Famous Bottom(A) Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Gunner Joe

by Marriott Edgar
 I'll tell you a seafaring story, 
Of a lad who won honour and fame 
Wi' Nelson at Battle 'Trafalgar, 
Joe Moggeridge, that were his name. 

He were one of the crew of the Victory, 
His job when a battle begun 
Was to take cannon balls out o' basket 
And shove 'em down front end o' gun. 

One day him...Read more of this...

Speaking To You (From Rock Bottom)

by Michael Ondaatje
 Speaking to you
this hour
these days when
I have lost the feather of poetry
and the rains
of separation 
surround us tock
tock like Go tablets

Everyone has learned 
to move carefully

'Dancing' 'laughing' 'bad taste'
is a memory
a tableau behind trees of law

In the midst of love for you
my wife's suffering
anger in every direction
and the children wise
as tough shrubs
but they are not tough
--so I fear
how anything...Read more of this...

Mourning

by Andrew Marvell
 You, that decipher out the Fate
Of humane Off-springs from the Skies,
What mean these Infants which of late
Spring from the Starrs of Chlora's Eyes?

Her Eyes confus'd, and doubled ore,
With Tears suspended ere they flow;
Seem bending upwards, to restore
To Heaven, whence it came, their Woe.

When, molding of the watry Sphears,
Slow drops unty themselves away;
As if she, with those precious Tears,
Would strow...Read more of this...

A Tale of the Sea

by William Topaz McGonagall
 A pathetic tale of the sea I will unfold,
Enough to make one's blood run cold;
Concerning four fishermen cast adrift in a dory.
As I've been told I'll relate the story.
T'was on the 8th April on the afternoon of that day
That the village of Louisburg was thrown into a wild state or dismay, 

And the villagers flew to the beach in...Read more of this...

Los Angeles 1954

by David St John
 It was in the old days,
When she used to hang out at a place
Called Club Zombie,
A black cabaret that the police liked
To raid now and then. As she
Stepped through the door, the light
Would hit her platinum hair,
And believe me, heads would turn. Maestro
Loved it; he'd have her by
The arm as he led us through the packed crowd
To a private...Read more of this...

Mountains and Seas

by Dejan Stojanovic
Mountains and seas, 
You live in me 

Whether I climb 
To the top 

Of the mind 
Or dive deep 

To the bottom 
Of the heart
...Read more of this...

The limitations of youth

by Eugene Field
 I'd like to be a cowboy an' ride a fiery hoss
Way out into the big an' boundless west;
I'd kill the bears an' catamounts an' wolves I come across,
An' I'd pluck the bal' head eagle from his nest!
With my pistols at my side,
I would roam the prarers wide,
An' to scalp the savage Injun in his wigwam would I ride--
If I...Read more of this...

Strong Feeling

by Ehsan Sehgal
"When love grows from the bottom of heart, it becomes strong feeling in your heart forever whether you reach your beloved or not."
Ehsan Sehgal...Read more of this...

House

by Carl Sandburg
 TWO Swede families live downstairs and an Irish policeman upstairs, and an old soldier, Uncle Joe.
Two Swede boys go upstairs and see Joe. His wife is dead, his only son is dead, and his two daughters in Missouri and Texas don’t want him around.
The boys and Uncle Joe crack walnuts with a hammer on the bottom of a flatiron...Read more of this...

Hiawathas Sailing

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
 "Give me of your bark, O Birch-tree! 
Of your yellow bark, O Birch-tree! 
Growing by the rushing river, 
Tall and stately in the valley! 
I a light canoe will build me, 
Build a swift Cheemaun for sailing, 
That shall float on the river, 
Like a yellow leaf in Autumn, 
Like a yellow water-lily!
"Lay aside your cloak, O Birch-tree! 
Lay...Read more of this...

Remembrances

by John Clare
 Summer pleasures they are gone like to visions every one
And the cloudy days of autumn and of winter cometh on
I tried to call them back but unbidden they are gone
Far away from heart and eye and for ever far away
Dear heart and can it be that such raptures meet decay
I thought them all eternal when by Langley Bush I...Read more of this...

The Frog Prince

by Anne Sexton
 Frau Doktor,
Mama Brundig,
take out your contacts,
remove your wig.
I write for you.
I entertain.
But frogs come out
of the sky like rain.

Frogs arrive
With an ugly fury.
You are my judge.
You are my jury.

My guilts are what
we catalogue.
I'll take a knife
and chop up frog.

Frog has not nerves.
Frog is as old as a cockroach.
Frog is my father's genitals.
Frog is a malformed doorknob.
Frog is a soft...Read more of this...

For The Moment

by Pierre Reverdy
 Life is simple and gay
The bright sun rings with a quiet sound
The sound of the bells has quieted 
 down
This morning the light hits it all 
The footlights of my head are lit again
And the room I live in is finally bright

Just one beam is enough
Just one burst of laughter
My joy that shakes the house 
Restrains those wanting to...Read more of this...

Please Master

by Allen Ginsberg
 Please master can I touch your cheeck
please master can I kneel at your feet
please master can I loosen your blue pants
please master can I gaze at your golden haired belly
please master can I have your thighs bare to my eyes
please master can I take off my clothes below your chair
please master can I can I kiss your ankles and...Read more of this...

The Sharks Parlor

by James Dickey
 Memory: I can take my head and strike it on a wall on Cumberland Island 
Where the night tide came crawling under the stairs came up the first 
Two or three steps and the cottage stood on poles all night 
With the sea sprawled under it as we dreamed of the great fin circling 
Under the bedroom floor. In...Read more of this...

Dream Song 122: He published his girls bottom in staid pages

by John Berryman
 He published his girl's bottom in staid pages
of an old weekly. Where will next his rages
ridiculous Henry land?
Tranquil & chaste, de-hammocked, he descended-”
upon which note the fable should have ended-”
towards the ground, and

while fable wound itself upon him thick
and coats upon his tongue formed, white, terrific:
he stretched out still.
Assembled bands to do obsequious music
at hopeless noon. He bayed before...Read more of this...

Fishing On The Susquehanna In July

by Billy Collins
 I have never been fishing on the Susquehanna
or on any river for that matter
to be perfectly honest.

Not in July or any month
have I had the pleasure -- if it is a pleasure --
of fishing on the Susquehanna.

I am more likely to be found
in a quiet room like this one --
a painting of a woman on the wall,

a bowl of...Read more of this...

Two Kopjes

by Rudyard Kipling
 (Made Yeomanry towards End of Boer War)
Only two African kopjes,
 Only the cart-tracks that wind
Empty and open between 'em,
 Only the Transvaal behind;
Only an Aldershot column
 Marching to conquer the land . . .
Only a sudden and solemn
 Visit, unarmed, to the Rand.

 Then scorn not the African kopje,
 The kopje that smiles in the heat,
 The wholly unoccupied...Read more of this...

Spirit Song Over The Waters

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
 THE soul of man
Resembleth water:
From heaven it cometh,
To heaven it soareth.
And then again
To earth descendeth,
Changing ever.

Down from the lofty
Rocky wall
Streams the bright flood,
Then spreadeth gently
In cloudy billows
O'er the smooth rock,
And welcomed kindly,
Veiling, on roams it,
Soft murmuring,
Tow'rd the abyss.

Cliffs projecting
Oppose its progress,--
Angrily foams it
Down to the bottom,
Step by step.

Now, in flat channel,
Through the meadowland steals it,
And in the polish'd lake
Each...Read more of this...

The Cathedral of Rheims

by Joyce Kilmer
 (From the French of Emile Verhaeren)

He who walks through the meadows of Champagne
At noon in Fall, when leaves like gold appear,
Sees it draw near
Like some great mountain set upon the plain,
From radiant dawn until the close of day,
Nearer it grows
To him who goes
Across the country. When tall towers lay
Their shadowy pall
Upon his way,
He enters, where
The solid stone is hollowed...Read more of this...

Death and Burial of Lord Tennyson

by William Topaz McGonagall
 Alas! England now mourns for her poet that's gone-
The late and the good Lord Tennyson.
I hope his soul has fled to heaven above,
Where there is everlasting joy and love. 

He was a man that didn't care for company,
Because company interfered with his study,
And confused the bright ideas in his brain,
And for that reason from company he liked to abstain....Read more of this...

The Far Field

by Theodore Roethke
 I

I dream of journeys repeatedly:
Of flying like a bat deep into a narrowing tunnel
Of driving alone, without luggage, out a long peninsula,
The road lined with snow-laden second growth,
A fine dry snow ticking the windshield,
Alternate snow and sleet, no on-coming traffic,
And no lights behind, in the blurred side-mirror,
The road changing from glazed tarface to a rubble of stone,
Ending at last...Read more of this...

Mohammed Bek Hadjetlache

by Carl Sandburg
 THIS Mohammedan colonel from the Caucasus yells with his voice and wigwags with his arms.
The interpreter translates, “I was a friend of Kornilov, he asks me what to do and I tell him.”
A stub of a man, this Mohammedan colonel … a projectile shape … a bald head hammered …
“Does he fight or do they put him in a...Read more of this...

The Giant In Glee

by Victor Hugo
 ("Ho, guerriers! je suis né dans le pays des Gaules.") 
 
 {V., March 11, 1825.} 


 Ho, warriors! I was reared in the land of the Gauls; 
 O'er the Rhine my ancestors came bounding like balls 
 Of the snow at the Pole, where, a babe, I was bathed 
 Ere in bear and in walrus-skin I...Read more of this...

Directions

by Billy Collins
 You know the brick path in the back of the house,
the one you see from the kitchen window, 
the one that bends around the far end of the garden
where all the yellow primroses are?
And you know how if you leave the path
and walk into the woods you come 
to a heap of rocks, probably pushed
down during the horrors of...Read more of this...

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