Famous Company Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Company poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous company poems. These examples illustrate what a famous company poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Omar Khayyam
Wine should be drunk in the company of slender creatures
who ravish the heart with the color of their cheeks.
Art thou bitten by the serpent of grief, friend—drink, then,
of this antidote. I myself drink of it and plume myself
on the strength of it; would that it might be propitious!
If you drink it not, why not be willing that I should?
Go, eat...Read more of this...
by
William Butler Yeats
A man came slowly from the setting sun,
To Emer, raddling raiment in her dun,
And said, 'I am that swineherd whom you bid
Go watch the road between the wood and tide,
But now I have no need to watch it more.'
Then Emer cast the web upon the floor,
And raising arms all raddled with the dye,
Parted her lips with a loud sudden...Read more of this...
by
Sylvia Plath
Mother, mother, what ill-bred aunt
Or what disfigured and unsightly
Cousin did you so unwisely keep
Unasked to my christening, that she
Sent these ladies in her stead
With heads like darning-eggs to nod
And nod and nod at foot and head
And at the left side of my crib?
Mother, who made to order stories
Of Mixie Blackshort the heroic bear,
Mother, whose witches always, always
Got baked into...Read more of this...
by
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
I lived with visions for my company
Instead of men and women, years ago,
And found them gentle mates, nor thought to know
A sweeter music than they played to me.
But soon their trailing purple was not free
Of this world's dust, their lutes did silent grow,
And I myself grew faint and blind below
Their vanishing eyes. Then THOU didst come—to be,
Beloved, what they...Read more of this...
by
Omar Khayyam
In company with one dear friend, how pleasing to me
is a cup of wine. When I become the prey of care, it
is fitting that my eyes should be filled with tears. Oh!
this abject world has nothing lasting for us, and best it
is to dwell inebriate....Read more of this...
by
A E Housman
Oh stay at home, my lad, and plough
The land and not the sea,
And leave the soldiers at their drill,
And all about the idle hill
Shepherd your sheep with me.
Oh stay with company and mirth
And daylight and the air;
Too full already is the grave
Of fellows that were good and brave
And died bacause...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
Experiment escorts us last --
His pungent company
Will not allow an Axiom
An Opportunity...Read more of this...
by
Omar Khayyam
Yesterday [before day], in company with a charming
friend and a cup of rose-colored wine, I was seated on
the border of a brook. Before me stood the cup, that
shell, of which the pearl [contained in the cup] shed
such a brilliant light that the herald of the sun, awaking
with a start, announced the Dawn....Read more of this...
by
Robert Desnos
In the night there are of course the seven wonders
of the world and the greatness tragedy and enchantment.
Forests collide with legendary creatures hiding in thickets.
There is you.
In the night there are the walker's footsteps the murderer's
the town policeman's light from the street lamp and the ragman's lantern
There is you.
In the night trains go past and boats
and the fantasy of...Read more of this...
by
William Topaz McGonagall
'Twas in the year of 1896, and on the 30th of September,
Which many people in Aberdeen will long remember;
The burning of the People's Variety Theatre, in Bridge Place
Because the fire spread like lightning at a rapid pace.
The fire broke out on the stage, about eight o'clock,
Which gave to the audience a very fearful shock;
Then a stampede ensued, and...Read more of this...
by
Isaac Watts
Why should I join with those in Play,
In whom I've no delight,
Who curse and swear, but never pray,
Who call ill Names, and fight.
I hate to hear a wanton Song,
Their Words offend my Ears:
I should not dare defile my Tongue
With Language such as theirs.
Away from Fools I'll turn my Eyes,
Nor with the Scoffers go;
I would be walking with the...Read more of this...
by
Sidney Lanier
Ploughman, whose gnarly hand yet kindly wheeled
Thy plough to ring this solitary tree
With clover, whose round plat, reserved a-field,
In cool green radius twice my length may be --
Scanting the corn thy furrows else might yield,
To pleasure August, bees, fair thoughts, and me,
That here come oft together -- daily I,
Stretched prone in summer's mortal ecstasy,
Do stir with thanks to thee,...Read more of this...
by
Michael Drayton
Love in a humor play'd the prodigal
And bade my Senses to a solemn feast;
Yet, more to grace the company withal,
Invites my Heart to be the chiefest guest.
No other drink would serve this glutton's turn
But precious tears distilling from mine eyne,
Which with my sighs this epicure doth burn,
Quaffing carouses in this costly wine;...Read more of this...
by
Omar Khayyam
Keep thyself from drinking wine in the company of a
boorish, violent character, having no mind or self-control,
for such a man knows only how to cause unpleasantness.
For the time, thou wouldst have to undergo the disorder
of his drunkenness, his vociferations, his folly. And the
next day, his prayers for excuse and pardon would come
to weary thy head....Read more of this...
by
Omar Khayyam
When you are in the company of a beauty with cypress-like
figure and a color fresher than the newly-culled
rose, put not far from thee the flowers of the field, nor
let the cup escape from thy hand; [do this] before the
north-wind of death, like a gale which disperses the
leaves of the roses, tears in tatters the envelope of thy
being....Read more of this...
by
Omar Khayyam
Once, in a potter's shop, a company
Of cups in converse did I chance to see,
And lo! one lifted up his voice, and cried,
«Who made, who sells, who buys this crockery?»...Read more of this...
by
Sylvia Plath
The horizons ring me like faggots,
Tilted and disparate, and always unstable.
Touched by a match, they might warm me,
And their fine lines singe
The air to orange
Before the distances they pin evaporate,
Weighting the pale sky with a soldier color.
But they only dissolve and dissolve
Like a series of promises, as I step forward.
There is no life higher than the grasstops
Or the hearts...Read more of this...
by
Robert Southey
Author Note: In Finland there is a Castle which is called the New Rock, moated about with a river of unfounded depth, the water black and the fish therein
very distateful to the palate. In this are spectres often seen, which
foreshew either the death of the Governor, or some prime officer
belonging to the place; and most commonly it appeareth in...Read more of this...
by
William Topaz McGonagall
Ye mountains and glens of Old Ireland,
I've returned home to ye again;
During my absence from ye
My heart always felt great pain.
Oh, how I long'd to see you dear Nora,
And the old folks at home;
And the beautiful Lakes o' Killarney,
Where we oft together did roam.
Ye beautiful Lakes of Killarney,
Ye are welcome to me again;
I will now reform my...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
The Tint I cannot take -- is best --
The Color too remote
That I could show it in Bazaar --
A Guinea at a sight --
The fine -- impalpable Array --
That swaggers on the eye
Like Cleopatra's Company --
Repeated -- in the sky --
The Moments of Dominion
That happen on the Soul
And leave it with a Discontent
Too exquisite -- to tell --
The eager...Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
Give me a cabin in the woods
Where not a human soul intrudes;
Where I can sit beside a stream
Beneath a balsam bough and deam,
And every morning see arise
The sun like bird of paradise;
Then go down to the creek and fish
A speckled trout for breakfast dish,
And fry it in an ember fire -
Ah! there's the life of my desire.
Alas! I'm tied...Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
When I was brash and gallant-gay
Just fifty years ago,
I hit the ties and beat my way
From Maine to Mexico;
For though to Glasgow gutter bred
A hobo heart had I,
And followed where adventure led,
Beneath a brazen sky.
And as I tramped the railway track
I owned a single shirt;
Like canny Scot I bought it black
So's not to show the dirt;
A handkerchief held all...Read more of this...
by
Rupert Brooke
The stars, a jolly company,
I envied, straying late and lonely;
And cried upon their revelry:
"O white companionship! You only
In love, in faith unbroken dwell,
Friends radiant and inseparable!"
Light-heart and glad they seemed to me
And merry comrades (EVEN SO
GOD OUT OF HEAVEN MAY LAUGH TO SEE
THE HAPPY CROWDS; AND NEVER KNOW
THAT IN HIS LONE OBSCURE DISTRESS
EACH WALKETH IN A WILDERNESS).
But I, remembering,...Read more of this...
by
Tony Harrison
I
Baked the day she suddenly dropped dead
we chew it slowly that last apple pie.
Shocked into sleeplessness you're scared of bed.
We never could talk much, and now don't try.
You're like book ends, the pair of you, she'd say,
Hog that grate, say nothing, sit, sleep, stare…
The 'scholar' me, you, worn out on poor pay,
only our silence made us seem a pair.
Not...Read more of this...
by
William Butler Yeats
Although I shelter from the rain
Under a broken tree,
My chair was nearest to the fire
In every company
That talked of love or politics,
Ere Time transfigured me.
Though lads are making pikes again
For some conspiracy,
And crazy rascals rage their fill
At human tyranny,
My contemplations are of Time
That has transfigured me.
There's not a woman turns her face
Upon a broken tree,
And yet the beauties that...Read more of this...
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