Famous In The Lap Of Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Where Shall the Lover Rest

by Sir Walter Scott
 Where shall the lover rest 
Whom the fates sever 
From the true maiden's breast, 
Parted for ever?-- 
Where, through groves deep and high, 
Sounds the fair billow, 
Where early violets die, 
Under the willow.

Chorus.

Soft shall be his pillow.

There, through the summer day, 
Cool streams are laving; 
There, while the tempests sway, 
Scarce are boughs waving; 
There, thy rest shall...Read more of this...

Tomes

by Billy Collins
 There is a section in my library for death
and another for Irish history,
a few shelves for the poetry of China and Japan,
and in the center a row of imperturbable reference books,
the ones you can turn to anytime,
when the night is going wrong
or when the day is full of empty promise.

I have nothing against
the thin monograph, the odd query,
a note...Read more of this...

Sussex

by Rudyard Kipling
 God gave all men all earth to love,
 But, since our hearts are small
Ordained for each one spot should prove
 Beloved over all;
That, as He watched Creation's birth,
 So we, in godlike mood,
May of our love create our earth
 And see that it is good.

So one shall Baltic pines content,
 As one some Surrey glade,
Or one the palm-grove's droned...Read more of this...

The Crescent Moon

by Amy Lowell
 Slipping softly through the sky
Little horned, happy moon,
Can you hear me up so high?
Will you come down soon?
On my nursery window-sill
Will you stay your steady flight?
And then float away with me
Through the summer night?
Brushing over tops of trees,
Playing hide and seek with stars,
Peeping up through shiny clouds
At Jupiter or Mars.
I shall fill my lap with roses
Gathered in the milky...Read more of this...

The End Of The Trail

by Robert William Service
 Life, you've been mighty good to me,
Yet here's the end of the trail;
No more mountain, moor and sea,
No more saddle and sail.
Waves a-leap in the laughing sun
Call to me as of yore. . . .
Alas! my errant days are done:
I'll rove no more, no more.

Life, you've cheered me all the way;
You've been my bosom friend;
But gayest dog will have...Read more of this...

The Earth

by George William Russell
 God loafs around heaven,
without a shape
but He would like to smoke His cigar
or bite His fingernails
and so forth.

God owns heaven
but He craves the earth,
the earth with its little sleepy caves,
its bird resting at the kitchen window,
even its murders lined up like broken chairs,
even its writers digging into their souls
with jackhammers,
even its hucksters selling their animals
for gold,
even its babies sniffing...Read more of this...

155. Epistle to Mrs. Scott of Wauchope House

by Robert Burns
 GUDEWIFE,I MIND it weel in early date,
When I was bardless, young, and blate,
 An’ first could thresh the barn,
Or haud a yokin’ at the pleugh;
An, tho’ forfoughten sair eneugh,
 Yet unco proud to learn:
When first amang the yellow corn
 A man I reckon’d was,
An’ wi’ the lave ilk merry morn
 Could rank my rig and lass,
 Still shearing, and...Read more of this...

Modern Love XXXI: This Golden Head

by George Meredith
 This golden head has wit in it. I live 
Again, and a far higher life, near her. 
Some women like a young philosopher; 
Perchance because he is diminutive. 
For woman's manly god must not exceed 
Proportions of the natural nursing size. 
Great poets and great sages draw no prize 
With women: but the little lap-dog breed, 
Who can be...Read more of this...

421. Epitaph on a Lap-dog

by Robert Burns
 IN wood and wild, ye warbling throng,
 Your heavy loss deplore;
Now, half extinct your powers of song,
 Sweet Echo is no more.


Ye jarring, screeching things around,
 Scream your discordant joys;
Now, half your din of tuneless sound
 With Echo silent lies....Read more of this...

191. Song—Theniel Menzies' Bonie Mary

by Robert Burns
 IN comin by the brig o’ Dye,
 At Darlet we a blink did tarry;
As day was dawnin in the sky,
 We drank a health to bonie Mary.


Chorus.—Theniel Menzies’ bonie Mary,
 Theniel Menzies’ bonie Mary,
Charlie Grigor tint his plaidie,
 Kissin’ Theniel’s bonie Mary.


Her een sae bright, her brow sae white,
 Her haffet locks as brown’s a berry;
And aye they dimpl’t...Read more of this...

I like to see it lap the Miles --

by Emily Dickinson
 I like to see it lap the Miles --
And lick the Valleys up --
And stop to feed itself at Tanks --
And then -- prodigious step

Around a Pile of Mountains --
And supercilious peer
In Shanties -- by the sides of Roads --
And then a Quarry pare

To fit its Ribs
And crawl between
Complaining all the while
In horrid -- hooting stanza --
Then chase itself...Read more of this...

As I lay with Head in your Lap Camerado

by Walt Whitman
 AS I lay with my head in your lap, Camerado, 
The confession I made I resume—what I said to you in the open air I resume: 
I know I am restless, and make others so; 
I know my words are weapons, full of danger, full of death; 
(Indeed I am myself the real soldier;
It is not he, there, with...Read more of this...

Half-waking

by William Allingham
 I thought it was the little bed 
I slept in long ago; 
A straight white curtain at the head, 
And two smooth knobs below. 
I thought I saw the nursery fire, 
And in a chair well-known 
My mother sat, and did not tire 
With reading all alone. 
If I should make the slightest sound 
To show that I'm awake,...Read more of this...

If He Were Alive Today Mayhap Mr. Morgan Would Sit on the Midgets Lap

by Ogden Nash
 "Beep-beep.
BANKERS TRUST AUTOMOBILE LOAN
You'll find a banker at Bankers Trust"
Advertisement in N.Y. Times

When comes my second childhood,
As to all men it must,
I want to be a banker
Like the banker at Bankers Trust.
I wouldn't ask to be president
Or even assistant veep,
I'd only ask for a kiddie car
And permission to go beep-beep.

The banker at Chase Manhattan,
He bids a polite Good-day;
The banker...Read more of this...

My Mother

by Claude McKay
 I 

Reg wished me to go with him to the field, 
I paused because I did not want to go; 
But in her quiet way she made me yield 
Reluctantly, for she was breathing low. 
Her hand she slowly lifted from her lap 
And, smiling sadly in the old sweet way, 
She pointed to the nail where hung my...Read more of this...

The Death Baby

by Anne Sexton
 1. DREAMS

I was an ice baby.
I turned to sky blue.
My tears became two glass beads.
My mouth stiffened into a dumb howl.
They say it was a dream
but I remember that hardening.

My sister at six
dreamt nightly of my death:
"The baby turned to ice.
Someone put her in the refrigerator
and she turned as hard as a Popsicle."

I remember the stink of the liverwurst.
How...Read more of this...

Sonnet XCVIII

by William Shakespeare
 From you have I been absent in the spring,
When proud-pied April dress'd in all his trim
Hath put a spirit of youth in every thing,
That heavy Saturn laugh'd and leap'd with him.
Yet nor the lays of birds nor the sweet smell
Of different flowers in odour and in hue
Could make me any summer's story tell,
Or from their proud lap pluck them...Read more of this...

The Youth By The Brook

by Friedrich von Schiller
 Beside the brook the boy reclined
And wove his flowery wreath,
And to the waves the wreath consigned--
The waves that danced beneath.
"So fleet mine hours," he sighed, "away
Like waves that restless flow:
And so my flowers of youth decay
Like those that float below."

"Ask not why I, alone on earth,
Am sad in life's young time;
To all the rest are hope and mirth
When spring...Read more of this...

The Great Western Plains

by Hart Crane
 The little voices of the prairie dogs 
Are tireless . . . 
They will give three hurrahs 
Alike to stage, equestrian, and pullman, 
And all unstingingly as to the moon. 

And Fifi's bows and poodle ease 
Whirl by them centred on the lap 
Of Lottie Honeydew, movie queen, 
Toward lawyers and Nevada. 

And how much more they cannot see!...Read more of this...

A Historical Breakfast

by Russell Edson
 A man is bringing a cup of coffee to his face, 
tilting it to his mouth. It's historical, he thinks. 
He scratches his head: another historical event. 
He really ought to rest, he's making an awful lot of 
history this morning.
 Oh my, now he's buttering toast, another piece of 
history is being made.
 He wonders why it should...Read more of this...

My Favoured Fare

by Robert William Service
 Some poets sing of scenery;
Some to fair maids make sonnets sweet.
A fig for love and greenery,
Be mine a song of things to eat.
Let brother bards divinely dream,
I'm just plain human, as you see;
And choose to carol such a theme
 As ham and eggs and tea.

Just two fried eggs or maybe three,
With lacy rims and sunside up,
Pink coral ham and...Read more of this...

The Rape of the Lock: Canto 3

by Alexander Pope
 Close by those meads, for ever crown'd with flow'rs, 
Where Thames with pride surveys his rising tow'rs,
There stands a structure of majestic frame,
Which from the neighb'ring Hampton takes its name.
Here Britain's statesmen oft the fall foredoom
Of foreign tyrants and of nymphs at home;
Here thou, great Anna! whom three realms obey,
Dost sometimes counsel take--and sometimes tea.
Hither the heroes and the...Read more of this...

Hans Sachs Poetical Mission

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
 [I feel considerable hesitation in venturing 
to offer this version of a poem which Carlyle describes to be 'a 
beautiful piece (a very Hans Sacks beatified, both in character 
and style), which we wish there was any possibility of translating.' 
The reader will be aware that Hans Sachs was the celebrated Minstrel- 
Cobbler of Nuremberg, who Wrote 208 plays,...Read more of this...

I like to see it lap the miles

by Emily Dickinson
I like to see it lap the miles,
And lick the valleys up,
And stop to feed itself at tanks;
And then, prodigious, step

Around a pile of mountains,
And, supercilious, peer
In shanties by the sides of roads;
And then a quarry pare

To fit its sides, and crawl between,
Complaining all the while
In horrid, hooting stanza;
Then chase itself down hill

And neigh like Boanerges;
Then, punctual as a star,
Stop--docile...Read more of this...

The Little Black Boy

by William Blake
MY mother bore me in the southern wild, 
And I am black, but O, my soul is white! 
White as an angel is the English child, 
But I am black, as if bereaved of light. 

My mother taught me underneath a tree, 5 
And, sitting down before the heat of day, 
She took me on her lap and kiss¨¨d me,...Read more of this...

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