Famous Cook Up Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Facility

by Robert William Service
 So easy 'tis to make a rhyme,
That did the world but know it,
Your coachman might Parnassus climb,
Your butler be a poet.

Then, oh, how charming it would be
If, when in haste hysteric
You called the page, you learned that he
Was grappling with a lyric.

Or else what rapture it would yield,
When cook sent up the salad,
To find within its depths concealed
A touching...Read more of this...

The Naked Land

by Kenneth Patchen
 A beast stands at my eye.

I cook my senses in a dark fire.
The old wombs rot and the new mother
Approaches with the footsteps of a world.

Who are the people of this unscaled heaven?
What beckons?
Whose blood hallows this grim land?
What slithers along the watershed of my human sleep?

The other side of knowing ...
Caress of unwaking delight ... O start
A sufficient...Read more of this...

In The Deep Museum

by Anne Sexton
 My God, my God, what ***** corner am I in? 
Didn't I die, blood running down the post, 
lungs gagging for air, die there for the sin 
of anyone, my sour mouth giving up the ghost? 
Surely my body is done? Surely I died? 
And yet, I know, I'm here. What place is this? 
Cold and *****, I sting...Read more of this...

Christmas Eve

by Anne Sexton
 Oh sharp diamond, my mother! 
I could not count the cost 
of all your faces, your moods-- 
that present that I lost. 
Sweet girl, my deathbed, 
my jewel-fingered lady, 
your portrait flickered all night 
by the bulbs of the tree. 

Your face as calm as the moon 
over a mannered sea, 
presided at the family reunion, 
the twelve grandchildren...Read more of this...

Tranquillity

by Robert William Service
 This morning on my pensive walk
I saw a fisher on a rock,
Who watched his ruby float careen
In waters bluely crystalline,
While silver fishes nosed his bait,
Yet hesitated ere they ate.

Nearby I saw a mother mid
Who knitted by her naked child,
And watched him as he romped with glee,
In golden sand, in singing sea,
Her eyes so blissfully love-lit
She gazed and gazed and...Read more of this...

Clover

by Sidney Lanier
 Inscribed to the Memory of John Keats.



Dear uplands, Chester's favorable fields,
My large unjealous Loves, many yet one --
A grave good-morrow to your Graces, all,
Fair tilth and fruitful seasons!
Lo, how still!
The midmorn empties you of men, save me;
Speak to your lover, meadows! None can hear.
I lie as lies yon placid Brandywine,
Holding the hills and heavens in my heart
For contemplation.
'Tis a...Read more of this...

Susie

by Robert William Service
 My daughter Susie, aged two,
 Apes me in every way,
For as my household chores I do
 With brooms she loves to play.
A scrubbing brush to her is dear;
 Ah! Though my soul it vex,
My bunch of cuteness has, I fear,
 Kitchen complex.

My dream was that she might go far,
 And play or sing or dance;
Aye, even be a movie...Read more of this...

The Sea-Child

by Eliza Cook
 HE crawls to the cliff and plays on a brink 
Where every eye but his own would shrink; 
No music he hears but the billow’s noise, 
And shells and weeds are his only toys. 
No lullaby can the mother find
To sing him to rest like the moaning wind; 
And the louder it wails and the fiercer it sweeps, 
The...Read more of this...

The Old Bark School

by Henry Lawson
 It was built of bark and poles, and the floor was full of holes 
Where each leak in rainy weather made a pool; 
And the walls were mostly cracks lined with calico and sacks – 
There was little need for windows in the school. 

Then we rode to school and back by the rugged gully-track, 
On the old grey...Read more of this...

The Old Arm-chair

by Eliza Cook
 I LOVE it, I love it ; and who shall dare
To chide me for loving that old Arm-chair ?
I've treasured it long as a sainted prize ;
I've bedewed it with tears, and embalmed it with sighs.
' Tis bound by a thousand bands to my heart ;
Not a tie will break, not a link will start.
Would ye learn the spell...Read more of this...

Beautiful Aberfoyle

by William Topaz McGonagall
 The mountains and glens of Aberfoyle are beautiful to sight,
Likewise the rivers and lakes are sparkling and bright;
And its woods were frequented by the Lady of the Lake,
And on its Lakes many a sail in her boat she did take. 

The scenery there will fill the tourist with joy,
Because 'tis there once lived the bold Rob Roy,
Who spent many...Read more of this...

Juggling Jerry

by George Meredith
 Pitch here the tent, while the old horse grazes:
By the old hedge-side we'll halt a stage.
It's nigh my last above the daisies:
My next leaf'll be man's blank page.
Yes, my old girl! and it's no use crying:
Juggler, constable, king, must bow.
One that outjuggles all's been spying
Long to have me, and he has me now.

We've travelled times to this old common:
Often...Read more of this...

Song of the Worm

by Eliza Cook
 THE worm, the rich worm, has a noble domain
In the field that is stored with its millions of slain ;
The charnel-grounds widen, to me they belong,
With the vaults of the sepulchre, sculptured and strong.
The tower of ages in fragments is laid,
Moss grows on the stones, and I lurk in its shade ;
And the hand of the giant and heart...Read more of this...

Nirvana

by Sidney Lanier
 not much chance,
completely cut loose from
purpose,
he was a young man
riding a bus
through North Carolina
on the wat to somewhere
and it began to snow
and the bus stopped 
at a little cafe
in the hills
and the passengers 
entered.
he sat at the counter
with the others,
he ordered and the 
food arived.
the meal was
particularly
good 
and the
coffee.
the waitress was 
unlike the women
he had
known.
she was unaffected,
there was a...Read more of this...

Misgivings

by William Matthews
 "Perhaps you'll tire of me," muses
my love, although she's like a great city 
to me, or a park that finds new
ways to wear each flounce of light
and investiture of weather.
Soil doesn't tire of rain, I think,

but I know what she fears: plans warp,
planes explode, topsoil gets peeled away 
by floods. And worse than what we can't 
control is what...Read more of this...

Cat-pie

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
 WHILE he is mark'd by vision clear

Who fathoms Nature's treasures,
The man may follow, void of fear,

Who her proportions measures.

Though for one mortal, it is true,

These trades may both be fitted,
Yet, that the things themselves are two

Must always be admitted.

Once on a time there lived a cook

Whose skill was past disputing,
Who in his head a fancy took

To try his luck...Read more of this...

The Quiet Eye

by Eliza Cook
 THE ORB I like is not the one 
That dazzles with its lightning gleam; 
That dares to look upon the sun, 
As though it challenged brighter beam. 
That orb may sparkle, flash, and roll; 
Its fire may blaze, its shaft may fly; 
But not for me: I prize the soul 
That slumbers in a quiet eye. 

There ’s something...Read more of this...

The Doctor Will Return

by Weldon Kees
 The surgical mask, the rubber teat
Are singed, give off an evil smell.
You seem to weep more now that heat
Spreads everywhere we look.
It says here none of us is well.

The warty spottings on the figurines
Are nothing you would care to claim.
You seem to weep more since the magazines
Began revivals on the Dundas book.
It says here you were most to blame.

But...Read more of this...

Dont Tell the World that Youre Waiting for Me

by Eliza Cook
 THREE summers have gone since the first time we met, love,
And still 'tis in vain that I ask thee to wed ;
I hear no reply but a gentle " Not yet, love,"
With a smile of your lip, and a shake of your head.
Ah ! how oft have I whispered, how oft have I sued thee,
And breathed my soul's question...Read more of this...

Saltbush Bills Gamecock

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 'Twas Saltbush Bill, with his travelling sheep, was making his way to town; 
He crossed them over the Hard Times Run, and he came to the Take 'Em Down; 
He counted through at the boundary gate, and camped at the drafting yard: 
For Stingy Smith, of the Hard Times Run, had hunted him rather hard. 
He bore no malice...Read more of this...

Ladies And Gentlemen In Outer Space

by Ron Padgett
 Here is my philosophy:
Everything changes (the word "everything"
has just changed as the
word "change" has: it now
means "no change") so
quickly that it literally surpasses my belief,
charges right past it
like some of the giant
ideas in this area.
I had no beginning and I shall have
no end: the beam of light
stretches out before and behind
and I cook the vegetables
for a few minutes only,
the...Read more of this...

A Wreath To The Fish

by Nancy Willard
 Who is this fish, still wearing its wealth,
flat on my drainboard, dead asleep,
its suit of mail proof only against the stream?
What is it to live in a stream,
to dwell forever in a tunnel of cold,
never to leave your shining birthsuit,
never to spend your inheritance of thin coins?
And who is the stream, who lolls all day
in an unmade bed, living...Read more of this...

XXXIV (You are the daughter of the sea)

by Pablo Neruda
 You are the daughter of the sea, oregano's first cousin.
Swimmer, your body is pure as the water;
cook, your blood is quick as the soil.
Everything you do is full of flowers, rich with the earth.

Your eyes go out toward the water, and the waves rise;
your hands go out to the earth and the seeds swell;
you know the deep essence of...Read more of this...

The First Surveyor

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 'The man who brought the railway through -- our friend the engineer.' 
They cheer his pluck and enterprise and engineering skill! 
'Twas my old husband found the pass behind that big red hill. 
Before the engineer was born we'd settled with our stock 
Behind that great big mountain chain, a line of range and rock -- 
A line that...Read more of this...

Our Hired Girl

by James Whitcomb Riley
 Our hired girl, she's 'Lizabuth Ann;
An' she can cook best things to eat!
She ist puts dough in our pie-pan,
An' pours in somepin' 'at's good an' sweet;
An' nen she salts it all on top
With cinnamon; an' nen she'll stop
An' stoop an' slide it, ist as slow,
In th' old cook-stove, so's 'twon't slop
An' git all spilled; nen bakes it, so
It's custard-pie,...Read more of this...

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