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Famous Book Poems by Famous Poets

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

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...oning every one I meet;
Who are you, that wanted only to be told what you knew before? 
Who are you, that wanted only a book to join you in your nonsense? 

(With pangs and cries, as thine own, O bearer of many children! 
These clamors wild, to a race of pride I give.) 

O lands! would you be freer than all that has ever been before?
If you would be freer than all that has been before, come listen to me. 

Fear grace—Fear elegance, civilization, delicatesse, 
Fear the...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt



...ng up—to Die.

486

I was the slightest in the House—
I took the smallest Room—
At night, my little Lamp, and Book—
And one Geranium—

So stationed I could catch the Mint
That never ceased to fall—
And just my Basket—
Let me think—I'm sure
That this was all—

I never spoke—unless addressed—
And then, 'twas brief and low—
I could not bear to live—aloud—
The Racket shamed me so—

And if it had not been so far—
And any one I knew
Were going—I had often ...Read more of this...
by Dickinson, Emily
...ister; and Father Felician,
Priest and pedagogue both in the village, had taught them their letters
Out of the selfsame book, with the hymns of the church and the plain-song.
But when the hymn was sung, and the daily lesson completed,
Swiftly they hurried away to the forge of Basil the blacksmith.
There at the door they stood, with wondering eyes to behold him
Take in his leathern lap the hoof of the horse as a plaything,
Nailing the shoe in its place; while near him ...Read more of this...
by Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
...m 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 yellow paper rose twisted on a wire hanger in the closet, and even that imaginary, nothing but a hopeful little bit of hallucination—
ah, Carl, while y...Read more of this...
by Ginsberg, Allen
...BOOK I

 Deep in the shady sadness of a vale
Far sunken from the healthy breath of morn,
Far from the fiery noon, and eve's one star,
Sat gray-hair'd Saturn, quiet as a stone,
Still as the silence round about his lair;
Forest on forest hung above his head
Like cloud on cloud. No stir of air was there,
Not so much life as on a summer's day
Robs not one li...Read more of this...
by Keats, John



...of that dream? 
Alas! he told not — but he did awake 
To curse the wither'd heart that would not break. 

IX. 

Books, for his volume heretofore was Man, 
With eye more curious he appear'd to scan, 
And oft, in sudden mood, for many a day 
From all communion he would start away: 
And then, his rarely call'd attendants said, 
Through night's long hours would sound his hurried tread 
O'er the dark gallery, where his fathers frown'd 
In rude but antique portraiture aroun...Read more of this...
by Byron, George (Lord)
...ger,
He pointed with his hand from where it lay
Like a white crumpled spider on his knee:
“That leaf there in your open book! It moved
Just then, I thought. It’s stood erect like that,
There on the table, ever since I came,
Trying to turn itself backward or forward,
I’ve had my eye on it to make out which;
If forward, then it’s with a friend’s impatience—
You see I know—to get you on to things
It wants to see how you will take, if backward
It’s from regret for something y...Read more of this...
by Frost, Robert
...all no longer take things at second or third hand, nor look through the
 eyes of the dead, nor feed on the spectres in books; 
You shall not look through my eyes either, nor take things from me: 
You shall listen to all sides, and filter them from yourself. 

3
I have heard what the talkers were talking, the talk of the beginning and the
 end;
But I do not talk of the beginning or the end. 

There was never any more inception than there is now, 
Nor any mor...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt
...it—my own feet have tried it well. 

Allons! be not detain’d! 
Let the paper remain on the desk unwritten, and the book on the shelf unopen’d! 
Let the tools remain in the workshop! let the money remain unearn’d! 
Let the school stand! mind not the cry of the teacher!
Let the preacher preach in his pulpit! let the lawyer plead in the court, and the judge
 expound
 the
 law. 

Mon enfant! I give you my hand! 
I give you my love, more precious than money, 
I give you m...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt
...ets, quaint
With Westland king and Westland saint,
And watched the western glory faint
Along the road to Frome.




BOOK I THE VISION OF THE KING


Before the gods that made the gods
Had seen their sunrise pass,
The White Horse of the White Horse Vale
Was cut out of the grass.

Before the gods that made the gods
Had drunk at dawn their fill,
The White Horse of the White Horse Vale
Was hoary on the hill.

Age beyond age on British land,
Aeons on aeons gone,
Was pea...Read more of this...
by Chesterton, G K
...quick Spirit of the Universe
He held his dialogues: and they did teach
To him the magic of their mysteries;
To him the book of Night was opened wide,
And voices from the deep abyss revealed
A marvel and a secret.—Be it so.

IX

My dream is past; it had no further change.
It was of a strange order, that the doom
Of these two creatures should be thus traced out
Almost like a reality—the one
To end in madness—both in misery....Read more of this...
by Byron, George (Lord)
...dismay'd her faithless faith forbore;
And wins again her love lost in the lore
Of schools and script of many a learned book:
For thou what ruthless death untimely took
Shalt now in better brotherhood restore,
And save my batter'd ship that far from shore
High on the dismal deep in tempest shook. 

So in despite of sorrow lately learn'd
I still hold true to truth since thou art true,
Nor wail the woe which thou to joy hast turn'd
Nor come the heavenly sun and bathing blue...Read more of this...
by Bridges, Robert Seymour
...sor of the command of the
heavenly host, is calld the Devil or Satan and his children are
call'd Sin & Death
But in the Book of Job Miltons Messiah is call'd Satan.
For this history has been adopted by both parties
It indeed appear'd to Reason as if Desire was cast out. but the
Devils account is, that the Messi[PL 6]ah fell. & formed a heaven
of what he stole from the Abyss
This is shewn in the Gospel, where he prays to the Father to
send the comforter or Desire t...Read more of this...
by Blake, William
...gon of the howling main, 

"Or, stretched beside some babbling brook,
To con, with inexpressive look,
An unintelligible book." 

Low spake the voice within his head,
In words imagined more than said,
Soundless as ghost's intended tread: 

"If thou art duller than before,
Why quittedst thou the voice of lore?
Why not endure, expecting more?" 

"Rather than that," he groaned aghast,
"I'd writhe in depths of cavern vast,
Some loathly vampire's rich repast." 

"'Twere har...Read more of this...
by Carroll, Lewis
...a year or so; 
And that the 'sons of God', like those of clay, 
Must keep him company; and we might show 
From the same book, in how polite a way 
The dialogue is held between the Powers 
Of Good and Evil — but 'twould take up hours. 

XXXIV 

And this is not a theologic tract, 
To prove with Hebrew and with Arabic, 
If Job be allegory or a fact, 
But a true narrative; and thus I pick 
From out the whole but such and such an act 
As sets aside the slightest thought of tri...Read more of this...
by Byron, George (Lord)
...tle, but the plan and a good deal of the incidental symbolism
of the poem were suggested by Miss Jessie L. Weston's book on the Grail legend:
From Ritual to Romance (Macmillan). Indeed, so deeply am I indebted,
Miss Weston's book will elucidate the difficulties of the poem much better than
my notes can do; and I recommend it (apart from the great interest of the book
itself) to any who think such elucidation of the poem worth the trouble. To
another work of ant...Read more of this...
by Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)
...th sudden yearning— 
The small white wooden house, the grass-green door, 
My father's study with the fire burning, 
And books piled on the floor. 
I saw the moon-faced clock that told the hours, 
The crimson Turkey carpet, worn and frayed, 
The heavy dishes—gold with birds and flowers— 
Fruits of the China trade. 
I saw the jack o' lanterns, friendly, frightening,
Shine from our gateposts every Hallow-e'en; 
I saw the oak tree, shattered once by lightning,
Twisted, st...Read more of this...
by Miller, Alice Duer
...VOICE:
Today the colleges are drunk with spring.
My black gown is a little funeral:
It shows I am serious.
The books I carry wedge into my side.
I had an old wound once, but it is healing.
I had a dream of an island, red with cries.
It was a dream, and did not mean a thing.

FIRST VOICE:
Dawn flowers in the great elm outside the house.
The swifts are back. They are shrieking like paper rockets.
I hear the sound of the hours
Widen and die i...Read more of this...
by Plath, Sylvia
...WHEN you are old and gray and full of sleep 
And nodding by the fire, take down this book, 
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look 
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep; 

How many loved your moments of glad grace, 
And loved your beauty with love false or true; 
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you, 
And loved the sorrows of your changing face. 

And bending down beside the glowing bars, 
Murmur, a little sa...Read more of this...
by Yeats, William Butler
...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: Incarceration
Became second country,
And the first I cannot...Read more of this...
by Akhmatova, Anna

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