Famous Drinking Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Drinking poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous drinking poems. These examples illustrate what a famous drinking poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Pope, Alexander
...ing is a dang'rous Thing;
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian Spring:
There shallow Draughts intoxicate the Brain,
And drinking largely sobers us again.
Fir'd at first Sight with what the Muse imparts,
In fearless Youth we tempt the Heights of Arts,
While from the bounded Level of our Mind,
Short Views we take, nor see the lengths behind,
But more advanc'd, behold with strange Surprize
New, distant Scenes of endless Science rise!
So pleas'd at first, the towring Alps we ...Read more of this...
by
Sidney, Sir Philip
...life melts with too much thinking;
Thinke no more, but die in me,
Till thou shalt reuiued be,
At her lips my Nectar drinking.
Eleuenth Song.
Who is it that this darke night
Vnderneath my window playneth?
It is one who from thy sight
Being, ah exil'd, disdayneth
Euery other vulgar light.
Why, alas, and are you he?
Be not yet those fancies changed?
Deare, when you find change in me,
Though from me you be estranged,
Let my chaunge to ruin be....Read more of this...
by
Browning, Robert
...>
But you--the highest honour in your life,
The thing you'll crown yourself with, all your days,
Is--dining here and drinking this last glass
I pour you out in sign of amity
Before we part for ever. Of your power
And social influence, worldly worth in short,
Judge what's my estimation by the fact,
I do not condescend to enjoin, beseech,
Hint secrecy on one of all these words!
You're shrewd and know that should you publish one
The world would brand the lie--my e...Read more of this...
by
Bidart, Frank
...her last letter that
she would be some place else then in Bishop, thats the way I feel
too.and another thing is my drinking problem. I made up my mind
to quit my drinking, after all what it did to me and what happen.
This is one thing I'll never forget as longs as I live I never want
to go through all this mess again. This sure did teach me lot of things
that I never knew before. So Howard you can let me know soon
as possible. I sure would appreciate...Read more of this...
by
Keats, John
...ed fire;
Anon he stain'd the thick and spongy sod
With wine, in honour of the shepherd-god.
Now while the earth was drinking it, and while
Bay leaves were crackling in the fragrant pile,
And gummy frankincense was sparkling bright
'Neath smothering parsley, and a hazy light
Spread greyly eastward, thus a chorus sang:
"O THOU, whose mighty palace roof doth hang
From jagged trunks, and overshadoweth
Eternal whispers, glooms, the birth, life, death
Of unseen flowers in hea...Read more of this...
by
Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)
...me of harvest
The time of the coupling of man and woman
And that of beasts. Feet rising and falling.
Eating and drinking. Dung and death.
Dawn points, and another day
Prepares for heat and silence. Out at sea the dawn wind
Wrinkles and slides. I am here
Or there, or elsewhere. In my beginning.
II
What is the late November doing
With the disturbance of the spring
And creatures of the summer heat,
And snowdrops writhing under feet
And hollyh...Read more of this...
by
Sexton, Anne
...forty-two,
down in Rockport with a hat on for the sun,
and Barbara drew a line drawing.
We were, at that moment, drinking vodka
and ginger beer and there was a chill in the air,
although it was July, and she gave me her sweater
to bundle up in. The next summer Skeezix tied
strings in that hat when we were fishing in Maine.
(It had gone into the lake twice.)
Of such moments is happiness made.
Forgive us, Father, for we know not.
Once upon a...Read more of this...
by
Whitman, Walt
...sail!
Have we not stood here like trees in the ground long enough?
Have we not grovell’d here long enough, eating and drinking like mere brutes?
Have we not darken’d and dazed ourselves with books long enough?
Sail forth! steer for the deep waters only!
Reckless, O soul, exploring, I with thee, and thou with me;
For we are bound where mariner has not yet dared to go,
And we will risk the ship, ourselves and all.
O my brave soul!
O farther, farther sail!
O darin...Read more of this...
by
Whitman, Walt
...eet music—joy of the lighted ball-room, and the dancers?
Joy of the friendly, plenteous dinner—the strong carouse, and drinking?
15
Yet, O my soul supreme!
Know’st thou the joys of pensive thought?
Joys of the free and lonesome heart—the tender, gloomy heart?
Joy of the solitary walk—the spirit bowed yet proud—the suffering and the
struggle?
The agonistic throes, the extasies—joys of the solemn musings, day or night?
Joys of the thought of Death—the great spheres Time...Read more of this...
by
Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)
...And youth is cruel, and has no remorse
And smiles at situations which it cannot see.”
I smile, of course,
And go on drinking tea.
“Yet with these April sunsets, that somehow recall
My buried life, and Paris in the Spring,
I feel immeasurably at peace, and find the world
To be wonderful and youthful, after all.”
The voice returns like the insistent out-of-tune
Of a broken violin on an August afternoon:
“I am always sure that you understand
My feelings, always sure...Read more of this...
by
Whitman, Walt
...onspire.
24
Walt Whitman am I, a Kosmos, of mighty Manhattan the son,
Turbulent, fleshy and sensual, eating, drinking and breeding;
No sentimentalist—no stander above men and women, or apart from them;
No more modest than immodest.
Unscrew the locks from the doors!
Unscrew the doors themselves from their jambs!
Whoever degrades another degrades me;
And whatever is done or said returns at last to me.
Through me the afflatus surging and sur...Read more of this...
by
Chesterton, G K
...the certain things,
Swine, and slow moons like silver rings,
And the ripening of the plums."
And Alfred answered, drinking,
And gravely, without blame,
"Nor bear I boast of scald or king,
The thing I bear is a lesser thing,
But comes in a better name.
"Out of the mouth of the Mother of God,
More than the doors of doom,
I call the muster of Wessex men
From grassy hamlet or ditch or den,
To break and be broken, God knows when,
But I have seen for whom.
Out of th...Read more of this...
by
Masefield, John
...h and fifteen blokes,
A warmish night, and windows shut,
The room stank like a fox's gut.
The heat and smell and drinking deep
Began to stun the gang to sleep.
Some fell downstairs to sleep on mat,
Some snored it sodden where they sat.
Dick Twot had lost a tooth and wept;
But all the drunken others slept.
Jane slept beside me in the chair,
And I got up; I wanted air.
I opened window wide and leaned
Out of that pigstye of the fiend
And felt a ...Read more of this...
by
Browning, Robert
...
X.
Well, early in autumn, at first winter-warning,
When the stag had to break with his foot, of a morning,
A drinking-hole out of the fresh tender ice
That covered the pond till the sun, in a trice,
Loosening it, let out a ripple of gold,
And another and another, and faster and faster,
Till, dimpling to blindness, the wide water rolled:
Then it so chanced that the Duke our master
Asked himself what were the pleasures in season,
And found, since the calendar bade hi...Read more of this...
by
Bradstreet, Anne
...ds in idle combats taken,
3.74 Sometimes by Agues all my body shaken;
3.75 Sometimes by Fevers, all my moisture drinking,
3.76 My heart lies frying, and my eyes are sinking.
3.77 Sometimes the Cough, Stitch, painful Pleurisy,
3.78 With sad affrights of death, do menace me.
3.79 Sometimes the loathsome Pox my face be-mars
3.80 With ugly marks of his eternal scars.
3.81 Sometimes the Frenzy strangely mads my Brain
3.82 That oft fo...Read more of this...
by
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor
...baked,
Agape they heard me call:
Gramercy! they for joy did grin
And all at once their breath drew in,
As they were drinking all.
See! see! (I cried) she tacks no more!
Hither to work us weal;
Without a breeze, without a tide,
She steadies with upright keel!
The western wave was all a-flame.
The day was well nigh done!
Almost upon the western wave
Rested the broad bright Sun;
When that strange shape drove suddenly
Betwixt us and the Sun.
And s...Read more of this...
by
Miller, Alice Duer
...SUSAN: But I do care,
John loved this place and my boy's the heir.
ROSAMUND: The heir to what? To a tiresome life
Drinking tea with the vicar's wife,
Opening bazaars, and taking the chair
At meetings for causes that you don't care
Sixpence about and never will;
Breaking your heart over every bill.
I've been in the States, where everyone,
Even the poor, have a little fun.
Don't condemn your son to be
A penniless country squire. He
Would be happier driving ...Read more of this...
by
Shelley, Percy Bysshe
...entle countenance did play
The busy dreams, as thick as summer flies,
Chasing the rapid smiles that would not stay,
And drinking the warm tears, and the sweet sighs
Inhaling, which with busy murmur vain
They has aroused from that full heart and brain.
And ever down the prone vale, like a cloud
Upon a stream of wind, the pinnace went:
Now lingering on the pools, in which abode
The calm and darkness of the deep content
In which they paused; now o'er the shallow road
Of whi...Read more of this...
by
Whitman, Walt
...fairs—out of commerce, shops, law, science, work, forms,
clothes, the house, medicine, print, buying, selling, eating, drinking, suffering, dying.
Whoever you are, now I place my hand upon you, that you be my poem;
I whisper with my lips close to your ear,
I have loved many women and men, but I love none better than you.
O I have been dilatory and dumb;
I should have made my way straight to you long ago;
I should have blabb’d nothing but you, I should have chan...Read more of this...
by
Brautigan, Richard
...em, and filled them carefully not spilling
a drop. He screwed their caps on tightly and was now ready for a day's
drinking.
You're supposed to make only two quarts of Kool-Aid from a package,
but he always made a gallon, so his Kool-Aid was a mere shadow of
its desired potency. And you're supposed to add a cup of sugar to every
package of Kool-Aid, but he never put any sugar in his Kool-Aid
because there wasn't any sugar to put in it.
He created his ...Read more of this...
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