Famous Drinks Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Sonnet 114: Or whether doth my mind being crowned with you

by William Shakespeare
 Or whether doth my mind, being crowned with you,
Drink up the monarch's plague, this flattery?
Or whether shall I say mine eye saith true,
And that your love taught it this alchemy,
To make of monsters, and things indigest,
Such cherubins as your sweet self resemble,
Creating every bad a perfect best
As fast as objects to his beams assemble?
O, 'tis the first, 'tis flattery...Read more of this...

Divided Destinies

by Rudyard Kipling
 It was an artless Bandar, and he danced upon a pine,
And much I wondered how he lived, and where the beast might dine,
And many, many other things, till, o'er my morning smoke,
I slept the sleep of idleness and dreamt that Bandar spoke.

He said: "O man of many clothes! Sad crawler on the Hills!
Observe, I know not Ranken's shop, nor...Read more of this...

June 11

by David Lehman
 It's my birtday I've got an empty
stomach and the desire to be
lazy in the hammock and maybe
go for a cool swim on a hot day
with the trombone in Sinatra's
"I've Got You Under My Skin"
in my head and then to break for
lunch a corned-beef sandwich and Pepsi
with plenty of ice cubes unlike France
where they put one measly ice cube
in your...Read more of this...

On Don Surly

by Ben Jonson
XXVIII. ? ON DON SURLY.     Don SURLY, to aspire the glorious name  Of a great man, and to be thought the same, Makes serious use of all great trade he knows,  He speaks to men with a rhinocerote's nose, Which he thinks great ; and so reads verses too :  And that is done, as he saw...Read more of this...

Cassandra

by Edwin Arlington Robinson
 I heard one who said: "Verily, 
What word have I for children here? 
Your Dollar is your only Word, 
The wrath of it your only fear. 

"You build it altars tall enough 
To make you see but you are blind; 
You cannot leave it long enough 
To look before you or behind. 

"When Reason beckons you to pause, 
You...Read more of this...

The golden barks of lovely summer

by Emile Verhaeren
The golden barks of lovely summer that set out, riotous for space, are returning sad and weary from the blood-stained horizons.
With monotonous strokes of the oars, they advance upon the waters; they are as cradles in which sleep autumn flowers.
Stalks of lilies with golden brows, you all lie overthrown; alone, the roses struggle to live beyond death.
What matters to their...Read more of this...

My Heart When First The Black-Bird Sings

by Robert Louis Stevenson
 MY heart, when first the blackbird sings,
My heart drinks in the song:
Cool pleasure fills my bosom through
And spreads each nerve along.

My bosom eddies quietly,
My heart is stirred and cool
As when a wind-moved briar sweeps
A stone into a pool

But unto thee, when thee I meet,
My pulses thicken fast,
As when the maddened lake grows black
And ruffles in the blast....Read more of this...

Fantasie -- To Laura

by Friedrich von Schiller
 Name, my Laura, name the whirl-compelling
Bodies to unite in one blest whole--
Name, my Laura, name the wondrous magic
By which soul rejoins its kindred soul!

See! it teaches yonder roving planets
Round the sun to fly in endless race;
And as children play around their mother,
Checkered circles round the orb to trace.

Every rolling star, by thirst tormented,
Drinks with joy its bright and golden...Read more of this...

Sonnet CLX

by Francesco Petrarch
[Pg 175] SONNET CLX. Pasco la mente d' un sì nobil cibo. TO SEE AND HEAR HER IS HIS GREATEST BLISS.  I feed my fancy on such noble food,That Jove I envy not his godlike meal;I see her—joy invades me like a flood,And lethe of all other bliss I...Read more of this...

To Rinaldo

by Mary Darby Robinson
 SOFT is the balmy breath of May, 
When from the op'ning lids of day 
Meek twilight steals; and from its wings 
Translucent pearls of ether flings. 
MILD is the chaste Moon's languid eye, 
When gliding down the dappled sky 
She feebly lifts her spangled bow, 
Around her glitt'ring darts to throw.­ 
SWEET are the aromatic bowers, 
When Night sends...Read more of this...

Canzone XVIII

by Francesco Petrarch
CANZONE XVIII. Qual più diversa e nova. HE COMPARES HIMSELF TO ALL THAT IS MOST STRANGE IN CREATION.  Whate'er most wild and newWas ever found in any foreign land,If viewed and valued true,Most likens me 'neath Love's transforming hand.Whence the bright day breaks through,Alone and consortless, a bird there flies,Read more of this...

The Vanity of All Worldly Things

by Anne Bradstreet
 As he said vanity, so vain say I,
Oh! Vanity, O vain all under sky;
Where is the man can say, "Lo, I have found
On brittle earth a consolation sound"?
What isn't in honor to be set on high?
No, they like beasts and sons of men shall die,
And whilst they live, how oft doth turn their fate;
He's now a captive that was...Read more of this...

The Arbour

by Anne Bronte
 I'll rest me in this sheltered bower,
And look upon the clear blue sky
That smiles upon me through the trees,
Which stand so thickly clustering by; 
And view their green and glossy leaves,
All glistening in the sunshine fair;
And list the rustling of their boughs,
So softly whispering through the air. 

And while my ear drinks in the sound,
My winged soul shall fly...Read more of this...

The Liars

by Carl Sandburg
 (March, 1919)A LIAR goes in fine clothes.
A liar goes in rags.
A liar is a liar, clothes or no clothes.
A liar is a liar and lives on the lies he tells and dies in a life of lies.
And the stonecutters earn a living—with lies—on the tombs of liars.

Aliar looks ’em in the eye
And lies to a woman,
Lies to a man,...Read more of this...

The Fairy Bridal-Hymn

by Vachel Lindsay
 [This is the hymn to Eleanor, daughter of Mab and a golden drone, sung by the Locust choir when the fairy child marries her God, the yellow rose]


This is a song to the white-armed one
Cold in the breast as the frost-wrapped Spring, 
Whose feet are slow on the hills of life, 
Whose round mouth rules by whispering. 

This is...Read more of this...

Nationality In Drinks

by Robert Browning
 I.

My heart sank with our Claret-flask,
Just now, beneath the heavy sedges
That serve this Pond's black face for mask
And still at yonder broken edges
O' the hole, where up the bubbles glisten,
After my heart I look and listen.

II.

Our laughing little flask, compelled
Thro' depth to depth more bleak and shady;
As when, both arms beside her held,
Feet straightened out, some gay French lady
Is...Read more of this...

Quia Multum Amavi

by Oscar Wilde
 Dear Heart, I think the young impassioned priest
When first he takes from out the hidden shrine
His God imprisoned in the Eucharist,
And eats the bread, and drinks the dreadful wine,

Feels not such awful wonder as I felt
When first my smitten eyes beat full on thee,
And all night long before thy feet I knelt
Till thou wert wearied of Idolatry.

Ah! hadst thou...Read more of this...

The Young British Soldier

by Rudyard Kipling
 When the 'arf-made recruity goes out to the East
'E acts like a babe an' 'e drinks like a beast,
An' 'e wonders because 'e is frequent deceased
 Ere 'e's fit for to serve as a soldier.
 Serve, serve, serve as a soldier,
 Serve, serve, serve as a soldier,
 Serve, serve, serve as a soldier,
 So-oldier OF the Queen!

Now all you...Read more of this...

The Atheist

by Aleister Crowley
 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...Read more of this...

Nutting Song

by Paul Laurence Dunbar
The November sun invites me,
And although the chill wind smites me,
I will wander to the woodland
Where the laden trees await;
And with loud and joyful singing
I will set the forest ringing,
As if I were king of Autumn,
And Dame Nature were my mate,—
While the squirrel in his gambols
Fearless round about me ambles,
As if he were bent on showing
In my kingdom he'd a...Read more of this...

Sonnets 01: We Talk Of Taxes And I Call You Friend

by Edna St. Vincent Millay
 We talk of taxes, and I call you friend;
Well, such you are,—but well enough we know
How thick about us root, how rankly grow
Those subtle weeds no man has need to tend,
That flourish through neglect, and soon must send
Perfume too sweet upon us and overthrow
Our steady senses; how such matters go
We are aware, and how such matters end.
Yet shall be...Read more of this...

Gunga Din

by Rudyard Kipling
 You may talk o' gin and beer
When you're quartered safe out 'ere,
An' you're sent to penny-fights an' Aldershot it;
But when it comes to slaughter
You will do your work on water,
An' you'll lick the bloomin' boots of 'im that's got it.
Now in Injia's sunny clime,
Where I used to spend my time
A-servin' of 'Er Majesty the Queen,
Of all them blackfaced crew
The...Read more of this...

The Glass On The Bar

by Henry Lawson
 Three bushmen one morning rode up to an inn, 
And one of them called for the drinks with a grin; 
They'd only returned from a trip to the North, 
And, eager to greet them, the landlord came forth. 
He absently poured out a glass of Three Star. 
And set down that drink with the rest on the bar. 

`There,...Read more of this...

Tom Collins

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 Who never drinks and never bets, 
But loves his wife and pays his debts 
And feels content with what he gets? 
Tom Collins. 

Who has the utmost confidence 
That all the banks now in suspense 
Will meet their paper three years hence? 
Tom Collins. 

Who reads the Herald leaders through, 
And takes the Evening News for true, 
And thought...Read more of this...

The Ballad Of The Ice-Worm Cocktail

by Robert William Service
 To Dawson Town came Percy Brown from London on the Thames.
A pane of glass was in his eye, and stockings on his stems.
Upon the shoulder of his coat a leather pad he wore,
To rest his deadly rifle when it wasn't seeking gore;
The which it must have often been, for Major Percy Brown,
According to his story was a hunter of...Read more of this...

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