Famous Catch On Poems by Famous Poets

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

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The Shrimp

by Ogden Nash
 A shrimp who sought his lady shrimp
Could catch no glimpse
Not even a glimp.
At times, translucence
Is rather a nuisance....Read more of this...

110. Epistle to a Young Friend

by Robert Burns
 May—, 1786.I LANG hae thought, my youthfu’ friend,
 A something to have sent you,
Tho’ it should serve nae ither end
 Than just a kind memento:
But how the subject-theme may gang,
 Let time and chance determine;
Perhaps it may turn out a sang:
 Perhaps turn out a sermon.


Ye’ll try the world soon, my lad;
 And, Andrew dear, believe me,
Ye’ll find mankind...Read more of this...

A Servant to Servants

by Robert Frost
 I didn't make you know how glad I was 
To have you come and camp here on our land. 
I promised myself to get down some day 
And see the way you lived, but I don't know! 
With a houseful of hungry men to feed 
I guess you'd find.... It seems to me 
I can't express my feelings any...Read more of this...

The Rum Tum Tugger

by T S (Thomas Stearns) Eliot
 The Rum Tum Tugger is a Curious Cat:
If you offer him pheasant he would rather have grouse.
If you put him in a house he would much prefer a flat,
If you put him in a flat then he'd rather have a house.
If you set him on a mouse then he only wants a rat,
If you set him on a rat...Read more of this...

Then And Now

by John McCrae
 Beneath her window in the fragrant night
I half forget how truant years have flown
Since I looked up to see her chamber-light,
Or catch, perchance, her slender shadow thrown
Upon the casement; but the nodding leaves
Sweep lazily across the unlit pane,
And to and fro beneath the shadowy eaves,
Like restless birds, the breath of coming rain
Creeps, lilac-laden, up the village street
When all is...Read more of this...

As Kingfishers Catch Fire

by Gerard Manley Hopkins
 As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame;
As tumbled over rim in roundy wells
Stones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell's
Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name;
Each mortal thing does one thing and the same:
Deals out that being indoors each one dwells;
Selves — goes itself; myself it speaks and spells,
Crying, What I do is me:...Read more of this...

Catch

by Robert Francis
 Two boys uncoached are tossing a poem together,
Overhand, underhand, backhand, sleight of hand, everyhand,
Teasing with attitudes, latitudes, interludes, altitudes,
High, make him fly off the ground for it, low, make him stoop,
Make him scoop it up, make him as-almost-as possible miss it,
Fast, let him sting from it, now, now fool him slowly,
Anything, everything tricky, risky, nonchalant,
Anything under the sun to...Read more of this...

The House Of Clouds

by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
 I would build a cloudy House
For my thoughts to live in;
When for earth too fancy-loose
And too low for Heaven!
Hush! I talk my dream aloud---
I build it bright to see,---
I build it on the moonlit cloud,
To which I looked with thee.

Cloud-walls of the morning's grey,
Faced with amber column,---
Crowned with crimson cupola
From a sunset solemn!
May mists, for the casements, fetch,
Pale and...Read more of this...

Oberon to the Queen of the Fairies

by Mary Darby Robinson
 My OBERON, with ev'ry sprite
"That gilds the vapours of the night,
"Shall dance and weave the verdant ring
"With joy that mortals thus can sing; 
"And when thou sigh'st MARIA'S name, 
"And mourn'st to feel a hopeless flame, 
"Eager they'll catch the tender note
"Just parting from thy tuneful throat, 
"And bear it to the careless ear 
"Of her who scorn'd a...Read more of this...

Gloire de Dijon

by D. H. Lawrence
 When she rises in the morning 
I linger to watch her; 
She spreads the bath-cloth underneath the window 
And the sunbeams catch her 
Glistening white on the shoulders, 
While down her sides the mellow 
Golden shadow glows as 
She stoops to the sponge, and her swung breasts 
Sway like full-blown yellow 
Gloire de Dijon roses. 

She drips herself with...Read more of this...

Notice What This Poem Is Not Doing

by William Stafford
 The light along the hills in the morning
comes down slowly, naming the trees
white, then coasting the ground for stones to nominate.

Notice what this poem is not doing.

A house, a house, a barn, the old
quarry, where the river shrugs--
how much of this place is yours?

Notice what this poem is not doing.

Every person gone has taken a stone
to hold, and catch...Read more of this...

In Memory Of Eva Gore-Booth And Con Markiewicz

by William Butler Yeats
 The light of evening, Lissadell,
Great windows open to the south,
Two girls in silk kimonos, both
Beautiful, one a gazelle.
But a raving autumn shears
Blossom from the summer's wreath;
The older is condemned to death,
Pardoned, drags out lonely years
Conspiring among the ignorant.
I know not what the younger dreams -
Some vague Utopia - and she seems,
When withered old and skeleton-gaunt,
An image of such politics.
Many...Read more of this...

Jumbo Jet

by Spike Milligan
 I saw a little elephant standing in my garden,
I said 'You don't belong in here', he said 'I beg you pardon?',
I said 'This place is England, what are you doing here?',
He said 'Ah, then I must be lost' and then 'Oh dear, oh dear'.

'I should be back in Africa, on Saranghetti's Plain',
'Pray, where is the nearest station where I...Read more of this...

Tower Grove

by Fannie Isabelle Sherrick
Oh tell me not of the lands so old
Where the Orient treasures its hills of gold,
And the rivers lie in the sun's bright rays
Forever singing the old world's praise.
Nor proudly boast of the gardens grand
That spring to earth at a king's command;
There are treasures here in the far great West
That rival the hills on the Orient's crest.
Far from the sight...Read more of this...

Song (Go And Catch A Falling Star)

by John Donne
 Go and catch a falling star,
Get with child a mandrake root,
Tell me where all past years are,
Or who cleft the Devil's foot,
Teach me to hear mermaids singing,
Or to keep off envy's stinging,
And find
What wind
Serves to advance an honest mind.

If thou be'st born to strange sights,
Things invisible to see,
Ride ten thousand days and nights,
Till age snow white hairs on thee;
Thou,...Read more of this...

The Prologue

by Anne Bradstreet
1

To sing of wars, of captains, and of kings,
Of cities founded, commonwealths begun,
For my mean pen, are too superior things,
And how they all, or each, their dates have run
Let poets, and historians set these forth,
My obscure verse shall not so dim their worth.


2

But when my wond'ring eyes, and envious heart,
Great Bartas' sugared lines do but read o'er,
Fool, I do grudge...Read more of this...

517. Song—O wat ye wha's in yon town

by Robert Burns
 Chorus—O wat ye wha’s in yon town,
 Ye see the e’enin sun upon,
The dearest maid’s in yon town,
 That e’ening sun is shining on.


NOW haply down yon gay green shaw,
 She wanders by yon spreading tree;
How blest ye flowers that round her blaw,
 Ye catch the glances o’ her e’e!
 O wat ye wha’s, &c.


How blest ye birds that...Read more of this...

The Twelve

by Aleksandr Blok
 III 
Our sons have gone 
to serve the Reds 
to serve the Reds 
to risk their heads! 

O bitter,bitter pain, 
Sweet living! 
A torn overcoat 
an Austrian gun! 

-To get the bourgeosie 
We'll start a fire 
a worldwide fire, and drench it 
in blood- 
The good Lord bless us! 


-O you bitter bitterness, 
boring boredom, 
deadly boredom. 

This is...Read more of this...

113. A Dedication to Gavin Hamilton Esq

by Robert Burns
 EXPECT na, sir, in this narration,
A fleechin, fleth’rin Dedication,
To roose you up, an’ ca’ you guid,
An’ sprung o’ great an’ noble bluid,
Because ye’re surnam’d like His Grace—
Perhaps related to the race:
Then, when I’m tir’d-and sae are ye,
Wi’ mony a fulsome, sinfu’ lie,
Set up a face how I stop short,
For fear your modesty be hurt.


 This may do—maun do, sir,...Read more of this...

Firelight

by Katherine Mansfield
 Playing in the fire and twilight together,
My little son and I,
Suddenly--woefully--I stoop to catch him.
"Try, mother, try!"

Old Nurse Silence lifts a silent finger:
"Hush! cease your play!"
What happened? What in that tiny moment
Flew away?...Read more of this...

Sonnet 143: Lo as a careful huswife runs to catch

by William Shakespeare
 Lo, as a careful huswife runs to catch
One of her feathered creatures broke away,
Sets down her babe and makes all swift dispatch
In pursuit of the thing she would have stay,
Whilst her neglected child holds her in chase,
Cries to catch her whose busy care is bent
To follow that which flies before her face,
Not prizing her poor infant's discontent:
So runn'st thou...Read more of this...

The Vain King

by Henry Van Dyke
 In robes of Tyrian blue the King was drest,
A jewelled collar shone upon his breast,
A giant ruby glittered in his crown -----
Lord of rich lands and many a splendid town.
In him the glories of an ancient line
Of sober kings, who ruled by right divine,
Were centred; and to him with loyal awe
The people looked for leadership and law.
Ten thousand knights,...Read more of this...

Belfast Tune

by Joseph Brodsky
Here's a girl from a dangerous town
She crops her dark hair short
so that less of her has to frown
when someine gets hurt.

She folds her memories like a parachute.
Dropped she collects the peat
and cooks her veggies at home: they shoot
here where they eat.

Ah there's more sky in these parts than say 
ground. Hence her voice's pitch 
and her stare stains your...Read more of this...

Letter to N.Y

by Elizabeth Bishop
for Louise crane


In your next letter I wish you'd say
where you are going and what you are doing;
how are the plays and after the plays
what other pleasures you're pursuing:

taking cabs in the middle of the night,
driving as if to save your soul
where the road gose round and round the park
and the meter glares like a moral owl,

and the trees look...Read more of this...

William Goode

by Edgar Lee Masters
 To all in the village I seemed, no doubt,
To go this way and that way, aimlessly.
But here by the river you can see at twilight
The soft-winged bats fly zig-zag here and there --
They must fly so to catch their food.
And if you have ever lost your way at night,
In the deep wood near Miller's Ford,
And dodged this way and...Read more of this...

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