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Famous Drawer Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Browning, Elizabeth Barrett
...ee?
No longer roseate now, nor soft, nor sweet;
But pale, and hard, and dry, as stubble-wheat,---
Kept seven years in a drawer---thy titles shame thee.

The breeze that used to blow thee
Between the hedgerow thorns, and take away
An odour up the lane to last all day,---
If breathing now,---unsweetened would forego thee.

The sun that used to smite thee,
And mix his glory in thy gorgeous urn,
Till beam appeared to bloom, and flower to burn,---
If shining now,---with no...Read more of this...



by Levy, Amy
...s on the wall,
Done rough in charcoal; the old instrument
(A violin, no Stradivarius)
He played so ill on; in the table drawer
Large schemes of undone work. Poems half-writ;
Wild drafts of symphonies; big plans of fugues;
Some scraps of writing in a woman's hand:
No more--the scattered pages of a tale,
A sorry tale that no man cared to read.
Alas, my friend, I lov'd him well, tho' he
Held me a cold and stagnant-blooded fool,
Because I am content to watch, and wait
Wit...Read more of this...

by Wilcox, Ella Wheeler
...Before this scarf was faded,
What hours of mirth it knew;
How gayly it paraded
From smiling eyes to view.
The days were tinged with glory,
The nights too quickly sped,
And life was like a story
Where all the people wed.

Before this rosebud wilted,
How passionately sweet
The wild waltz smelled and lilted
In time for flying feet;
How loud the bassoo...Read more of this...

by Larkin, Philip
...nd wide,
Forbids the scar to heal, and drives
Shame out of hiding. All the unhurried day,
Your mind lay open like a drawer of knives.

Slums, years, have buried you. I would not dare
Console you if I could. What can be said,
Except that suffering is exact, but where
Desire takes charge, readings will grow erratic?
For you would hardly care
That you were less deceived, out on that bed,
Than he was, stumbling up the breathless stair
To burst into fulfillment's d...Read more of this...

by Melville, Herman
...and
In formal array - 
Best fellow alive
On a throne flung away!

Companions and cronies
Keep fast and lament; - 
Come, drawer, more sack here
To drown discontent;
For now intuitions
Shall wither to codes,
Pragmatized morals
Shall libel the gods.

One I instructed,
Yea, talked to -alone:
Precept -example
Clean away thrown!

Sorrow makes thirsty:
Sack, drawer, more sack! - 
One that I prayed for,
I, Honest Jack!

To bring down these grey hairs - 
To cut his old pal!
But, I...Read more of this...



by Edgar, Marriott
...Henry the Seventh of England
Wasn't out of the Royal top drawer,
The only connection of which he could boast,
He were King's nephew's brother-in-law.

It were after the Wars of the Roses
That he came to the front, as it were,
When on strength of his having slain Richard the Third 
He put himself up as his heir.

T'were a bit of a blow to the Barons
When Henry aspired to the Throne,
And some who'd been nurs...Read more of this...

by Robinson, Edwin Arlington
...e not a doubt that we shall do it very well. 
There!—I’m glad you’ve put it back; for I don’t like it. Shut the drawer now. 
No—no—don’t cancel anything. I’ll dance until I drop.
I can’t walk yet, but I’m going to…. Go away somewhere, and leave me…. 
Oh, you children! Oh, you children!…God, will they never stop!”...Read more of this...

by Hughes, Ted
...a brooch made of it
His vows pulled out all her sinews 
He showed her how to make a love-knot
At the back of her secret drawer
Their screams stuck in the wall
Their heads fell apart into sleep like the two halves
Of a lopped melon, but love is hard to stop

In their entwined sleep they exchanged arms and legs
In their dreams their brains took each other hostage

In the morning they wore each other's face...Read more of this...

by Berry, Wendell
...> 
Not even your future will be a mystery 
any more. Your mind will be punched in a card 
and shut away in a little drawer. 

When they want you to buy something 
they will call you. When they want you 
to die for profit they will let you know. 
So, friends, every day do something 
that won't compute. Love the Lord. 
Love the world. Work for nothing. 
Take all that you have and be poor. 
Love someone who does not deserve it. 

Denounce ...Read more of this...

by Estep, Maggie
...ed by my clever ruse
***** goddess? I think not
I'm just a sucker for punishment
So punish me
Spank me
Dominate my sock drawer 
And stalk me


Don't stalk Jodie Foster, David Letterman or John S. Hall
Don't go through their trash 
Their trash is boring
play with my trash
Hurry, I'm waiting
I'm pleading
Just come on and do it
Chew me choke me and stalk me
That'll teach me to write all that goddamned poetry...Read more of this...

by Crowley, Aleister
...Nor thou, Habib, nor I are glad,
when rosy limbs and sweat entwine;
But rapture drowns the sense and self,
the wine the drawer of the wine,

And Him that planted first the grape-
o podex, in thy vault there dwells
A charm to make the member mad,
And shake the marrow of the spine.

O member, in thy stubborn strenght
a power avails on podex-sense
To boil the blood in breast and brain;
shudder the nreves incarnadine!

From me thou drawest pearly drink -
and in its pourings b...Read more of this...

by Service, Robert William
...osh! it seems to me that some of extra size
Were picked and put away to show the scientific guys."
Then deeply in a drawer he sought, and there he found a jar,
The which with due and proper pride he put upon the bar;
And in it, wreathed in queasy rings, or rolled into a ball,
A score of grey and greasy things, were drowned in alcohol.
Their bellies were a bilious blue, their eyes a bulbous red;
Their back were grey, and gross were they, and hideous of head.
And wh...Read more of this...

by Stevenson, Robert Louis
...r> 

When my eyes I once again 
Open, and see all things plain: 
High bare walls, great bare floor; 
Great big knobs on drawer and door; 
Great big people perched on chairs, 
Stitching tucks and mending tears, 
Each a hill that I could climb, 
And talking nonsense all the time-- 
O dear me, 
That I could be 
A sailor on a the rain-pool sea, 
A climber in the clover tree, 
And just come back a sleepy-head, 
Late at night to go to bed....Read more of this...

by Hammad, Suheir
...vity
empty and waiting
for mourning to open
the way mourning stays
forever shadowing vision
shaping lives with memory
a drawer won't close
sleep elusive
smile illusive
the only real is grief
forever counting the days
minutes missing without knowing
so that one day 
you find yourself 
showering tears
missing that love
like sugar 
aches teeth...Read more of this...

by Lowell, Amy
...pair
To perfect it; the chairs have broken legs and backs,
The tables are uneven, and every highboy lacks
A handle or a drawer, the desks are bruised and worn,
And even a wide sofa has its cane seat torn.
Only in the gloom far in the corner there
The lacquer music-stand is elegant and rare,
Clear and slim of line, with its four wings outspread,
The sound of old quartets, a tenuous, faint thread,
Hanging and floating over it, it stands supreme --
Black, and gold, and crims...Read more of this...

by Cowper, William
...me, nor air
Too rudely wanton with her hair,
And sought it in the likeliest mode
Within her master's snug abode.

A drawer, it chanc'd, at bottom lin'd
With linen of the softest kind,
With such as merchants introduce
From India, for the ladies' use--
A drawer impending o'er the rest,
Half-open in the topmost chest,
Of depth enough, and none to spare,
Invited her to slumber there;
Puss with delight beyond expression
Survey'd the scene, and took possession.
Recumbent at...Read more of this...

by Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)
...e wrong side of every door,
And as soon as he's at home, then he'd like to get about.
He likes to lie in the bureau drawer,
But he makes such a fuss if he can't get out.

Yes the Rum Tum Tugger is a Curious Cat--
And there isn't any use for you to doubt it:
For he will do
As he do do
And there's no doing anything about it!

The Rum Tum Tugger is a curious beast:
His disobliging ways are a matter of habit.
If you offer him fish then he always wants a feast;
When th...Read more of this...

by Olds, Sharon
...pressing into your body.
The next sash was the one Thee, Hannah!
borrowed from her be-ribboned friend
and hid in a drawer and got salve on it,
salve on a sash, like bacon grease on a snake,
God's lard on the ribbon a Quaker girl
should not want, Satan's jism on
silk delicate as the skin of a young girl's genital.
When Hannah gave up satin her father
told her she was beautiful
just as God made her. But all sashes
lead to the sash, very sash of
very sash, begotten,...Read more of this...

by Mayakovsky, Vladimir
...
Why? What for?
Darling, look -
I came,
I brought flowers,
but, but... I never took
silver spoons from your drawer!

Ashen-faced,
I staggered down five flights of stairs.
The street eddied round me. Blasts. Blares.
Tires screeched.
It was gusty.
The wind stung my cheeks.
Horn mounted horn lustfully.

Above the capital’s madness
I raised my face,
stern as the faces of ancient icons.
Sorrow-rent,
on your body as on a death-bed, it...Read more of this...

by Tebb, Barry
...station, the waiting and worrying

Until the final agony of creation: for our first son’s

Birth at Oakes we had only a drawer for a crib.

Memories blur: all I know is that it was night

And at home as you always insisted, against all advice

But mine. I remember feebly holding the mask in place

As the Indian woman doctor brutally stitched you without an anaesthetic

And the silence like no other when even the midwives

Had left: the child slept and we crept round h...Read more of this...

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Book: Reflection on the Important Things