Famous Craze Poems by Famous Poets

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

See also:

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...

The Peace Of Dives

by Rudyard Kipling
 The Word came down to Dives in Torment where he lay:
"Our World is full of wickedness, My Children maim and slay,
 "And the Saint and Seer and Prophet
 "Can make no better of it
"Than to sanctify and prophesy and pray.

"Rise up, rise up, thou Dives, and take again thy gold,
"And thy women and thy housen as they were to...Read more of this...

The Ferryman

by Emile Verhaeren
The ferryman, a green reed 'twixt his teeth,
With hand on oar, against the current strong
Had rowed and rowed so long.


But she, alas! whose voice was hailing him
Across the far waves dim.
Still further o'er the far waves seemed to float,
Still further backwards, 'mid the mists, remote.


The casements with their eyes.
The dial-faces of the towers that rise
Upon the shore,
Watched, as he strove...Read more of this...

Robin Hood

by John Keats
 to a friend 

No! those days are gone away
And their hours are old and gray,
And their minutes buried all
Under the down-trodden pall
Of the leaves of many years:
Many times have winter's shears,
Frozen North, and chilling East,
Sounded tempests to the feast
Of the forest's whispering fleeces,
Since men knew nor rent nor leases.

 No, the bugle sounds no more,
And the twanging bow no...Read more of this...

Dream Song 42: O journeyer deaf in the mould insane

by John Berryman
 O journeyer, deaf in the mould, insane
with violent travel & death: consider me
in my cast, your first son.
Would you were I by now another one,
witted, legged? I see you before me plain
(I am skilled: I hear, I see)-”

your honour was troubled: when you wondered-”'No'.
I hear. I think I hear. Now full craze down
across our continent
all storms since you gave...Read more of this...

Phantasmagoria CANTO IV ( Hys Nouryture )

by Lewis Carroll
 "OH, when I was a little Ghost, 
A merry time had we! 
Each seated on his favourite post, 
We chumped and chawed the buttered toast 
They gave us for our tea." 

"That story is in print!" I cried. 
"Don't say it's not, because 
It's known as well as Bradshaw's Guide!" 
(The Ghost uneasily replied 
He hardly thought it was)....Read more of this...

The Phantom Horsewoman

by Thomas Hardy
 ***** are the ways of a man I know:
He comes and stands
In a careworn craze,
And looks at the sands
And in the seaward haze
With moveless hands
And face and gaze,
Then turns to go...
And what does he see when he gazes so?

They say he sees as an instant thing
More clear than today,
A sweet soft scene
That once was in play
By that briny green;
Yes,...Read more of this...

The Grave-digger

by Emile Verhaeren
In the garden yonder of yews and death,
There sojourneth
A man who toils, and has toiled for aye.
Digging the dried-up ground all day.


Some willows, surviving their own dead selves.
Weep there around him as he delves.
And a few poor flowers, disconsolate
Because the tempest and wind and wet
Vex them with ceaseless scourge and fret.


The ground is nothing but pits and cones,
Deep graves in...Read more of this...

With brutus in st. jo

by Eugene Field
 Of all the opry-houses then obtaining in the West
The one which Milton Tootle owned was, by all odds, the best;
Milt, being rich, was much too proud to run the thing alone,
So he hired an "acting manager," a gruff old man named Krone--
A stern, commanding man with piercing eyes and flowing beard,
And his voice assumed a thunderous tone when Jack...Read more of this...

The Parsons Son

by Robert William Service
 This is the song of the parson's son, as he squats in his shack alone,
On the wild, weird nights, when the Northern Lights shoot up from the frozen zone,
And it's sixty below, and couched in the snow the hungry huskies moan:

"I'm one of the Arctic brotherhood, I'm an old-time pioneer.
I came with the first -- O God! how I've...Read more of this...

Nostalgia

by Billy Collins
 Remember the 1340's? We were doing a dance called the Catapult.
You always wore brown, the color craze of the decade,
and I was draped in one of those capes that were popular,
the ones with unicorns and pomegranates in needlework.
Everyone would pause for beer and onions in the afternoon,
and at night we would play a game called "Find the Cow."
Everything was...Read more of this...

Wapentake

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
 To Alfred Tennyson 

Poet! I come to touch thy lance with mine;
Not as a knight, who on the listed field
Of tourney touched his adversary's shield
In token of defiance, but in sign
Of homage to the mastery, which is thine,
In English song; nor will I keep concealed,
And voiceless as a rivulet frost-congealed,
My admiration for thy verse divine.
Not of the howling dervishes...Read more of this...

Mulga Bills Bicycle

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 'Twas Mulga Bill, from Eaglehawk, that caught the cycling craze; 
He turned away the good old horse that served him many days; 
He dressed himself in cycling clothes, resplendent to be seen; 
He hurried off to town and bought a shining new machine; 
And as he wheeled it through the door, with air of lordly pride, 
The grinning shop...Read more of this...

Dont forget to view our wonderful member Craze poems.

Get a Premium Membership
Turn off ads, get more exposure for your poetry, and get more features with a Premium Membership.
Book: Diverse Voices: The Poetry of Human Rights and the Pursuit of Peace