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Famous Journal Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Kipling, Rudyard
...ed the time o' day, an' then the belts went whirraru!
I misremember what occurred, but subsequint the storm
A Freeman's Journal Supplemint was all my uniform.
 O it was: -- "Belts . . .

There was a row in Silver Street -- they sent the Polis there,
The English were too drunk to know, the Irish didn't care;
But when they grew impertinint we simultaneous rose,
Till half o' them was Liffey mud an' half was tatthered clo'es.
 For it was: -- "Belts . ....Read more of this...



by Service, Robert William
...s in my prime;
To eggs and bacon I was pledged . . .
Ala! the March of Time;
For now a genial old gent
With journal on my knee,
I sip and take with vast content
My honey, toast and tea.

So set me up for my delight
The harvest of the bee;
Brown, crispy toast with butter bright,
Ceylon - two cups or three.
Let others lunch or dinner praise,
But I regale with glee,
As I regard with grateful gaze
Just honey, toast and tea....Read more of this...

by Paterson, Andrew Barton
...Like to take a turn at droving where the seasons come and go,
While he faced the round eternal of the cash-book and the journal—
 But I doubt he'd suit the office, Clancy, of The Overflow....Read more of this...

by Collins, Billy
...find someone
willing to photograph me with my arm around the owner.
I will not puzzle over the bill or record in a journal
what I had to eat and how the sun came in the window.
It is enough to climb back into the car

as if it were the great car of English itself
and sounding my loud vernacular horn, speed off
down a road that will never lead to Rome, not even Bologna....Read more of this...

by Pope, Alexander
...a letter
Informs you, sir, 'twas when he knew no better.
Dare you refuse him? Curll invites to dine,
He'll write a Journal, or he'll turn Divine."

Bless me! a packet--"'Tis a stranger sues,
A virgin tragedy, an orphan muse."
If I dislike it, "Furies, death and rage!"
If I approve, "Commend it to the stage."
There (thank my stars) my whole commission ends,
The play'rs and I are, luckily, no friends.
Fir'd that the house reject him, "'Sdeath I'll print it,...Read more of this...



by Slessor, Kenneth
...t had been sharp with rage, 
The sodden ectasies of rectitude. 
I thought of what you'd written in faint ink, 
Your journal with the sawn-off lock, that stayed behind 
With other things you left, all without use, 
All without meaning now, except a sign 
That someone had been living who now was dead: 
"At Labassa. Room 6 x 8 
On top of the tower; because of this, very dark 
And cold in winter. Everything has been stowed 
Into this room - 500 books all shapes 
And c...Read more of this...

by Hikmet, Nazim
...the left --
and putting our faith in the fuel in the tank,
 we're heading for the China Sea...


 From the journal of a deckhand named John aboard a 
British vessel in the China Sea


One night
 a typhoon blows up out of the blue.
Man,
 what a hurricane!
Mounted on the back of yellow devil, the Mother of God
 whirls around and around, churning up the air.
And as luck would have it,
 I've got the watch on the foretop.
The huge ship under me
 looks abou...Read more of this...

by Ginsberg, Allen
...ed for 
in my old garden was
The Cherry Tree.

My old desk:
the first thing I looked for
in my house.

My early journal:
the first thing I found
in my old desk.

My mother's ghost:
the first thing I found
in the living room.

I quit shaving
but the eyes that glanced at me
remained in the mirror.

The madman 
emerges from the movies:
the street at lunchtime.

Cities of boys
are in their graves,
and in this town...

Lying on my side
in the vo...Read more of this...

by Breton, Andre
...d la perche. A-t-on id?e d'un d?sespoir
pareil! Au feu! Ah! ils vont encore venir... Et les annonces de journal, et les r?clames
lumineuses le long du canal. Tas de sable, esp?ce de tas de sable! Dans ses grandes
lignes le d?sespoir n'a pas d'importance. C'est une corv?e d'arbres qui va encore faire
une for?t, c'est une corv?e d'?toiles qui va encore faire un jour de moins, c'est une
corv?e de jours de moins qui va encore faire ma vie....Read more of this...

by Lanier, Sidney
...Written for the "Martha Washington Court Journal".



Down cold snow-stretches of our bitter time,
When windy shams and the rain-mocking sleet
Of Trade have cased us in such icy rime
That hearts are scarcely hot enough to beat,
Thy fame, O Lady of the lofty eyes,
Doth fall along the age, like as a lane
Of Spring, in whose most generous boundaries
Full many a frozen virtue warms again.
To-da...Read more of this...

by Brautigan, Richard
...bread, canteloupes, Popeyes, salads, cheese--booze,

grub and Popeyes.

 Popeyes?

 We read books like The Thief's Journal, Set This House

on Fire The Naked Lunch, Krafft-Ebing. We read Krafft-

Ebing aloud all the time as if he were Kraft dinner.

 "The mayor of a small town in Eastern Portugal was seen

one morning pushing a wheelbarrow full of sex organs into

the city hall. He was of tainted family. He had a woman's

shoe in his back pocket. It h...Read more of this...

by Whittier, John Greenleaf
...e 
From painful Sewel's ancient tome, 
Beloved in every Quaker home, 
Of faith fire-winged by martyrdom, 
Or Chalkley's Journal, old and quaint, -- 
Gentlest of skippers, rare sea-saint! -- 
Who, when the dreary calms prevailed, 
And water-butt and bread-cask failed, 
And cruel, hungry eyes pursued 
His portly presence, mad for food, 
With dark hints muttered under breath 
Of casting lots for life or death, 
Offered, if Heaven withheld supplies, 
To be himself the sacrifice.<...Read more of this...

by Robinson, Mary Darby
..., and, in words obscure,
Varied the conversation. Still the mind
Of HENRY ponder'd; for, in their lone hut,
A daily journal would Saint HUBERT make
Of his long banishment: and sometimes speak
Of Friends forsaken, Kindred, massacred;--
Proud mansions, rich domains, and joyous scenes
For ever faded,--lost!
One winter time,
'Twas on the Eve of Christmas, the shrill blast
Swept o'er the stormy main. The boiling foam
Rose to an altitude so fierce and strong

That their low...Read more of this...

by Schiller, Friedrich von
...ng, she sleeps so soft! and yet
'Twere worth my life to spare her slumber;
"Madame--from Jena--the Gazette--
The Berlin Journal--the last number!"
Sudden she wakes; those eyes of blue
(Sweet eyes!) fall straight--on the Review!
I by her side--all undetected,
While those cursed columns are inspected;
Loud squall the children overhead,
Still she reads on, till all is read:
At last she lays that darling by,
And asks--"What makes the baby cry?"

Already now the toilet's care
Clai...Read more of this...

by Levine, Philip
...pace. I 
 am suddenly 
 old, caught in a strange country 
 for which no man would die.

THOMAS DELAIN: 
from a journal found on his person

 At night wakened by the freight 
 trains boring through the suburbs 
 of Lyon, I watched first light 
 corrode the darkness, disturb 
 what little wildlife was left 
 in the alleys: birds moved from 
 branch to branch, and the dogs leapt 
 at the garbage. Winter numbed 
 even the hearts of the young 
 who had only their hear...Read more of this...

by Hugo, Victor
...nd the Peri waited in vain, 
 The soul soared above such a sensual gain— 
 The child rose to Heaven. 
 
 Asiatic Journal 


 




...Read more of this...

by Levine, Philip
...was his father?
I remember none of this. I read it all later,
years later as an old man, a grandfather myself,
in a journal he left my mother with little drawings
of ruined barns and telephone poles, receding
toward a future he never lived, aphorisms
from Montaigne, Juvenal, Voltaire, and perhaps a few
of his own: "He who looks for answers finds questions."
Three times he wrote, "I was meant to be someone else,"
and went on to describe the perfumes of the damp fields....Read more of this...

by Kipling, Rudyard
...
 Their feats, their fortunes and their fames
 Are hidden from their nearest kin;
 No eager public backs or blames,
 No journal prints the yarn they spin
 (The Censor would not let it in! )
 When they return from run or raid.
 Unheard they work, unseen they win.
 That is the custom of "The Trade."...Read more of this...

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Book: Reflection on the Important Things