Famous Cabinets Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Arcturus is his other name

by Emily Dickinson
 "Arcturus" is his other name --
I'd rather call him "Star."
It's very mean of Science
To go and interfere!

I slew a worm the other day --
A "Savant" passing by
Murmured "Resurgam" -- "Centipede"!
"Oh Lord -- how frail are we"!

I pull a flower from the woods --
A monster with a glass
Computes the stamens in a breath --
And has her in a "class"!

Whereas I...Read more of this...

To Mr. Vaughan Silurist on His Poems

by Katherine Philips
 Had I ador'd the multitude, and thence
Got an antipathy to wit and sence,
And hug'd that fate, in hope the world would grant
'Twas good -- affection to be ignorant;
Yet the least ray of thy bright fancy seen
I had converted, or excuseless been:
For each birth of thy muse to after-times
Shall expatiate for all this age's crimes.
First shines the Armoret, twice crown'd...Read more of this...

To Minnie

by Robert Louis Stevenson
 The red room with the giant bed 
Where none but elders laid their head; 
The little room where you and I 
Did for awhile together lie 
And, simple, suitor, I your hand 
In decent marriage did demand; 
The great day nursery, best of all, 
With pictures pasted on the wall 
And leaves upon the blind-- 
A pleasant room wherein...Read more of this...

Visiting a Dead Man on a Summer Day

by Marge Piercy
 In flat America, in Chicago, 
Graceland cemetery on the German North Side. 
Forty feet of Corinthian candle 
celebrate Pullman embedded 
lonely raisin in a cake of concrete. 
The Potter Palmers float 
in an island parthenon. 
Barons of hogfat, railroads and wheat 
are postmarked with angels and lambs. 

But the Getty tomb: white, snow patterned 
in a triangle of trees...Read more of this...

My Dreams My Works Must Wait Till After Hell

by Gwendolyn Brooks
 I hold my honey and I store my bread 
In little jars and cabinets of my will. 
I label clearly, and each latch and lid 
I bid, Be firm till I return from hell. 
I am very hungry. I am incomplete. 
And none can give me any word but Wait, 
The puny light. I keep my eyes pointed in;...Read more of this...

He parts Himself -- like Leaves --

by Emily Dickinson
 He parts Himself -- like Leaves --
And then -- He closes up --
Then stands upon the Bonnet
Of Any Buttercup --

And then He runs against
And oversets a Rose --
And then does Nothing --
Then away upon a Jib -- He goes --

And dangles like a Mote
Suspended in the Noon --
Uncertain -- to return Below --
Or settle in the Moon --

What come...Read more of this...

A Benediction Of The Air

by John Williams
 In every presence there is absence.

When we're together, the spaces between
Threaten to enclose our bodies
And isolate our spirits.
The mirror reflects what we are not,
And we wonder if our mate
Suspects a fatal misreading
Of our original text,
Not to mention the dreaded subtext.
Reality, we fear, mocks appearance.
Or is trapped in a hall of mirrors
Where infinite regress prevents
A grateful egress. That is,
We can...Read more of this...

Plutonian Ode

by Allen Ginsberg
 I

What new element before us unborn in nature? Is there
 a new thing under the Sun?
At last inquisitive Whitman a modern epic, detonative,
 Scientific theme
First penned unmindful by Doctor Seaborg with poison-
 ous hand, named for Death's planet through the 
 sea beyond Uranus
whose chthonic ore fathers this magma-teared Lord of 
 Hades, Sire of avenging Furies, billionaire Hell-
...Read more of this...

Entanglements

by Barry Tebb
 Why is it that in dreams I have visited -

As teacher or pupil - almost every college and school

In our once so green and pleasant land?

Hardly a subject from art to anthropology I have not

In dream seminar or floating spinning classroom

Studied or tried my prentice hand at, or learned

At the sandalled feet of some guru; as this minute

I returned...Read more of this...

Mementos

by Charlotte Bronte
 ARRANGING long-locked drawers and shelves 
Of cabinets, shut up for years, 
What a strange task we've set ourselves ! 
How still the lonely room appears ! 
How strange this mass of ancient treasures, 
Mementos of past pains and pleasures; 
These volumes, clasped with costly stone, 
With print all faded, gilding gone; 

These fans of leaves, from Indian trees­ 
These...Read more of this...

260. Sketch in Verse inscribed to the Right Hon. C. J. Fox

by Robert Burns
 HOW wisdom and Folly meet, mix, and unite,
How Virtue and Vice blend their black and their white,
How Genius, th’ illustrious father of fiction,
Confounds rule and law, reconciles contradiction,
I sing: If these mortals, the critics, should bustle,
I care not, not I—let the Critics go whistle!


 But now for a Patron whose name and whose glory,
At once may illustrate and honour...Read more of this...

I Ask You

by Billy Collins
 What scene would I want to be enveloped in
more than this one,
an ordinary night at the kitchen table,
floral wallpaper pressing in,
white cabinets full of glass,
the telephone silent,
a pen tilted back in my hand?

It gives me time to think
about all that is going on outside--
leaves gathering in corners,
lichen greening the high grey rocks,
while over the dunes the world sails on,
huge,...Read more of this...

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