Famous Drawing Poems by Famous Poets

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

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My Perfect Rose

by Barry Tebb
 At ten she came to me, three years ago,

There was ‘something between us’ even then;

Watching her write like Eliot every day,

Turn prose into haiku in ten minutes flat,

Write a poem in Greek three weeks from learning the alphabet;

Then translate it as ‘Sun on a tomb, gold place, small sacred horse’.

I never got over having her in the room, though

Every...Read more of this...

Resolution And Independence

by William Wordsworth
 I 

There was a roaring in the wind all night; 
The rain came heavily and fell in floods; 
But now the sun is rising calm and bright; 
The birds are singing in the distant woods; 
Over his own sweet voice the Stock-dove broods; 
The Jay makes answer as the Magpie chatters; 
And all the air is filled with pleasant...Read more of this...

Phantasmagoria CANTO II ( Hys Fyve Rules )

by Lewis Carroll
 "MY First - but don't suppose," he said,
"I'm setting you a riddle -
Is - if your Victim be in bed,
Don't touch the curtains at his head,
But take them in the middle, 

"And wave them slowly in and out,
While drawing them asunder;
And in a minute's time, no doubt,
He'll raise his head and look about
With eyes of wrath and wonder. 

"And...Read more of this...

An Allusion to Horace

by John Wilmot
 Well Sir, 'tis granted, I said Dryden's Rhimes, 
Were stoln, unequal, nay dull many times: 
What foolish Patron, is there found of his, 
So blindly partial, to deny me this? 
But that his Plays, Embroider'd up and downe, 
With Witt, and Learning, justly pleas'd the Towne, 
In the same paper, I as freely owne: 
Yet haveing this allow'd, the...Read more of this...

The Hypnotist

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 A man once read with mind surprised 
Of the way that people were "hypnotised"; 
By waving hands you produced, forsooth, 
A kind of trance where men told the truth! 
His mind was filled with wond'ring doubt; 
He grabbed his hat and he started out, 
He walked the street and he made a "set" 
At the first half-dozen folk he...Read more of this...

A Ballad Of Suicide

by G K Chesterton
 The gallows in my garden, people say,

Is new and neat and adequately tall; 
I tie the noose on in a knowing way

As one that knots his necktie for a ball;
But just as all the neighbours—on the wall— 
Are drawing a long breath to shout "Hurray!"

The strangest whim has seized me. . . . After all 
I think I will...Read more of this...

Prayer for Children

by William Cowper
 Gracious Lord, our children see,
By Thy mercy we are free;
But shall these, alas! remain
Subjects still of Satan's reign?
Israel's young ones, when of old
Pharaoh threaten'd to withhold,
Then Thy messenger said, "No;
Let the children also go!"

When the angel of the Lord,
Drawing forth his dreadful sword,
Slew with an avenging hand,
All the first-born of the land;
Then Thy people's door he pass'd,
Where the bloody...Read more of this...

Accordion

by Robert William Service
 Some carol of the banjo, to its measure keeping time;
Of viol or of lute some make a song.
My battered old accordion, you're worthy of a rhyme,
You've been my friend and comforter so long.
Round half the world I've trotted you, a dozen years or more;
You've given heaps of people lots of fun;
You've set a host of happy feet a-tapping on...Read more of this...

Travel

by Edna St. Vincent Millay
 I should like to rise and go 
Where the golden apples grow;-- 
Where below another sky 
Parrot islands anchored lie, 
And, watched by cockatoos and goats, 
Lonely Crusoes building boats;-- 
Where in sunshine reaching out 
Eastern cities, miles about, 
Are with mosque and minaret 
Among sandy gardens set, 
And the rich goods from near and far 
Hang for sale...Read more of this...

Sonnet 22 - When our two souls stand up erect and strong

by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
 When our two souls stand up erect and strong,
Face to face, silent, drawing nigh and nigher,
Until the lengthening wings break into fire
At either curved point,—what bitter wrong
Can the earth do to us, that we should not long
Be here contented? Think. In mounting higher,
The angels would press on us and aspire
To drop some golden orb of perfect song
Into our deep,...Read more of this...

84. Address to the Deil

by Robert Burns
 O THOU! whatever title suit thee—
Auld Hornie, Satan, Nick, or Clootie,
Wha in yon cavern grim an’ sootie,
 Clos’d under hatches,
Spairges about the brunstane cootie,
 To scaud poor wretches!


Hear me, auld Hangie, for a wee,
An’ let poor damned bodies be;
I’m sure sma’ pleasure it can gie,
 Ev’n to a deil,
To skelp an’ scaud poor dogs like me,
 An’ hear us...Read more of this...

The Return

by Philip Levine
 All afternoon my father drove the country roads
between Detroit and Lansing. What he was looking for
I never learned, no doubt because he never knew himself,
though he would grab any unfamiliar side road
and follow where it led past fields of tall sweet corn
in August or in winter those of frozen sheaves.
Often he'd leave the Terraplane beside the highway
to enter the...Read more of this...

For My Son Noah Ten Years Old

by Robert Bly
Nigh and day arrive and day after day goes by 
And what is old remains old and what is young remains young and grows old.
The lumber pile does not grow younger nor the two-by-fours lose their darkness 
but the old tree goes on the barn stands without help so many years;
the advocate of darkness and night is not lost.

The horse...Read more of this...

The Lotos-eaters

by Alfred Lord Tennyson
 "Courage!" he said, and pointed toward the land, 
"This mounting wave will roll us shoreward soon."
In the afternoon they came unto a land 
In which it seemed always afternoon.
All round the coast the languid air did swoon,
Breathing like one that hath a weary dream.
Full-faced above the valley stood the moon;
And like a downward smoke, the slender stream 
Along the...Read more of this...

Sonnets from the Portuguese v

by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
WHEN our two souls stand up erect and strong  
Face to face silent drawing nigh and nigher  
Until the lengthening wings break into fire 
At either curving point ¡ªwhat bitter wrong 
Can the earth do us that we should not long 5 
Be here contented? Think! In mounting higher  
The angels would press on us and aspire...Read more of this...

Elegy I: Jealousy

by John Donne
 Fond woman, which wouldst have thy husband die,
And yet complain'st of his great jealousy;
If swol'n with poison, he lay in his last bed,
His body with a sere-bark covered,
Drawing his breath, as thick and short, as can
The nimblest crocheting musician,
Ready with loathsome vomiting to spew
His soul out of one hell, into a new,
Made deaf with his poor kindred's howling cries,
Begging...Read more of this...

While I was drawing a horoscope in the book of love,

by Omar Khayyam
While I was drawing a horoscope in the book of love,
suddenly, from the burning heart of a wise man came
these words. Happy is he who entertains in his dwelling
a friend as beautiful as the moon, and who has in prospect
a night as long as a year!...Read more of this...

The Swarm

by Sylvia Plath
 Somebody is shooting at something in our town --
A dull pom, pom in the Sunday street.
Jealousy can open the blood,
It can make black roses.
Who are the shooting at?

It is you the knives are out for
At Waterloo, Waterloo, Napoleon,
The hump of Elba on your short back,
And the snow, marshaling its brilliant cutlery
Mass after mass, saying Shh!

Shh! These are chess people...Read more of this...

A Ballad of John Nicholson

by Sir Henry Newbolt
 It fell in the year of Mutiny, 
At darkest of the night, 
John Nicholson by Jal?ndhar came, 
On his way to Delhi fight. 

And as he by Jal?ndhar came, 
He thought what he must do, 
And he sent to the Rajah fair greeting, 
To try if he were true. 

"God grant your Highness length of days, 
And friends when...Read more of this...

A Smugglers Song

by Rudyard Kipling
 If you wake at midnight, and hear a horse's feet,
Don't go drawing back the blind, or looking in the street.
Them that ask no questions isn't told a lie.
Watch the wall, my darling, while the Gentlemen go by!
 Five and twenty ponies,
 Trotting through the dark --
 Brandy for the Parson,
 'Baccy for the Clerk;
 Laces for a lady, letters...Read more of this...

Deliverance from Another Sore Fit

by Anne Bradstreet
 In my distress I sought the Lord 
When naught on earth could comfort give, 
And when my soul these things abhorred, 
Then, Lord, Thou said'st unto me, "Live."

Thou knowest the sorrows that I felt; 
My plaints and groans were heard of Thee, 
And how in sweat I seemed to melt 
Thou help'st and Thou regardest me.

My wasted flesh Thou...Read more of this...

Snake

by D. H. Lawrence
 A snake came to my water-trough
On a hot, hot day, and I in pyjamas for the heat,
To drink there.
In the deep, strange-scented shade of the great dark carob-tree
I came down the steps with my pitcher
And must wait, must stand and wait, for there he was at the trough before
me.

He reached down from a fissure in the earth-wall in the...Read more of this...

Friendship

by Henry David Thoreau
 I think awhile of Love, and while I think, 
Love is to me a world, 
Sole meat and sweetest drink, 
And close connecting link 
Tween heaven and earth. 
I only know it is, not how or why, 
My greatest happiness; 
However hard I try, 
Not if I were to die, 
Can I explain. 

I fain would ask my friend...Read more of this...

Anonymous Drawing

by Donald Justice
 A delicate young ***** stands
With the reins of a horse clutched loosely in his hands;
So delicate, indeed, that we wonder if he can hold the spirited creature
beside him
Until the master shall arrive to ride him.
Already the animal's nostrils widen with rage or fear.
But if we imagine him snorting, about to rear,
This boy, who should know about such things better...Read more of this...

Anthem For Doomed Youth

by Wilfred Owen
 What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?
 Only the monstrous anger of the guns.
 Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle
Can patter out their hasty orisons.
No mockeries for them; no prayers nor bells,
Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs, --
The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;
And bugles calling for them from sad shires.

What candles may be held to...Read more of this...

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