Famous Dish Poems by Famous Poets

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

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The Character Of Holland

by Andrew Marvell
 Holland, that scarce deserves the name of Land,
As but th'Off-scouring of the Brittish Sand;
And so much Earth as was contributed
By English Pilots when they heav'd the Lead;
Or what by th' Oceans slow alluvion fell,
Of shipwrackt Cockle and the Muscle-shell;
This indigested vomit of the Sea
Fell to the Dutch by just Propriety.
Glad then, as Miners that have found the Oar,
They with...Read more of this...

His Age:dedicated To His Peculiar Friendmr John Wickes Under The Name Ofpostumus

by Robert Herrick
 Ah, Posthumus! our years hence fly
And leave no sound: nor piety,
Or prayers, or vow
Can keep the wrinkle from the brow;
But we must on,
As fate does lead or draw us; none,
None, Posthumus, could e'er decline
The doom of cruel Proserpine.

The pleasing wife, the house, the ground
Must all be left, no one plant found
To follow thee,
Save only the curst cypress-tree!
--A merry mind
Looks...Read more of this...

The Widows Tears; Or Dirge Of Dorcas

by Robert Herrick
 Come pity us, all ye who see
Our harps hung on the willow-tree;
Come pity us, ye passers-by,
Who see or hear poor widows' cry;
Come pity us, and bring your ears
And eyes to pity widows' tears.
CHOR. And when you are come hither,
Then we will keep
A fast, and weep
Our eyes out all together,

For Tabitha; who dead lies here,
Clean wash'd, and laid out for...Read more of this...

The Eagle The Sow And The Cat

by Anne Kingsmill Finch
 THE Queen of Birds, t'encrease the Regal Stock, 
Had hatch'd her young Ones in a stately Oak, 
Whose Middle-part was by a Cat possest, 
And near the Root with Litter warmly drest, 
A teeming Sow had made her peaceful Nest. 
(Thus Palaces are cramm'd from Roof to Ground, 
And Animals, as various, in them found.) 
When to the Sow,...Read more of this...

M was a dish of mince

by Edward Lear
M  was a dish of mince;It looked so good to eat! Papa, he quickly ate it up,And said, "This is a treat!" ...Read more of this...

The Old Huntsman

by Siegfried Sassoon
 I’ve never ceased to curse the day I signed 
A seven years’ bargain for the Golden Fleece. 
’Twas a bad deal all round; and dear enough 
It cost me, what with my daft management, 
And the mean folk as owed and never paid me, 
And backing losers; and the local bucks 
Egging me on with whiskys while I bragged...Read more of this...

How Robin and His Outlaws Lived in The Woods

by James Henry Leigh Hunt
 Robin and his merry men
: Lived just like the birds;
They had almost as many tracks as thoughts,
: And whistles and songs as words.

Up they were with the earliest sign
Of the sun's up-looking eye;
But not an archer breakfasted
Till he twinkled from the sky.

All the morning they were wont
To fly their grey-goose quills
At butts, or wands, or trees, or twigs,
Till theirs...Read more of this...

The Angel Food Dogs

by Anne Sexton
 Leaping, leaping, leaping,
down line by line,
growling at the cadavers,
filling the holy jugs with their piss,
falling into windows and mauling the parents,
but soft, kiss-soft,
and sobbing sobbing
into their awful dog dish.

No point? No twist for you
in my white tunnel?
Let me speak plainly,
let me whisper it from the podium--

Mother, may I use your pseudonym?
May I take the dove named Mary
and shove out...Read more of this...

Ode to Himself upon the Censure of his New Inn

by Ben Jonson
 Come, leave the loathed stage,
And the more loathsome age;
Where pride and impudence, in faction knit,
Usurp the chair of wit!
Indicting and arraigning every day
Something they call a play.
Let their fastidious, vain
Commission of the brain
Run on and rage, sweat, censure, and condemn;
They were not made for thee, less thou for them.

Say that thou pour'st them wheat,
And they will acorns eat;
'Twere simple...Read more of this...

Ode To Conger Chowder

by Pablo Neruda
 In the storm-tossed
Chilean
sea
lives the rosy conger,
giant eel
of snowy flesh.
And in Chilean
stewpots,
along the coast,
was born the chowder,
thick and succulent,
a boon to man.
You bring the conger, skinned,
to the kitchen
(its mottled skin slips off
like a glove,
leaving the
grape of the sea
exposed to the world),
naked,
the tender eel
glistens,
prepared
to serve our appetites.
Now
you take
garlic,
first, caress
that precious
ivory,
smell
its irate fragrance,
then
blend the minced garlic
with onion
and tomato
until the onion
is the color...Read more of this...

Vers De Société

by Philip Larkin
 My wife and I have asked a crowd of craps
To come and waste their time and ours: perhaps
You'd care to join us? In a pig's ****, friend.
Day comes to an end.
The gas fire breathes, the trees are darkly swayed.
And so Dear Warlock-Williams: I'm afraid--

Funny how hard it is to be alone.
I could spend half my evenings, if I wanted,
Holding...Read more of this...

I Wonder What It Feels Like to be Drowned?

by Robert Graves
 Look at my knees, 
That island rising from the steamy seas! 
The candles a tall lightship; my two hands 
Are boats and barges anchored to the sands, 
With mighty cliffs all round;
They’re full of wine and riches from far lands…. 
I wonder what it feels like to be drowned?

I can make caves, 
By lifting up the island and huge...Read more of this...

A Panegyric To Sir Lewis Pemberton

by Robert Herrick
 Till I shall come again, let this suffice,
I send my salt, my sacrifice
To thee, thy lady, younglings, and as far
As to thy Genius and thy Lar;
To the worn threshold, porch, hall, parlour, kitchen,
The fat-fed smoking temple, which in
The wholesome savour of thy mighty chines,
Invites to supper him who dines:
Where laden spits, warp'd with large ribs of beef,
Not represent, but...Read more of this...

Ode To Salt

by Pablo Neruda
 This salt
in the saltcellar
I once saw in the salt mines.
I know
you won't
believe me,
but
it sings,
salt sings, the skin
of the salt mines
sings
with a mouth smothered
by the earth.
I shivered in those solitudes
when I heard
the voice of
the salt
in the desert.
Near Antofagasta
the nitrous
pampa
resounds:
a broken
voice,
a mournful
song.

In its caves
the salt moans, mountain
of buried light,
translucent cathedral,
crystal of the sea, oblivion
of the waves.

And then on every table
in the...Read more of this...

My Bear

by Robert William Service
 I never killed a bear because
I always thought them critters was
 So kindo' cute;
Though round my shack they often came,
I'd raise my rifle and take aim,
 But couldn't shoot.
Yet there was one full six-feet tall
Who came each night and gobbled all
 The grub in sight;
On my pet garden truck he'd feast,
Until I thought I must at least
 Give him...Read more of this...

The Fruit Shop

by Amy Lowell
 Cross-ribboned shoes; a muslin gown,
High-waisted, girdled with bright blue;
A straw poke bonnet which hid the frown
She pluckered her little brows into
As she picked her dainty passage through
The dusty street. "Ah, Mademoiselle,
A dirty pathway, we need rain,
My poor fruits suffer, and the shell
Of this nut's too big for its kernel, lain
Here in the sun it has shrunk again.
The baker down...Read more of this...

My Mothers Body

by Marge Piercy
 1. 

The dark socket of the year 
the pit, the cave where the sun lies down 
and threatens never to rise, 
when despair descends softly as the snow 
covering all paths and choking roads: 

then hawkfaced pain seized you 
threw you so you fell with a sharp 
cry, a knife tearing a bolt of silk. 
My father heard the...Read more of this...

The Voice of the Lobster

by Lewis Carroll
 ''Tis the voice of the Lobster: I heard him declare
'You have baked me too brown, I must sugar my hair.'
As a duck with its eyelids, so he with his nose
Trims his belt and his buttons, and turns out his toes.
When the sands are all dry, he is gay as a lark,
And will talk in contemptuous tones of the Shark:
But,...Read more of this...

Content To My Dearest Lucasia

by Katherine Philips
 Content, the false World's best disguise, 
The search and faction of the Wise, 
Is so abstruse and hid in night, 
That, like that Fairy Red-cross Knight, 
Who trech'rous Falshood for clear Truth had got, 
Men think they have it when they have it not. 

For Courts Content would gladly own, 
But she ne're dwelt about a Throne: 
And to...Read more of this...

147. Address to a Haggis

by Robert Burns
 FAIR fa’ your honest, sonsie face,
Great chieftain o’ the pudding-race!
Aboon them a’ ye tak your place,
 Painch, tripe, or thairm:
Weel are ye wordy o’a grace
 As lang’s my arm.


The groaning trencher there ye fill,
Your hurdies like a distant hill,
Your pin was help to mend a mill
 In time o’need,
While thro’ your pores the dews distil
 Like amber bead.


His knife...Read more of this...

Black Bonnet

by Henry Lawson
 A day of seeming innocence, 
A glorious sun and sky, 
And, just above my picket fence, 
Black Bonnet passing by. 
In knitted gloves and quaint old dress, 
Without a spot or smirch, 
Her worn face lit with peacefulness, 
Old Granny goes to church. 

Her hair is richly white, like milk, 
That long ago was fair -- 
And glossy still...Read more of this...

F was a little Fish

by Edward Lear
F  was a little Fish.Cook in the river took it Papa said, "Cook! Cook! bring a dish!And, Cook! be quick and cook it!" ...Read more of this...

Colloquy

by Weldon Kees
 In the broken light, in owl weather,
Webs on the lawn where the leaves end,
I took the thin moon and the sky for cover
To pick the cat's brains and descend
A weedy hill. I found him groveling
Inside the summerhouse, a shadowed bulge,
Furred and somnolent.—"I bring,"
I said, "besides this dish of liver, and an edge
Of cheese, the customary torments,
And the usual wonder...Read more of this...

The Legless Man

by Robert William Service
 (The Dark Side)

My mind goes back to Fumin Wood, and how we stuck it out,
Eight days of hunger, thirst and cold, mowed down by steel and flame;
Waist-deep in mud and mad with woe, with dead men all about,
We fought like fiends and waited for relief that never came.
Eight days and nights they rolled on us in battle-frenzied mass!
"Debout les...Read more of this...

The Death And Burial Of Poor Cock Robin

by Mother Goose
Who killed Cock Robin?
"I," said the sparrow,
"With my little bow and arrow,
I killed Cock Robin."

Who saw him die?
"I," said the fly,
"With my little eye,
I saw him die."

Who caught his blood?
"I," said the fish,
"With my little dish,
I caught his blood."

Who'll make his shroud?
"I," said the beetle,
"With my thread and needle.
I'll make his shroud."

Who'll carry the torch?
"I," said the linnet,
"I'll come in...Read more of this...

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