Famous Babe Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Julot The Apache

by Robert William Service
 You've heard of Julot the apache, and Gigolette, his mome. . . .
Montmartre was their hunting-ground, but Belville was their home.
A little chap just like a boy, with smudgy black mustache, --
Yet there was nothing juvenile in Julot the apache.
From head to heel as tough as steel, as nimble as a cat,
With every trick of twist and kick, a...Read more of this...

The Complaint Of A Forsaken Indian Woman

by William Wordsworth
[When a Northern Indian, from sickness, is unable to continue his journey with his companions; he is left behind, covered over with Deer-skins, and is supplied with water, food, and fuel if the situation of the place will afford it. He is informed of the track which his companions intend to pursue, and if he is unable to follow, or...Read more of this...

Only a Curl

by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
 I.
FRIENDS of faces unknown and a land
Unvisited over the sea, 
Who tell me how lonely you stand
With a single gold curl in the hand
Held up to be looked at by me, --


II.
While you ask me to ponder and say
What a father and mother can do, 
With the bright fellow-locks put away
Out of reach, beyond kiss, in the clay
Where the...Read more of this...

Orinda upon Little Hector Philips

by Katherine Philips
 Twice forty months of Wedlock did I stay,
Then had my vows crown'd with a Lovely boy,
And yet in forty days he dropt away,
O swift Visissitude of humane joy.

I did but see him and he dis-appear'd,
I did but pluck the Rose-bud and it fell,
A sorrow unforeseen and scarcely fear'd,
For ill can mortals their afflictions spell.

And now (sweet Babe) what can...Read more of this...

Tears

by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
 THANK God, bless God, all ye who suffer not
More grief than ye can weep for. That is well--
That is light grieving ! lighter, none befell
Since Adam forfeited the primal lot.
Tears ! what are tears ? The babe weeps in its cot,
The mother singing, at her marriage-bell
The bride weeps, and before the oracle
Of high-faned hills the poet has forgot
Such moisture...Read more of this...

An Ode Of The Birth Of Our Saviour

by Robert Herrick
 In numbers, and but these few,
I sing thy birth, oh JESU!
Thou pretty Baby, born here,
With sup'rabundant scorn here;
Who for thy princely port here,
Hadst for thy place
Of birth, a base
Out-stable for thy court here.

Instead of neat enclosures
Of interwoven osiers;
Instead of fragrant posies
Of daffadils and roses,
Thy cradle, kingly stranger,
As gospel tells,
Was nothing else,
But, here, a homely manger.

But we with silks, not...Read more of this...

The Bandit

by Robert William Service
 Upon his way to rob a Bank
 He paused to watch a fire;
Though crowds were pressing rank on rank
 He pushed a passage nigher;
Then sudden heard, piercing and wild,
 The screaming of a child.

A Public Enemy was he,
 A hater of the law;
He looked around for bravery
 But only fear he saw;
Then to the craven crowds amaze
 He plunged...Read more of this...

A Years Carols

by Algernon Charles Swinburne
 JANUARY
HAIL, January, that bearest here
On snowbright breasts the babe-faced year
That weeps and trembles to be born.
Hail, maid and mother, strong and bright,
Hooded and cloaked and shod with white,
Whose eyes are stars that match the morn.
Thy forehead braves the storm's bent bow,
Thy feet enkindle stars of snow.

FEBRUARY
Wan February with weeping cheer,
Whose cold hand guides the youngling year
Down misty roads of...Read more of this...

The Weeping Babe

by Katharine Tynan
 She kneels by the cradle 
Where Jesus doth lie; 
Singing, Lullaby, my Baby! 
But why dost Thou cry? 

The babes of the village 
Smile sweetly in sleep; 
And lullaby, my Baby, 
That ever dost weep! 

I've wrapped Thee in linen, 
The gift of the Kings; 
And wool, soft and fleecy, 
The kind Shepherd brings. 

Now smile, little Jesus, 
Whom...Read more of this...

Sonnet CXV

by William Shakespeare
 Those lines that I before have writ do lie,
Even those that said I could not love you dearer:
Yet then my judgment knew no reason why
My most full flame should afterwards burn clearer.
But reckoning time, whose million'd accidents
Creep in 'twixt vows and change decrees of kings,
Tan sacred beauty, blunt the sharp'st intents,
Divert strong minds to the course of altering things;
Alas,...Read more of this...

West London

by Matthew Arnold
 Crouch'd on the pavement close by Belgrave Square
A tramp I saw, ill, moody, and tongue-tied;
A babe was in her arms, and at her side
A girl; their clothes were rags, their feet were bare.
Some labouring men, whose work lay somewhere there,
Pass'd opposite; she touch'd her girl, who hied
Across, and begg'd and came back satisfied.
The rich she had let pass with...Read more of this...

The dead babe

by Eugene Field
 Last night, as my dear babe lay dead,
In agony I knelt and said:
"0 God! what have I done,
Or in what wise offended Thee,
That Thou should'st take away from me
My little son?

"Upon the thousand useless lives,
Upon the guilt that vaunting thrives,
Thy wrath were better spent!
Why should'st Thou take my little son -
Why should'st Thou vent Thy wrath upon
This innocent?"

Last night,...Read more of this...

An Epitaph On The Marchioness Of Winchester

by John Milton
 This rich Marble doth enterr
The honour'd Wife of Winchester,
A Vicounts daughter, an Earls heir,
Besides what her vertues fair
Added to her noble birth,
More then she could own from Earth.
Summers three times eight save one
She had told, alas too soon,
After so short time of breath,
To house with darknes, and with death. 
Yet had the number of her days
Bin as compleat as...Read more of this...

Sweet And Low

by Alfred Lord Tennyson
 Sweet and low, sweet and low,
Wind of the western sea,
Low, low, breathe and blow,
Wind of the western sea!
Over the rolling waters go,
Come from the dying moon, and blow,
Blow him again to me;
While my little one, while my pretty one, sleeps.

Sleep and rest, sleep and rest,
Father will come to thee soon;
Rest, rest, on mother's breast,
Father will come to thee soon;
Father...Read more of this...

The Spirit Of The Unborn Babe

by Robert William Service
 The Spirit of the Unborn Babe peered through the window-pane,
Peered through the window-pane that glowed like beacon in the night;
For, oh, the sky was desolate and wild with wind and rain;
And how the little room was crammed with coziness and light!
Except the flirting of the fire there was no sound at all;
The Woman sat beside the hearth, her knitting...Read more of this...

A Funeral Poem on the Death of C.E

by Phillis Wheatley
 Through airy roads he wings his instant flight
To purer regions of celestial light;
Enlarg'd he sees unnumber'd systems roll,
Beneath him sees the universal whole,
Planets on planets run their destin'd round,
And circling wonders fill the vast profound.
Th' ethereal now, and now th' empyreal skies
With growing splendors strike his wond'ring eyes:
The angels view him with delight unknown,
Press his soft hand, and seat...Read more of this...

Mother and Babe

by Walt Whitman
 I SEE the sleeping babe, nestling the breast of its mother; 
The sleeping mother and babe—hush’d, I study them long and long....Read more of this...

The Raft

by Vachel Lindsay
 The whole world on a raft! A King is here,
The record of his grandeur but a smear.
Is it his deacon-beard, or old bald pate
That makes the band upon his whims to wait?
Loot and mud-honey have his soul defiled.
Quack, pig, and priest, he drives camp-meetings wild
Until they shower their pennies like spring rain
That he may preach upon the Spanish main.
What...Read more of this...

The Infanticide

by Friedrich von Schiller
 Hark where the bells toll, chiming, dull and steady,
The clock's slow hand hath reached the appointed time.
Well, be it so--prepare, my soul is ready,
Companions of the grave--the rest for crime!
Now take, O world! my last farewell--receiving
My parting kisses--in these tears they dwell!
Sweet are thy poisons while we taste believing,
Now we are quits--heart-poisoner, fare-thee-well!

Farewell, ye suns that once to joy...Read more of this...

Children of the Moon

by W. E. B. Du Bois
I am dead;
Yet somehow, somewhere,
In Time's weird contradiction, I
May tell of that dread deed, wherewith
I brought to Children of the Moon
Freedom and vast salvation.
I was a woman born,
And trod the streaming street,
That ebbs and flows from Harlem's hills,
Through caves and cañons limned in light,
Down to the twisting sea.
That night of nights,
I stood alone and at the End,
Until the sudden highway...Read more of this...

My Madonna

by Robert W Service
I haled me a woman from the street, 
Shameless, but, oh, so fair! 
I bade her sit in the model's seat 
And I painted her sitting there. 

I hid all trace of her heart unclean; 
I painted a babe at her breast; 
I painted her as she might have been 
If the Worst had been the Best. 

She laughed at...Read more of this...

September On Jessore Road

by Allen Ginsberg
 Millions of babies watching the skies
Bellies swollen, with big round eyes
On Jessore Road--long bamboo huts
Noplace to **** but sand channel ruts

Millions of fathers in rain
Millions of mothers in pain
Millions of brothers in woe
Millions of sisters nowhere to go

One Million aunts are dying for bread
One Million uncles lamenting the dead
Grandfather millions homeless and sad
Grandmother millions silently mad

Millions of daughters walk...Read more of this...

On the Death of a young Lady of Five Years of Age

by Phillis Wheatley
From dark abodes to fair etherial light
Th' enraptur'd innocent has wing'd her flight;
On the kind bosom of eternal love
She finds unknown beatitude above.
This known, ye parents, nor her loss deplore,
She feels the iron hand of pain no more;
The dispensations of unerring grace,
Should turn your sorrows into grateful praise;
Let then no tears for her henceforward flow,
No more distress'd in our dark...Read more of this...

The Hawk and the Babe

by Aleister Crowley
 [Dedicated to Raymond Radclyffe]

I am that hawk of gold
Proud in adamantine poise
On the pillars of torqoise,
See,beyond the starry fold,
Where a darkling orb is rolled.

There, beneath a grove of yew,
Plays a babe. Should I despise
Such a foam of gold, and eyes
Burning beryline, so blue
That the sun seems peeping through?

Did I swwop, were Heaven amazed?
With my beak I strike but once;
Out...Read more of this...

Holy Thursday (Experience)

by William Blake
 Is this a holy thing to see.
In a rich and fruitful land.
Babes reduced to misery.
Fed with cold and usurous hand?

Is that trembling cry a song?
Can it be a song of joy?
And so many children poor?
It is a land of poverty!

And their sun does never shine.
And their fields are bleak & bare.
And their ways are fill'd with thorns
It is eternal...Read more of this...

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