Saint Andrew's Ball.
Yon squakin' saxophone gives me the syncopated gripes.
I'm sick of jazz, I want to hear the skirling of the pipes."
"Alas! it's true," said Tam MacCall. "The young folk of to-day
Are fox-trot mad and dinna ken a reel from Strathspey.
Now, what we want's a...Read more of this...
by
Edna St. Vincent Millay
I thought, as I wiped my eyes on the corner of my apron:
Penelope did this too.
And more than once: you can't keep weaving all day
And undoing it all through the night;
Your arms get tired, and the back of your neck gets tight;
And along towards morning, when you think it will never be light,
And your husband has been gone, and...Read more of this...
by
John Berryman
It was the blue & plain ones. I forget all that.
My own clouds darkening hung.
Besides, it wasn't serious.
They took them in different rooms & fed them lies.
'She admitted you wanted to get rid of it.'
'He told us he told you to.'
The Force, with its rapists con-men murderers,
has been our Pride (trust Henry) eighty years;-”
now Teddy was hard on.
Still the...Read more of this...
by
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
I heard an angel speak last night,
And he said 'Write!
Write a Nation's curse for me,
And send it over the Western Sea.'
I faltered, taking up the word:
'Not so, my lord!
If curses must be, choose another
To send thy curse against my brother.
'For I am bound by gratitude,
By love and blood,
To brothers of mine across the sea,
Who stretch out kindly hands to...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
A little Dog that wags his tail
And knows no other joy
Of such a little Dog am I
Reminded by a Boy
Who gambols all the living Day
Without an earthly cause
Because he is a little Boy
I honestly suppose --
The Cat that in the Corner dwells
Her martial Day forgot
The Mouse but a Tradition now
Of her desireless Lot
Another class remind me
Who neither please nor...Read more of this...
by
Suheir Hammad
leaves and leaving call october home
her daughter releases wood
smoke from her skin
rich in scorpio
blood survived the first
flood each new year marks
a circle around her
thick bark middle
this the month summer and
winter fall into each
other and leave orange
yellow ashes
the vibrancy of death
carry it all
coiled in my belly
cut on the cusp
of libra tail
tips the scales
tonight it is raining in
the tradition...Read more of this...
by
Edwin Arlington Robinson
The man Flammonde, from God knows where,
With firm address and foreign air
With news of nations in his talk
And something royal in his walk,
With glint of iron in his eyes,
But never doubt, nor yet surprise,
Appeared, adn stayed, and held his head
As one by kings accredited.
Erect, with his alert repose
About him, and about...Read more of this...
by
John Greenleaf Whittier
In the outskirts of the village
On the river's winding shores
Stand the Occidental plane-trees,
Stand the ancient sycamores.
One long century hath been numbered,
And another half-way told
Since the rustic Irish gleeman
Broke for them the virgin mould.
Deftly set to Celtic music
At his violin's sound they grew,
Through the moonlit eves of summer,
Making Amphion's...Read more of this...
by
Robert Browning
I.
Stand still, true poet that you are!
I know you; let me try and draw you.
Some night you'll fail us: when afar
You rise, remember one man saw you,
Knew you, and named a star!
II.
My star, God's glow-worm! Why extend
That loving hand of his which leads you
Yet locks you safe from end to end
Of this dark world, unless he needs you,
just saves...Read more of this...
by
David Lehman
Some people find out they are Jews.
They can't believe it.
Thy had always hated Jews.
As children they had roamed in gangs on winter nights in the old
neighborhood, looking for Jews.
They were not Jewish, they were Irish.
They brandished broken bottles, tough guys with blood on their
lips, looking for Jews.
They intercepted Jewish boys walking alone and beat them up.
Sometimes they...Read more of this...
by
Stephen Crane
Tradition, thou art for suckling children,
Thou art the enlivening milk for babes;
But no meat for men is in thee.
Then --
But, alas, we all are babes....Read more of this...
by
Robert Graves
Truth-loving Persians do not dwell upon
The trivial skirmish fought near Marathon.
As for the Greek theatrical tradition
Which represents that summer's expedition
Not as a mere reconnaisance in force
By three brigades of foot and one of horse
(Their left flank covered by some obsolete
Light craft detached from the main Persian fleet)
But as a grandiose, ill-starred attempt
To conquer Greece - they treat it with...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
So gay a Flower
Bereaves the Mind
As if it were a Woe --
Is Beauty an Affliction -- then?
Tradition ought to know --...Read more of this...
by
George William Russell
THEY call us aliens, we are told,
Because our wayward visions stray
From that dim banner they unfold,
The dreams of worn-out yesterday.
The sum of all the past is theirs,
The creeds, the deeds, the fame, the name,
Whose death-created glory flares
And dims the spark of living flame.
They weave the necromancer’s spell,
And burst the graves where martyrs slept,
Their ancient story to retell,
Renewing tears the...Read more of this...
by
Andrei Voznesensky
My life, like a rocket, makes a parabola
flying in darkness, -- no rainbow for traveler.
There once lived an artist, red-haired Gauguin,
he was a bohemian, a former tradesman.
To get to the Louvre
from the lanes of Montmartre
he circled around
as far as Sumatra!
He had to...Read more of this...
by
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Vogelweid the Minnesinger,
When he left this world of ours,
Laid his body in the cloister,
Under Wurtzburg's minster towers.
And he gave the monks his treasures,
Gave them all with this behest:
They should feed the birds at noontide
Daily on his place of rest;
Saying, "From these wandering minstrels
I have learned the art of song;
Let me now repay the lessons
They have taught so well and...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
Tell as a Marksman -- were forgotten
Tell -- this Day endures
Ruddy as that coeval Apple
The Tradition bears --
Fresh as Mankind that humble story
Though a statelier Tale
Grown in the Repetition hoary
Scarcely would prevail --
Tell had a son -- The ones that knew it
Need not linger here --
Those who did not to Human Nature
Will subscribe a Tear --
Tell would not bare...Read more of this...
by
Gerald Stern
A bunch of old snakeheads down by the pond
carrying on the swan tradition -- hissing
inside their white bodies, raising and lowering their heads
like ostriches, regretting only the sad ritual
that forced them to waddle back into the water
after their life under the rocks, wishing they could lie again
in the sun
and dream of spreading their terrifying wings;
wishing, this time, they...Read more of this...
by
Edward Taylor
I take the long walk up the staircase to my secret room.
Today's big news: they found Amelia Earhart's shoe, size 9.
1992: Charlie Christian is bebopping at Minton's in 1941.
Today, the Presidential primaries have failed us once again.
We'll look for our excitement elsewhere, in the last snow
that is falling, in tomorrow's Gospel Concert in Springfield.
It's a good day to be...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
Proud of my broken heart, since thou didst break it,
Proud of the pain I did not feel till thee,
Proud of my night, since thou with moons dost slake it,
Not to partake thy passion, my humility.
Thou can'st not boast, like Jesus, drunken without companion
Was the strong cup of anguish brewed for the Nazarene
Thou can'st not pierce tradition with the peerless...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
Whose cheek is this?
What rosy face
Has lost a blush today?
I found her -- "pleiad" -- in the woods
And bore her safe away.
Robins, in the tradition
Did cover such with leaves,
But which the cheek --
And which the pall
My scrutiny deceives....Read more of this...
by
Andrew Marvell
Oblig'd by frequent visits of this man,
Whom as Priest, Poet, and Musician,
I for some branch of Melchizedeck took,
(Though he derives himself from my Lord Brooke)
I sought his Lodging; which is at the Sign
Of the sad Pelican; Subject divine
For Poetry: There three Stair Cases high,
Which signifies his triple property,
I found at last a Chamber, as 'twas said,
But seem'd a Coffin...Read more of this...
by
Delmore Schwartz
(after Spillane)
Let us be aware of the true dark gods
Acknowledgeing the cache of the crotch
The primitive pure and pwerful pink and grey
private sensitivites
Wincing, marvelous in their sweetness, whence rises
the future.
Therefore let us praise Miss Marilyn Monroe.
She has a noble attitude marked by pride and candor
She takes a noble pride in the female nature and torso
She articualtes her...Read more of this...
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