Get Your Premium Membership

Best Famous Bitters Poems

Here is a collection of the all-time best famous Bitters poems. This is a select list of the best famous Bitters poetry. Reading, writing, and enjoying famous Bitters poetry (as well as classical and contemporary poems) is a great past time. These top poems are the best examples of bitters poems.

Search and read the best famous Bitters poems, articles about Bitters poems, poetry blogs, or anything else Bitters poem related using the PoetrySoup search engine at the top of the page.

See Also:
Written by Charles Baudelaire | Create an image from this poem

The Albatross

 Often, to amuse themselves, the crew of the ship
Would fell an albatross, the largest of sea birds,
Indolent companions of their trip
As they slide across the deep sea's bitters.
Scarcely had they dropped to the plank Than these blue kings, maladroit and ashamed Let their great white wings sink Like an oar dragging under the water's plane.
The winged visitor, so awkward and weak! So recently beautiful, now comic and ugly! One sailor grinds a pipe into his beak, Another, limping, mimics the infirm bird that once could fly.
The poet is like the prince of the clouds Who haunts the storm and laughs at lightning.
He's exiled to the ground and its hooting crowds; His giant wings prevent him from walking.


Written by Robert William Service | Create an image from this poem

Cowardice

 Although you deem it far from nice,
 And it perchance may hurt you,
Let me suggest that cowardice
 Can masquerade as virtue;
And many a maid remains a maid
 Because she is afraid.
And many a man is chaste because He fears the house of sin; And though before the door he pause, He dare not enter in: So worse than being dissolute At home he plays the flute.
And many an old cove such as I Is troubled with the jitters, And being as he's scared to die Gives up his gin and bitters; While dreading stomach ulcers he Chucks dinner for high tea.
Well, we are wise.
When life begins To look so dour and dark 'Tis good to jettison our sins And keep afloat the bark: But don't let us claim lack of vice For what's plumb cowardice!
Written by Eugene Field | Create an image from this poem

Our Lady of the Mine

 The Blue Horizon wuz a mine us fellers all thought well uv,
And there befell the episode I now perpose to tell uv;
'T wuz in the year uv sixty-nine,--somewhere along in summer,--
There hove in sight one afternoon a new and curious comer;
His name wuz Silas Pettibone,--a' artist by perfession,--
With a kit of tools and a big mustache and a pipe in his possession.
He told us, by our leave, he 'd kind uv like to make some sketches Uv the snowy peaks, 'nd the foamin' crick, 'nd the distant mountain stretches; "You're welkim, sir," sez we, although this scenery dodge seemed to us A waste uv time where scenery wuz already sooper-floo-us.
All through the summer Pettibone kep' busy at his sketchin',-- At daybreak off for Eagle Pass, and home at nightfall, fetchin' That everlastin' book uv his with spider-lines all through it; Three-Fingered Hoover used to say there warn't no meanin' to it.
"Gol durn a man," sez he to him, "whose shif'less hand is sot at A-drawin' hills that's full uv quartz that's pinin' to be got at!" "Go on," sez Pettibone, "go on, if joshin' gratifies ye; But one uv these fine times I'll show ye sumthin' will surprise ye!" The which remark led us to think--although he didn't say it-- That Pettibone wuz owin' us a gredge 'nd meant to pay it.
One evenin' as we sat around the Restauraw de Casey, A-singin' songs 'nd tellin' yarns the which wuz sumwhat racy, In come that feller Pettibone, 'nd sez, "With your permission, I'd like to put a picture I have made on exhibition.
" He sot the picture on the bar 'nd drew aside its curtain, Sayin', "I reckon you'll allow as how that's art, f'r certain!" And then we looked, with jaws agape, but nary word wuz spoken, And f'r a likely spell the charm uv silence wuz unbroken-- Till presently, as in a dream, remarked Three-Fingered Hoover: "Onless I am mistaken, this is Pettibone's shef doover!" It wuz a face--a human face--a woman's, fair 'nd tender-- Sot gracefully upon a neck white as a swan's, and slender; The hair wuz kind uv sunny, 'nd the eyes wuz sort uv dreamy, The mouth wuz half a-smilin', 'nd the cheeks wuz soft 'nd creamy; It seemed like she wuz lookin' off into the west out yonder, And seemed like, while she looked, we saw her eyes grow softer, fonder,-- Like, lookin' off into the west, where mountain mists wuz fallin', She saw the face she longed to see and heerd his voice a-callin'; "Hooray!" we cried,--"a woman in the camp uv Blue Horizon! Step right up, Colonel Pettibone, 'nd nominate your pizen!" A curious situation,--one deservin' uv your pity,-- No human, livin', female thing this side of Denver City! But jest a lot uv husky men that lived on sand 'nd bitters,-- Do you wonder that that woman's face consoled the lonesome critters? And not a one but what it served in some way to remind him Of a mother or a sister or a sweetheart left behind him; And some looked back on happier days, and saw the old-time faces And heerd the dear familiar sounds in old familiar places,-- A gracious touch of home.
"Look here," sez Hoover, "ever'body Quit thinkin' 'nd perceed at oncet to name his favorite toddy!" It wuzn't long afore the news had spread the country over, And miners come a-flockin' in like honey-bees to clover; It kind uv did 'em good, they said, to feast their hungry eyes on That picture uv Our Lady in the camp uv Blue Horizon.
But one mean cuss from ****** Crick passed criticisms on 'er,-- Leastwise we overheerd him call her Pettibone's madonner, The which we did not take to be respectful to a lady, So we hung him in a quiet spot that wuz cool 'nd dry 'nd shady; Which same might not have been good law, but it wuz the right manoeuvre To give the critics due respect for Pettibone's shef doover.
Gone is the camp,--yes, years ago the Blue Horizon busted, And every mother's son uv us got up one day 'nd dusted, While Pettibone perceeded East with wealth in his possession, And went to Yurrup, as I heerd, to study his perfession; So, like as not, you'll find him now a-paintin' heads 'nd faces At Venus, Billy Florence, and the like I-talyun places.
But no sech face he'll paint again as at old Blue Horizon, For I'll allow no sweeter face no human soul sot eyes on; And when the critics talk so grand uv Paris 'nd the Loover, I say, "Oh, but you orter seen the Pettibone shef doover!"
Written by Francesco Petrarch | Create an image from this poem

SONNET XLIV

SONNET XLIV.

Mie venture al venir son tarde e pigre.

FEW ARE THE SWEETS, BUT MANY THE BITTERS OF LOVE.

Ever my hap is slack and slow in coming,
Desire increasing, ay my hope uncertain
With doubtful love, that but increaseth pain;
For, tiger-like, so swift it is in parting.
Alas! the snow black shall it be and scalding,
The sea waterless, and fish upon the mountain,
The Thames shall back return into his fountain,
And where he rose the sun shall take [his] lodging,
Ere I in this find peace or quietness;
Or that Love, or my Lady, right wisely,
Leave to conspire against me wrongfully.
[Pg 59]And if I have, after such bitterness,
One drop of sweet, my mouth is out of taste,
That all my trust and travail is but waste.
Wyatt.
Late to arrive my fortunes are and slow—
Hopes are unsure, desires ascend and swell,
Suspense, expectancy in me rebel—
But swifter to depart than tigers go.
Tepid and dark shall be the cold pure snow,
The ocean dry, its fish on mountains dwell,
The sun set in the East, by that old well
Alike whence Tigris and Euphrates flow,
Ere in this strife I peace or truce shall find,
Ere Love or Laura practise kinder ways,
Sworn friends, against me wrongfully combined.
After such bitters, if some sweet allays,
Balk'd by long fasts my palate spurns the fare,
Sole grace from them that falleth to my share.
Macgregor.
Written by Francesco Petrarch | Create an image from this poem

SONNET CXL

SONNET CXL.

Mirando 'l sol de' begli occhi sereno.

THE SWEETS AND BITTERS OF LOVE.

Marking of those bright eyes the sun serene
Where reigneth Love, who mine obscures and grieves,
My hopeless heart the weary spirit leaves
Once more to gain its paradise terrene;
Then, finding full of bitter-sweet the scene,
And in the world how vast the web it weaves.
A secret sigh for baffled love it heaves,
Whose spurs so sharp, whose curb so hard have been.
By these two contrary and mix'd extremes,
With frozen or with fiery wishes fraught,
To stand 'tween misery and bliss she seems:
Seldom in glad and oft in gloomy thought,
But mostly contrite for its bold emprize,
For of like seed like fruit must ever rise!
Macgregor.


Written by Francesco Petrarch | Create an image from this poem

SONNET CXCIII

SONNET CXCIII.

Cantai, or piango; e non men di dolcezza.

THOUGH IN THE MIDST OF PAIN, HE DEEMS HIMSELF THE HAPPIEST OF MEN.

I sang, who now lament; nor less delight
Than in my song I found, in tears I find;
For on the cause and not effect inclined,
My senses still desire to scale that height:
Whence, mildly if she smile or hardly smite,
Cruel and cold her acts, or meek and kind,
All I endure, nor care what weights they bind,
E'en though her rage would break my armour quite.
[Pg 204]Let Love and Laura, world and fortune join,
And still pursue their usual course for me,
I care not, if unblest, in life to be.
Let me or burn to death or living pine,
No gentler state than mine beneath the sun,
Since from a source so sweet my bitters run.
Macgregor.

Book: Reflection on the Important Things