Famous Bury Poems by Famous Poets

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

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The Loss Of The Eurydice

by Gerard Manley Hopkins
 Foundered March 24. 1878


 1

The Eurydice—it concerned thee, O Lord:
Three hundred souls, O alas! on board,
 Some asleep unawakened, all un-
warned, eleven fathoms fallen 

 2

Where she foundered! One stroke
Felled and furled them, the hearts of oak!
 And flockbells off the aerial
Downs' forefalls beat to the burial. 

 3

For did she pride her, freighted fully, on
Bounden bales or a...Read more of this...

To My Bookseller

by Ben Jonson
III. ? TO MY BOOKSELLER.     Thou that mak'st gain thy end, and wisely well, Call'st a book good, or bad, as it doth sell, Use mine so too ;  I give thee leave :  but crave, For the luck's sake, it thus much favor have, To lie upon thy stall, till it be sought ; Not offer'd, as it made suit to...Read more of this...

That Day

by Anne Sexton
 This is the desk I sit at
and this is the desk where I love you too much
and this is the typewriter that sits before me
where yesterday only your body sat before me
with its shoulders gathered in like a Greek chorus,
with its tongue like a king making up rules as he goes,
with its tongue quite openly like a cat lapping...Read more of this...

The Horsemen

by Obi Nwakanma
for Christopher Okigbo 
Emrnanuel Ifeajuna & 
Chukwuma Nzeogwu

I

It was a room above the alcove
in a city renewed by junipers

And by desires... 

Stripped of words, 
the moments recalled; 
where the tower, 
lo, was in sight: 

memories undaunted by sound 
or flames of the amethyst, 

spoke to me; 
spoke to me like the preacher from…

I recall this moment staggering through the wind,...Read more of this...

Restless Leg Syndrome

by James Tate
 After the burial 
we returned to our units 
and assumed our poses. 
Our posture was the new posture 
and not the old sick posture. 
When we left our stations 
it was just to prove we could, 
not a serious departure 
or a search for yet another beginning. 
We were done with all that.
We were settled in, as they say,...Read more of this...

The Applicant

by Sylvia Plath
 First, are you our sort of a person?
Do you wear
A glass eye, false teeth or a crutch,
A brace or a hook,
Rubber breasts or a rubber crotch,

Stitches to show something's missing? No, no? Then
How can we give you a thing?
Stop crying.
Open your hand.
Empty? Empty. Here is a hand

To fill it and willing
To bring teacups and roll away headaches
And do whatever...Read more of this...

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

by Anne Sexton
 No matter what life you lead
the virgin is a lovely number:
cheeks as fragile as cigarette paper,
arms and legs made of Limoges,
lips like Vin Du Rhône,
rolling her china-blue doll eyes
open and shut.
Open to say, 
Good Day Mama,
and shut for the thrust
of the unicorn.
She is unsoiled.
She is as white as a bonefish.

Once there was a lovely virgin
called Snow White.
Say she was...Read more of this...

Clouds Above The Sea

by Philip Levine
 My father and mother, two tiny figures,
side by side, facing the clouds that move
in from the Atlantic. August, '33.
The whole weight of the rain to come, the weight
of all that has fallen on their houses
gathers for a last onslaught, and yet they
hold, side by side, in the eye of memory.
What was she wearing, you ask, what did he
say to...Read more of this...

Lament for the Makers

by William Dunbar
 I THAT in heill was and gladness 
Am trublit now with great sickness 
And feblit with infirmitie:-- 
 Timor Mortis conturbat me. 

Our plesance here is all vain glory, 
This fals world is but transitory, 
The flesh is bruckle, the Feynd is slee:-- 
 Timor Mortis conturbat me. 

The state of man does change and vary, 
Now sound, now...Read more of this...

Ah Are You Digging On My Grave?

by Thomas Hardy
 "Ah, are you digging on my grave, 
My loved one? -- planting rue?" 
-- "No: yesterday he went to wed 
One of the brightest wealth has bred. 
'It cannot hurt her now,' he said, 
'That I should not be true.'" 

"Then who is digging on my grave, 
My nearest dearest kin?" 
-- "Ah, no: they sit and think, 'What...Read more of this...

The Death of Robin Hood

by Eugene Field
 "Give me my bow," said Robin Hood,
"An arrow give to me;
And where 't is shot mark thou that spot,
For there my grave shall be."

Then Little John did make no sign,
And not a word he spake;
But he smiled, altho' with mickle woe
His heart was like to break.

He raised his master in his arms,
And set him on his knee;
And Robin's eyes...Read more of this...

A Womans Last Word

by Robert Browning
 I.

Let's contend no more, Love,
 Strive nor weep:
All be as before, Love,
 —Only sleep!

 II.

What so wild as words are?
 I and thou
In debate, as birds are,
 Hawk on bough!

 III.

See the creature stalking
 While we speak!
Hush and hide the talking,
 Cheek on cheek!

 IV.

What so false as truth is,
 False to thee?
Where the serpent's tooth is
 Shun the...Read more of this...

The Father Of Toads

by Russell Edson
 A man had just delivered a toad from his wife's armpit. He 
held it by its legs and spanked it. 

 Do you love it? said his wife. 

 It's our child, isn't it? 

 Does that mean you can't love it? she said. 

 It's hard enough to love a toad, but when it turns out to be...Read more of this...

The Code

by Robert Frost
 There were three in the meadow by the brook 
Gathering up windrows, piling cocks of hay, 
With an eye always lifted toward the west 
Where an irregular sun-bordered cloud 
Darkly advanced with a perpetual dagger 
Flickering across its bosom. Suddenly 
One helper, thrusting pitchfork in the ground, 
Marched himself off the field and home. One stayed. 
The town-bred farmer...Read more of this...

The Old Apple-tree

by Paul Laurence Dunbar
There's a memory keeps a-runnin'
Through my weary head to-night,
An' I see a picture dancin'
In the fire-flames' ruddy light;
'Tis the picture of an orchard
Wrapped in autumn's purple haze,
With the tender light about it
That I loved in other days.
An' a-standin' in a corner
Once again I seem to see
The verdant leaves an' branches
Of an old apple-tree.
You perhaps would call it ugly,
An' I don't...Read more of this...

Baltic Fog Notes

by Carl Sandburg
 (Bergen)SEVEN days all fog, all mist, and the turbines pounding through high seas.
I was a plaything, a rat’s neck in the teeth of a scuffling mastiff.
Fog and fog and no stars, sun, moon.
Then an afternoon in fjords, low-lying lands scrawled in granite languages on a gray sky,
A night harbor, blue dusk mountain shoulders against a night sky,
And a circle...Read more of this...

Song of the Wagons

by Du Fu
 Wagons rumble rumble Hhorses whinny whinny Foot person bow arrow each at waist Father mother wife children go mutual see off Dust dust not see Xianyang bridge Pull clothes stamp foot bar way weep Weep sound directly up strike clouds clouds Road side passerby ask foot person Foot person only say mark down often Some from ten...Read more of this...

The Evil Seekers

by Anne Sexton
 We are born with luck
which is to say with gold in our mouth.
As new and smooth as a grape,
as pure as a pond in Alaska,
as good as the stem of a green bean--
we are born and that ought to be enough,
we ought to be able to carry on from that
but one must learn about evil,
learn what is subhuman,
learn how...Read more of this...

Ballade De Marguerite (Normande)

by Oscar Wilde
 I am weary of lying within the chase
When the knights are meeting in market-place.

Nay, go not thou to the red-roofed town
Lest the hoofs of the war-horse tread thee down.

But I would not go where the Squires ride,
I would only walk by my Lady's side.

Alack! and alack! thou art overbold,
A Forester's son may not eat off gold.

Will she love me...Read more of this...

Self-Portrait

by Linda Pastan
 After Adam Zagajewski



I am child to no one, mother to a few,
wife for the long haul.
On fall days I am happy
with my dying brethren, the leaves,
but in spring my head aches
from the flowery scents.
My husband fills a room with Mozart
which I turn off, embracing
the silence as if it were an empty page
waiting for me alone to fill it.
He digs...Read more of this...

The Faceless Man

by Robert William Service
 I'm dead.
Officially I'm dead. Their hope is past.
How long I stood as missing! Now, at last
 I'm dead.

Look in my face -- no likeness can you see,
No tiny trace of him they knew as "me".
How terrible the change!
Even my eyes are strange.
So keyed are they to pain,
That if I chanced to meet
My mother in the street
She'd look at me...Read more of this...

Abt Vogler

by Robert Browning
 Would that the structure brave, the manifold music I build,
Bidding my organ obey, calling its keys to their work,
Claiming each slave of the sound, at a touch, as when Solomon willed
Armies of angels that soar, legions of demons that lurk,
Man, brute, reptile, fly,--alien of end and of aim,
Adverse, each from the other heaven-high, hell-deep removed,--
Should rush into sight at...Read more of this...

Gentleman Alone

by Pablo Neruda
 The young maricones and the horny muchachas,
The big fat widows delirious from insomnia,
The young wives thirty hours' pregnant,
And the hoarse tomcats that cross my garden at night,
Like a collar of palpitating sexual oysters
Surround my solitary home,
Enemies of my soul,
Conspirators in pajamas
Who exchange deep kisses for passwords.
Radiant summer brings out the lovers
In melancholy regiments,
Fat and thin and happy and sad...Read more of this...

I Said Coffee

by Sharmagne Leland-St John
 I said coffee
I didn't say,
"would you
like to cup
my warm
soft breasts
in your
un-calloused,
long,
tapered,
ring less fingered
hands?"

I said coffee
I didn't say,
"would you
like to
run your tongue
along my neck
just below
my left ear-lobe?"

I said coffee
I didn't say,
"would you
like to
hold me
in your arms
and feel my heart
skip beats
as you press your
hard, lean body
up against mine
until I melt
into you
with desire?"

I said coffee
as we stood there
in the jasmine
scented night
my car...Read more of this...

The Chase

by Paul Laurence Dunbar
The wind told the little leaves to hurry,
And chased them down the way,
While the mother tree laughed loud in glee,
For she thought her babes at play,
The cruel wind and the rain laughed loudly,
We'll bury them deep, they said,
And the old tree grieves, and the little leaves
Lie low, all chilled and dead.
...Read more of this...

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