Famous Washed Out Poems by Famous Poets

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

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An Adventure in the Life of King James V of Scotland

by William Topaz McGonagall
 On one occasion King James the Fifth of Scotland, when alone, in disguise,
Near by the Bridge of Cramond met with rather a disagreeable surprise.
He was attacked by five gipsy men without uttering a word,
But he manfully defended himself with his sword. 

There chanced to be a poor man threshing corn in a barn near by,
Who came out on hearing...Read more of this...

Bathed and Washed

by Li Po
 "Bathed in fragrance,
do not brush your hat;
Washed in perfume,
do not shake your coat:

"Knowing the world
fears what is too pure,
The wisest man
prizes and stores light!"

By Bluewater
an old angler sat:
You and I together,
Let us go home....Read more of this...

Valenciennes

by Thomas Hardy
 By Corporal Tullidge. See "The Trumpet-Major"
In Memory of S. C. (Pensioner). Died 184-

WE trenched, we trumpeted and drummed,
And from our mortars tons of iron hummed
Ath'art the ditch, the month we bombed
The Town o' Valencie?n.

'Twas in the June o' Ninety-dree
(The Duke o' Yark our then Commander be?n)
The German Legion, Guards, and we
Laid siege to Valencie?n.

This was the first time in...Read more of this...

A Years Burden -- 1870

by Algernon Charles Swinburne
 Fire and wild light of hope and doubt and fear,
Wind of swift change, and clouds and hours that veer
As the storm shifts of the tempestuous year;
Cry wellaway, but well befall the right.

Hope sits yet hiding her war-wearied eyes,
Doubt sets her forehead earthward and denies,
But fear brought hand to hand with danger dies,
Dies and is burnt up in the fire...Read more of this...

The Rain Was Ending And Light

by Laurence Binyon
 The rain was ending, and light
Lifting the leaden skies.
It shone upon ceiling and floor
And dazzled a child's eyes.

Pale after fever, a captive
Apart from his schoolfellows,
He stood at the high room's window
With face to the pane pressed close,

And beheld an immense glory
Flooding with fire the drops
Spilled on miraculous leaves
Of the fresh green lime-tree tops.

Washed gravel glittered red
To a wall, and...Read more of this...

The Grindstone

by Robert Frost
 Having a wheel and four legs of its own
Has never availed the cumbersome grindstone
To get it anywhere that I can see.
These hands have helped it go, and even race;
Not all the motion, though, they ever lent,
Not all tke miles it may have thought it went,
Have got it one step from the starting place.
It stands beside the same old apple...Read more of this...

in search of milk and paradise

by Rg Gregory
 heeley (sheffield) autumn 1988

dodging the broken bottles
dog-**** the pavement spew
i wheel my young son matthew
through the heeley streets
shop to shop this early
morning (short of milk)
unsettled day - the sun
comes through the clouds in
ragged strips where windy
rain has had the night
to puff and piddle

puddles idle in
the dips of surfaces
neglected for decades

another place where caring's
lost a public vision
only detritus of hope
dares...Read more of this...

IV. The Dead

by Rupert Brooke
 These hearts were woven of human joys and cares,
Washed marvellously with sorrow, swift to mirth.
The years had given them kindness. Dawn was theirs,
And sunset, and the colours of the earth.
These had seen movement, and heard music; known
Slumber and waking; loved; gone proudly friended;
Felt the quick stir of wonder; sat alone;
Touched flowers and furs and cheeks. All this is ended.

There...Read more of this...

Nature that Washed Her Hands in Milk

by Sir Walter Raleigh
 Nature, that washed her hands in milk, 
And had forgot to dry them, 
Instead of earth took snow and silk, 
At love's request to try them, 
If she a mistress could compose 
To please love's fancy out of those.

Her eyes he would should be of light, 
A violet breath, and lips of jelly; 
Her hair not black, nor overbright,...Read more of this...

Perinde AC Cadaver

by Algernon Charles Swinburne
 In a vision Liberty stood
By the childless charm-stricken bed
Where, barren of glory and good,
Knowing nought if she would not or would,
England slept with her dead.

Her face that the foam had whitened,
Her hands that were strong to strive,
Her eyes whence battle had lightened,
Over all was a drawn shroud tightened
To bind her asleep and alive.

She turned and laughed in her dream
With...Read more of this...

To The South

by Paul Laurence Dunbar
Heart of the Southland, heed me pleading now,
Who bearest, unashamed, upon my brow
The long kiss of the loving tropic sun,
And yet, whose veins with thy red current run.
Borne on the bitter winds from every hand,
Strange tales are flying over all the land,
And Condemnation, with his pinions foul,
Glooms in the place where broods the midnight owl.
What art thou, that the world...Read more of this...

Call It Music

by Philip Levine
 Some days I catch a rhythm, almost a song
in my own breath. I'm alone here
in Brooklyn Heights, late morning, the sky
above the St. George Hotel clear, clear
for New York, that is. The radio playing
"Bird Flight," Parker in his California
tragic voice fifty years ago, his faltering
"Lover Man" just before he crashed into chaos.
I would guess that outside the recording studio
in...Read more of this...

Hymn 61

by Isaac Watts
 Christ our High Priest and King.

Rev. 1:5-7. 

Now to the Lord, that makes us know
The wonders of his dying love,
Be humble honors paid below,
And strains of nobler praise above.

'Twas he that cleansed our foulest sins,
And washed us in his richest blood;
'Tis he that makes us priests and kings,
And brings us rebels near to God.

To Jesus, our atoning Priest,
To Jesus,...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...

My Aviary

by Oliver Wendell Holmes
 THROUGH my north window, in the wintry weather,--
My airy oriel on the river shore,--
I watch the sea-fowl as they flock together
Where late the boatman flashed his dripping oar.

The gull, high floating, like a sloop unladen,
Lets the loose water waft him as it will;
The duck, round-breasted as a rustic maiden,
Paddles and plunges, busy, busy still.

I see the solemn gulls in...Read more of this...

A Sunset of the City

by Gwendolyn Brooks
 Already I am no longer looked at with lechery or love.
My daughters and sons have put me away with marbles and dolls,
Are gone from the house.
My husband and lovers are pleasant or somewhat polite
And night is night.

It is a real chill out,
The genuine thing.
I am not deceived, I do not think it is still summer
Because sun stays and birds...Read more of this...

The Clever Hen

by Mother Goose
I had a little hen, the prettiest ever seen,
She washed me the dishes and kept the house clean;
She went to the mill to fetch me some flour,
She brought it home in less than an hour;
She baked me my bread, she brewed me my ale,
She sat by the fire and told many a fine tale....Read more of this...

With Scindia to Delphi

by Rudyard Kipling
 More than a hundred years ago, in a great battle fought near Delhi,
an Indian Prince rode fifty miles after the day was lost
with a beggar-girl, who had loved him and followed him in all his camps,
on his saddle-bow. He lost the girl when almost within sight of safety.
A Maratta trooper tells the story: --


The wreath of banquet overnight lay...Read more of this...

The Last Meeting

by Siegfried Sassoon
 I

Because the night was falling warm and still 
Upon a golden day at April’s end, 
I thought; I will go up the hill once more 
To find the face of him that I have lost, 
And speak with him before his ghost has flown
Far from the earth that might not keep him long. 

So down the road I went,...Read more of this...

Darling Daughter of Babylon

by Vachel Lindsay
 Too soon you wearied of our tears.
And then you danced with spangled feet,
Leading Belshazzar's chattering court
A-tinkling through the shadowy street.
With mead they came, with chants of shame.
DESIRE'S red flag before them flew.
And Istar's music moved your mouth
And Baal's deep shames rewoke in you.

Now you could drive the royal car;
Forget our Nation's breaking load:
Now you could sleep on silver beds.—
(Bitter...Read more of this...

Chorus From Oedipus At Colonos

by Anthony Hecht
 What is unwisdom but the lusting after
Longevity: to be old and full of days!
For the vast and unremitting tide of years
Casts up to view more sorrowful things than joyful;
And as for pleasures, once beyond our prime,
They all drift out of reach, they are washed away.
And the same gaunt bailiff calls upon us all.
Summoning into Darkness, to those wards
Where is...Read more of this...

Mazies Ghost

by Robert William Service
 In London City I evade
For charming Burlington Arcade -
For thee in youth I met a maid
 By name of Mazie,
Who lost no time in telling me
The Ritz put up a topping tea,
But having only shillings three
 My smile was hazy.

:Instead," said I, "it might be sport
To take a bus to Hampton Court,"
(Her manner, I remarked, was short,)
 But she...Read more of this...

To Any Dead Officer

by Siegfried Sassoon
 Well, how are things in Heaven? I wish you’d say, 
Because I’d like to know that you’re all right. 
Tell me, have you found everlasting day, 
Or been sucked in by everlasting night? 
For when I shut my eyes your face shows plain;
I hear you make some cheery old remark— 
I can rebuild you in my brain, 
Though you’ve...Read more of this...

Liberty

by James Whitcomb Riley
 New Castle, July 4, 1878

or a hundred years the pulse of time
Has throbbed for Liberty;
For a hundred years the grand old clime
Columbia has been free;
For a hundred years our country's love,
The Stars and Stripes, has waved above.

Away far out on the gulf of years--
Misty and faint and white
Through the fogs of wrong--a sail appears,
And the Mayflower heaves in sight,
And...Read more of this...

A soft Sea washed around the House

by Emily Dickinson
 A soft Sea washed around the House
A Sea of Summer Air
And rose and fell the magic Planks
That sailed without a care --
For Captain was the Butterfly
For Helmsman was the Bee
And an entire universe
For the delighted crew....Read more of this...

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