Famous Go To Bed Poems by Famous Poets

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

See also:

Tenth Commandment

by David Lehman
 The woman said yes she would go to Australia with him
Unless he heard wrong and she said Argentina
Where they could learn the tango and pursue the widows
Of Nazi war criminals unrepentant to the end.
But no, she said Australia. She'd been born in New Zealand.
The difference between the two places was the difference
Between a hamburger and a chocolate malted, she...Read more of this...

Little Girls Must Not Fret

by Jane Taylor
 What is it that makes little Emily cry? 
Come then, let mamma wipe the tear from her eye: 
There­ -- lay down your head on my bosom­ -- that's right,
And now tell mamma what's the matter to-night. 

What! Emmy is sleepy, and tired with play? 
Come, Betty, make haste then, and fetch her away; 
But do not be fretful,...Read more of this...

Bed in Summer

by Robert Louis Stevenson
 In winter I get up at night
And dress by yellow candle-light.
In summer quite the other way,
I have to go to bed by day.

I have to go to bed and see
The birds still hopping on the tree,
Or hear the grown-up people's feet
Still going past me in the street.

And does it not seem hard to you,
When all the sky is clear...Read more of this...

Nor We Of Her To Him

by Stevie Smith
 He said no word of her to us
Nor we of her to him,
But oh it saddened us to see
How wan he grew and thin.
We said: she eats him day and night
And draws the blood from him,
We did not know but said we thought
This was why he grew thin.

One day we called and rang the bell,
No answer came within,
We said:...Read more of this...

The Little Land

by Robert Louis Stevenson
 When at home alone I sit 
And am very tired of it, 
I have just to shut my eyes 
To go sailing through the skies-- 
To go sailing far away 
To the pleasant Land of Play; 
To the fairy land afar 
Where the Little People are; 
Where the clover-tops are trees, 
And the rain-pools are the seas, 
And the...Read more of this...

Waking In March

by Philip Levine
 Last night, again, I dreamed 
my children were back at home, 
small boys huddled in their separate beds, 
and I went from one to the other 
listening to their breathing -- regular, 
almost soundless -- until a white light 
hardened against the bedroom wall, 
the light of Los Angeles burning south 
of here, going at last as we 
knew...Read more of this...

-2

by Richard Brautigan
 Everybody wants to go to bed 
with everybody else, they're
lined up for blocks, so I'll 
go to bed with you. They won't 
miss us....Read more of this...

Lord Lundy

by Hilaire Belloc
 Who was too Freely Moved to Tears, and thereby ruined his Political Career 

Lord Lundy from his earliest years
Was far too freely moved to Tears.
For instance if his Mother said,
"Lundy! It's time to go to Bed!"
He bellowed like a Little Turk.
Or if his father Lord Dunquerque
Said "Hi!" in a Commanding Tone,
"Hi, Lundy! Leave the Cat alone!"
Lord Lundy, letting go...Read more of this...

White Night

by Anna Akhmatova
 There will be thunder then. Remember me.
Say ‘ She asked for storms.’ The entire
world will turn the colour of crimson stone,
and your heart, as then, will turn to fire.

That day, in Moscow, a true prophecy,
when for the last time I say goodbye,
soaring to the heavens that I longed to see,
leaving mI haven't locked the door, 
Nor lit the candles,...Read more of this...

The House

by Philip Levine
 They are building a house
half a block down
and I sit up here
with the shades down
listening to the sounds,
the hammers pounding in nails,
thack thack thack thack,
and then I hear birds,
and thack thack thack,
and I go to bed,
I pull the covers to my throat;
they have been building this house
for a month, and soon it will have
its people...sleeping, eating,
loving, moving around,
but somehow
now
it...Read more of this...

To The One Upstairs

by Charles Simic
 Boss of all bosses of the universe.
Mr. know-it-all, wheeler-dealer, wire-puller,
And whatever else you're good at.
Go ahead, shuffle your zeros tonight.
Dip in ink the comets' tails.
Staple the night with starlight.

You'd be better off reading coffee dregs,
Thumbing the pages of the Farmer's Almanac.
But no! You love to put on airs,
And cultivate your famous serenity
While you sit behind your big desk
With zilch...Read more of this...

Having it Out with Melancholy

by Jane Kenyon
 1FROM THE NURSERY


When I was born, you waited 
behind a pile of linen in the nursery, 
and when we were alone, you lay down 
on top of me, pressing
the bile of desolation into every pore.


And from that day on 
everything under the sun and moon 
made me sad -- even the yellow 
wooden beads that slid and spun 
along...Read more of this...

The Beautiful Poem

by Richard Brautigan
 I go to bed in Los Angeles thinking
about you.

Pissing a few moments ago
I looked down at my *****
affectionately.

Knowing it has been inside
you twice today makes me
feel beautiful.

3 A.M.
January 15, 1967...Read more of this...

The Land of Story-Books

by Robert Louis Stevenson
 At evening when the lamp is lit, 
Around the fire my parents sit; 
They sit at home and talk and sing, 
And do not play at anything. 

Now, with my little gun, I crawl 
All in the dark along the wall, 
And follow round the forest track 
Away behind the sofa back. 

There, in the night, where none can...Read more of this...

The Widow and Her Son XXI

by Kahlil Gibran
 Night fell over North Lebanon and snow was covering the villages surrounded by the Kadeesha Valley, giving the fields and prairies the appearance of a great sheet of parchment upon which the furious Nature was recording her many deeds. Men came home from the streets while silence engulfed the night. 

In a lone house near those villages lived a...Read more of this...

Seein Things

by Eugene Field
I ain't afeard uv snakes, or toads, or bugs, or worms, or mice,
An' things 'at girls are skeered uv I think are awful nice!
I'm pretty brave, I guess; an' yet I hate to go to bed,
For, when I'm tucked up warm an' snug an' when my prayers are said,
Mother tells me "Happy dreams!" and takes away the light,
An' leaves me...Read more of this...

Good-By Now or Pardon My Gauntlet

by Ogden Nash
 Bring down the moon for genteel Janet;
She's too refined for this gross planet.
She wears garments and you wear clothes,
You buy stockings, she purchases hose.
She say That is correct, and you say Yes,
And she disrobes and you undress.
Confronted by a mouse or moose,
You turn green, she turns chartroose.
Her speech is new-minted, freshly quarried;
She has a fore-head, you have a forehead.
Nor...Read more of this...

Coffee

by Richard Brautigan
 Sometimes life is merely a matter of coffee and whatever intimacy a cup of coffee
affords. I once read something about coffee. The thing said that coffee is good for you;
it stimulates all the organs.
I thought at first this was a strange way to put it, and not altogether pleasant, but
as time goes by I have found out that it...Read more of this...

Sleepy Harry

by Jane Taylor
 "I do not like to go to bed," 
Sleepy little Harry said; 
"Go, naughty Betty, go away, 
I will not come at all, I say! "

Oh, silly child! what is he saying? 
As if he could be always playing! 
Then, Betty, you must come and carry
This very foolish little Harry. 

The little birds are better taught,
They go to roosting...Read more of this...

Little Puddleton

by Robert William Service
 I

Let others sing of Empire and of pomp beyond the sea,
A song of Little Puddleton is good enough for me,
A song of kindly living, and of coming home to tea.

I seldom read the papers, so I don't know what goes on.
I go to bed at sunset, and I leap alert at dawn,
To gossip with my garden, which I'll have...Read more of this...

Operation Memory

by David Lehman
 We were smoking some of this knockout weed when
Operation Memory was announced. To his separate bed
Each soldier went, counting backwards from a hundred
With a needle in his arm. And there I was, in the middle
Of a recession, in the middle of a strange city, between jobs
And apartments and wives. Nobody told me the gun was loaded.

We'd been drinking since...Read more of this...

For the Dead

by Adrienne Rich
 I dreamed I called you on the telephone
to say: Be kinder to yourself
but you were sick and would not answer

The waste of my love goes on this way
trying to save you from yourself

I have always wondered about the left-over
energy, the way water goes rushing down a hill
long after the rains have stopped

or the fire you want to go to...Read more of this...

Mountain Drinking Song

by Li Po
 To drown the ancient sorrows,
we drank a hundred jugs of wine
there in the beautiful night.
We couldn't go to bed with the moon so bright.

The finally the wine overcame us
and we lay down on the empty mountain--
the earth for a pillow,
and a blanket made of heaven...Read more of this...

Mr. Brain

by Russell Edson
 Mr Brain was a hermit dwarf who liked to eat shellfish off 
the moon. He liked to go into a tree then because there is a 
little height to see a little further, which may reveal now the 
stone, a pebble--it is a twig, it is nothing under the moon that 
you can make sure of.
 So Mr Brain...Read more of this...

Brother And Sister

by Lewis Carroll
 "SISTER, sister, go to bed! 
Go and rest your weary head." 
Thus the prudent brother said. 

"Do you want a battered hide, 
Or scratches to your face applied?" 
Thus his sister calm replied. 

"Sister, do not raise my wrath. 
I'd make you into mutton broth 
As easily as kill a moth" 

The sister raised her beaming eye 
And looked...Read more of this...

Dont forget to view our wonderful member Go To Bed poems.

Get a Premium Membership
Turn off ads, get more exposure for your poetry, and get more features with a Premium Membership.
Book: Diverse Voices: The Poetry of Human Rights and the Pursuit of Peace