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Famous Waifs Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry
...dly flocks,
Weel fed on pastures orthodox,
Wha now will keep you frae the fox,
 Or worrying tykes?
Or wha will tent the waifs an’ crocks,
 About the dykes?


The twa best herds in a’ the wast,
The e’er ga’e gospel horn a blast
These five an’ twenty simmers past—
 Oh, dool to tell!
Hae had a bitter black out-cast
 Atween themsel’.


O, Moddie, 1 man, an’ wordy Russell, 2
How could you raise so vile a bustle;
Ye’ll see how New-Light herds will whistle,
 An’ think it fine!
The L...Read more of this...
by Burns, Robert



...bles in thee from so far?
Cry wellaway. but well befall the right.

From shores laid waste across an iron sea
Where the waifs drift of hopes that were to be,
Across the red rolled foam we look for thee,
Across the fire we look up for the light.

From days laid waste across disastrous years,
From hopes cut down across a world of fears,
We gaze with eyes too passionate for tears,
Where faith abides though hope be put to flight.

Old hope is dead, the grey-haired hope grown blin...Read more of this...
by Swinburne, Algernon Charles
...Seemed to implore.

By Deed to them I gave my name,
 And never will they know
That from the evil slums they came,
 Two waifs of want and woe;
I fostered them with love and care
 As if they were my own:
Now John, my son, is tall and fair,
 And dark is Joan.

My boy's a member of the Bar,
 My girl a nurse serene;
Yet when I think of what they are
 And what they might have been,
With shuddering I glimpse a hell
 Of black and bitter fruit . . .
Where John might be a criminal,
 A...Read more of this...
by Service, Robert William
...crust of bread or a grain of wheat. 

Oh! Think of the little birds in the time of the snow,
Also of the little street waifs, that are driven to and fro,
And trembling in the cold blast, and chilled to the bone,
For the want of food and clothing, and a warm home. 

Besides think of the sorrows of the wandering poor,
That are wandering in the cold blast from door to door;
And begging, for Heaven's sake, a crust of bread,
And alas! Not knowing where to lay their head. 

While ...Read more of this...
by McGonagall, William Topaz
...able, 
Infinitesimals out of my life, and many a life,
(For not my life and years alone I give—all, all I give,) 
These waifs from the deep, cast high and dry, 
Wash’d on America’s shores?...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt



...ened around; and in haste the refluent ocean
Fled away from the shore, and left the line of the sand-beach
Covered with waifs of the tide, with kelp and the slippery sea-weed.
Farther back in the midst of the household goods and the wagons,
Like to a gypsy camp, or a leaguer after a battle,
All escape cut off by the sea, and the sentinels near them,
Lay encamped for the night the houseless Acadian farmers.
Back to its nethermost caves retreated the bellowing ocean,
Dragging a...Read more of this...
by Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
...e crevices that it could reach,
Discovered certain bones laid up, and furled
      Under an ancient beach,
And other waifs that lay to its young mind
  Some fathoms lower than they ought to lie,
By gain whereof it could not fail to find
      Much proof of ancientry,
Hints at a Pedigree withdrawn and vast,
  Terrible deeps, and old obscurities,
Or soulless origin, and twilight passed
      In the primeval seas,
Whereof it tells, as thinking it hath been
  Of truth...Read more of this...
by Ingelow, Jean
...ls out of my life, and many a life, 
(For not my life and years alone I give—all, all I give;)
These thoughts and Songs—waifs from the deep—here, cast high and dry, 
Wash’d on America’s shores. 

2
Currents of starting a Continent new, 
Overtures sent to the solid out of the liquid, 
Fusion of ocean and land—tender and pensive waves,
(Not safe and peaceful only—waves rous’d and ominous too. 
Out of the depths, the storm’s abysms—Who knows whence? Death’s waves, 
Raging over t...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt
...night of the year, 

In that mighty city of London, wherein is plenty of gold -
But, alas! their charity towards street waifs is rather cold.
But I hope the match girl's in Heaven, beside her Saviour dear,
A bright reward for all the hardships she suffered here....Read more of this...
by McGonagall, William Topaz
...ico has four fluted
 columns, each a single piece of stone, made
modester by white-wash. Theis would be a fit haven for
waifs, children, animals, prisoners,
 and presidents who have repaid
sin-driven

senators by not thinking about them. The
 place has a school-house, a post-office in a
store, fish-houses, hen-houses, a three-masted schooner on
the stocks. The hero, the student, 
 the steeple-jack, each in his way,
is at home.

It could not be dangerous to be living
 in a tow...Read more of this...
by Moore, Marianne
...limb and the surfs that comb,
Only the crag and the cliff to nor'ward,
And rocks receding, and reefs flung forward,
And waifs wreck'd seaward and wasted shoreward
On shallows sheeted with flaming foam.

A grim grey coast and a seaboard ghastly,
And shores trod seldom by feet of men --
Where the batter'd hull and the broken mast lie
They have lain embedded these long years ten.
Love! when we wander'd here together,
Hand in hand through the sparkling weather,
From the heights a...Read more of this...
by Gordon, Adam Lindsay
...Crimmon frae Skye.~

Says Bauldy MacGreegor frae Gleska: quot;Ma conscience! I'm hanged but yer richt.
It's yin o' thae waifs of the war-field, a' sobbin' and shakin' wi' fricht.
Wheesht noo, dear, we're no gaun tae hurt ye. We're takin' ye hame, my wee doo!
We've got tae get back wi' her, Hecky. Whit mercy we didna get fou!
We'll no touch a drap o' that likker -- that's hard, man, ye canna deny. . . ."
"It's the last thing she'll think o' denyin'," says Hecky MacCrimmon frae...Read more of this...
by Service, Robert William
...ld days
What dark faces burn
Out of three thousand years,
And their wild eyes yearn,

While underneath their brows
Like waifs their spirits grope
For the pools of Hebron again--
For Lebanon's summer slope.

They leave these blond still days
In dust behind their tread
They see with living eyes
How long they have been dead....Read more of this...
by Rosenberg, Isaac

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Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry