Famous Dairy Poems by Famous Poets

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

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The Drovers Sweetheart

by Henry Lawson
 An hour before the sun goes down 
Behind the ragged boughs, 
I go across the little run 
And bring the dusty cows; 
And once I used to sit and rest 
Beneath the fading dome, 
For there was one that I loved best 
Who'd bring the cattle home. 

Our yard is fixed with double bails, 
Round one the grass is...Read more of this...

Where Be Ye Going You Devon Maid?

by John Keats
 Where be ye going, you Devon maid?
 And what have ye there i' the basket?
Ye tight little fairy, just fresh from the dairy,
 Will ye give me some cream if I ask it?

I love your meads, and I love your flowers,
 And I love your junkets mainly,
But 'hind the door, I love kissing more,
 O look not so disdainly!

I...Read more of this...

Morning-Land

by Siegfried Sassoon
 Old English songs, you bring to me 
A simple sweetness somewhat kin 
To birds that through the mystery 
Of earliest morn make tuneful din, 
While hamlet steeples sleepily
At cock-crow chime out three and four, 
Till maids get up betime and go 
With faces like the red sun low 
Clattering about the dairy floor....Read more of this...

Tesss Lament

by Thomas Hardy
 I 

I would that folk forgot me quite, 
 Forgot me quite! 
I would that I could shrink from sight, 
 And no more see the sun. 
Would it were time to say farewell, 
To claim my nook, to need my knell, 
Time for them all to stand and tell 
 Of my day's work as done. 

II 

Ah!...Read more of this...

Epistle to Mrs. Tyler

by Christopher Smart
 It ever was allow'd, dear Madam, 
Ev'n from the days of father Adam, 
Of all perfection flesh is heir to, 
Fair patience is the gentlest virtue; 
This is a truth our grandames teach, 
Our poets sing, and parsons preach; 
Yet after all, dear Moll, the fact is 
We seldom put it into practice; 
I'll warrant (if one knew the...Read more of this...

Horse

by Louise Gluck
 What does the horse give you
That I cannot give you?

I watch you when you are alone,
When you ride into the field behind the dairy,
Your hands buried in the mare's
Dark mane.

Then I know what lies behind your silence:
Scorn, hatred of me, of marriage. Still,
You want me to touch you; you cry out
As brides cry, but when I look at you...Read more of this...

The Free-Selectors Daughter

by Henry Lawson
 I met her on the Lachlan Side -- 
A darling girl I thought her, 
And ere I left I swore I'd win 
The free-selector's daughter. 

I milked her father's cows a month, 
I brought the wood and water, 
I mended all the broken fence, 
Before I won the daughter. 

I listened to her father's yarns, 
I did just what...Read more of this...

To Robin Goodfellow

by Eugene Field
 I see you, Maister Bawsy-brown,
Through yonder lattice creepin';
You come for cream and to gar me dream,
But you dinna find me sleepin'.
The moonbeam, that upon the floor
Wi' crickets ben a-jinkin',
Now steals away fra' her bonnie play--
Wi' a rosier blie, I'm thinkin'.

I saw you, Maister Bawsy-brown,
When the blue bells went a-ringin'
For the merrie fays o' the banks an' braes,
And I kenned...Read more of this...

Goatsucker

by Sylvia Plath
 Old goatherds swear how all night long they hear
The warning whirr and burring of the bird
Who wakes with darkness and till dawn works hard
Vampiring dry of milk each great goat udder.
Moon full, moon dark, the chary dairy farmer
Dreams that his fattest cattle dwindle, fevered
By claw-cuts of the Goatsucker, alias Devil-bird,
Its eye, flashlit, a chip of ruby fire.

So fables say...Read more of this...

Once

by Philip Levine
 Hungry and cold, I stood in a doorway
on Delancey Street in 1946
as the rain came down. The worst part is this
is not from a bad movie. I'd read Dos Passos'
USA and thought, "Before the night ends
my life will change." A stranger would stop
to ask for my help, a single stranger
more needy than I, if such a woman
were possible. I...Read more of this...

My Maid Mary

by Mother Goose
My maid Mary she minds the dairy,
  While I go a-hoeing and mowing each morn;
Gaily run the reel and the little spinning wheel,
  While I am singing and mowing my corn....Read more of this...

California Plush

by Frank Bidart
 The only thing I miss about Los Angeles

is the Hollywood Freeway at midnight, windows down and
radio blaring
bearing right into the center of the city, the Capitol Tower
on the right, and beyond it, Hollywood Boulevard
blazing

--pimps, surplus stores, footprints of the stars

--descending through the city
 fast as the law would allow

through the lights, then rising to the stack
out of the city
to...Read more of this...

Hey Baby

by Maggie Estep
 Liner Notes - (from No More Mister Nice Girl)

I was having a foul day. Some
geezer harrassed me on the street and I got completely bent out of shape,
but the guy was huge so I just stuffed my retort. Went home to drink
coffee. No milk. I ripped through the cupboards and found Non Dairy Creamer.
It tasted like ****. I got...Read more of this...

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