Famous Bean Poems by Famous Poets

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

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A Carol of Harvest for 1867

...lifornia or Pennsylvania, 
Cut the flax in the Middle States, or hemp, or tobacco in the Borders, 
Pick the pea and the bean, or pull apples from the trees, or bunches of grapes from the
 vines, 
Or aught that ripens in all These States, or North or South, 
Under the beaming sun, and under Thee....Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt


Baby Tortoise

...le by little from the shell,
Not yet awake,
And remain lapsed on earth,
Not quite alive.

A tiny, fragile, half-animate bean.

To open your tiny beak-mouth, that looks as if it would never open,

Like some iron door;
To lift the upper hawk-beak from the lower base
And reach your skinny little neck
And take your first bite at some dim bit of herbage,
Alone, small insect,
Tiny bright-eye,
Slow one.

To take your first solitary bite
And move on your slow, solitary hunt.
Your bri...Read more of this...
by Lawrence, D. H.

Bleezers Ice Cream

...CHECKERBERRY CHEDDAR CHEW
CHICKEN CHERRY HONEYDEW
TUTTI-FRUTTI STEWED TOMATO
TUNA TACO BAKED POTATO
LOBSTER LITCHI LIMA BEAN
MOZZARELLA MANGOSTEEN
ALMOND HAM MERINGUE SALAMI
YAM ANCHOVY PRUNE PASTRAMI
SASSAFRAS SOUVLAKI HASH
SUKIYAKI SUCCOTASH
BUTTER BRICKLE PEPPER PICKLE
POMEGRANATE PUMPERNICKEL
PEACH PIMENTO PIZZA PLUM
PEANUT PUMPKIN BUBBLEGUM
BROCCOLI BANANA BLUSTER
CHOCOLATE CHOP SUEY CLUSTER
AVOCADO BRUSSELS SPROUT
PERIWINKLE SAUERKRAUT
COTTON CANDY CARROT CUSTARD
CAULIF...Read more of this...
by Prelutsky, Jack

Daddy

...of God,
Ghastly statue with one gray toe
Big as a Frisco seal 

And a head in the freakish Atlantic
Where it pours bean green over blue
In the waters off the beautiful Nauset.
I used to pray to recover you.
Ach, du. 

In the German tongue, in the Polish town
Scraped flat by the roller
Of wars, wars, wars.
But the name of the town is common.
My Polack friend 

Says there are a dozen or two.
So I never could tell where you
Put your foot, your root, 
I never c...Read more of this...
by Plath, Sylvia

De Gustibus---

...y,---
The happier they!
Draw yourself up from the light of the moon,
And let them pass, as they will too soon,
With the bean-flowers' boon, 
And the blackbird's tune,
And May, and June!

II.

What I love best in all the world
Is a castle, precipice-encurled,
In a gash of the wind-grieved Apennine
Or look for me, old fellow of mine,
(If I get my head from out the mouth
O' the grave, and loose my spirit's bands,
And come again to the land of lands)---
In a sea-side house to the...Read more of this...
by Browning, Robert


Flee On Your Donkey

...t,
like a pregnant pig.
I was her dreamy evil eye.
In fact,
I carried a knife in my pocketbook—
my husband's good L. L. Bean hunting knife.
I wasn't sure if I should slash a tire
or scrape the guts out of some dream.

You taught me
to believe in dreams;
thus I was the dredger.
I held them like an old woman with arthritic fingers,
carefully straining the water out—
sweet dark playthings,
and above all, mysterious
until they grew mournful and weak.
O my hunger! My hunger!
I was...Read more of this...
by Sexton, Anne

For The Country

...flag, green stain 
of berry buds along the vines, 
even in the eaten leaf of 
pepper plants and clipped stalk 
of snap bean. Mid-afternoon 
and already the grass is dry 
under the low sun. Bluejay 
and dark capped juncos hidden 
in dense foliage waiting 
the sun's early fall, when she 
returns alone to hear them 
call and call back, and finally 
in the long shadows settle 
down to rest and to silence 
in the sudden rising chill.

THE GAME

Two boys are playing ball 
in the b...Read more of this...
by Levine, Philip

Gregory Corso

...never be 
 an Eskimo song I love thee 
 I want to put a lollipop
 in thy furcal mouth
 A wig of Goldilocks on thy baldy bean
 and have you skip with me Hansel and Gretel
 along the Hollywoodian screen
 O Bomb in which all lovely things
 moral and physical anxiously participate
  O fairylike plucked from the 
 grandest universe tree 
 O piece of heaven which gives
 both mountain and anthill a sun
 I am standing before your fantastic lily door
 I bring you Midgardian roses Arca...Read more of this...
by Corso, Gregory

Jubilate Agno: Fragment C

...et Kirjath-arim rejoice with Cacalianthemum. 

Let Hadid rejoice with Capsicum Guiney Pepper. 

Let Senaah rejoice with Bean Cape. 

Let Kadmiel rejoice with Hemp-Agrimony. 

Let Shobai rejoice with Arbor Molle. 

Let Hatita rejoice with Millefolium Yarrow. 

Let Ziha rejoice with Mitellia. 

Let Hasupha rejoice with Turky Balm. 

Let Hattil rejoice with Xeranthemum. 

Let Bilshan rejoice with the Leek. David for ever! God bless the Welch March 1st 1761. N.S. 

Let Sotai rejo...Read more of this...
by Smart, Christopher

Part 6 of Trout Fishing in America

...rnoon I caught the hunchback trout.

 A farmer gave me a ride in a truck. He picked me up at

a traffic signal beside a bean field and he never said a word

to me.

 His stopping and picking me up and driving me down the

road was as automatic a thing to him as closing the barn

door, nothing need be said about it, but still I was in motion

traveling thirty-five miles an hour down the road, watching

houses and groves of trees go by, watching chickens and

mailboxes enter an...Read more of this...
by Brautigan, Richard

Picture Puzzle Piece

...e
Soakin' in the rain.
It might be a button of blue
On the coat of the woman
Who lived in a shoe.
It might be a magical bean,
Or a fold in the red
Velvet robe of a queen.
It might be the one little bite
Of the apple her stepmother
Gave to Snow White.
It might be the veil of a bride
Or a bottle with some evil genie inside.
It might be a small tuft of hair
On the big bouncy belly
Of Bobo the Bear.
It might be a bit of the cloak
Of the Witch of the West
As she melted to smoke.
I...Read more of this...
by Silverstein, Shel

Satire II:The Country Mouse and the Town Mouse

...than that, bare meat there did remain 
To comfort her when she her house had dight: 
Sometime a barleycorn, sometime a bean, 
For which she labored hard both day and night 
In harvest time, whilst she might go and glean. 
And when her store was 'stroyed with the flood, 
Then well away, for she undone was clean. 
Then was she fain to take, instead of food, 
Sleep if she might, her hunger to beguile. 
"My sister," qoth she, "hath a living good, 
And hence from me she dwelleth ...Read more of this...
by Wyatt, Sir Thomas

The Ballad Of Lenins Tomb

...t mistake:
I tell you - he's a dummy; aye, a fiction and a fake.
This eye beheld the bloody bomb that bashed him on the bean.
I heard the crash, I saw the flash, yet . . . there he lies serene.
And by the roar that rocked the Tomb I ask: how could that be?
But if you doubt that deed of doom, just go yourself and see.
You think I'm mad, or drunk, or both . . . Well, I don't care a damn:
I tell you this: their Lenin is a waxen, show-case SHAM.

 Such was the yarn he handed me,
...Read more of this...
by Service, Robert William

The Bee Meeting

...s,
Breastplates of cheesecloth knotted under the armpits.
Their smiles and their voces are changing. I am led through a beanfield.

Strips of tinfoil winking like people,
Feather dusters fanning their hands in a sea of bean flowers,
Creamy bean flowers with black eyes and leaves like bored hearts.
Is it blood clots the tendrils are dragging up that string?
No, no, it is scarlet flowers that will one day be edible.

Now they are giving me a fashionable white straw Italian hat
...Read more of this...
by Plath, Sylvia

The Double Image

...n. And you came each
weekend. But I lie.
You seldom came. I just pretended
you, small piglet, butterfly
girl with jelly bean cheeks,
disobedient three, my splendid

stranger. And I had to learn
why I would rather
die than love, how your innocence
would hurt and how I gather
guilt like a young intern
his symptons, his certain evidence.

That October day we went
to Gloucester the red hills
reminded me of the dry red fur fox
coat I played in as a child; stock still
like a bear o...Read more of this...
by Sexton, Anne

The Lake Isle of Innisfree

...I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;
Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight's all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet's wings.

I will arise and go now, for...Read more of this...
by Yeats, William Butler

The Man of Laws Tale

...iken'd doubteless
To Muses, that men call Pierides
(Metamorphoseos  wot what I mean),
But natheless I recke not a bean,
Though I come after him with hawebake*; *lout 
I speak in prose, and let him rhymes make."
And with that word, he with a sober cheer
Began his tale, and said as ye shall hear.


Notes to the Prologue to The Man of Law's Tale


1. Plight: pulled; the word is an obsolete past tense from
"pluck."

2. No more than will Malkin's maidenhead: a proverbial ...Read more of this...
by Chaucer, Geoffrey

The Millers Tale

...e,
Hath brought you thus upon the viretote:
By Saint Neot, ye wot well what I mean."
This Absolon he raughte* not a bean *recked, cared
Of all his play; no word again he gaf*, *spoke
For he had more tow on his distaff
Than Gerveis knew, and saide; "Friend so dear,
That hote culter in the chimney here
Lend it to me, I have therewith to don*: *do
I will it bring again to thee full soon."
Gerveis answered; "Certes, were it gold,
Or in a poke* nobles all untold, *purse
Th...Read more of this...
by Chaucer, Geoffrey

This Compost

...l! 
Perhaps every mite has once form’d part of a sick person—Yet behold! 
The grass of spring covers the prairies, 
The bean bursts noislessly through the mould in the garden,
The delicate spear of the onion pierces upward, 
The apple-buds cluster together on the apple-branches, 
The resurrection of the wheat appears with pale visage out of its graves, 
The tinge awakes over the willow-tree and the mulberry-tree, 
The he-birds carol mornings and evenings, while the she-birds ...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt

When Frankenstein was just a kid

...s. It’s true. He did!
He ate his spinach, salads, peas,
asparagus, and foods like these,
and with each leaf and lima bean
his skin became a bit more green.
On chives and chard he loved to chew,
and Brussels sprouts and peppers too,
until he ate that fateful bean
that turned his skin completely green.
He turned all green, and stayed that way,
and now he frightens folks away.
Poor Frankenstein, his tale is sad,
but things need not have been so bad.
It’s fair to say...Read more of this...
by Nesbitt, Kenn

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