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Famous Bowl Poems by Famous Poets

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

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...en she rolls!" 
With the silver seas around us and the pale moon overhead, 
And the look-out not a-looking and his pipe-bowl glowing red. 

Ah! the pig-tailed, quidding pirates and the pretty pranks we played, 
All have since been put a stop to by the naughty Board of Trade; 
The schooners and the merry crews are laid away to rest, 
A little south the sunset in the islands of the Blest....Read more of this...
by Masefield, John



...h divinity,
Had so lit up the whole
Immense miraculous house
The Bible promised us,
It seemed a gold-fish swimming in a bowl.

On Florence Emery I call the next,
Who finding the first wrinkles on a face
Admired and beautiful,
And knowing that the future would be vexed
With 'minished beauty, multiplied commonplace,
preferred to teach a school
Away from neighbour or friend,
Among dark skins, and there
permit foul years to wear
Hidden from eyesight to the unnoticed end.
...Read more of this...
by Yeats, William Butler
...ndoned.
That much I know.
I was forced backward.
I was forced forward.
I was passed hand to hand
like a bowl of fruit.
Each night I am nailed into place
and forget who I am.
Daddy?
That's another kind of prison.
It's not the prince at all,
but my father
drunkeningly bends over my bed,
circling the abyss like a shark,
my father thick upon me
like some sleeping jellyfish.
What voyage is this, little girl?
This coming out of prison?
God help --
th...Read more of this...
by Sexton, Anne
...strong and
brown;

And he is rich, and fat and fleecy herds
Of bleating sheep upon his meadows lie,
And many an earthen bowl of yellow curds
Is in his homestead for the thievish fly
To swim and drown in, the pink clover mead
Keeps its sweet store for him, and he can pipe on oaten reed.

And yet I love him not; it was for thee
I kept my love; I knew that thou would'st come
To rid me of this pallid chastity,
Thou fairest flower of the flowerless foam
Of all the wide AEgean,...Read more of this...
by Wilde, Oscar
...e sea of olive trees. A skein of blue wool. A tea saucer
wrapped in newspaper. An empty cracker tin. A bowl of blueber-
ries in heavy cream. White wine in a green-stemmed glass.


And when you opened your wings to wind, across the punched-
tin sky above a prison courtyard, those condemned to death and
those condemned to life watched how smooth and sweet a white
cloud glides. ...Read more of this...
by Cisneros, Sandra



...y brain!
Ah, but she,
Your other sister and my other soul,
She shall again be mine;
And I shall drink her from a silver bowl,
A chilly thin green wine,
Not bitter to the taste,
Not sweet,
Not of your press, oh, restless, clamorous nine,—
To foam beneath the frantic hoofs of mirth—
But savoring faintly of the acid earth,
And trod by pensive feet
From perfect clusters ripened without haste
Out of the urgent heat
In some clear glimmering vaulted twilight under the odorous vine

...Read more of this...
by St Vincent Millay, Edna
...olding them to the wall.

They were pictures of kittens and puppies. They looked just

fine .

 There was a bowl of goldfish next to the bed, next to the

gun. How religious and intimate the goldfish and the gun

looked together.

 They had a cat named 208. They covered the bathroom

floor with newspaper and the cat crapped on the newspaper.

My friend said that 208 thought he was the only cat left in the

world, not having seen another cat since h...Read more of this...
by Brautigan, Richard
...y the public clocks.
Then sit for half an hour and drink our bocks.

II

Now that lilacs are in bloom
She has a bowl of lilacs in her room
And twists one in his fingers while she talks.
“Ah, my friend, you do not know, you do not know
What life is, you who hold it in your hands”;
(Slowly twisting the lilac stalks)
“You let it flow from you, you let it flow,
And youth is cruel, and has no remorse
And smiles at situations which it cannot see.”
I smile, of course...Read more of this...
by Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)
...the hour of nine. 
That sign the pleasant circle. broke: 
My uncle ceased his pipe to smoke, 
Knocked from its bowl the refuse gray 
And laid it tenderly away; 
Then roused himself to safely cover 
The dull red brands with ashes over, 
And while, with care, our mother laid 
The work aside, her steps she stayed 
One moment, seeking to express 
Her grateful sense of happiness 
For food and shelter, warmth and health, 
And love's contentment more than wealth, 
With simp...Read more of this...
by Whittier, John Greenleaf
...plain 
Their tents were pitch'd, their posts assign'd; 
To one, alas! assign'd in vain! 
What need of words? the deadly bowl, 
By Giaffir's order drugg'd and given, 
With venom subtle as his soul, 
Dismiss'd Abdallah's hence to heaven. 
Reclined and feverish in the bath, 
He, when the hunter's sport was up, 
But little deem'd a brother's wrath 
To quench his thirst had such a cup: 
The bowl a bribed attendant bore; 
He drank one draught, and nor needed more! [33] 
If thou...Read more of this...
by Byron, George (Lord)
...olen. 
"What would you fancy, Saul?" they said. 
"A gin punch hot and then to bed." 
"Jane, fetch the punch bowl to the gemmen; 
And mind you don't put too much lemon. 
Our good friend Saul has had a fight of it, 
Now smoke up, boys, and make a night of it." 

The room was full of men and stink 
Of bad cigars and heavy drink. 
Riley was nodding to the floor 
And gurgling as he wanted more. 
His mouth was wide, his face was pale, 
His swollen face w...Read more of this...
by Masefield, John
...My heart sometimes as fierce, as Lion bold,
5.80 Now trembling, and fearful, sad, and cold.
5.81 My golden Bowl and silver Cord, e're long,
5.82 Shall both be broke, by wracking death so strong.
5.83 I then shall go whence I shall come no more.
5.84 Sons, Nephews, leave, my death for to deplore.
5.85 In pleasures, and in labours, I have found
5.86 That earth can give no consolation sound
5.87 To great, to rich, to poor, to youn...Read more of this...
by Bradstreet, Anne
...
Down Thomas - the saint of 
unbelievers - down the road to bliss 
Down to the red house, uncertain 
like a beggar's bowl hanging unto the cliff 
of withdrawn pledges, where the well is 
deepest... 

I have dared to live 
beneath the great untamed. 

To every good, to every 
flicker of stars along the pine 
shadows; 
To every tussle with lucid dusk, 
To every moonlit pledge, to 
every turn made to outleap 
silvery pollen, 

I have desired to ...Read more of this...
by Nwakanma, Obi
...e to speak to me . . .
Sometimes the grey cat waves his tail around me . . .
Goldfish swim in a bowl, glisten in sunlight,
Dilate to a gorgeous size, blow delicate bubbles,
Drowse among dark green weeds. On rainy days,
You'll see a gas-light shedding light behind me—
An eye-shade round my forehead. There I sit,
Twirling the tiny brushes in my paint-cups,
Painting the pale pink rosebuds, minute violets,
Exquisite wreaths of dark green ivy leaves...Read more of this...
by Aiken, Conrad
...s, it is this that oppresses my soul,
 When I think of my uncle's last words:
And my heart is like nothing so much as a bowl
 Brimming over with quivering curds!

"It is this, it is this--" "We have had that before!"
 The Bellman indignantly said.
And the Baker replied "Let me say it once more.
 It is this, it is this that I dread!

"I engage with the Snark--every night after dark--
 In a dreamy delirious fight:
I serve it with greens in those shadowy scenes,
 And I u...Read more of this...
by Carroll, Lewis
...grieved that day their games cut short,
     And marred the dicer's brawling sport,
     And shouted loud, 'Renew the bowl!
     And, while a merry catch I troll,
     Let each the buxom chorus bear,
     Like brethren of the brand and spear.'
     V.

     Soldier's Song.

     Our vicar still preaches that Peter and Poule
     Laid a swinging long curse on the bonny brown bowl,
     That there 's wrath and despair in the jolly black-jack,
     And the seven dea...Read more of this...
by Scott, Sir Walter
...I.
Awake! for Morning in the Bowl of Night
Has flung the Stone that puts the Stars to Flight:
And Lo! the Hunter of the East has caught
The Sultan's Turret in a Noose of Light. 

II.
Dreaming when Dawn's Left Hand was in the Sky
I heard a voice within the Tavern cry,
"Awake, my Little ones, and fill the Cup
Before Life's Liquor in its Cup be dry." 

III.
And, as the Cock...Read more of this...
by Khayyam, Omar
...never did sons much good. 
A Scot from Lady Jean's own native passes, 
With a head as smooth and round as a silver bowl, 
A crooked nose, and eyes behind her glasses 
Grey and bright and wise—a great soul ! 
Ready to lay down her life for her charge, and ready 
To administer discipline without consulting me: 
'Is that the way for you to answer my leddy?
I think you'll get no sweet tonight to your tea.'

Bringing him up better than I could do it,
Teaching him to be ci...Read more of this...
by Miller, Alice Duer
...Passed with an eye serene and heart unladen.

To those she saw most beautiful she gave
Strange panacea in a crystal bowl.
They drank in their deep sleep of that sweet wave,
And lived thenceforward as if some control,
Mightier than life, were in them; and the grave
Of such, when death oppressed the weary soul,
Was as a green and overarching bower
Lit by the gems of many a starry flower.

For, on the night when they were buried, she
Restored the embalmer's ruining, ...Read more of this...
by Shelley, Percy Bysshe
...into the room, a shriek at his heel.
The blue color pales. He is human after all.
A red lotus opens in its bowl of blood;
They are stitching me up with silk, as if I were a material.

What did my fingers do before they held him?
What did my heart do, with its love?
I have never seen a thing so clear.
His lids are like the lilac-flower
And soft as a moth, his breath.
I shall not let go.
There is no guile or warp in him. May he keep so.

SEC...Read more of this...
by Plath, Sylvia

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Book: Shattered Sighs