Famous Cheap Poems by Famous Poets

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

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The Newport Railway

by William Topaz McGonagall
 Success to the Newport Railway,
Along the braes of the Silvery Tay,
And to Dundee straghtway,
Across the Railway Bridge o' the Silvery Tay,
Which was opened on the 12th of May,
In the year of our Lord 1879,
Which will clear all expenses in a very short time
Because the thrifty housewives of Newport
To Dundee will often resort,
Which will be to them profit and sport,
By...Read more of this...

From the Dark Tower

by Countee Cullen
 We shall not always plant while others reap
The golden increment of bursting fruit,
Not always countenance, abject and mute,
That lesser men should hold their brothers cheap;
Not everlastingly while others sleep
Shall we beguile their limbs with mellow flute,
Not always bend to some more subtle brute;
We were not made to eternally weep. 
The night whose sable breast relieves the stark,
White stars is...Read more of this...

Contentment

by Oliver Wendell Holmes
 "Man wants but little here below."



LITTLE I ask; my wants are few;
I only wish a hut of stone,
(A very plain brown stone will do,)
That I may call my own;
And close at hand is such a one,
In yonder street that fronts the sun.

Plain food is quite enough for me;
Three courses are as good as ten;--
If Nature can subsist on three,
Thank...Read more of this...

Villons Straight Tip to All Cross Coves

by William Ernest Henley
 "Tout aux tavernes et aux filles."
Suppose you screeve? or go cheap-jack?
Or fake the broads? or fig a nag?
Or thimble-rig? or knap a yack?
Or pitch a snide? or smash a rag?
Suppose you duff? or nose and lag?
Or get the straight, and land your pot?
How do you melt the multy swag?
Booze and the blowens cop the lot.
Fiddle, or fence, or mace,...Read more of this...

A Country Life:to His Brother Mr Thomas Herrick

by Robert Herrick
 Thrice, and above, blest, my soul's half, art thou,
In thy both last and better vow;
Could'st leave the city, for exchange, to see
The country's sweet simplicity;
And it to know and practise, with intent
To grow the sooner innocent;
By studying to know virtue, and to aim
More at her nature than her name;
The last is but the least; the first doth tell
Ways less...Read more of this...

stylised tulips

by Rg Gregory
 stylised tulips – this is what the card says
and they have that nineteen-twenties’ feel
of those bright young things a decade before us
who had a way of walking with their legs
bent back and their pelvis forward as if
inviting a kind of sexual depravity
with the no touch signs fervently displayed

stylised tulips – could be snakes though lurking 
in the undergrowth good...Read more of this...

His Age:dedicated To His Peculiar Friendmr John Wickes Under The Name Ofpostumus

by Robert Herrick
 Ah, Posthumus! our years hence fly
And leave no sound: nor piety,
Or prayers, or vow
Can keep the wrinkle from the brow;
But we must on,
As fate does lead or draw us; none,
None, Posthumus, could e'er decline
The doom of cruel Proserpine.

The pleasing wife, the house, the ground
Must all be left, no one plant found
To follow thee,
Save only the curst cypress-tree!
--A merry mind
Looks...Read more of this...

Siege and Conquest of Alhama The

by George (Lord) Byron
 The Moorish King rides up and down,
Through Granada's royal town;
From Elvira's gate to those
Of Bivarambla on he goes.
Woe is me, Alhama!

Letters to the monarch tell 
How Alhama's city fell: 
In the fire the scroll he threw, 
And the messenger he slew.
Woe is me, Albamal

He quits his mule, and mounts his horse, 
And through the street directs his course; 
Through...Read more of this...

Cheap

by Ehsan Sehgal
"Do not make your love cheap to throw your heart everywhere, keep a dignity in your words and actions, show the strength that you are able to keep your words for love."
Ehsan Sehgal...Read more of this...

Cargoes

by John Masefield
 QUINQUIREME of Nineveh from distant Ophir, 
Rowing home to haven in sunny Palestine, 
With a cargo of ivory, 
And apes and peacocks, 
Sandalwood, cedarwood, and sweet white wine. 

Stately Spanish galleon coming from the Isthmus, 
Dipping through the Tropics by the palm-green shores, 
With a cargo of diamonds, 
Emeralds, amythysts, 
Topazes, and cinnamon, and gold moidores. 

Dirty British coaster...Read more of this...

Gauguin In The South Seas

by Barry Tebb
 They have my own fear of the dark,

Tupapau - spirits of the dead they call it;

Returning late with oil I found fear of it

Had spread my vabine naked on the bed.



Manao-Taipapau means ‘she thinks of the spectre’

Or ‘the spectre is thinking of her’, either way

She is afraid; I marvel at a tongue so readily ambiguous,

Lying across her forked thigh.



I...Read more of this...

Giffens Debt

by Rudyard Kipling
 Imprimis he was "broke." Thereafter left
His Regiment and, later, took to drink;
Then, having lost the balance of his friends,
"Went Fantee" -- joined the people of the land,
Turned three parts Mussulman and one Hindu,
And lived among the Gauri villagers,
Who gave him shelter and a wife or twain.
And boasted that a thorough, full-blood sahib
Had come among them. Thus he spent his...Read more of this...

Beak-Bashing Boy

by Robert William Service
 But yesterday I banked on fistic fame,
Figgerin' I'd be a champion of the Ring.
Today I've half a mind to quit the Game,
For all them rosy dreams have taken wing,
Since last night a secondary bout
I let a goddam ****** knock me out.

It must have been that T-bone steak I ate;
They might have doped it, them smart gambling guys,
For round my...Read more of this...

Musketaquid

by Ralph Waldo Emerson
 Because I was content with these poor fields, 
Low, open meads, slender and sluggish streams, 
And found a home in haunts which others scorned, 
The partial wood-gods overpaid my love, 
And granted me the freedom of their state, 
And in their secret senate have prevailed 
With the dear, dangerous lords that rule our life, 
Made moon and planets parties...Read more of this...

Coloring Book

by Connie Wanek
 Each picture is heartbreakingly banal,
a kitten and a ball of yarn,
a dog and bone.
The paper is cheap, easily torn.
A coloring book's authority is derived
from its heavy black lines
as unalterable as the ten commandments
within which minor decisions are possible:
the dog black and white,
the kitten gray.
Under the picture we find a few words,
a title, perhaps a narrative,
a psalm or sermon.
But nowhere...Read more of this...

The Contrast

by Robert William Service
 Fat lady, in your four-wheeled chair,
 Dolled up to beat the band,
At me you arrogantly stare
 With gold lorgnette in hand.
Oh how you differ from the dame
 So shabby, gaunt and grey,
With legs rheumatically lame,
 Who steers you on your way.

Nay, jewelled lady, look not back
 Lest you should be disturbed
To see the skinny hag in black
 Who boosts...Read more of this...

Those Graves In Rome

by Larry Levis
 There are places where the eye can starve,
But not here. Here, for example, is
The Piazza Navona, & here is his narrow room
Overlooking the Steps & the crowds of sunbathing
Tourists. And here is the Protestant Cemetery
Where Keats & Joseph Severn join hands
Forever under a little shawl of grass
And where Keats's name isn't even on
His gravestone, because it is on Severn's,
And...Read more of this...

How Is Your Heart?

by Charles Bukowski
 during my worst times
 on the park benches
 in the jails
 or living with
 whores
 I always had this certain
 contentment-
 I wouldn't call it
 happiness-
 it was more of an inner
 balance 
 that settled for
 whatever was occuring
 and it helped in the
 factories
 and when relationships 
 went wrong
 with the 
 girls. 
 it helped...Read more of this...

Repetitions

by Carl Sandburg
 THEY are crying salt tears
Over the beautiful beloved body
Of Inez Milholland,
Because they are glad she lived,
Because she loved open-armed,
Throwing love for a cheap thing
Belonging to everybody—
Cheap as sunlight,
And morning air....Read more of this...

Owl Against Robin

by Sidney Lanier
 Frowning, the owl in the oak complained him
Sore, that the song of the robin restrained him
Wrongly of slumber, rudely of rest.
"From the north, from the east, from the south and the west,
Woodland, wheat-field, corn-field, clover,
Over and over and over and over,
Five o'clock, ten o'clock, twelve, or seven,
Nothing but robin-songs heard under heaven:
How can we sleep?

`Peep!' you whistle, and `cheep!...Read more of this...

A Hill

by Anthony Hecht
 In Italy, where this sort of thing can occur,
I had a vision once - though you understand
It was nothing at all like Dante's, or the visions of saints,
And perhaps not a vision at all. I was with some friends,
Picking my way through a warm sunlit piazza
In the early morning. A clear fretwork of shadows
From huge umbrellas littered the pavement...Read more of this...

O We Are The Outcasts

by Charles Bukowski
 ah, christ, what a CREW:
more
poetry, always more
P O E T R Y .

if it doesn't come, coax it out with a 
laxative. get your name in LIGHTS,
get it up there in
8 1/2 x 11 mimeo.

keep it coming like a miracle.

ah christ, writers are the most sickening
of all the louts!
yellow-toothed, slump-shouldered,
gutless, flea-bitten and
obvious . . . in tinker-toy rooms
with their...Read more of this...

Turns And Movies: Rose And Murray

by Conrad Aiken
 After the movie, when the lights come up, 
He takes her powdered hand behind the wings; 
She, all in yellow, like a buttercup, 
Lifts her white face, yearns up to him, and clings; 
And with a silent, gliding step they move 
Over the footlights, in familiar glare, 
Panther-like in the Tango whirl of love, 
He fawning close on her...Read more of this...

Musketaquid

by Ralph Waldo Emerson
 Because I was content with these poor fields,
Low open meads, slender and sluggish streams,
And found a home in haunts which others scorned,
The partial wood-gods overpaid my love,
And granted me the freedom of their state,
And in their secret senate have prevailed
With the dear dangerous lords that rule our life,
Made moon and planets parties to their bond,
And pitying through my solitary...Read more of this...

Within the Circuit of This Plodding Life

by Henry David Thoreau
 Within the circuit of this plodding life
There enter moments of an azure hue,
Untarnished fair as is the violet
Or anemone, when the spring strews them
By some meandering rivulet, which make
The best philosophy untrue that aims
But to console man for his grievances
I have remembered when the winter came,
High in my chamber in the frosty nights,
When in the still light of the...Read more of this...

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