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Famous Wi Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Burns, Robert
...hou bonie gem.


Alas! it’s no thy neibor sweet,
The bonie lark, companion meet,
Bending thee ’mang the dewy weet,
 Wi’ spreckl’d breast!
When upward-springing, blythe, to greet
 The purpling east.


Cauld blew the bitter-biting north
Upon thy early, humble birth;
Yet cheerfully thou glinted forth
 Amid the storm,
Scarce rear’d above the parent-earth
 Thy tender form.


The flaunting flow’rs our gardens yield,
High shelt’ring woods and wa’s maun shield;
But thou, ...Read more of this...



by Burns, Robert
...r views may come to nought,
 Where ev’ry nerve is strained.


I’ll no say, men are villains a’;
 The real, harden’d wicked,
Wha hae nae check but human law,
 Are to a few restricked;
But, Och! mankind are unco weak,
 An’ little to be trusted;
If self the wavering balance shake,
 It’s rarely right adjusted!


Yet they wha fa’ in fortune’s strife,
 Their fate we shouldna censure;
For still, th’ important end of life
 They equally may answer;
A man may hae an honest heart,
 ...Read more of this...

by Burns, Robert
...GUID-MORNIN’ to our Majesty!
 May Heaven augment your blisses
On ev’ry new birth-day ye see,
 A humble poet wishes.
My bardship here, at your Levee
 On sic a day as this is,
Is sure an uncouth sight to see,
 Amang thae birth-day dresses
 Sae fine this day.


I see ye’re complimented thrang,
 By mony a lord an’ lady;
“God save the King” ’s a cuckoo sang
 That’s unco easy said aye:
The poets, too, a venal gang,
 Wi’ rhymes weel-turn’d an’ ready,
Wad gar you ...Read more of this...

by Burns, Robert
...’ noble bluid,
Because ye’re surnam’d like His Grace—
Perhaps related to the race:
Then, when I’m tir’d-and sae are ye,
Wi’ mony a fulsome, sinfu’ lie,
Set up a face how I stop short,
For fear your modesty be hurt.


 This may do—maun do, sir, wi’ them wha
Maun please the great folk for a wamefou;
For me! sae laigh I need na bow,
For, Lord be thankit, I can plough;
And when I downa yoke a naig,
Then, Lord be thankit, I can beg;
Sae I shall say—an’ that’s nae flatt’rin—
It...Read more of this...

by Burns, Robert
...eir scars,
 The marks of sturt and strife:
And other poets sing of wars,
 The plagues of human life:
Shame fa’ the fun, wi’ sword and gun
 To slap mankind like lumber!
I sing his name, and nobler fame,
 Wha multiplies our number.


Great Nature spoke, with air benign,
 “Go on, ye human race;
This lower world I you resign;
 Be fruitful and increase.
The liquid fire of strong desire
 I’ve pour’d it in each bosom;
Here, on this had, does Mankind stand,
 And there is Beau...Read more of this...



by Burns, Robert
...ting sun, sweet, in the green thorn bush;
The soaring lark, the perching red-breast shrill,
Or deep-ton’d plovers grey, wild-whistling o’er the hill;
Shall he—nurst in the peasant’s lowly shed,
To hardy independence bravely bred,
By early poverty to hardship steel’d.
And train’d to arms in stern Misfortune’s field—
Shall he be guilty of their hireling crimes,
The servile, mercenary Swiss of rhymes?
Or labour hard the panegyric close,
With all the venal soul of dedicating ...Read more of this...

by Burns, Robert
...o the gods!—
 Thro’ pathways rough and muddy,
A certain sign that makin roads
 Is no this people’s study:
Altho’ Im not wi’ Scripture cram’d,
 I’m sure the Bible says
That heedless sinners shall be damn’d,
 Unless they mend their ways....Read more of this...

by Burns, Robert
...WHEN Guilford good our pilot stood
 An’ did our hellim thraw, man,
Ae night, at tea, began a plea,
 Within America, man:
Then up they gat the maskin-pat,
 And in the sea did jaw, man;
An’ did nae less, in full congress,
 Than quite refuse our law, man.


Then thro’ the lakes Montgomery takes,
 I wat he was na slaw, man;
Down Lowrie’s Burn he took a turn,
 And Carleton did ca’, man:
But yet, whatreck, he, at Quebec,
 Montgomery-like did fa’, man,
Wi’ sw...Read more of this...

by Burns, Robert
...WHEN wild war’s deadly blast was blawn,
 And gentle peace returning,
Wi’ mony a sweet babe fatherless,
 And mony a widow mourning;
I left the lines and tented field,
 Where lang I’d been a lodger,
My humble knapsack a’ my wealth,
 A poor and honest sodger.


A leal, light heart was in my breast,
 My hand unstain’d wi’ plunder;
And for fair Scotia hame again,
...Read more of this...

by Burns, Robert
...le beams;
There, up the Cove, 3 to stray an’ rove,
 Amang the rocks and streams
 To sport that night;


Amang the bonie winding banks,
 Where Doon rins, wimplin, clear;
Where Bruce 4 ance rul’d the martial ranks,
 An’ shook his Carrick spear;
Some merry, friendly, countra-folks
 Together did convene,
To burn their nits, an’ pou their stocks,
 An’ haud their Halloween
 Fu’ blythe that night.


The lasses feat, an’ cleanly neat,
 Mair braw than when they’re fine;
Their face...Read more of this...

by Burns, Robert
...MY lov’d, my honour’d, much respected friend!
 No mercenary bard his homage pays;
With honest pride, I scorn each selfish end,
 My dearest meed, a friend’s esteem and praise:
 To you I sing, in simple Scottish lays,
The lowly train in life’s sequester’d scene,
 The native feelings strong, the guileless ways,
What Aiken in a cottage would have been;
Ah! tho’ his worth unknown, far happier there I ween!


November chill blaws loud wi’ angry...Read more of this...

by Burns, Robert
...NOCK wabsters, fidge an’ claw,
 An’ pour your creeshie nations;
An’ ye wha leather rax an’ draw,
 Of a’ denominations;
Swith to the Ligh Kirk, ane an’ a’
 An’ there tak up your stations;
Then aff to Begbie’s in a raw,
 An’ pour divine libations
 For joy this day.


Curst Common-sense, that imp o’ hell,
 Cam in wi’ Maggie Lauder; 1
But Oliphant 2 aft made her yell,
 An’ Russell 3 sair misca’d her:
This day Mackinlay 4 taks the flail,
 An’ he’s the boy will blaud her!
He’ll...Read more of this...

by Burns, Robert
...THE SUN had clos’d the winter day,
The curless quat their roarin play,
And hunger’d maukin taen her way,
 To kail-yards green,
While faithless snaws ilk step betray
 Whare she has been.


The thresher’s weary flingin-tree,
The lee-lang day had tired me;
And when the day had clos’d his e’e,
 Far i’ the west,
Ben i’ the spence, right pensivelie,
 I gaed to rest.


There, lan...Read more of this...

by Burns, Robert
...Luve's like a melodie
That's sweetly play'd in tune.

As fair as thou, my bonnie lass,
So deep in luve am I;
And I will love thee still, my dear,
Till a' the seas gang dry.

Till a' the seas gang dry, my dear,
And the rocks melt wi' the sun:
I will love thess till, my dear,
While the sands o' life shall run:

And fare thee well, my only luve!
And fare thee weel, a while!
And I will come again, my luve,
Tho' it ware ten thousand mile....Read more of this...

by Service, Robert William
...am convinced that all men folk.
 Should wear the costume of a Clan.

Imagine how it's braw and clean
 As in the wind it flutters free;
And so conducive to hygiene
 In its sublime simplicity.
No fool fly-buttons to adjust,--
 Wi' shanks and maybe buttocks bare;
Oh chiels, just take my word on trust,
 A bonny kilt's the only wear.

'Twill save a lot of siller too,
 (And here a canny Scotsman speaks),
For one good kilt will wear you through
 A half-a-dozen pairs ...Read more of this...

by Clare, John
...Come queen of months in company
Wi all thy merry minstrelsy
The restless cuckoo absent long
And twittering swallows chimney song
And hedge row crickets notes that run
From every bank that fronts the sun
And swathy bees about the grass
That stops wi every bloom they pass
And every minute every hour
Keep teazing weeds that wear a flower
And toil and childhoods humming joys
For there is music...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...d fear,
or terror, to purge the mind of those and such like passions, that is
to temper and reduce them to just measure with a kind of delight,
stirr'd up by reading or seeing those passions well imitated. Nor is
Nature wanting in her own effects to make good his assertion: for
so in Physic things of melancholic hue and quality are us'd against
melancholy, sowr against sowr, salt to remove salt humours.
Hence Philosophers and other gravest Writers, as Cicero, Plutarch...Read more of this...

by Burns, Robert
...A Tale

"Of Brownyis and of Bogilis full is this Buke."
 —Gawin Douglas.

When chapman billies leave the street,
And drouthy neebors neebors meet,
As market-days are wearing late,
An' folk begin to tak' the gate;
While we sit bousing at the nappy,
An' getting fou and unco happy,
We think na on the lang Scots miles,
The mosses, waters, slaps, and stiles,
That lie between us and our hame,
Whare sits our sulky, sull...Read more of this...

by Burns, Robert
..., sleekit, cow'rin, tim'rous beastie,
O, what a panic's in thy breastie!
Thou need na start awa sae hasty,
          Wi' bickering brattle!
I wad be laith to rin an' chase thee,
          Wi' murd'ring pattle!

I'm truly sorry man's dominion
Has broken Nature's social union,
An' justifies that ill opinion
          Which makes thee startle
At me, thy poor, earth-born companion,
          An' fellow mortal!

I doubt na, whiles, but thou may thieve;
What then? po...Read more of this...

by Harrison, Tony
...b behind the family dead, 
butcher, publican, and baker, now me, bard
adding poetry to their beef, beer and bread.

With Byron three graves on I'll not go short
of company, and Wordsworth's opposite.
That's two peers already, of a sort,
and we'll all be thrown together if the pit,

whose galleries once ran beneath this plot,
causes the distinguished dead to drop 
into the rabblement of bone and rot,
shored slack, crushed shale, smashed prop.

Wordsworth built chur...Read more of this...

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