Famous Beef Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Chiang Chin Chiu

by Li Po
 See the waters of the Yellow River leap down from Heaven, Roll away to the deep sea and never turn again! See at the mirror
in the High Hall Aged men bewailing white locks - In the morning, threads of silk, In the evening flakes of snow. Snatch the joys
of life as they come and use them to the full;...Read more of this...

And One For My Dame

by Anne Sexton
 A born salesman,
my father made all his dough
by selling wool to Fieldcrest, Woolrich and Faribo.

A born talker,
he could sell one hundred wet-down bales
of that white stuff. He could clock the miles and the sales

and make it pay.
At home each sentence he would utter
had first pleased the buyer who'd paid him off in butter.

Each word
had been tried over and over,...Read more of this...

Buddha at Kamakura

by Rudyard Kipling
 1892
"And there is a Japanese idol at Kamakura"

Oye who treated the Narrow Way
By Tophet-flare to Judgment Day,
Be gentle when "the heathen" pray
 To Buddha at Kamakura!

To him the Way, the Law, apart,
Whom Maya held beneath her heart,
Ananda's Lord, the Bodhisat,
 The Buddha of Kamakura.

For though he neither burns nor sees,
Nor hears ye thank your Deities,
Ye have not sinned with...Read more of this...

Rapunzel

by Anne Sexton
 A woman 
who loves a woman 
is forever young. 
The mentor 
and the student 
feed off each other. 
Many a girl 
had an old aunt 
who locked her in the study 
to keep the boys away. 
They would play rummy 
or lie on the couch 
and touch and touch. 
Old breast against young breast... 
Let your dress fall down...Read more of this...

Robin Hoods Flight

by James Henry Leigh Hunt
 Robin Hood's mother, these twelve years now,
Has been gone from her earthly home;
And Robin has paid, he scarce knew how,
A sum for a noble tomb.

The church-yard lies on a woody hill,
But open to sun and air:
It seems as if the heaven still
Were looking and smiling there.

Often when Robin looked that way,
He looked through a sweet thin tear;
But he looked...Read more of this...

Batterson Dobyns

by Edgar Lee Masters
 Did my widow flit about
From Mackinac to Los Angeles,
Resting and bathing and sitting an hour
Or more at the table over soup and meats
And delicate sweets and coffee?
I was cut down in my prime
From overwork and anxiety.
But I thought all along, whatever happens
I've kept my insurance up,
And there's something in the bank,
And a section of land in Manitoba.
But just as...Read more of this...

The New Ergonomics

by Edward Taylor
 The new ergonomics were delivered 
just before lunchtime 
so we ignored them.
Without revealing the particulars 
let me just say that 
lunch was most satisfying. 
Jack and Roberta went with 
the corned beef for a change. 
Jack believes in alien abduction 
and Roberta does not, 
although she has had 
several lost weekends lately 
and one or two unexplained scars 
on...Read more of this...

Thompsons Lunch Room -- Grand Central Station

by Amy Lowell
 Study in Whites

Wax-white --
Floor, ceiling, walls.
Ivory shadows
Over the pavement
Polished to cream surfaces
By constant sweeping.
The big room is coloured like the petals
Of a great magnolia,
And has a patina
Of flower bloom
Which makes it shine dimly
Under the electric lamps.
Chairs are ranged in rows
Like sepia seeds
Waiting fulfilment.
The chalk-white spot of a cook's cap
Moves unglossily against the vaguely bright wall --
Dull chalk-white striking the...Read more of this...

A Man

by Charles Bukowski
 George was lying in his trailer, flat on his back, watching a small portable T.V. His
dinner dishes were undone, his breakfast dishes were undone, he needed a shave, and ash
from his rolled cigarettes dropped onto his undershirt. Some of the ash was still burning.
Sometimes the burning ash missed the undershirt and hit his skin, then he cursed, brushing
it away....Read more of this...

Taffy

by Mother Goose
Taffy was a Welshman, Taffy was a thief,
Taffy came to my house and stole a piece of beef;
I went to Taffy's house, Taffy was not home;
Taffy came to my house and stole a marrow-bone.

I went to Taffy's house, Taffy was not in;
Taffy came to my house and stole a silver pin;
I went to Taffy's house, Taffy was in bed,
I took...Read more of this...

The Hock-cart or Harvest Home

by Robert Herrick
 To the Right Honourable Mildmay, Earl of Westmoreland

Come, sons of summer, by whose toil 
We are the lords of wine and oil; 
By whose tough labours, and rough hands, 
We rip up first, then reap our lands. 
Crown'd with the ears of corn, now come, 
And to the pipe sing Harvest Home. 
Come forth, my lord, and see the...Read more of this...

On The Death Of Sir Thomas Lea

by William Strode
 You that affright with lamentable notes
The servants from their beef, whose hungry throats
Vex the grume porter's surly conscience:
That blesse the mint for coyning lesse than pence:
You whose unknown and meanly payd desarts
Begge silently within, and knocke at hearts:
You whose commanding worth makes men beleeve
That you a kindnesse give when you receave:
All sorts of them that want, your tears now...Read more of this...

Jacob Godbey

by Edgar Lee Masters
 How did you feel, you libertarians,
Who spent your talents rallying noble reasons
Around the saloon, as if Liberty
Was not to be found anywhere except at the bar
Or at a table, guzzling?
How did you feel, Ben Pantier, and the rest of you,
Who almost stoned me for a tyrant,
Garbed as a moralist,
And as a wry-faced ascetic frowning upon Yorkshire pudding,
Roast beef and...Read more of this...

The New Ergonomics

by James Tate
 The new ergonomics were delivered 
just before lunchtime 
so we ignored them.
Without revealing the particulars 
let me just say that 
lunch was most satisfying. 
Jack and Roberta went with 
the corned beef for a change. 
Jack believes in alien abduction 
and Roberta does not, 
although she has had 
several lost weekends lately 
and one or two unexplained scars 
on...Read more of this...

The Progress of Poetry

by Jonathan Swift
 The Farmer's Goose, who in the Stubble, 
Has fed without Restraint, or Trouble; 
Grown fat with Corn and Sitting still, 
Can scarce get o'er the Barn-Door Sill: 
And hardly waddles forth, to cool 
Her Belly in the neighb'ring Pool: 
Nor loudly cackles at the Door; 
For Cackling shews the Goose is poor.

But when she must be turn'd to graze,...Read more of this...

A Dogs Mistake

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 He had drifted in among us as a straw drifts with the tide, 
He was just a wand'ring mongrel from the weary world outside; 
He was not aristocratic, being mostly ribs and hair, 
With a hint of spaniel parents and a touch of native bear. 
He was very poor and humble and content with what he got, 
So we...Read more of this...

The Federal Bus Conductor and the Old Lady

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 'The man who brought the railway through -- our friend the engineer.' 
They cheer his pluck and enterprise and engineering skill! 
'Twas my old husband found the pass behind that big red hill. 
Before the engineer was born we'd settled with our stock 
Behind that great big mountain chain, a line of range and rock -- 
A line that...Read more of this...

from imperfect Eden

by Rg Gregory
 (1)
and off to scott's (the dockers' restaurant)
burly men packed in round solid tables
but what the helle (drowned in hellespont)
this place for me was rich in its own fables
i'll be the lover sunk if that enables
an awesome sense of just how deep the spells
that put scotts for me beyond the dardanelles

lace-curtained windows (or memory plays me false)
no capped odysseus could...Read more of this...

Saltbush Bills Gamecock

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 'Twas Saltbush Bill, with his travelling sheep, was making his way to town; 
He crossed them over the Hard Times Run, and he came to the Take 'Em Down; 
He counted through at the boundary gate, and camped at the drafting yard: 
For Stingy Smith, of the Hard Times Run, had hunted him rather hard. 
He bore no malice...Read more of this...

Advertisement For The Waldorf-Astoria

by Langston Hughes
 Fine living . . . a la carte?
 Come to the Waldorf-Astoria!

 LISTEN HUNGRY ONES!
Look! See what Vanity Fair says about the
 new Waldorf-Astoria:

 "All the luxuries of private home. . . ."
Now, won't that be charming when the last flop-house
 has turned you down this winter?
 Furthermore:
"It is far beyond anything hitherto attempted in the hotel
 world. ....Read more of this...

Athabaska Dick

by Robert William Service
 When the boys come out from Lac Labiche in the lure of the early Spring,
To take the pay of the "Hudson's Bay", as their fathers did before,
They are all a-glee for the jamboree, and they make the Landing ring
With a whoop and a whirl, and a "Grab your girl", and a rip and a skip and a roar.
For the...Read more of this...

The Summit Redwood

by Robinson Jeffers
 Only stand high a long enough time your lightning
 will come; that is what blunts the peaks of
 redwoods;
But this old tower of life on the hilltop has taken
 it more than twice a century, this knows in
 every
Cell the salty and the burning taste, the shudder
 and the voice.

 The fire from heaven; it has
 felt the earth's...Read more of this...

55. The Twa Herds; or The Holy Tulyie

by Robert Burns
 O A’ ye pious godly flocks,
Weel fed on pastures orthodox,
Wha now will keep you frae the fox,
 Or worrying tykes?
Or wha will tent the waifs an’ crocks,
 About the dykes?


The twa best herds in a’ the wast,
The e’er ga’e gospel horn a blast
These five an’ twenty simmers past—
 Oh, dool to tell!
Hae had a bitter black out-cast
 Atween themsel’.


O,...Read more of this...

The Widows Party

by Rudyard Kipling
 "Where have you been this while away,
 Johnnie, Johnnie?"
'Long with the rest on a picnic lay,
 Johnnie, my Johnnie, aha!
They called us out of the barrack-yard
To Gawd knows where from Gosport Hard,
And you can't refuse when you get the card,
 And the Widow gives the party.
 (Bugle: Ta--rara--ra-ra-rara!)

"What did you get to eat and drink,
 Johnnie, Johnnie?"
Standing water as...Read more of this...

549. Epistle to Colonel de Peyster

by Robert Burns
 MY honor’d Colonel, deep I feel
Your interest in the Poet’s weal;
Ah! now sma’ heart hae I to speel
 The steep Parnassus,
Surrounded thus by bolus pill,
 And potion glasses.


O what a canty world were it,
Would pain and care and sickness spare it;
And Fortune favour worth and merit
 As they deserve;
And aye rowth o’ roast-beef and claret,
 Syne, wha wad starve?


Dame...Read more of this...

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