Famous Colleges Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Milton's Appeal To Cromwell

by Victor Hugo
 ("Non! je n'y puis tenir.") 
 
 {CROMWELL, Act III. sc. iv.} 


 Stay! I no longer can contain myself, 
 But cry you: Look on John, who bares his mind 
 To Oliver—to Cromwell, Milton speaks! 
 Despite a kindling eye and marvel deep 
 A voice is lifted up without your leave; 
 For I was never...Read more of this...

A Cooking Egg

by T S (Thomas Stearns) Eliot
 En l’an trentiesme do mon aage
Que toutes mes hontes j’ay beues...


PIPIT sate upright in her chair
Some distance from where I was sitting;
Views of the Oxford Colleges
Lay on the table, with the knitting.

Daguerreotypes and silhouettes,
Here grandfather and great great aunts,
Supported on the mantelpiece
An Invitation to the Dance.
. . . . .
I shall not want Honour in Heaven
For I shall meet...Read more of this...

Dockery And Son

by Philip Larkin
 'Dockery was junior to you,
Wasn't he?' said the Dean. 'His son's here now.'
Death-suited, visitant, I nod. 'And do
You keep in touch with-' Or remember how
Black-gowned, unbreakfasted, and still half-tight
We used to stand before that desk, to give
'Our version' of 'these incidents last night'?
I try the door of where I used to live:

Locked. The lawn spreads dazzlingly wide.
A known bell...Read more of this...

A Satyre Against Mankind

by John Wilmot
 Were I - who to my cost already am
One of those strange, prodigious creatures, man -
A spirit free to choose for my own share
What sort of flesh and blood I pleased to wear,
I'd be a dog, a monkey, or a bear,
Or anything but that vain animal,
Who is so proud of being rational.

His senses are too gross; and he'll contrive
A...Read more of this...

Just Keep Quiet and Nobody Will Notice

by Ogden Nash
 There is one thing that ought to be taught in all the colleges,
Which is that people ought to be taught not to go around always making apologies.
I don't mean the kind of apologies people make when they run over you or borrow five dollars or step on your feet,
Because I think that is sort of sweet;
No, I object to...Read more of this...

Victory

by Henry Lawson
 The schools marched in procession in happiness and pride, 
The city bands before them, the soldiers marched beside; 
Oh, starched white frocks and sashes and suits that high schools wear, 
The boy scout and the boy lout and all the rest were there, 
And all flags save Australia's flag waved high in sun and air! 

The Girls' High School,...Read more of this...

Cambridge Spring 1937

by Delmore Schwartz
 At last the air fragrant, the bird's bubbling whistle
Succinct in the unknown unsettled trees:
O little Charles, beside the Georgian colleges
And milltown New England; at last the wind soft,
The sky unmoving, and the dead look
Of factory windows separate, at last,
From windows gray and wet:
 for now the sunlight
Thrashes its wet shellac on brickwalk and gutter,
White splinters streak midmorning and doorstep,
Winter...Read more of this...

87. The Twa Dogs

by Robert Burns
 ’TWAS 1 in that place o’ Scotland’s isle,
That bears the name o’ auld King Coil,
Upon a bonie day in June,
When wearin’ thro’ the afternoon,
Twa dogs, that were na thrang at hame,
Forgather’d ance upon a time.
 The first I’ll name, they ca’d him Caesar,
Was keepit for His Honor’s pleasure:
His hair, his size, his mouth, his lugs,
Shew’d he was nane o’...Read more of this...

171. Burlesque Lament fo Wm. Creech's Absence

by Robert Burns
 AULD chuckie Reekie’s 1 sair distrest,
Down droops her ance weel burnish’d crest,
Nae joy her bonie buskit nest
 Can yield ava,
Her darling bird that she lo’es best—
 Willie’s awa!


O Willie was a witty wight,
And had o’ things an unco’ sleight,
Auld Reekie aye he keepit tight,
 And trig an’ braw:
But now they’ll busk her like a fright,—
 Willie’s awa!


The stiffest o’...Read more of this...

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