Famous Bench Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Bench poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous bench poems. These examples illustrate what a famous bench poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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...k, they look
Along the empty paths and say, "Oh, here
They went, and here, and here, and here! Come, see,
Here is their bench, take hands and let us dance
About it in a windy ring and make
A circle round it only they can cross
When they come back again!" . . . Look at the lake --
Do you remember how we watched the swans
That night in late October while they slept?
Swans must have stately dreams, I think. But now
The lake bears only thin reflected lights
That shake a little. H...Read more of this...
by
Teasdale, Sara
...n in filth and in errour,
Lady! *on that country thou me adjourn,* *take me to that place*
That called is thy bench of freshe flow'r,
There as that mercy ever shall sojourn.
X.
Xpe thy Son, that in this world alight,
Upon a cross to suffer his passioun,
And suffer'd eke that Longeus his heart pight,* *pierced
And made his hearte-blood to run adown;
And all this was for my salvatioun:
And I to him am fals...Read more of this...
by
Chaucer, Geoffrey
...e I seen a greater noble warrior
upon the earth, than that one of your number,
a man in his war-weaving—he is no back-bencher
worthied with weapons—may his singular aspect,
his mighty bearing never betray him! (ll. 244-51a)
“Now I must be advised of your origins,
before you proceed further, lying observers maybe
to the land of the Danes, going from here.
Now you far-dwellers, sea-sailors,
heed my fixed request: to hurry is best
revealing whence you have come.” (ll...Read more of this...
by
Anonymous,
...have heard, and what honor the athelings won!
Oft Scyld the Scefing from squadroned foes,
from many a tribe, the mead-bench tore,
awing the earls. Since erst he lay
friendless, a foundling, fate repaid him:
for he waxed under welkin, in wealth he throve,
till before him the folk, both far and near,
who house by the whale-path, heard his mandate,
gave him gifts: a good king he!
To him an heir was afterward born,
a son in his halls, whom heaven sent
to favor the folk...Read more of this...
by
Anonymous,
...plar’s side and when I
Shared their meal; it was
A feast of love and Auntie
Betty smiled as I sat
Beside her on the bench
“There’s always room for
One more inside” and I went along
For the ride.
17
Ride-a-cock horse to
Roundhay Park where
The tram terminus still
Stands, a bay with poles
Of steel too tall and
Strong to shift, between
The cobbles, tram lines
Lay buried, the upper
Deck is filled with the
Smoke of Capstan Full
Strength and nicotined
Fin...Read more of this...
by
Tebb, Barry
...heard people say.
I took a little black book
To that cold, grey, damp, smelling church,
And I had to sit on a hard bench,
Wriggle off it to kneel down when they sang psalms
And wriggle off it to kneel down when they prayed,
And then there was nothing to do
Except to play trains with the hymn-books.
There was nothing to see,
Nothing to do,
Nothing to play with,
Except that in an empty room upstairs
There was a large tin box
Containing reproductions of the Magna...Read more of this...
by
Aldington, Richard
...FROM THE AUTHOR'S NOTEBOOK
Ah, my patient reader!
Now we find ourselves in the French
military court in Shanghai.
The bench:
four generals, fourteen colonels,
and an armed black Congolese regiment.
The accused:
Gioconda.
The attorney for the defense:
an overly razed
--that is, overly artistic--
French painter.
The scene is set.
We're starting.
The defense attorney presents his case:
"Gentlemen,
this masterpiece
that stands in your presence as the accused
is the most ...Read more of this...
by
Hikmet, Nazim
...and’s and Greystone’s foetid halls, bickering with the echoes of the soul, rocking and rolling in the midnight solitude-bench dolmen-realms of love, dream of life a nightmare, bodies turned to stone as heavy as the moon,
with mother finally ******, and the last fantastic book flung out of the tenement window, and the last door closed at 4 A.M. and the last telephone slammed at the wall in reply and the last furnished room emptied down to the last piece of mental furniture, a...Read more of this...
by
Ginsberg, Allen
...hat belongs to him in his boat, the deckhand
singing on the steamboat deck,
The shoemaker singing as he sits on his bench, the hatter singing as he stands,
The wood-cutter's song, the ploughboy's on his way in the morning, or
at noon intermission or at sundown,
The delicious singing of the mother, or of the young wife at work, or of
the girl sewing or washing,
Each singing what belongs to him or her and to none else,
The day what belongs to the day--at night t...Read more of this...
by
Whitman, Walt
...he bread for them, so
they wouldn't have to do it themselves.
I let the baby play in the sandbox and I sat down on a bench
and looked around. There was a beatnik sitting at the other
end -of the bench. He had his sleeping bag beside him and he
was eating apple turnovers. He had a huge sack of apple turn-
overs and he was gobbling them down like a turkey. It was
probably a more valid protest than picketing missile bases.
The baby played in the sandbox. She had on a r...Read more of this...
by
Brautigan, Richard
...she look’d upon her, she loved her,
Never before had she seen such wonderful beauty and purity,
She made her sit on a bench by the jamb of the fireplace—she cook’d food for
her,
She had no work to give her, but she gave her remembrance and fondness.
The red squaw staid all the forenoon, and toward the middle of the afternoon she went
away,
O my mother was loth to have her go away!
All the week she thought of her—she watch’d for her many a month,
She remember’d her ma...Read more of this...
by
Whitman, Walt
...Where the laughing-gull scoots by the shore, where she laughs her near-human
laugh;
Where bee-hives range on a gray bench in the garden, half hid by the high weeds;
Where band-neck’d partridges roost in a ring on the ground with their heads
out;
Where burial coaches enter the arch’d gates of a cemetery;
Where winter wolves bark amid wastes of snow and icicled trees;
Where the yellow-crown’d heron comes to the edge of the marsh at night and
feeds upon small cra...Read more of this...
by
Whitman, Walt
...circus
Died giving birth in Newent work'us.
And Dick told how the Dymock wench
Bore twins, poor things, on Dog Hill bench;
And how he'd owned to one Court
And how Judge made him sorry for't.
Jack set a jew's harp twanging drily;
"gimme another cup," said Riley.
A dozen more were in their glories
With laughs and smokes and smutty stories;
And Jimmy joked and took his sup
And sang his song of "Up, come up."
Jane brought the bowl of stewing gin
And poured the egg a...Read more of this...
by
Masefield, John
...dashed from out my hand, and fell.
And up into the sounding hall I past;
But nothing in the sounding hall I saw,
No bench nor table, painting on the wall
Or shield of knight; only the rounded moon
Through the tall oriel on the rolling sea.
But always in the quiet house I heard,
Clear as a lark, high o'er me as a lark,
A sweet voice singing in the topmost tower
To the eastward: up I climbed a thousand steps
With pain: as in a dream I seemed to climb
For ever: at th...Read more of this...
by
Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...a of silence . . . and soft steps grew remote . .
'Well, let us walk in the park . . . The sun is warm,
We'll sit on a bench and talk . . .' They turn and glide,
The crowd of faces wavers and breaks and flows.
'Look how the oak-tops turn to gold in the sunlight!
Look how the tower is changed and glows!'
Two lovers move in the crowd like a link of music,
We press upon them, we hold them, and let them pass;
A chord of music strikes us and straight we tremble;
We tremble like ...Read more of this...
by
Aiken, Conrad
...rs drained, and cups o'erthrown,
Showed in what sport the night had flown.
Some, weary, snored on floor and bench;
Some labored still their thirst to quench;
Some, chilled with watching, spread their hands
O'er the huge chimney's dying brands,
While round them, or beside them flung,
At every step their harness rung.
III.
These drew not for their fields the sword,
Like tenants of a feudal lord,
Nor owned the p...Read more of this...
by
Scott, Sir Walter
...chidest as a fiend,
If that I walk or play unto his house.
Thou comest home as drunken as a mouse,
And preachest on thy bench, with evil prefe:* *proof
Thou say'st to me, it is a great mischief
To wed a poore woman, for costage:* *expense
And if that she be rich, of high parage;* * birth 11
Then say'st thou, that it is a tormentry
To suffer her pride and melancholy.
And if that she be fair, thou very knave,
Thou say'st that every holour* will her have; *whoremonger
She may no...Read more of this...
by
Chaucer, Geoffrey
...
From me as if it were a crime.
Even I'll look on patiently
If you your jagged toys all throw
Upon my carved bench, till it show
The wood is torn; and freely too,
I'll leave in your own hands to view,
My pictured Bible—oft desired—
But which to touch your fear inspired—
With God in emperor's robes attired.
Then if to see my verses burn,
Should seem to you a pleasant turn,
Take them to freely tear away
Or burn. But, oh! not so I'd say, ...Read more of this...
by
Hugo, Victor
...profit, sought his blood.
To save them from their evil fate,
In him was held a crime of state.
A wicked monster on the bench,
Whose fury blood could never quench
- As vile and profligate a villain
As modern Scroggs, or old Tresilian;
Who long all justice had discarded,
Nor feared he God, nor man regarded -
Vowed on the Dean his rage to vent,
And make him of his zeal repent.
But Heaven his innocence defends,
The grateful people stand his friends:
Not strains of law, nor judg...Read more of this...
by
Swift, Jonathan
...ll,
The slowly waving arms
Of this ancient windmill.
In a wing there lies a dead man,
Straight and grayhaired, on a bench,
As he did three years ago.
Thus the mice whet with their teeth
Books, thus the stearine candle
Leans its flame to the left.
And the odious tambourine
From the Nizhny Novgorod
Sings an uningenious song
Of my bitter happiness.
And the brightly painted
Dahlias stood straight
Along silver road.
Where are snails and wormwood.
Thus it was: Inca...Read more of this...
by
Akhmatova, Anna
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