Famous Bite Me Poems by Famous Poets

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

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A Ballad of Burdens

by Algernon Charles Swinburne
 The burden of fair women. Vain delight,
And love self-slain in some sweet shameful way,
And sorrowful old age that comes by night
As a thief comes that has no heart by day,
And change that finds fair cheeks and leaves them grey,
And weariness that keeps awake for hire,
And grief that says what pleasure used to say;
This is the end of every man's...Read more of this...

Till The Wind Gets Right

by Paul Laurence Dunbar
Oh the breeze is blowin' balmy
An the sun is in a haze;
There's a cloud jest givin' coolness
To the laziest of days.
There are crowds upon the lakeside,
But the fish refuse to bite,
So I'll wait and go a-fishin'
When the wind gets right.
Now my boat tugs at her anchor,
Eager now to kiss the spray,
While the little waves are callin'
Drowsy sailor come away,
There's a...Read more of this...

Picture Puzzle Piece

by Shel Silverstein
 One picture puzzle piece
Lyin' on the sidewalk,
One picture puzzle piece
Soakin' in the rain.
It might be a button of blue
On the coat of the woman
Who lived in a shoe.
It might be a magical bean,
Or a fold in the red
Velvet robe of a queen.
It might be the one little bite
Of the apple her stepmother
Gave to Snow White.
It might be the veil...Read more of this...

The Man From Eldorado

by Robert William Service
 He's the man from Eldorado, and he's just arrived in town,
 In moccasins and oily buckskin shirt.
He's gaunt as any Indian, and pretty nigh as brown;
 He's greasy, and he smells of sweat and dirt.
He sports a crop of whiskers that would shame a healthy hog;
 Hard work has racked his joints and stooped his back;
He slops along the...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...

The Laboratory

by Robert Browning
 ANCIEN REGIME

I

Now that I, tying thy glass mask tightly,
May gaze through these faint smokes curling whitely,
As thou pliest thy trade in this devil's-smithy— 
Which is the poison to poison her, prithee?

II

He is with her; and they know that I know
Where they are, what they do: they believe my tears flow
While they laugh, laugh at me, at me fled to...Read more of this...

Jump Rope

by Connie Wanek
 There is menace
in its relentless course, round and round,
describing an ellipsoid,
an airy prison in which a young girl
is incarcerated.

Whom will she marry? Whom will she love?
The rope, like a snake,
has the gift of divination,
yet reveals only a hint, a single initial.
But what if she never misses?

Is competence its own reward?
Will the rope never strike her ankle,
love's bite? The enders...Read more of this...

Seein Things

by Eugene Field
I ain't afeard uv snakes, or toads, or bugs, or worms, or mice,
An' things 'at girls are skeered uv I think are awful nice!
I'm pretty brave, I guess; an' yet I hate to go to bed,
For, when I'm tucked up warm an' snug an' when my prayers are said,
Mother tells me "Happy dreams!" and takes away the light,
An' leaves me...Read more of this...

Two Dogs HaveI

by Ogden Nash
 For years we've had a little dog,
Last year we acquired a big dog;
He wasn't big when we got him,
He was littler than the dog we had.
We thought our little dog would love him,
Would help him to become a trig dog,
But the new little dog got bigger,
And the old little dog got mad.

Now the big dog loves the little dog,
But...Read more of this...

Perinde AC Cadaver

by Algernon Charles Swinburne
 In a vision Liberty stood
By the childless charm-stricken bed
Where, barren of glory and good,
Knowing nought if she would not or would,
England slept with her dead.

Her face that the foam had whitened,
Her hands that were strong to strive,
Her eyes whence battle had lightened,
Over all was a drawn shroud tightened
To bind her asleep and alive.

She turned and laughed in her dream
With...Read more of this...

Song of the Indian Maid from Endymion

by John Keats
 O SORROW! 
 Why dost borrow 
 The natural hue of health, from vermeil lips?-- 
 To give maiden blushes 
 To the white rose bushes? 
 Or is it thy dewy hand the daisy tips? 

 O Sorrow! 
 Why dost borrow 
 The lustrous passion from a falcon-eye?-- 
 To give the glow-worm light? 
 Or, on...Read more of this...

New Years Eve

by Robert William Service
 It's cruel cold on the water-front, silent and dark and drear;
 Only the black tide weltering, only the hissing snow;
And I, alone, like a storm-tossed wreck, on this night of the glad New Year,
 Shuffling along in the icy wind, ghastly and gaunt and slow.

They're playing a tune in McGuffy's saloon, and it's cheery and bright in there
 (God!...Read more of this...

Ye Mariners Who Spread Your Sails

by Victor Hugo
 ("Matelôts, vous déploirez les voiles.") 
 
 {XVI., May 5, 1839.} 


 Ye mariners! ye mariners! each sail to the breeze unfurled, 
 In joy or sorrow still pursue your course around the world; 
 And when the stars next sunset shine, ye anxiously will gaze 
 Upon the shore, a friend or foe, as the windy quarter lays....Read more of this...

A Confidence

by Paul Laurence Dunbar
Uncle John, he makes me tired;
Thinks 'at he's jest so all-fired
Smart, 'at he kin pick up, so,
Ever'thing he wants to know.
Tried to ketch me up last night,
But you bet I would n't bite.
I jest kep' the smoothes' face,
But I led him sich a chase,
Could n't corner me, you bet—
I skipped all the traps he set.
Makin' out he wan'ed to know
Who...Read more of this...

The Craftsmen Of The Little Box

by Vasko Popa
 Don't open the little box 
Heaven's hat will fall out of her 

Don't close her for any reason 
She'll bite the trouser-leg of eternity 

Don't drop her on the earth 
The sun's eggs will break inside her 

Don't throw her in the air 
Earth's bones will break inside her 

Don't hold her in your hands 
The dough of the...Read more of this...

Elizabeth Leaves A Letter For Dr. Frankenstein

by Jennifer Reeser
 Whether the clouds had abandoned Geneva that evening
no one can say now, but what I remember are roses
bruised at their edges, and china cups yellowed with age.
“I am too sick of interior vapors,” I told you,
“Find us a corner of sunlight, and hammer it down...
Tell me again I’m so lovely the insects won’t bite.”
Do you remember it, Victor? A...Read more of this...

To Live Merrily And To Trust To Good Verses

by Robert Herrick
 Now is the time for mirth,
Nor cheek or tongue be dumb;
For with the flow'ry earth
The golden pomp is come.

The golden pomp is come;
For now each tree does wear,
Made of her pap and gum,
Rich beads of amber here.

Now reigns the rose, and now
Th' Arabian dew besmears
My uncontrolled brow
And my retorted hairs.

Homer, this health to thee,
In sack of such a kind
That...Read more of this...

Apple-Pie and Cheese

by Eugene Field
 Full many a sinful notion
Conceived of foreign powers
Has come across the ocean
To harm this land of ours;
And heresies called fashions
Have modesty effaced,
And baleful, morbid passions
Corrupt our native taste.
O tempora! O mores!
What profanations these
That seek to dim the glories
Of apple-pie and cheese!

I'm glad my education
Enables me to stand
Against the vile temptation
Held out on every hand;
Eschewing all the tittles
With vanity replete,
I'm...Read more of this...

When I was a Bird

by Katherine Mansfield
 I climbed up the karaka tree
Into a nest all made of leaves
But soft as feathers.
I made up a song that went on singing all by itself
And hadn't any words, but got sad at the end.
There were daisies in the grass under the tree.
I said just to try them:
"I'll bite off your heads and give them to my little
children to...Read more of this...

Tiger

by Alec Derwent (A D) Hope
 At noon thepaper tigers roar 
-- Miroslav Holub

The paper tigers roar at noon; 
The sun is hot, the sun is high. 
They roar in chorus, not in tune, 
Their plaintive, savage hunting cry.

O, when you hear them, stop your ears 
And clench your lids and bite your tongue. 
The harmless paper tiger bears 
Strong fascination for the young.

His forest...Read more of this...

Knocked Up

by Henry Lawson
 I'm lyin' on the barren ground that's baked and cracked with drought, 
And dunno if my legs or back or heart is most wore out; 
I've got no spirits left to rise and smooth me achin' brow -- 
I'm too knocked up to light a fire and bile the billy now. 

Oh it's trampin', trampin', tra-a-mpin', in flies an'...Read more of this...

Robert Fulton Tanner

by Edgar Lee Masters
 If a man could bite the giant hand
That catchs and destroys him,
As I was bitten by a rat
While demonstrating my patent trap,
In my hardware store that day.
But a man can never avenge himself
On the monstrous ogre Life.
You enter the room—that's being born;
And then you must live—work out your soul,
Aha! the bait that you crave is in view:
A woman with...Read more of this...

The Haystack in the Floods

by William Morris
 Had she come all the way for this,
To part at last without a kiss?
Yea, had she borne the dirt and rain
That her own eyes might see him slain
Beside the haystack in the floods?

Along the dripping leafless woods,
The stirrup touching either shoe,
She rode astride as troopers do;
With kirtle kilted to her knee,
To which the mud splash'd wretchedly;
And the wet dripp'd...Read more of this...

Ode To Maize

by Pablo Neruda
 America, from a grain
of maize you grew
to crown
with spacious lands
the ocean foam.
A grain of maize was your geography.
From the grain
a green lance rose,
was covered with gold,
to grace the heights
of Peru with its yellow tassels.

But, poet, let
history rest in its shroud;
praise with your lyre
the grain in its granaries:
sing to the simple maize in the kitchen.

First, a fine beard
fluttered in the...Read more of this...

The Wind

by Emile Verhaeren
Crossing the infinite length of the moorland,
Here comes the wind,
The wind with his trumpet that Heralds November;
Endless and infinite, crossing the downs,
Here comes the wind
That teareth himself and doth fiercely dismember;
Which heavy breaths turbulent smiting the towns,
The savage wind comes, the fierce wind of November!


Each bucket of iron at the wells of the farmyards,
Each bucket and pulley, it creaks and...Read more of this...

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