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Famous Crumbs Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Browning, Robert
...text,
``Still there's the comment.
``Let me know all! Prate not of most or least,
``Painful or easy!
``Even to the crumbs I'd fain eat up the feast,
``Ay, nor feel queasy.''
Oh, such a life as he resolved to live,
When he had learned it,
When he had gathered all books had to give!
Sooner, he spurned it.
Image the whole, then execute the parts---
Fancy the fabric
Quite, ere you build, ere steel strike fire from quartz,
Ere mortar dab brick!

(Here's the town-gate ...Read more of this...



by St Vincent Millay, Edna
...ound the door
And set a bowl upon the step;
My heart is what it was before,

But it is winter with your love;
I scatter crumbs upon the sill,
And close the window, —and the birds
May take or leave them, as they will....Read more of this...

by Browning, Robert
...Karshish, the picker-up of learning's crumbs, 
The not-incurious in God's handiwork 
(This man's-flesh he hath admirably made, 
Blown like a bubble, kneaded like a paste, 
To coop up and keep down on earth a space 
That puff of vapour from his mouth, man's soul) 
--To Abib, all-sagacious in our art, 
Breeder in me of what poor skill I boast, 
Like me inquisitive how pricks and cracks 
Befall the...Read more of this...

by Atwood, Margaret
...d up close at the small
details. Myopia. The worn gunwales,
the intricate twill of the seat
cover. The acid crumbs of loam, the granular
pink rock, its igneous veins, the sea-fans
of dry moss, the blackish and then the graying
bristles on the back of his neck.
Sometimes he would whistle, sometimes
I would. The boring rhythm of doing
things over and over, carrying
the wood, drying
the dishes. Such minutiae. It's what
the animals spend most of their ...Read more of this...

by Clare, John
...toy behind the screen

The yule cake dotted thick wi plumbs
Is on each supper table found
And cats look up for falling crumbs
Which greedy childern litter round
And huswifes sage stuffd seasond chine
Long hung in chimney nook to drye
And boiling eldern berry wine
To drink the christmass eves 'good bye'...Read more of this...



by Service, Robert William
...non I spied a shabby dame
Who fed six sparrows as they came
 In famished flight;
She was so poor and frail and old,
Yet crumbs of her last crust she doled
 With pure delight.

Then sudden in my heart was born
For my sleek self a savage scorn,--
 Urge to atone;
So when a starving cur I saw
I bandaged up its bleeding paw
 And bought a bone.

For God knows it is good to give;
We may not have so long to live,
 So if we can,
Let's do each day a kindly deed,
And stretch a h...Read more of this...

by Riley, James Whitcomb
...lovely bad ones.

Little Orphant Annie's come to our house to stay,
An' wash the cups an' saucers up, an' brush the crumbs away,
An' shoo the chickens off the porch, an' dust the hearth, an' sweep,
An' make the fire, an' bake the bread, an' earn her board-an'-keep;
An' all us other childern, when the supper-things is done,
We set around the kitchen fire an' has the mostest fun
A-list'nin' to the witch-tales 'at Annie tells about,
An' the Gobble-uns 'at gits you
Ef you
Don...Read more of this...

by Collins, Billy
...day in March,
the pavement sparkling with sunlight,
pigeons fluttering off the curb,
nodding over a profusion of bread crumbs.

In fact, I would say
my delight at being suffused
with phrases from his saxophone --
some like honey, some like vinegar --
is surpassed only by my gratitude

to Tommy Potter for taking the time
to join us on this breezy afternoon
with his most unwieldy bass
and to the esteemed Arthur Taylor
who is somehow managing to navigate

this crowd with hi...Read more of this...

by Moore, Marianne
...unfit to be the guardians
of another person's happiness."
He says, "These mummies
must be handled carefully --
`the crumbs from a lion's meal,
a couple of shins and the bit of an ear';
turn to the letter M
and you will find
that `a wife is a coffin,'
that severe object
with the pleasing geometry
stipulating space and not people,
refusing to be buried
and uniquely disappointing,
revengefully wrought in the attitude
of an adoring child
to a distinguished parent."
She sa...Read more of this...

by Clare, John
...s wi many a wish
Oer the brig rail to view the fish
Go sturting by in sunny gleams
And chucks in the eye dazzld streams
Crumbs from his pocket oft to watch
The swarming struttle come to catch
Them where they to the bottom sile
Sighing in fancys joy the while
Hes cautiond not to stand so nigh
By rosey milkmaid tripping bye
Where he admires wi fond delight
And longs to be there mute till night
He often ventures thro the day
At truant now and then to play
Rambling about the fiel...Read more of this...

by Orlovsky, Peter
...the world -
 all the lost dreams laid on you
Oh bed that grows no hair, that cannot be fucked
 or can be fucked
Oh bed crumbs of all ages spiled on you
Oh yellow bed march to the sun whear yr journey will be done
Oh 50 lbs. of bed that takes 400 more lbs-
 how strong you are
Oh bed, only for man & not for animals
 yellow bed when will the animals have equal rights?
Oh 4 legged bed off the floor forever built
Oh yellow bed all the news of the world
 lay on you at one time...Read more of this...

by Rich, Adrienne
...y eyes
and finds them empty
a woman's head turns away
from my head in the mirror
children are dying my death
and eating crumbs of my life.

Pity is not your forte.
Calmly you ache up there
pinned aloft in your crow's nest,
my speechless pirate!
You take it all for granted
and when I look you back

it's with a starlike eye
shooting its cold and egotistical spear
where it can do least damage.
Breath deep! No hurt, no pardon
out here in the cold with you
you with you...Read more of this...

by Clare, John
...grew and the daisy gemmed in dew
And the hills of silken grass like to cushions to the view
When we threw the pissmire crumbs when we's nothing
 else to do
All leveled like a desert by the never weary plough
All vanished like the sun where that cloud is passing now
All settled here for ever on its brow


I never thought that joys would run away from boys
Or that boys would change their minds and forsake such
 summer joys
But alack I never dreamed that the world had other toy...Read more of this...

by Robinson, Mary Darby
...rrow cell, my humble fare, 
"Tune thy sweet carol­plume thy wing, 
"And quaff with me the limpid spring, 
"And peck the crumbs my meals supply, 
"And round my rushy pillow fly." 

O, MINSTREL SWEET, whose jocund lay 
Can make e'en POVERTY look gay, 
Who can the poorest swain inspire 
And while he fans his scanty fire, 
When o'er the plain rough Winter pours 
Nocturnal blasts, and whelming show'rs, 
Canst thro' his little mansion fling 
The rapt'rous melodies of spring.Read more of this...

by Lowell, Amy
...t boxes with ornament
Culled from gardens where fountains splashed
And golden carp in the shadows flashed,
Nuzzling for crumbs under lily-pads,
Which ladies threw as the last of fads.
Eggshell trays where gay beaux knelt,
Hand on heart, and daintily spelt
Their love in flowers, brittle and bright,
Artificial and fragile, which told aright
The vows of an eighteenth-century knight.
The cruder tones of old Dutch jugs
Glared from one shelf, where Toby mugs
Endlessly drank...Read more of this...

by Anonymous,
...e lit-tle birds
  Come flut-ter-ing to the win-dow pane,
In answer to the gen-tle words
  With which she scat-ter-ed crumbs and grain.

One ro-bin, bol-der than the rest,
  Would perch up-on her fin-ger fair,
And this of all she lov-ed the best,
  And daily fed with ten-der-est care.

But one sad morn, when Minnie came,
  Her pre-ci-ous lit-tle pet she found,
Not hop-ping, when she call-ed his name,
  But ly-ing dead up-on the ground....Read more of this...

by Turner Smith, Charlotte
...sion, where no more
The owner (gone to gayer scenes) resides,
Who made even luxury, Virtue; while he gave
The scatter'd crumbs to honest Poverty.--
But, tho' the landscape be too oft deform'd
By figures such as these, yet Peace is here,
And o'er our vallies, cloath'd with springing corn,
No hostile hoof shall trample, nor fierce flames
Wither the wood's young verdure, ere it form
Gradual the laughing May's luxuriant shade;
For, by the rude sea guarded, we are safe,
And fe...Read more of this...

by Masefield, John
...ew that Christ had given me birth 
To brother all the souls on earth, 
And every bird and every beast 
Should share the crumbs broke at the feast.



O glory of the lighted mind. 
How dead I'd been, how dumb, how blind. 
The station brook, to my new eyes, 
Was babbling out of Paradise, 
The waters rushing from the rain 
Were singing Christ has risen again. 
I thought all earthly creatures knelt 
From rapture of the joy I felt. 
The narrow station-wall's br...Read more of this...

by Mansfield, Katherine
..., you know you know, you were always so
fly-away.
So seldom came to the window-sill, so rarely
Shared the delicious crumbs thrown into the yard.
Here is a delicate fragment and her a tit-bit
As good as new. And here's a morsel of relish
And cake and bread and bread and bread and bread."

At night, in the wide bed
With the leaves and flowers
Gently weaving in the darkness,
She is like a wounded bird at rest on a pool.
Timidly, timidly she lifts her head fro...Read more of this...

by Gregory, Rg
...om blows
from the arseholes of the clever (the odiferously fit)
as they guzzle in their spotlit windows tossing off the crumbs

65
far deeper than the wounds on egdon heath
its proud moroseness scales across the time
tinting all after-thought - where hardy gloomed
(wringing ironic bloodtones from sublime)
a host of worms have nibbled through belief

faith-riddled souls have other faiths exhumed
a pagan dissonance has reached for rhyme
a void (dismissed) has sprouted from the ...Read more of this...

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Book: Reflection on the Important Things