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Famous Vernon Poems by Famous Poets

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

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...They should not have left him there alone, 
Alone that is except for the cat. 
He was only nine, not old enough 
To be left alone in a basement flat, 
Alone, that is, except for the cat. 
A dog would have been a different thing, 
A big gruff dog with slashing jaws, 
But a cat with round eyes mad as gold, 
Plump as a cushion with tucked-in paws--- 
...Read more of this...
by Scannell, Vernon



...Unlovely city, to which few tourists come
With squinting cameras and alien hats;
Left under a cloud by those who love the sun
And can afford to marry – a cloud of bits
Of soot more myriad than gnats, a cloud
Of smoke and rain, an insubstantial threat
Whose colour is the pigment of long wrath,
I think of you, surprised to find my blood
Warmed by a wry desir...Read more of this...
by Scannell, Vernon
...And now another autumn morning finds me
With chalk dust on my sleeve and in my breath,
Preoccupied with vague, habitual speculation
On the huge inevitability of death.

Not wholly wretched, yet knowing absolutely
That I shall never reacquaint myself with joy,
I sniff the smell of ink and chalk and my mortality
And think of when I rolled, a gormless boy...Read more of this...
by Scannell, Vernon
...The bar he went inside was not 
A place he often visited; 
He welcomed anonymity; 
No one to switch inquisitive 
Receivers on, no one could see, 
Or wanted to, exactly what 
He was, or had been, or would be; 
A quiet brown place, a place to drink 
And let thought simmer like good stock, 
No mirrors to distract, no fat 
And calculating face of clock, 
A goo...Read more of this...
by Scannell, Vernon
...That one small boy with a face like pallid cheese 
And burnt-out little eyes could make a blaze 
As brazen, fierce and huge, as red and gold 
And zany yellow as the one that spoiled 
Three thousand guineas' worth of property 
And crops at Godwin's Farm on Saturday 
Is frightening---as fact and metaphor: 
An ordinary match intended for 
The lighting of a pi...Read more of this...
by Scannell, Vernon



...The appetite which leads him to her bed 
Is not unlike the lust of boys for cake 
Except he knows that after he has fed 
He'll suffer more than simple belly-ache. 

He'll groan to think what others have to pay 
As price for his obsessive need to know 
That he's a champion still, though slightly grey, 
And both his skill and gameness clearly show. 
...Read more of this...
by Scannell, Vernon
...THE SENTENCE

Perhaps I can make it plain by analogy.
Imagine a machine, not yet assembled,
Each part being quite necessary
To the functioning of the whole: if the job is fumbled
And a vital piece mislaid
The machine is quite valueless,
The workers will not be paid.

It is just the same when constructing a sentence
But here we must be very careful
...Read more of this...
by Scannell, Vernon
...It is a curious experience
And one you"re bound to know, though probably
In other realms than that of literature,
Though I speak of poems now, assuming
That you are interested, otherwise,
Of course, you wouldn"t be reading this.
It is strange to come across a poem
In an old magazine, perhaps, and fail
At first to see that it"s your own.
Sometimes y...Read more of this...
by Scannell, Vernon
...My son aged three fell in the nettle bed.
'Bed' seemed a curious name for those green spears,
That regiment of spite behind the shed:
It was no place for rest. With sobs and tears
The boy came seeking comfort and I saw
White blisters beaded on his tender skin.
We soothed him till his pain was not so raw.
At last he offered us a watery grin,...Read more of this...
by Scannell, Vernon
...The unrelated paragraphs of morning
Are forgotten now; the severed heads of kings
Rot by the misty Thames; the roses of York
And Lancaster are pressed between the leaves
Of history; ******* sleep in Africa.
The complexities of simple interest lurk
In inkwells and the brittle sticks of chalk:
Afternoon is come and English Grammar.

Rain falls as tho...Read more of this...
by Scannell, Vernon
...Silver Wedding

The party is over and I sit among
The flotsam that its passing leaves,
The dirty glasses and ***-ends:
Outside, a black wind grieves.

Two decades and a half of marriage;
It does not really seem as long,
Of youth's ebullient song.

David, my son, my loved rival,
And Julia, my tapering daughter,
Now grant me one achievement only;
I t...Read more of this...
by Scannell, Vernon
...s of the coffin were the Earl Rosebery,
And the Right Honourable Earl of Kimberley,
And the Right Honourable Sir W. Vernon he was there,
And His Royal Highness the Duke of York, I do declare. 

George Armitstead, Esq., was there also,
And Lord Rendal, with his heart full of woe;
And the Right Honourable Duke of Rutland,
And the Right Honourable Arthur J. Balfour, on the right hand;
Likewise the noble Marquis of Salisbury,
And His Royal Highness the Prince of W...Read more of this...
by McGonagall, William Topaz
...Sleepless I lay last night and watched the slow 
Procession of the men who wear my clothes: 
First, the grey man with bloodshot eyes and sly 
Gestures miming what he loves and loathes. 

Next came the cheery knocker-back of pints, 
The beery joker, never far from tears, 
Whose loud and public vanity acquaints 
The careful watcher with his private fears...Read more of this...
by Scannell, Vernon
...The naked hunter's fist, bunched round his spear, 
Was tight and wet inside with sweat of fear; 
He heard behind him what the hunted hear. 

The silence in the undergrowth crept near; 
Its mischief tickled in his nervous ear 
And he became the prey, the quivering deer. 

The naked hunter feared the threat he knew: 
Being hunted, caught, then slaugh...Read more of this...
by Scannell, Vernon
...They did not expect this. Being neither wise nor brave 
And wearing only the beauty of youth's season 
They took the first turning quite unquestioningly 
And walked quickly without looking back even once. 

It was of course the wrong turning. First they were nagged 
By a small wind that tugged at their clothing like a dog; 
Then the rain began ...Read more of this...
by Scannell, Vernon
...On Bellosguardo, when the year was young,
We wandered, seeking for the daffodil
And dark anemone, whose purples fill
The peasant's plot, between the corn-shoots sprung.

Over the grey, low wall the olive flung
Her deeper greyness ; far off, hill on hill
Sloped to the sky, which, pearly-pale and still,
Above the large and luminous landscape hung.

A...Read more of this...
by Levy, Amy
...Waiting for her in the usual bar
He finds she's late again.
Impatience frets at him,
But not the fearful, half-sweet pain he knew
So long ago.

That cherished perturbation is replaced
By styptic irritation
And, under that, a cold
Dark current of dejection moves
That this is so.

There was a time when all her failings were
Delights he marvelled ...Read more of this...
by Scannell, Vernon
...He killed his wife at night. 
He had tried once or twice in the daylight 
But she refused to die. 

In darkness the deed was done, 
Not crudely with a hammer-hard gun 
Or strangler's black kid gloves on. 

She just ceased being alive, 
Not there to interfere or connive, 
Linger, leave or arrive. 

It seemed almost as though 
Her death was q...Read more of this...
by Scannell, Vernon

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