Famous Aqua Poems by Famous Poets

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

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To Charles Baxter

by Robert Louis Stevenson
 OUR Johnie's deid. The mair's the pity!
He's deid, an' deid o' Aqua-vitae.
O Embro', you're a shrunken city,
Noo Johnie's deid!
Tak hands, an' sing a burial ditty
Ower Johnie's heid....Read more of this...

59. Death and Dr. Hornbook

by Robert Burns
 SOME books are lies frae end to end,
And some great lies were never penn’d:
Ev’n ministers they hae been kenn’d,
 In holy rapture,
A rousing whid at times to vend,
 And nail’t wi’ Scripture.


But this that I am gaun to tell,
Which lately on a night befell,
Is just as true’s the Deil’s in hell
 Or Dublin city:
That e’er he nearer comes oursel’
...Read more of this...

88. The Author's Earnest Cry and Prayer

by Robert Burns
 YE Irish lords, ye knights an’ squires,
Wha represent our brughs an’ shires,
An’ doucely manage our affairs
 In parliament,
To you a simple poet’s pray’rs
 Are humbly sent.


Alas! my roupit Muse is hearse!
Your Honours’ hearts wi’ grief ’twad pierce,
To see her sittin on her ****
 Low i’ the dust,
And scriechinh out prosaic verse,
 An like to brust!


Tell them wha hae the...Read more of this...

69. Third Epistle to J. Lapraik

by Robert Burns
 GUID speed and furder to you, Johnie,
Guid health, hale han’s, an’ weather bonie;
Now, when ye’re nickin down fu’ cannie
 The staff o’ bread,
May ye ne’er want a stoup o’ bran’y
 To clear your head.


May Boreas never thresh your rigs,
Nor kick your rickles aff their legs,
Sendin the stuff o’er muirs an’ haggs
 Like drivin wrack;
But may the tapmost grain that...Read more of this...

August 17th

by Anne Sexton
 Good for visiting hospitals or charitable work. Take some time to attend to your health.

Surely I will be disquieted
by the hospital, that body zone--
bodies wrapped in elastic bands,
bodies cased in wood or used like telephones,
bodies crucified up onto their crutches,
bodies wearing rubber bags between their legs,
bodies vomiting up their juice like detergent, Here in this house
there are other bodies.
Whenever...Read more of this...

Daffy Duck In Hollywood

by John Ashbery
 Something strange is creeping across me.
La Celestina has only to warble the first few bars
Of "I Thought about You" or something mellow from
Amadigi di Gaula for everything--a mint-condition can
Of Rumford's Baking Powder, a celluloid earring, Speedy
Gonzales, the latest from Helen Topping Miller's fertile
Escritoire, a sheaf of suggestive pix on greige, deckle-edged
Stock--to come clattering through the rainbow trellis
Where Pistachio Avenue...Read more of this...

On The Death Of The Right Honourable The Lord Viscount Bayning

by William Strode
 Though after Death, Thanks lessen into Praise,
And Worthies be not crown'd with gold, but bayes;
Shall we not thank? To praise Thee all agree;
We Debtors must out doe it, heartily.
Deserved Nobility of True Descent,
Though not so old in Thee grew Ancient:
We number not the Tree of Branched Birth,
But genealogie of Vertue, spreading forth
To many Births in value. Piety,
True Valour, Bounty,...Read more of this...

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