Famous Treat Poems by Famous Poets

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

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The Degenerate Gallants

by Victor Hugo
 ("Mes jeunes cavaliers.") 
 
 {HERNANI, Act I., March, 1830.} 


 What business brings you here, young cavaliers? 
 Men like the Cid, the knights of bygone years, 
 Rode out the battle of the weak to wage, 
 Protecting beauty and revering age. 
 Their armor sat on them, strong men as true, 
 Much lighter than your...Read more of this...

The Buglers First Communion

by Gerard Manley Hopkins
 A buglar boy from barrack (it is over the hill
There)—boy bugler, born, he tells me, of Irish
 Mother to an English sire (he
Shares their best gifts surely, fall how things will), 

This very very day came down to us after a boon he on
My late being there begged of me, overflowing
 Boon in my bestowing,
Came, I say, this day...Read more of this...

To His Orphan Grandchildren

by Victor Hugo
 ("O Charles, je te sens près de moi.") 
 
 {July, 1871.} 


 I feel thy presence, Charles. Sweet martyr! down 
 In earth, where men decay, 
 I search, and see from cracks which rend thy tomb, 
 Burst out pale morning's ray. 
 
 Close linked are bier and cradle: here the dead, 
 To charm us,...Read more of this...

Another

by Anne Bradstreet
 Phoebus make haste, the day's too long, be gone, 
The silent night's the fittest time for moan; 
But stay this once, unto my suit give ear, 
And tell my griefs in either hemisphere. 
(And if the whirling of thy wheels don't drown'd) 
The woeful accents of my doleful sound, 
If in thy swift carrier thou canst make stay, 
I...Read more of this...

Welcome to the Table

by William Cowper
 This is the feast of heavenly wine,
And God invites to sup;
The juices of the living Vine
Were press'd to fill the cup.

Oh! bless the Saviour, ye that eat,
With royal dainties fed;
Not heaven affords a costlier treat,
For Jesus is the bread.

The vile, the lost, He calls to them;
Ye trembling souls, appear!
The righteous in their own esteem
Have no acceptance here.

Approach, ye poor,...Read more of this...

The Death of Fred Marsden the American Playwright

by William Topaz McGonagall
 A pathetic tragedy I will relate,
Concerning poor Fred. Marsden's fate,
Who suffocated himself by the fumes of gas,
On the 18th of May, and in the year of 1888, alas! 

Fred. Marsden was a playwright, the theatrical world knows,
And was highly esteemed by the people, and had very few foes;
And in New York, in his bedroom, he took his life away,
And...Read more of this...

If I Should Learn In Some Quite Casual Way

by Edna St. Vincent Millay
 IF I should learn, in some quite casual way, 
 That you were gone, not to return again— 
Read from the back-page of a paper, say, 
 Held by a neighbor in a subway train, 
How at the corner of this avenue 
 And such a street (so are the papers filled) 
A hurrying man—who happened to be you—...Read more of this...

Detachment

by Robert William Service
 As I go forth from fair to mart
With racket ringing,
Who would divine that in my heart
Mad larks are singing.
As I sweet sympathy express,
Lest I should pain them,
The money-mongers cannot guess
How I disdain them.

As I sit at some silly tea
And flirt and flatter
How I abhor society
And female chatter.
As I with wonderment survey
Their peacock dresses,
My mind is wafted far away
To wildernesses.

As...Read more of this...

A Plea

by Paul Laurence Dunbar
Treat me nice, Miss Mandy Jane,
Treat me nice.
Dough my love has tu'ned my brain,
Treat me nice.
I ain't done a t'ing to shame,
Lovahs all ac's jes' de same;
Don't you know we ain't to blame?
Treat me nice!
Cose I know I 's talkin' wild;
Treat me nice;
I cain't talk no bettah, child,
Treat me nice;
Whut a pusson gwine to do,
Wen he come a-cou'tin' you
All a-trimblin'...Read more of this...

If

by Rudyard Kipling
If you can keep your head when all about you   
    Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,   
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
    But make allowance for their doubting too;   
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
  ...Read more of this...

To the Queen

by Anne Killigrew
 AS those who pass the Alps do say, 
The Rocks which first oppose their way, 
And so amazing-High do show, 
By fresh Accents appear but low, 
And when they come unto the last, 
They scorn the dwarfish Hills th'ave past. 
 So though my Muse at her first flight, 
Thought she had chose the greatest height, 
And (imp'd with...Read more of this...

Treat Em Rough

by Robert William Service
 First time I dared propose,
 A callow lad was I;
I donned my Sunday clothes,
 I wore my Old School Tie.
Awaiting me Louise
 Was dolled to beat the band,
So going on my knees
 I begged her hand.

Oh yes, she gave me her hand,--
 A box upon the ear;
I could not understand,
 I blinked away a tear.
Then scornfully she said:
 'Next...Read more of this...

A Ripple Song

by Rudyard Kipling
 Once red ripple came to land
 In the golden sunset burning--
 Lapped against a maiden's hand,
 By the ford returning.

 Dainty foot and gentle breast--
 Here, across, be glad and rest.
 "Maiden, wait," the ripplee saith;
 "Wait awhile, for I am Death!"

 "Where my lover calls I go--
 Shame it were to treat him coldly--
 'Twas a fish that...Read more of this...

An Asphodel

by Allen Ginsberg
 O dear sweet rosy 
 unattainable desire 
...how sad, no way 
 to change the mad 
cultivated asphodel, the 
 visible reality... 

and skin's appalling 
 petals--how inspired 
to be so Iying in the living 
 room drunk naked 
and dreaming, in the absence 
 of electricity... 
over and over eating the low root 
 of the asphodel, 
gray...Read more of this...

Talking to Grief

by Denise Levertov
 Ah, Grief, I should not treat you
like a homeless dog
who comes to the back door
for a crust, for a meatless bone.
I should trust you.

I should coax you
into the house and give you
your own corner,
a worn mat to lie on,
your own water dish.

You think I don't know you've been living
under my porch.
You long for your real place to be readied
before...Read more of this...

The Road to Hogans Gap

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 Now look, you see, it’s this way like, 
You cross the broken bridge 
And run the crick down till you strike 
The second right-hand ridge. 
The track is hard to see in parts, 
But still it’s pretty clear; 
There’s been two Injin hawkers’ carts 
Along that road this year. 

Well, run that right-hand ridge along— 
It ain’t, to say,...Read more of this...

Fortune Of War

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
 NOUGHT more accursed in war I know

Than getting off scot-free;
Inured to danger, on we go

In constant victory;
We first unpack, then pack again,

With only this reward,
That when we're marching, we complain,

And when in camp, are bor'd.

The time for billeting comes next,--

The peasant curses it;
Each nobleman is sorely vex'd,

'Tis hated by the cit.
Be civil, bad though be thy food,

The clowns politely...Read more of this...

Deacon Jones' Grievance

by Paul Laurence Dunbar
I 've been watchin' of 'em, parson,
An' I 'm sorry fur to say
'At my mind is not contented
With the loose an' keerless way
'At the young folks treat the music;
'T ain't the proper sort o' choir.
Then I don't believe in Christuns
A-singin' hymns for hire.
But I never would 'a' murmured
An' the matter might 'a' gone
Ef it was n't fur the antics
'At I've...Read more of this...

The Wood

by Charlotte Bronte
 But two miles more, and then we rest ! 
Well, there is still an hour of day, 
And long the brightness of the West 
Will light us on our devious way; 
Sit then, awhile, here in this wood­ 
So total is the solitude, 
We safely may delay. 

These massive roots afford a seat, 
Which seems for weary travellers made....Read more of this...

Halloween

by Mac Hammond
 The butcher knife goes in, first, at the top
And carves out the round stemmed lid,
The hole of which allows the hand to go 
In to pull the gooey mess inside, out -
The walls scooped clean with a spoon.
A grim design decided on, that afternoon,
The eyes are the first to go,
Isosceles or trapezoid, the square nose,
The down-turned mouth with three
Hideous...Read more of this...

Psalm 49 part 1

by Isaac Watts
 v.6-14 
C. M.
Pride and death; or, The vanity of life and riches.

Why doth the man of riches grow
To insolence and pride,
To see his wealth and honors flow
With every rising tide?

[Why doth he treat the poor with scorn,
Made of the self-same clay,
And boast as though his flesh was born
Of better dust than they?]

Not all his treasures can procure
His soul a...Read more of this...

The Wreck of the Barque Wm. Paterson of Liverpool

by William Topaz McGonagall
 Ye landsmen all attend my verse, and I'll tell to ye a tale
Concerning the barque "Wm. Paterson" that was lost in a tempestuous gale;
She was on a voyage from Bangkok to the Clyde with a cargo of Teakwood,
And the crew numbered Fifteen in all of seamen firm and good. 

'Twas on the 11th of March, when a violent gale...Read more of this...

Mistress Gurtons Cat

by Mary Darby Robinson
 Old MISTRESS GURTON had a Cat,
A Tabby, loveliest of the race,
Sleek as a doe, and tame, and fat
With velvet paws, and whisker'd face;
The Doves of VENUS not so fair,
Nor JUNO'S Peacocks half so grand
As MISTRESS GURTON'S Tabby rare,
The proudest of the purring band;
So dignified in all her paces--
She seem'd, a pupil of the Graces!
There never was a finer creature
In...Read more of this...

On a Portrait of a Deaf Man

by John Betjeman
 The kind old face, the egg-shaped head,
The tie, discreetly loud,
The loosely fitting shooting clothes,
A closely fitting shroud.

He liked old city dining rooms,
Potatoes in their skin,
But now his mouth is wide to let
The London clay come in.

He took me on long silent walks
In country lanes when young.
He knew the names of ev'ry bird
But not the song it sung.

And when he...Read more of this...

After A Visit

by Paul Laurence Dunbar
I be'n down in ole Kentucky
Fur a week er two, an' say,
'T wuz ez hard ez breakin' oxen
Fur to tear myse'f away.
Allus argerin' 'bout fren'ship
An' yer hospitality—
Y' ain't no right to talk about it
Tell you be'n down there to see.
See jest how they give you welcome
To the best that's in the land,
Feel the sort o' grip they give you
When they...Read more of this...

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