Famous Bowls Poems by Famous Poets

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

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The Sultans Palace

by Alan Seeger
 My spirit only lived to look on Beauty's face,
As only when they clasp the arms seem served aright;
As in their flesh inheres the impulse to embrace,
To gaze on Loveliness was my soul's appetite.

I have roamed far in search; white road and plunging bow
Were keys in the blue doors where my desire was set;
Obedient to their lure, my lips and...Read more of this...

Doubt No More That Oberon

by Edna St. Vincent Millay
 Doubt no more that Oberon—
Never doubt that Pan
Lived, and played a reed, and ran
After nymphs in a dark forest,
In the merry, credulous days,—
Lived, and led a fairy band
Over the indulgent land!
Ah, for in this dourest, sorest
Age man's eye has looked upon,
Death to fauns and death to fays,
Still the dog-wood dares to raise—
Healthy tree, with trunk and root—
Ivory bowls that...Read more of this...

Upon the Book and Picture of the Seraphical Saint Teresa

by Richard Crashaw
 O THOU undaunted daughter of desires!
By all thy dower of lights and fires;
By all the eagle in thee, all the dove;
By all thy lives and deaths of love;
By thy large draughts of intellectual day,
And by thy thirsts of love more large than they;
By all thy brim-fill'd bowls of fierce desire,
By thy last morning's draught of liquid fire;
By the full...Read more of this...

The Lost Path

by Elinor Wylie
 The garden's full of scented wallflowers, 
And, save that these stir faintly, nothing stirs; 
Only a distant bell in hollow chime 
Cried out just now for far-forgoten time, 
And three reverberate words the great bell spoke. 
The knocker's made of brass, the door of oak, 
And such a clamor must be loosed on air 
By the knocker's blow that...Read more of this...

I Dream Of My Grandmother And Great-grandmother

by Maria Mazziotti Gillan
 I imagine them walking down rocky paths
toward me, strong, Italian women returning
at dusk from fields where they worked all day
on farms built like steps up the sides
of steep mountains, graceful women carrying water
in terra cotta jugs on their heads.
What I know of these women, whom I never met,
I know from my mother, a few pictures
of my grandmother, standing at...Read more of this...

The Break

by Anne Sexton
 It was also my violent heart that broke,
falling down the front hall stairs.
It was also a message I never spoke,
calling, riser after riser, who cares

about you, who cares, splintering up
the hip that was merely made of crystal,
the post of it and also the cup.
I exploded in the hallway like a pistol.

So I fell apart. So I came all undone.
Yes....Read more of this...

Many fine heads, like bowls, the Brazier made,

by Omar Khayyam
Many fine heads, like bowls, the Brazier made,
And thus his own similitude portrayed;
He set one upside down above our heads,
Which keeps us all continually afraid....Read more of this...

Lost

by Robert William Service
 "Black is the sky, but the land is white--
 (O the wind, the snow and the storm!)--
 Father, where is our boy to-night?
 Pray to God he is safe and warm."

 "Mother, mother, why should you fear?
 Safe is he, and the Arctic moon
 Over his cabin shines so clear--
 Rest and sleep, 'twill be morning soon."

"It's getting dark...Read more of this...

On the Ruins of a Country Inn

by Philip Freneau
 WHERE now these mingled ruins lie 
A temple once to Bacchus rose, 
Beneath whose roof, aspiring high, 
Full many a guest forgot his woes. 

No more this dome, by tempests torn, 
Affords a social safe retreat; 
But ravens here, with eye forlorn, 
And clustering bats henceforth will meet. 

The Priestess of this ruined shrine, 
Unable to survive the stroke,...Read more of this...

Hiawathas Wooing

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
 "As unto the bow the cord is, 
So unto the man is woman; 
Though she bends him, she obeys him, 
Though she draws him, yet she follows; 
Useless each without the other!"
Thus the youthful Hiawatha 
Said within himself and pondered, 
Much perplexed by various feelings, 
Listless, longing, hoping, fearing, 
Dreaming still of Minnehaha, 
Of the lovely Laughing Water, 
In...Read more of this...

The Apparition Of His Mistresscalling Him To Elysium

by Robert Herrick
 THE APPARITION OF HIS, MISTRESS,
CALLING HIM TO ELYSIUM

DESUNT NONNULLA--

Come then, and like two doves with silvery wings,
Let our souls fly to th' shades, wherever springs
Sit smiling in the meads; where balm and oil,
Roses and cassia, crown the untill'd soil;
Where no disease reigns, or infection comes
To blast the air, but amber-gris and gums.
This, that, and ev'ry thicket doth transpire
More sweet...Read more of this...

To-day is Friday, as the Moslem says,

by Omar Khayyam
To-day is Friday, as the Moslem says,
Drink then from bowls served up in quick relays;
Suppose on common days you drink one bowl,
To-day drink two, for 'tis the prince of days....Read more of this...

Thompsons Lunch Room -- Grand Central Station

by Amy Lowell
 Study in Whites

Wax-white --
Floor, ceiling, walls.
Ivory shadows
Over the pavement
Polished to cream surfaces
By constant sweeping.
The big room is coloured like the petals
Of a great magnolia,
And has a patina
Of flower bloom
Which makes it shine dimly
Under the electric lamps.
Chairs are ranged in rows
Like sepia seeds
Waiting fulfilment.
The chalk-white spot of a cook's cap
Moves unglossily against the vaguely bright wall --
Dull chalk-white striking the...Read more of this...

Crucible

by Carl Sandburg
 Hot gold runs a winding stream on the inside of a green bowl.

Yellow trickles in a fan figure, scatters a line of skirmishers, spreads a chorus of dancing girls, performs blazing ochre evolutions, gathers the whole show into one stream, forgets the past and rolls on.

The sea mist green of the bowl’s bottom is a dark throat of SKY...Read more of this...

Gloucester Moods

by William Vaughn Moody
 A mile behind is Gloucester town 
Where the flishing fleets put in, 
A mile ahead the land dips down 
And the woods and farms begin. 
Here, where the moors stretch free 
In the high blue afternoon, 
Are the marching sun and talking sea, 
And the racing winds that wheel and flee 
On the flying heels of June. 

Jill-o'er-the-ground is...Read more of this...

I have swept the sill of the tavern with my hair. Yes,

by Omar Khayyam
I have swept the sill of the tavern with my hair. Yes,
I have given up reflecting upon the good and the bad
in this world and the next. I saw them, like two bowls,
rolling in a ditch, when I was sleeping overcome with
wine, and I no more occupied myself with them than if
I had seen a grain of barley rolling along.
370...Read more of this...

The Flaming Heart

by Richard Crashaw
 O heart, the equal poise of love's both parts,
Big alike with wounds and darts,
Live in these conquering leaves; live all the same,
And walk through all tongues one triumphant flame;
Live here, great heart, and love and die and kill,
And bleed and wound, and yield and conquer still.
Let this immortal life, where'er it comes,
Walk in a crowd of loves and martyrdoms;
Let...Read more of this...

Prelude to an Evening

by John Crowe Ransom
 Do not enforce the tired wolf
Dragging his infected wound homeward
To sit tonight with the warm children
Naming the pretty kings of France.

The images of the invaded mind
Being as the monsters in the dreams
Of your most brief enchanted headful,
Suppose a miracle of confusion:

That dreamed and undreamt become each other
And mix the night and day of your mind;
And it does not matter...Read more of this...

The Pigeons Of St. Marks

by Robert William Service
 Something's wrong in Pigeon-land;
'Tisn't as it used to be,
When the pilgrim, corn in hand,
Courted us with laughing glee;
When we crooned with pinions furled,
Tamest pigeons in the world.

When we packed each arm and shoulder,
Never deeming man a menace;
Surly birds were never bolder
Than our dainty doves of Venice:
Who would have believed a pigeon
Could become wild as a widgeon.

Well, juts blame it...Read more of this...

Bill Bowls the Sailor

by William Topaz McGonagall
 'Twas about the beginning of the present century,
Bill Bowls was pressed, and sent to sea;
And conveyed on board the Waterwitch without delay,
Scarce getting time to bid farewell to the villagers of Fairway · 

And once on board the "Waterwitch," he resolved to do his duty,
And God willing, he'd marry Nelly Blyth, the village beauty;
And he'd fight for Old England,...Read more of this...

300. Scots Prologue for Mr. Sutherland

by Robert Burns
 WHAT needs this din about the town o’ Lon’on,
How this new play an’ that new sang is comin?
Why is outlandish stuff sae meikle courted?
Does nonsense mend, like brandy, when imported?
Is there nae poet, burning keen for fame,
Will try to gie us sangs and plays at hame?
For Comedy abroad he need to toil,
A fool and knave are plants of every...Read more of this...

A Thanksgiving to God for His House

by Robert Herrick
 Lord, Thou hast given me a cell 
Wherein to dwell; 
An little house, whose humble roof 
Is weather-proof; 
Under the spars of which I lie 
Both soft and dry; 
Where Thou my chamber for to ward 
Hast set a guard 
Of harmless thoughts, to watch and keep 
Me, while I sleep. 
Low is my porch as is my fate,...Read more of this...

A Man

by Charles Bukowski
 George was lying in his trailer, flat on his back, watching a small portable T.V. His
dinner dishes were undone, his breakfast dishes were undone, he needed a shave, and ash
from his rolled cigarettes dropped onto his undershirt. Some of the ash was still burning.
Sometimes the burning ash missed the undershirt and hit his skin, then he cursed, brushing
it away....Read more of this...

Hands, such as mine, that handle bowls of wine,

by Omar Khayyam
Hands, such as mine, that handle bowls of wine,
'Twere shame to book and pulpit to confine;
Zealot! thou'rt dry, and I am moist with drink,
Yea, far too moist to catch that fire of thine!...Read more of this...

Bringing in the Wine

by Li Bai
See how the Yellow River's water move out of heaven.
Entering the ocean,never to return.
See how lovely locks in bright mirrors in high chambers,
Though silken-black at morning, have changed by night to snow.
... Oh, let a man of spirit venture where he pleases
And never tip his golden cup empty toward the moon!
Since heaven gave the talent, let it be employed!
Spin a...Read more of this...

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