Famous At Bat Poems by Famous Poets

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

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The Coliseum

by Edgar Allan Poe
 Type of the antique Rome! Rich reliquary 
Of lofty contemplation left to Time 
By buried centuries of pomp and power! 
At length- at length- after so many days 
Of weary pilgrimage and burning thirst, 
(Thirst for the springs of lore that in thee lie,) 
I kneel, an altered and an humble man, 
Amid thy shadows, and so drink within...Read more of this...

Sappers

by Rudyard Kipling
 When the Waters were dried an' the Earth did appear,
 ("It's all one," says the Sapper),
The Lord He created the Engineer,
 Her Majesty's Royal Engineer,
 With the rank and pay of a Sapper!

When the Flood come along for an extra monsoon,
'Twas Noah constructed the first pontoon
 To the plans of Her Majesty's, etc.

But after fatigue in the wet an'...Read more of this...

Ode to W. H. Channing

by Ralph Waldo Emerson
Though loath to grieve
The evil time's sole patriot,
I cannot leave
My honied thought
For the priest's cant,
Or statesman's rant.

If I refuse
My study for their politique,
Which at the best is trick,
The angry Muse
Puts confusion in my brain.

But who is he that prates
Of the culture of mankind,
Of better arts and life?
Go, blindworm, go,
Behold the famous States
Harrying Mexico
With rifle and with knife!

Or who, with accent...Read more of this...

Wedding

by Vasko Popa
 Each strips his own skin 
Each bares his own constellation 
Which has never seen the night 

Each fills his skin with rocks 
And plays with it 
Lit by his own stars 

Who doesn't stop till dawn 
Who doesn't bat an eyelid or fall 
Earns his own skin 

(This game is rarely played)...Read more of this...

The Fool

by Robert William Service
 "But it isn't playing the game," he said,
 And he slammed his books away;
"The Latin and Greek I've got in my head
 Will do for a duller day."
"Rubbish!" I cried; "The bugle's call
 Isn't for lads from school."
D'ye think he'd listen? Oh, not at all:
 So I called him a fool, a fool.

Now there's his dog by his empty...Read more of this...

The New School

by Joyce Kilmer
 (For My Mother)

The halls that were loud with the merry tread of 
young and careless feet
Are still with a stillness that is too drear to seem like holiday,
And never a gust of laughter breaks the calm of the dreaming street
Or rises to shake the ivied walls and frighten the doves away.
The dust is on book and on empty desk,...Read more of this...

B was a bat

by Edward Lear
B  was a bat,Who slept all the day,And fluttered aboutWhen the sun went away.  b! Brown little bat!...Read more of this...

Goodbat Nightman

by Roger McGough
 God bless all policemen
and fighters of crime,
May thieves go to jail
for a very long time.

They've had a hard day
helping clean up the town,
Now they hang from the mantelpiece
both upside down.

A glass of warm blood
and then straight up the stairs,
Batman and Robin
are saying their prayers.

* * *

They've locked all the doors
and they've put out the bat,
Put on their batjamas
(They like...Read more of this...

The Answer

by Robert William Service
 Bill has left his house of clay,
Slammed the door and gone away:
How he laughed but yesterday!

I had two new jokes to tell,
Salty, but he loved them well:
Now I see his empty shell.

Poker-faced he looks at me;
Peeved to miss them jokes - how h
Would have belly-laughed with glee!

He gives me the pip, I swear;
Seems just like he isn't there:
Flown the...Read more of this...

Poem Reaching For Something

by Quincy Troupe
 we walk through a calligraphy of hats slicing off foreheads
ace-deuce cocked, they slant, razor sharp, clean through imagination, our
spirits knee-deep in what we have forgotten entrancing our bodies now to
dance, like enraptured water lilies
the rhythm in liquid strides of certain looks
eyeballs rippling through breezes
riffing choirs of trees, where a trillion slivers of sunlight prance across
filigreeing leaves, a zillion voices...Read more of this...

Zara, The Bather

by Victor Hugo
 ("Sara, belle d'indolence.") 
 
 {XIX., August, 1828.} 


 In a swinging hammock lying, 
 Lightly flying, 
 Zara, lovely indolent, 
 O'er a fountain's crystal wave 
 There to lave 
 Her young beauty—see her bent. 
 
 As she leans, so sweet and soft, 
 Flitting oft, 
 O'er the mirror to and fro, 
 Seems that...Read more of this...

Casey At The Bat

by Ernest Lawrence Thayer
The outlook wasn't brilliant for the Mudville nine that day, 
The score stood four to two, with but one inning more to play. 

And then when Cooney died at first, and Barrows did the same, 
A pall-like silence fell upon the patrons of the game. 

A straggling few got up to go in deep despair. 
The rest clung to that...Read more of this...

An Ode in Time of Hesitation

by William Vaughn Moody
 After seeing at Boston the statue of Robert Gould Shaw, killed while storming Fort Wagner, July 18, 1863, at the head of the first enlisted ***** regiment, the Fifty-fourth Massachusetts.


I 

Before the solemn bronze Saint Gaudens made 
To thrill the heedless passer's heart with awe, 
And set here in the city's talk and trade 
To the good memory of...Read more of this...

Bat

by D. H. Lawrence
 At evening, sitting on this terrace, 
When the sun from the west, beyond Pisa, beyond the mountains of Carrara 
Departs, and the world is taken by surprise ... 

When the tired flower of Florence is in gloom beneath the glowing 
Brown hills surrounding ... 

When under the arches of the Ponte Vecchio 
A green light enters against stream, flush...Read more of this...

To Contemplation

by Robert Southey
 Faint gleams the evening radiance thro' the sky,
The sober twilight dimly darkens round;
In short quick circles the shrill bat flits by,
And the slow vapour curls along the ground.

Now the pleas'd eye from yon lone cottage sees
On the green mead the smoke long-shadowing play;
The Red-breast on the blossom'd spray
Warbles wild her latest lay,
And sleeps along the dale the silent breeze.
Calm...Read more of this...

Ode To William H. Channing

by Ralph Waldo Emerson
 Though loth to grieve
The evil time's sole patriot,
I cannot leave
My buried thought
For the priest's cant,
Or statesman's rant.

If I refuse
My study for their politique,
Which at the best is trick,
The angry muse
Puts confusion in my brain.

But who is he that prates
Of the culture of mankind,
Of better arts and life?
Go, blind worm, go,
Behold the famous States
Harrying Mexico
With rifle and with knife.

Or who,...Read more of this...

The Bushfire - an Allegory

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 'Twas on the famous Empire run, 
Whose sun does never set, 
Whose grass and water, so they say, 
Have never failed them yet -- 
They carry many million sheep, 
Through seasons dry and wet. 
They call the homestead Albion House, 
And then, along with that, 
There's Welshman's Gully, Scotchman's Hill, 
And Paddymelon Flat: 
And all these places are renowned...Read more of this...

Bat

by Anne Sexton
 His awful skin 
stretched out by some tradesman 
is like my skin, here between my fingers, 
a kind of webbing, a kind of frog. 
Surely when first born my face was this tiny 
and before I was born surely I could fly. 
Not well, mind you, only a veil of skin 
from my arms to my waist. 
I flew...Read more of this...

Under the Moon

by Li Po
 Under the crescent moon's faint glow
The washerman's bat resounds afar,
And the autumn breeze sighs tenderly.
But my heart has gone to the Tartar war,
To bleak Kansuh and the steppes of snow,
Calling my husband back to me....Read more of this...

The Bat is dun with wrinkled Wings --

by Emily Dickinson
 The Bat is dun, with wrinkled Wings --
Like fallow Article --
And not a song pervade his Lips --
Or none perceptible.

His small Umbrella quaintly halved
Describing in the Air
An Arc alike inscrutable
Elate Philosopher.

Deputed from what Firmament --
Of what Astute Abode --
Empowered with what Malignity
Auspiciously withheld --

To his adroit Creator
Acribe no less the praise --
Beneficent, believe me,
His Eccentricities --...Read more of this...

Bat, Bat

by Mother Goose
    Bat, bat,
    Come under my hat,
And I'll give you a slice of bacon;
    And when I bake
    I'll give you a cake
If I am not mistaken....Read more of this...

Twinkle Twinkle Little Bat!

by Lewis Carroll
 How I wonder what you're at!'You know the song, perhaps?" "I've heard something like it," said Alice. "It goes on, you know," the Hatter continued,
"in this way: -- -- 
`Up above the world you fly,
Like a teatray in the sky.
Twinkle, twinkle --'"...Read more of this...

Lesbos

by Sylvia Plath
 Viciousness in the kitchen!
The potatoes hiss.
It is all Hollywood, windowless,
The fluorescent light wincing on and off like a terrible migraine,
Coy paper strips for doors --
Stage curtains, a widow's frizz.
And I, love, am a pathological liar,
And my child -- look at her, face down on the floor,
Little unstrung puppet, kicking to disappear --
Why she is schizophrenic,
Her face is red and...Read more of this...

Mowglis Song Against People

by Rudyard Kipling
 I will let loose against you the fleet-footed vines--
I will call in the Jungle to stamp out your lines!
 The roofs shall fade before it,
 The house-beams shall fall;
 And the Karela,. the bitter Karela,
 Shall cover it all!

In the gates of these your councils my people shall sing.
In the doors of these your garners the Bat-folk shall cling;
...Read more of this...

A bat flits

by Yosa Buson
 A bat flits
in moonlight
above the plum blossoms....Read more of this...

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