Famous Crow Poems by Famous Poets

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

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The Fish

by Marianne Moore
 wade
through black jade.
 Of the crow-blue mussel-shells, one keeps
 adjusting the ash-heaps;
 opening and shutting itself like

an
injured fan.
 The barnacles which encrust the side
 of the wave, cannot hide
 there for the submerged shafts of the

sun,
split like spun
 glass, move themselves with spotlight swiftness
 into the crevices—
 in and out, illuminating

the
turquoise sea
 of bodies. The water drives a wedge
...Read more of this...

Cock-A-Doodle-Do

by Mother Goose
Oh, my pretty cock, oh, my handsome cock,
  I pray you, do not crow before day,
And your comb shall be made of the very beaten gold,
  And your wings of the silver so gray....Read more of this...

Here lies the body of John Crow

by Thomas Paine
Here lies the body of John Crow,
Who once was high, but now is low;
Ye brother Crows take warning all,
For as you rise, so must you fall....Read more of this...

Prelude to an Evening

by John Crowe Ransom
 Do not enforce the tired wolf
Dragging his infected wound homeward
To sit tonight with the warm children
Naming the pretty kings of France.

The images of the invaded mind
Being as the monsters in the dreams
Of your most brief enchanted headful,
Suppose a miracle of confusion:

That dreamed and undreamt become each other
And mix the night and day of your mind;
And it does not matter...Read more of this...

Crow Communes

by Ted Hughes
"Well," said Crow, "What first?" 
God, exhausted with Creation, snored. 
"Which way?" said Crow, "Which way first?" 
God's shoulder was the mountain on which Crow sat. 
"Come," said Crow, "Let's discuss the situation." 
God lay, agape, a great carcass. 

Crow tore off a mouthful and swallowed. 

"Will this cipher divulge itself to digestion
Under hearing beyond understanding?" 

(That was the first...Read more of this...

Crow And Auden

by John Lindley
 A misprint in a newspaper reported: ‘Auden stepped from the train and was greeted by a small but enthusiastic crow.’

‘Hmm,’ Auden thought when first he saw
the bird, as train came to a stop,
‘I’ll make this image mine before
some Yorkshire upstart snaps it up.’

He drew a notebook from his mac’,
unclipped a biro from his tweed,
stared at the crow, the crow...Read more of this...

An Antiquated Tree

by Emily Dickinson
 An Antiquated Tree
Is cherished of the Crow
Because that Junior Foliage is disrespectful now
To venerable Birds
Whose Corporation Coat
Would decorate Oblivion's
Remotest Consulate....Read more of this...

Heigh-Ho, The Carrion Crow

by Mother Goose
A carrion crow sat on an oak,
    Fol de riddle, lol de riddle, hi ding do,
Watching a tailor shape his cloak;
    Sing heigh-ho, the carrion crow,
    Fol de riddle, lol de riddle, hi ding do!

Wife, bring me my old bent bow,
    Fol de riddle, lol de riddle, hi...Read more of this...

Cock-crow

by Robert Herrick
 Bell-man of night, if I about shall go
For to deny my Master, do thou crow!
Thou stop'st Saint Peter in the midst of sin;
Stay me, by crowing, ere I do begin;
Better it is, premonish'd, for to shun
A sin, than fall to weeping when 'tis done....Read more of this...

A Parody on 'A Psalm of Life'

by Oliver Wendell Holmes
 Life is real, life is earnest, 
And the shell is not its pen –
“Egg thou art, and egg remainest”
Was not spoken of the hen.

Art is long and Time is fleeting, 
Be our bills then sharpened well, 
And not like muffled drums be beating
On the inside of the shell.

In the world’s broad field of battle, 
In the great barnyard of...Read more of this...

The crow

by Kobayashi Issa
 The crow
walks along there
as if it were tilling the field....Read more of this...

Two Old Crows

by Vachel Lindsay
 Two old crows sat on a fence rail.
Two old crows sat on a fence rail,
Thinking of effect and cause,
Of weeds and flowers,
And nature's laws.
One of them muttered, one of them stuttered,
One of them stuttered, one of them muttered.
Each of them thought far more than he uttered.
One crow asked the other crow a riddle.
One crow asked the other crow a...Read more of this...

A Song at Cock-Crow

by Rudyard Kipling
 The first time that Peter denied his Lord
 He shrank from the cudgel, the scourge and the cord,
But followed far off to see what they would do,
 Till the cock crew--till the cock crew--
After Gethsemane, till the cock crew!

The first time that Peter denied his Lord
 'Twas only a maid in the palace who heard,
As he sat by the...Read more of this...

Up The Country

by Henry Lawson
 I am back from up the country -- very sorry that I went -- 
Seeking for the Southern poets' land whereon to pitch my tent; 
I have lost a lot of idols, which were broken on the track, 
Burnt a lot of fancy verses, and I'm glad that I am back. 
Further out may be the pleasant scenes of...Read more of this...

Crow Sickene

by Ted Hughes
His illness was something could not vomit him up. 

Unwinding the world like a ball of wool
Found the last end tied round his own finger. 

Decided to get death, but whatever
Walked into his ambush
Was always his own body. 

Where is this somebody who has me under? 

He dived, he journeyed, challenging, he climbed and with a glare
Of hair on end...Read more of this...

American Feuillage

by Walt Whitman
 AMERICA always! 
Always our own feuillage! 
Always Florida’s green peninsula! Always the priceless delta of Louisiana! Always the
 cotton-fields of Alabama and Texas! 
Always California’s golden hills and hollows—and the silver mountains of New
 Mexico!
 Always soft-breath’d Cuba! 
Always the vast slope drain’d by the Southern Sea—inseparable with the slopes
 drain’d
 by the Eastern and Western Seas;
The area the...Read more of this...

Long ago

by Eugene Field
 I once knew all the birds that came
And nested in our orchard trees;
For every flower I had a name--
My friends were woodchucks, toads, and bees;
I knew where thrived in yonder glen
What plants would soothe a stone-bruised toe--
Oh, I was very learned then;
But that was very long ago!

I knew the spot upon the hill
Where checkerberries could be found,
I knew the...Read more of this...

Lineage

by Ted Hughes
 In the beginning was Scream
Who begat Blood
Who begat Eye
Who begat Fear
Who begat Wing
Who begat Bone
Who begat Granite
Who begat Violet
Who begat Guitar
Who begat Sweat
Who begat Adam
Who begat Mary
Who begat God
Who begat Nothing
Who begat Never
Never Never Never

Who begat Crow

Screaming for Blood
Grubs, crusts

Anything

Trembling featherless elbows in the nest's filth...Read more of this...

Byzantium

by William Butler Yeats
 The unpurged images of day recede;
The Emperor's drunken soldiery are abed;
Night resonance recedes, night walkers' song
After great cathedral gong;
A starlit or a moonlit dome disdains
All that man is,
All mere complexities,
The fury and the mire of human veins.

Before me floats an image, man or shade,
Shade more than man, more image than a shade;
For Hades' bobbin bound in mummy-cloth
May unwind the...Read more of this...

Crow Goes Hunting

by Ted Hughes
Crow
Decided to try words. 

He imagined some words for the job, a lovely pack-
Clear-eyed, resounding, well-trained, 
With strong teeth. 
You could not find a better bred lot. 

He pointed out the hare and away went the words
Resounding. 
Crow was Crow without fail, but what is a hare? 

It converted itself to a concrete bunker. 
The words circled protesting, resounding. 

Crow...Read more of this...

Crow and the Sea

by Ted Hughes
He tried ignoring the sea 
But it was bigger than death, just as it was bigger than life. 

He tried talking to the sea 
But his brain shuttered and his eyes winced from it as from open flame. 

He tried sympathy for the sea 
But it shouldered him off - as a dead thing shoulders you off. 

He tried hating...Read more of this...

Crow and Mama

by Ted Hughes
When Crow cried his mother's ear 
Scorched to a stump. 

When he laughed she wept 
Blood her breasts her palms her brow all wept blood. 

He tried a step, then a step, and again a step - 
Every one scarred her face for ever. 

When he burst out in rage 
She fell back with an awful gash and a fearful...Read more of this...

The Cock And The Hen

by Mother Goose
"Cock, cock, cock, cock,
I've laid an egg,
Am I to gang ba--are-foot?"

"Hen, hen, hen, hen,
I've been up and down
To every shop in town,
And cannot find a shoe
To fit your foot,
If I'd crow my hea--art out."...Read more of this...

The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (excerpt)

by William Blake
 In seed time learn, in harvest teach, in winter enjoy.
Drive your cart and your plow over the bones of the dead.
The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom.
Prudence is a rich, ugly old maid courted by Incapacity.
He who desires but acts not, breeds pestilence.
The cut worm forgives the plow.
Dip him in the river who loves water.
A fool...Read more of this...

Crow Blacker than ever

by Ted Hughes
When God, disgusted with man, 
Turned towards heaven. 
And man, disgusted with God, 
Turned towards Eve, 
Things looked like falling apart. 

But Crow . . Crow 
Crow nailed them together, 
Nailing Heaven and earth together - 

So man cried, but with God's voice. 
And God bled, but with man's blood. 

Then heaven and earth creaked at the joint 
Which became...Read more of this...

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