Famous Arsenic Poems by Famous Poets

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

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To Sir Cod

by Ben Jonson
L. ? TO SIR COD.         Leave, COD, tobacco-like, burnt gums to take, Or fumy clysters, thy moist lungs to bake : Arsenic would thee fit for society make. ...Read more of this...

My Feud

by Robert William Service
 I hate my neighbour Widow Green;
 I'd like to claw her face;
But if I did she'd make a scene
 And run me round the place:
For widows are in way of spleen
 A most pugnacious race.

And yet I must do something quick
 To keep the hag in line,
Since her red rooster chose to pick
 Five lettuce heads of mine:
And so...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...

Elm

by Sylvia Plath
for Ruth Fainlight


I know the bottom, she says. I know it with my great tap root;
It is what you fear.
I do not fear it: I have been there.

Is it the sea you hear in me,
Its dissatisfactions?
Or the voice of nothing, that was you madness?

Love is a shadow.
How you lie and cry after it.
Listen: these are its hooves: it has gone...Read more of this...

LArt

by Ezra Pound
 Green arsenic smeared on an egg-white cloth,
Crushed strawberries! Come, let us feast our eyes....Read more of this...

Terence This is Stupid Stuff

by A E Housman
 ‘TERENCE, this is stupid stuff: 
You eat your victuals fast enough; 
There can’t be much amiss, ’tis clear, 
To see the rate you drink your beer. 
But oh, good Lord, the verse you make,  5
It gives a chap the belly-ache. 
The cow, the old cow, she is dead; 
It sleeps well, the horned head: 
We poor lads, ’tis...Read more of this...

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