Famous Bit By Bit Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Salmon

by Jorie Graham
 I watched them once, at dusk, on television, run,
in our motel room half-way through
Nebraska, quick, glittering, past beauty, past
the importance of beauty.,
archaic,
not even hungry, not even endangered, driving deeper and deeper
into less. They leapt up falls, ladders,
and rock, tearing and leaping, a gold river,
and a blue river traveling
in opposite directions.
They would not stop, resolution of will
and helplessness, as the...Read more of this...

Confetti In The Wind

by Robert William Service
 He wrote a letter in his mind
 To answer one a maid had sent;
He sought the fitting word to find,
 As on by hill and rill he went.
By bluebell wood and hawthorn lane,
 The cadence sweet and silken phrase
He incubated in his brain
 For days and days.

He wrote his letter on a page
 Of paper with a satin grain;
It...Read more of this...

Death

by James Henry Leigh Hunt
 My body, eh? Friend Death, how now? 
Why all this tedious pomp of writ? 
Thou hast reclaimed it sure and slow 
For half a century bit by bit.

In faith thou knowest more to-day 
Than I do, where it can be found! 
This shrivelled lump of suffering clay, 
To which I am now chained and bound,

Has not of kith or...Read more of this...

The Loss of Love

by Countee Cullen
 All through an empty place I go,
And find her not in any room;
The candles and the lamps I light
Go down before a wind of gloom. 
Thick-spraddled lies the dust about,
A fit, sad place to write her name
Or draw her face the way she looked
That legendary night she came.

The old house crumbles bit by bit;
Each day I hear the ominous...Read more of this...

Epitaph In The Form Of A Ballade

by Francois Villon
 Freres humains qui apres nous vivez, 
N'ayez les coeurs contre nous endurcis ... 
Men, brother men, that after us yet live, 
Let not your hearts too hard against us be; 
For if some pity of us poor men ye give, 
The sooner God shall take of you pity. 
Here are we five or six strung up, you see, 
And...Read more of this...

Dream Song 60: Afters eight years be less dan eight percent

by John Berryman
 Afters eight years, be less dan eight percent,
distinguish' friend, of coloured wif de whites
in de School, in de Souf.
-”Is coloured gobs, is coloured officers,
Mr Bones. Dat's nuffin?-”Uncle Tom,
sweep shut yo mouf,

is million blocking from de proper job,
de fairest houses & de churches eben.
-”You may be right, Friend Bones.
Indeed you is. Defy flyin ober de world,
de pilots, ober ofays. Bit...Read more of this...

Jim

by Hilaire Belloc
 Who ran away from his Nurse and was eaten by a Lion

There was a Boy whose name was Jim;
His Friends were very good to him.
They gave him Tea, and Cakes, and Jam,
And slices of delicious Ham,
And Chocolate with pink inside
And little Tricycles to ride,
And read him Stories through and through,
And even took him to the Zoo--
But there it was...Read more of this...

The Wreck of the Barque Lynton

by William Topaz McGonagall
 A sad tale of the sea, I will unfold,
About Mrs Lingard, that Heroine bold;
Who struggled hard in the midst of the hurricane wild,
To save herself from being drowned, and her darling child. 

'Twas on the 8th of September, the Barque "Lynton" sailed for Aspinwall,
And the crew on board, numbered thirteen in all;
And the weather at the time, was really...Read more of this...

The Grave-digger

by Emile Verhaeren
In the garden yonder of yews and death,
There sojourneth
A man who toils, and has toiled for aye.
Digging the dried-up ground all day.


Some willows, surviving their own dead selves.
Weep there around him as he delves.
And a few poor flowers, disconsolate
Because the tempest and wind and wet
Vex them with ceaseless scourge and fret.


The ground is nothing but pits and cones,
Deep graves in...Read more of this...

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