10 Best Famous Malt Poems

Here is a collection of the top 10 all-time best famous Malt poems. This is a select list of the best famous Malt poetry. Reading, writing, and enjoying famous Malt poetry (as well as classical and contemporary poems) is a great past time. These top poems are the best examples of malt poems.

• All Famous Malt Poems

 ‘TERENCE, this is stupid stuff: 
You eat your victuals fast enough; 
There can’t be much amiss, ’tis clear, 
To see the rate you drink your beer. 
But oh, good Lord, the verse you make,  5
It gives a chap the belly-ache. 
The cow, the old cow, she is dead; 
It sleeps well, the horned head: 
We poor lads, ’tis our turn now.
To hear such tunes as killed the cow! 
Pretty friendship 'tis to rhyme 
Your friends to death before their time 
Moping melancholy mad! 
Come, pipe a tune to dance to, lad!" 

Why, if 'tis dancing you would be, 
There's brisker pipes than poetry. 
Say, for what were hop-yards meant, 
Or why was Burton built on Trent? 
Oh many a peer of England brews 
Livelier liquor than the Muse, 
And malt does more than Milton can 
To justify God's ways to man. 
Ale, man, ale's the stuff to drink 
For fellows whom it hurts to think: 
Look into the pewter pot 
To see the world as the world's not. 
And faith, 'tis pleasant till 'tis past: 
The mischief is that 'twill not last. 
Oh I have been to Ludlow fair 
And left my necktie God knows where, 
And carried half way home, or near, 
Pints and quarts of Ludlow beer: 
Then the world seemed none so bad, 
And I myself a sterling lad; 
And down in lovely muck I've lain, 
Happy till I woke again. 
Then I saw the morning sky: 
Heigho, the tale was all a lie; 
The world, it was the old world yet, 
I was I, my things were wet, 
And nothing now remained to do 
But begin the game anew. 

Therefore, since the world has still 
Much good, but much less good than ill, 
And while the sun and moon endure 
Luck's a chance, but trouble's sure, 
I'd face it as a wise man would, 
And train for ill and not for good. 
'Tis true, the stuff I bring for sale 
Is not so brisk a brew as ale: 
Out of a stem that scored the hand 
I wrung it in a weary land. 
But take it: if the smack is sour, 
The better for the embittered hour; 
It should do good to heart and head 
When your soul is in my soul's stead; 
And I will friend you, if I may, 
In the dark and cloudy day. 

There was a king reigned in the East: 
There, when kings will sit to feast, 
They get their fill before they think 
With poisoned meat and poisoned drink. 
He gathered all the springs to birth 
From the many-venomed earth; 
First a little, thence to more, 
He sampled all her killing store; 
And easy, smiling, seasoned sound, 
Sate the king when healths went round. 
They put arsenic in his meat 
And stared aghast to watch him eat; 
They poured strychnine in his cup 
And shook to see him drink it up: 
They shook, they stared as white's their shirt: 
Them it was their poison hurt. 
--I tell the tale that I heard told. 
Mithridates, he died old.

 Flamingo silk. New ruff, 
the ivory ghost 
of a halter. Chestnut curls,

*

commas behind the ear.
"Taller, by half a head, 
than my Lord Walsingham."

*

His Devon-cream brogue,
malt eyes. New cloak 
mussed in her mud.

*

The Queen leans forward,
a rosy envelope of civet.
A cleavage

*

whispering seed pearls.
Her own sleeve 
rubs that speck of dirt

*

on his cheek. Three thousand 
ornamental fruit baskets
swing in the smoke.

*

"It is our pleasure 
to have our servant trained 
some longer time 

*

in Ireland." Stamp out 
marks of the Irish.
Their saffron smocks.

*

All curroughs, bards
and rhymers. Desmonds
and Fitzgeralds

*

stuck on low spikes,
an avenue of heads to
the war tent.


*

Kerry timber 
sold to the Canaries.
Pregnant girls

*

hung in their own hair
on city walls. Plague 
crumpling gargoyles

*

through Munster. "They spoke 
like ghosts crying
out of their graves."

This is the house that Jack built.
This is the malt
That lay in the house that Jack built.

This is the rat,
That ate the malt
That lay in the house that Jack built.

This is the cat,
That killed the rat,
That ate the malt
That lay in the house that Jack built.

This is the dog,
That worried the cat,
That killed the rat,
That ate the malt
That lay in the house that Jack built.

This is the cow with the crumpled horn,
That tossed the dog,
That worried the cat,
That killed the rat,
That ate the malt
That lay in the house that Jack built.

This is the maiden all forlorn,
That milked the cow with the crumpled horn,
That tossed the dog,
That worried the cat,
That killed the rat,
That ate the malt
That lay in the house that Jack built.

This is the man all tattered and torn,
That kissed the maiden all forlorn,
That milked the cow with the crumpled horn,
That tossed the dog,
That worried the cat,
That killed the rat,
That ate the malt
That lay in the house that Jack built.

This is the priest all shaven and shorn,
That married the man all tattered and torn,
That kissed the maiden all forlorn,
That milked the cow with the crumpled horn,
That tossed the dog,
That worried the cat,
That killed the rat,
That ate the malt
That lay in the house that Jack built.

This is the cock that crowed in the morn,
That waked the priest all shaven and shorn,
That married the man all tattered and torn,
That kissed the maiden all forlorn,
That milked the cow with the crumpled horn,
That tossed the dog,
That worried the cat,
That killed the rat,
That ate the malt
That lay in the house that Jack built.

This is the farmer sowing the corn,
That kept the cock that crowed in the morn,
That waked the priest all shaven and shorn,
That married the man all tattered and torn,
That kissed the maiden all forlorn,
That milked the cow with the crumpled horn,
That tossed the dog,
That worried the cat,
That killed the rat,
That ate the malt
That lay in the house that Jack built.

 O HAD the malt thy strength of mind,
 Or hops the flavour of thy wit,
’Twere drink for first of human kind,
 A gift that e’en for Syme were fit.JERUSALEM TAVERN, DUMFRIES.