Famous Drank Poems by Famous Poets

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

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A bird came down the walk

...rd came down the walk:
He did not know I saw;
He bit an angle-worm in halves
And ate the fellow, raw.

And then he drank a dew
From a convenient grass,
And then hopped sidewise to the wall
To let a beetle pass.

He glanced with rapid eyes
That hurried all abroad,--
They looked like frightened beads, I thought;
He stirred his velvet head

Like one in danger; cautious,
I offered him a crumb,
And he unrolled his feathers
And rowed him softer home

Than oars d...Read more of this...
by Dickinson, Emily


A poem on divine revelation

...h adjoining vale and desert plain, 
Lost in the umbrage of dark heathen shades. 
'Twas at this stream the fabling poets drank 
And sang how heav'n and earth from chaos rose; 
'Twas at this stream the wiser sages drank 
And straightway knew the soul immortal lives 
Beyond the grave and all the wrecks of time. 


From Judah's sacred hills a partial ray 
Extraneous, visited and cheer'd the gloom 
Spread o'er the shaded earth; yet more than half 
In superstition and the dreams of...Read more of this...
by Brackenridge, Hugh Henry

Beowulf (Modern English)

...having drunk, to do as I bid.” (ll. 1221-31)

Then she went back to her seat. It was the greatest of feasts,
the men drank wine, not knowing of what was to come,
a gruesome destiny, as it was to come visiting
many an earl, after the evening had arrived,
and Hrothgar departed to his own house,
the powerful man to his rest. Countless men
occupied the hall, just as they had often done before.
They cleared away the benches, and spread it out
with bedding and bolsters. O...Read more of this...
by Anonymous,

Beowulf (Old English)

...them
into Grendel’s grasp. But God is able
this deadly foe from his deeds to turn!
Boasted full oft, as my beer they drank,
earls o’er the ale-cup, armed men,
that they would bide in the beer-hall here,
Grendel’s attack with terror of blades.
Then was this mead-house at morning tide
dyed with gore, when the daylight broke,
all the boards of the benches blood-besprinkled,
gory the hall: I had heroes the less,
doughty dear-ones that death had reft.
-- But sit to the...Read more of this...
by Anonymous,

Evangeline: A Tale of Acadie

...pieces of silver;
And the notary rising, and blessing the bride and the bridegroom,
Lifted aloft the tankard of ale and drank to their welfare.
Wiping the foam from his lip, he solemnly bowed and departed,
While in silence the others sat and mused by the fireside,
Till Evangeline brought the draught-board out of its corner.
Soon was the game begun. In friendly contention the old men
Laughed at each lucky hit, or unsuccessful manoeuver,
Laughed when a man was crowned, or a bre...Read more of this...
by Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth


Howl

...in their pubic beards returning through Laredo with a belt of marijuana for New York,
who ate fire in paint hotels or drank turpentine in Paradise Alley, death, or purgatoried their torsos night after night
with dreams, with drugs, with waking nightmares, alcohol and cock and endless balls,
incomparable blind streets of shuddering cloud and lightning in the mind leaping toward poles of Canada & Paterson, illuminating all the motionless world of Time between,
Peyote solid...Read more of this...
by Ginsberg, Allen

Inferno (English)

...he ground beneath with tears and blood 
 Was drenched, and crawling in that loathsome mud 
 There were great worms that drank it. 
 Gladly
 thence 
 I gazed far forward. Dark and wide the flood 
 That flowed before us. On the nearer shore 
 Were people waiting. "Master, show me whence 
 These came, and who they be, and passing hence 
 Where go they? Wherefore wait they there content, 
 - The faint light shows it, - for their transit o'er 
 The unbridged abyss?" 
 He answered,...Read more of this...
by Alighieri, Dante

Sea Dreams

...wn: but when the wordy storm
Had ended, forth they came and paced the shore,
Ran in and out the long sea-framing caves,
Drank the large air, and saw, but scarce believed
(The sootflake of so many a summer still
Clung to their fancies) that they saw, the sea.
So now on sand they walk'd, and now on cliff,
Lingering about the thymy promontories,
Till all the sails were darken'd in the west,
And rosed in the east: then homeward and to bed:
Where she, who kept a tender Christian h...Read more of this...
by Tennyson, Alfred Lord

The Ballad of the White Horse

...stood like soldiers
Drilled in a straight line,
His strange, stiff olives did not fail,
And all the kings of the earth drank ale,
But he drank wine.

Wide over wasted British plains
Stood never an arch or dome,
Only the trees to toss and reel,
The tribes to bicker, the beasts to squeal;
But the eyes in his head were strong like steel,
And his soul remembered Rome.

Then Alfred of the lonely spear
Lifted his lion head;
And fronted with the Italian's eye,
Asking him of his whe...Read more of this...
by Chesterton, G K

The Bride of Abydos

...s up, 
But little deem'd a brother's wrath 
To quench his thirst had such a cup: 
The bowl a bribed attendant bore; 
He drank one draught, and nor needed more! [33] 
If thou my tale, Zuleika, doubt, 
Call Haroun — he can tell it out. 

XV. 

"The deed once done, and Paswan's feud 
In part suppress'd, though ne'er subdued, 
Abdallah's Pachalic was gain'd: — 
Thou know'st not what in our Divan 
Can wealth procure for worse than man — 
Abdallah's honours were obtain'd 
By him a ...Read more of this...
by Byron, George (Lord)

The Dream

...he spirit of my dream.
The Boy was sprung to manhood: in the wilds
Of fiery climes he made himself a home,
And his Soul drank their sunbeams; he was girt
With strange and dusky aspects; he was not
Himself like what he had been; on the sea
And on the shore he was a wanderer;
There was a mass of many images
Crowded like waves upon me, but he was
A part of all; and in the last he lay
Reposing from the noontide sultriness,
Couched among fallen columns, in the shade
Of ruined wall...Read more of this...
by Byron, George (Lord)

The Everlasting Mercy

...flanelled me a quart to slake with 
And sat and shook till half past two 
Expecting Police Inspector Drew. 
I woke and drank, nd went to meat 
In clothes still dirty from the street. 
Down in the bar I hear 'em tell 
How someone rang the fire bell, 
And how th'inspector's search had thriven, 
And how five pounds reward was given. 
And shepherd Boyce, of Marley, glad us 
By saying was blokes from mad'us. 
Or two young rips lodged at the Prince 
Whom none had seen nor heard of...Read more of this...
by Masefield, John

The Ghosts

...Smith, great writer of stories, drank; found it immortalized his pen;
Fused in his brain-pan, else a blank, heavens of glory now and then;
Gave him the magical genius touch; God-given power to gouge out, fling
Flat in your face a soul-thought -- Bing!
Twiddle your heart-strings in his clutch. "Bah!" said Smith, "let my body lie
 stripped to the buff in swinish shame,
If I can blaze in the ...Read more of this...
by Service, Robert William

The Holy Grail

...that comes and goes?' 

`Nay, monk! what phantom?' answered Percivale. 
`The cup, the cup itself, from which our Lord 
Drank at the last sad supper with his own. 
This, from the blessd land of Aromat-- 
After the day of darkness, when the dead 
Went wandering o'er Moriah--the good saint 
Arimathan Joseph, journeying brought 
To Glastonbury, where the winter thorn 
Blossoms at Christmas, mindful of our Lord. 
And there awhile it bode; and if a man 
Could touch or see it, he w...Read more of this...
by Tennyson, Alfred Lord

The Hunting Of The Snark

...his speech.

"Friends, Romans, and countrymen, lend me your ears!"
 (They were all of them fond of quotations:
So they drank to his health, and they gave him three cheers,
 While he served out additional rations).

"We have sailed many months, we have sailed many weeks,
 (Four weeks to the month you may mark),
But never as yet ('tis your Captain who speaks)
 Have we caught the least glimpse of a Snark!

"We have sailed many weeks, we have sailed many days,
 (Seven days to th...Read more of this...
by Carroll, Lewis

The Lady of the Lake

...
     The Gael maintained unequal war.
     Three times in closing strife they stood
     And thrice the Saxon blade drank blood;
     No stinted draught, no scanty tide,
     The gushing flood the tartars dyed.
     Fierce Roderick felt the fatal drain,
     And showered his blows like wintry rain;
     And, as firm rock or castle-roof
     Against the winter shower is proof,
     The foe, invulnerable still,
     Foiled his wild rage by steady skill;
     Till, ...Read more of this...
by Scott, Sir Walter

The Most Beautiful Woman In Town

..."Her sisters buried her." 
"A suicide? Mind telling me how?" 
"She cut her throat." 
"I see. Give me another drink." 
I drank until closing time. Cass was the most beautiful of 5 sisters, the most
beautiful in town. I managed to drive to my place and I kept thinking, I should have
insisted she stay with me instead of accepting that "no." Everything about her
had indicated that she had cared. I simply had been too offhand about it, lazy, too
unconcerned. I deserved my death an...Read more of this...
by Bukowski, Charles

The Waste Land

...he Starnbergersee
With a shower of rain; we stopped in the colonnade,
And went on in sunlight, into the Hofgarten, 
And drank coffee, and talked for an hour.
Bin gar keine Russin, stamm' aus Litauen, echt deutsch.
And when we were children, staying at the archduke's,
My cousin's, he took me out on a sled,
And I was frightened. He said, Marie,
Marie, hold on tight. And down we went.
In the mountains, there you feel free.
I read, much of the night, and go south in the winter.
 ...Read more of this...
by Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)

The Witch Of Atlas

...t, in the golden flame
Of his own volumes intervolved. All gaunt
And sanguine beasts her gentle looks made tame,--
They drank before her at her sacred fount;
And every beast of beating heart grew bold,
Such gentleness and power even to behold.

The brinded lioness led forth her young,
That she might teach them how they should forego
Their inborn thirst of death; the pard unstrung
His sinews at her feet, and sought to know,
With looks whose motions spoke without a tongue,
How ...Read more of this...
by Shelley, Percy Bysshe

White Flock

...cended the stairs
Losing breath and looking for keys.

Past the buildings, where sometime
We danced and had fun and drank wine
Past the white columns of Senate
Where it's dark, dark again.

"What are you doing, you madman!"
"No, I am only in love with thee!
This evening is wide and noisy,
Ship will have lots of fun at the sea!"

Horror tightly clutches the throat,
Shuttle took us at dusk on our turn..
The tough smell of ocean tightrope
Inside trembling nostril...Read more of this...
by Akhmatova, Anna

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