Famous Appetite Poems by Famous Poets

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

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The Epic Of The Lion

by Victor Hugo
 ("Un lion avait pris un enfant.") 
 
 {XIII.} 


 A Lion in his jaws caught up a child— 
 Not harming it—and to the woodland, wild 
 With secret streams and lairs, bore off his prey— 
 The beast, as one might cull a bud in May. 
 It was a rosy boy, a king's own pride, 
...Read more of this...

Sonnet CXLVII

by William Shakespeare
 My love is as a fever, longing still
For that which longer nurseth the disease,
Feeding on that which doth preserve the ill,
The uncertain sickly appetite to please.
My reason, the physician to my love,
Angry that his prescriptions are not kept,
Hath left me, and I desperate now approve
Desire is death, which physic did except.
Past cure I am, now reason is past care,
And...Read more of this...

Lobster For Lunch

by Robert William Service
 His face was like a lobster red,
His legs were white as mayonnaise:
"I've had a jolly lunch," he said,
That Englishman of pleasant ways.
"Thy do us well at our hotel:
In England food is dull these days."

"We had a big langouste for lunch.
I almost ate the whole of it.
And now I'll smoke and read my Punch,
And maybe siesta a bit;
And then I'll...Read more of this...

Bringing in the Wine

by Li Po
 See how the Yellow River's water move out of heaven.
Entering the ocean,never to return.
See how lovely locks in bright mirrors in high chambers,
Though silken-black at morning, have changed by night to snow.
... Oh, let a man of spirit venture where he pleases
And never tip his golden cup empty toward the moon!
Since heaven gave the talent, let it be employed!
Spin...Read more of this...

A Country Life:to His Brother Mr Thomas Herrick

by Robert Herrick
 Thrice, and above, blest, my soul's half, art thou,
In thy both last and better vow;
Could'st leave the city, for exchange, to see
The country's sweet simplicity;
And it to know and practise, with intent
To grow the sooner innocent;
By studying to know virtue, and to aim
More at her nature than her name;
The last is but the least; the first doth tell
Ways less...Read more of this...

Lament For Ignacio Sanchez Mejias

by Federico García Lorca
 1. Cogida and death 

At five in the afternoon. 
It was exactly five in the afternoon. 
A boy brought the white sheet 
at five in the afternoon. 
A frail of lime ready prepared 
at five in the afternoon. 
The rest was death, and death alone. 

The wind carried away the cottonwool 
at five in the afternoon. 
And the oxide...Read more of this...

Sonnet 118: Like as to make our appetite more keen

by William Shakespeare
 Like as to make our appetite more keen
With eager compounds we our palate urge,
As to prevent our maladies unseen,
We sicken to shun sickness when we purge.
Even so being full of your ne'er-cloying sweetness,
To bitter sauces did I frame my feeding;
And, sick of welfare, found a kind of meetness
To be diseased ere that there was true needing.
Thus policy in love...Read more of this...

Bird Watcher

by Robert William Service
 In Wall Street once a potent power,
 And now a multi-millionaire
Alone within a shady bower
 In clothes his valet would not wear,
He watches bird wings bright the air.

The man who mighty mergers planned,
 And oil and coal kinglike controlled,
With field-glasses in failing hand
 Spies downy nestlings five days old,
With joy he could not buy for gold.

Aye, even childlike is...Read more of this...

Socrates Ghost Must Haunt Me Now

by Delmore Schwartz
 Socrates ghost must haunt me now,
Notorious death has let him go,
He comes to me with a clumsy bow,
Saying in his disused voice,
That I do not know I do not know,
The mechanical whims of appetite
Are all that I have of conscious choice,
The butterfly caged in eclectic light
Is my only day in the world's great night,
Love is not love, it is...Read more of this...

In the Smoking Car

by Richard Wilbur
 The eyelids meet. He'll catch a little nap. 
The grizzled, crew-cut head drops to his chest. 
It shakes above the briefcase on his lap. 
Close voices breathe, "Poor sweet, he did his best." 

"Poor sweet, poor sweet," the bird-hushed glades repeat, 
Through which in quiet pomp his litter goes, 
Carried by native girls with naked feet. 
A sighing stream...Read more of this...

Pursuit

by Sylvia Plath
 Dans le fond des forêts votre image me suit.
 RACINE


There is a panther stalks me down:
 One day I'll have my death of him;
 His greed has set the woods aflame,
He prowls more lordly than the sun.
Most soft, most suavely glides that step,
 Advancing always at my back;
 From gaunt hemlock, rooks croak havoc:
The hunt is on, and sprung...Read more of this...

A Satyre Against Mankind

by John Wilmot
 Were I - who to my cost already am
One of those strange, prodigious creatures, man -
A spirit free to choose for my own share
What sort of flesh and blood I pleased to wear,
I'd be a dog, a monkey, or a bear,
Or anything but that vain animal,
Who is so proud of being rational.

His senses are too gross; and he'll contrive
A...Read more of this...

Sonnet 147: My love is as a fever longing still

by William Shakespeare
 My love is as a fever, longing still
For that which longer nurseth the disease,
Feeding on that which doth preserve the ill,
Th' uncertain sickly appetite to please.
My reason, the physician to my love,
Angry that his prescriptions are not kept,
Hath left me, and I desperate now approve
Desire is death, which physic did except.
Past cure I am, now reason is past care,
And...Read more of this...

Sonnet LVI

by William Shakespeare
 Sweet love, renew thy force; be it not said
Thy edge should blunter be than appetite,
Which but to-day by feeding is allay'd,
To-morrow sharpen'd in his former might:
So, love, be thou; although to-day thou fill
Thy hungry eyes even till they wink with fullness,
To-morrow see again, and do not kill
The spirit of love with a perpetual dullness.
Let this sad interim like the...Read more of this...

A Ramble in St. Jamess Park

by John Wilmot
 Much wine had passed, with grave discourse
Of who fucks who, and who does worse
(Such as you usually do hear
From those that diet at the Bear),
When I, who still take care to see
Drunkenness relieved by lechery,
Went out into St. James's Park
To cool my head and fire my heart.
But though St. James has th' honor on 't,
'Tis consecrate to prick and...Read more of this...

Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey

by William Wordsworth
Five years have passed; five summers, with the length 
Of five long winters! and again I hear
These waters, rolling from their mountain-springs
With a soft inland murmur.  Once again
Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs,
That on a wild secluded scene impress
Thoughts of more deep seclusion; and connect
The landscape with the quiet of the sky.
The day is come when I...Read more of this...

Reason and Passion XV

by Kahlil Gibran
 And the priestess spoke again and said: "Speak to us of Reason and Passion." 

And he answered saying: 

Your soul is oftentimes a battlefield, upon which your reason and your judgment wage war against passion and your appetite. 

Would that I could be the peacemaker in your soul, that I might turn the discord and the rivalry of your...Read more of this...

Juan In Middle Age

by Vernon Scannell
 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...Read more of this...

Leaves

by Lisa Zaran
 I went looking for God 
but I found you instead. 
Bad luck or destiny, 
you decide. 

Buried in the muck, 
the soot of the city, 
sorrow for an appetite, 
devil on your left shoulder, 
angel on your right. 

You, with your thorny rhythms 
and tragic, midnight melodies. 

My heart never tried 
to commit suicide before. 

Originally published in Literati...Read more of this...

Bringing in the Wine

by Li Bai
See how the Yellow River's water move out of heaven.
Entering the ocean,never to return.
See how lovely locks in bright mirrors in high chambers,
Though silken-black at morning, have changed by night to snow.
... Oh, let a man of spirit venture where he pleases
And never tip his golden cup empty toward the moon!
Since heaven gave the talent, let it be employed!
Spin a...Read more of this...

Merlin

by Edwin Arlington Robinson
 “Gawaine, Gawaine, what look ye for to see, 
So far beyond the faint edge of the world? 
D’ye look to see the lady Vivian, 
Pursued by divers ominous vile demons 
That have another king more fierce than ours?
Or think ye that if ye look far enough 
And hard enough into the feathery west 
Ye’ll have a glimmer of the...Read more of this...

Apple-Pie and Cheese

by Eugene Field
 Full many a sinful notion
Conceived of foreign powers
Has come across the ocean
To harm this land of ours;
And heresies called fashions
Have modesty effaced,
And baleful, morbid passions
Corrupt our native taste.
O tempora! O mores!
What profanations these
That seek to dim the glories
Of apple-pie and cheese!

I'm glad my education
Enables me to stand
Against the vile temptation
Held out on every hand;
Eschewing all the tittles
With vanity replete,
I'm...Read more of this...

Breakfast

by Robert William Service
 Of all the meals that glad my day
My morning one's the best;
Purveyed me on a silver tray,
Immaculately dressed.
I rouse me when the dawn is bright;
I leap into the sea,
Returning with a rare delight
To honey, toast and tea.

My appetite was razor edged
When I was in my prime;
To eggs and bacon I was pledged . . .
Ala! the March of Time;
For...Read more of this...

That it will never come again

by Emily Dickinson
 That it will never come again
Is what makes life so sweet.
Believing what we don't believe
Does not exhilarate.

That if it be, it be at best
An ablative estate --
This instigates an appetite
Precisely opposite....Read more of this...

The Joy Of Being Poor

by Robert William Service
 I

Let others sing of gold and gear, the joy of being rich;
But oh, the days when I was poor, a vagrant in a ditch!
When every dawn was like a gem, so radiant and rare,
And I had but a single coat, and not a single care;
When I would feast right royally on bacon, bread and beer,
And dig into a stack...Read more of this...

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