Famous Journal Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Belts

by Rudyard Kipling
 There was a row in Silver Street that's near to Dublin Quay,
Between an Irish regiment an' English cavalree;
It started at Revelly an' it lasted on till dark:
The first man dropped at Harrison's, the last forninst the Park.
 For it was: -- "Belts, belts, belts, an' that's one for you!"
 An' it was "Belts, belts, belts, an' that's done for...Read more of this...

The Alien Boy

by Mary Darby Robinson
 'Twas on a Mountain, near the Western Main
An ALIEN dwelt. A solitary Hut
Built on a jutting crag, o'erhung with weeds,
Mark'd the poor Exile's home. Full ten long years
The melancholy wretch had liv'd unseen
By all, save HENRY, a lov'd, little Son
The partner of his sorrows. On the day
When Persecution, in the sainted guise
Of Liberty, spread wide its venom'd pow'r,
The brave,...Read more of this...

Le Verbe ?tre

by Andre Breton
 Je connais le d?sespoir dans ses grandes lignes. Le d?sespoir n'a pas d'ailes, il ne
se tient pas n?cessairement ? une table desservie sur une terrasse, le soir, au bord de
la mer. C'est le d?sespoir et ce n'est pas le retour d'une quantit? de petits faits
comme des graines qui quittent ? la nuit tombante un sillon pour un autre. Ce...Read more of this...

Consolation

by Billy Collins
 How agreeable it is not to be touring Italy this summer,
wandering her cities and ascending her torrid hilltowns.
How much better to cruise these local, familiar streets,
fully grasping the meaning of every roadsign and billboard
and all the sudden hand gestures of my compatriots.

There are no abbeys here, no crumbling frescoes or famous
domes and there is no need to memorize a...Read more of this...

The Negatives

by Philip Levine
 On March 1, 1958, four deserters from the French Army of North Africa, 
August Rein, Henri Bruette, Jack Dauville, & Thomas Delain, robbed a 
government pay station at Orleansville. Because of the subsequent 
confession of Dauville the other three were captured or shot. Dauville 
was given his freedom and returned to the land of his birth, the U.S.A.

AUGUST REIN:...Read more of this...

The Peri

by Victor Hugo
 Beautiful spirit, come with me 
 Over the blue enchanted sea: 
 Morn and evening thou canst play 
 In my garden, where the breeze 
 Warbles through the fruity trees; 
 No shadow falls upon the day: 
 There thy mother's arms await 
 Her cherished infant at the gate. 
 Of Peris I the loveliest far— 
...Read more of this...

Haiku (Never Published)

by Allen Ginsberg
 Drinking my tea
Without sugar-
 No difference.

The sparrow shits
 upside down
--ah! my brain & eggs

Mayan head in a
Pacific driftwood bole
--Someday I'll live in N.Y.

Looking over my shoulder
my behind was covered
with cherry blossoms.

 Winter Haiku
I didn't know the names 
of the flowers--now
my garden is gone.

I slapped the mosquito
and missed.
What made me do that?

Reading haiku
I am unhappy,
longing for the Nameless.

A frog floating...Read more of this...

Clancy Of The Overflow

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 I had written him a letter which I had, for want of better
 Knowledge, sent to where I met him down the Lachlan, years ago,
He was shearing when I knew him, so I sent the letter to him,
 Just on spec, addressed as follows, "Clancy, of The Overflow". 

And an answer came directed in a writing unexpected,
 (And I...Read more of this...

Five Bells

by Kenneth Slessor
 Time that is moved by little fidget wheels 
Is not my time, the flood that does not flow. 
Between the double and the single bell 
Of a ship's hour, between a round of bells 
From the dark warship riding there below, 
I have lived many lives, and this one life 
Of Joe, long dead, who lives between five bells....Read more of this...

Breakfast

by Robert William Service
 Of all the meals that glad my day
My morning one's the best;
Purveyed me on a silver tray,
Immaculately dressed.
I rouse me when the dawn is bright;
I leap into the sea,
Returning with a rare delight
To honey, toast and tea.

My appetite was razor edged
When I was in my prime;
To eggs and bacon I was pledged . . .
Ala! the March of Time;
For...Read more of this...

Martha Washington

by Sidney Lanier
 Written for the "Martha Washington Court Journal".



Down cold snow-stretches of our bitter time,
When windy shams and the rain-mocking sleet
Of Trade have cased us in such icy rime
That hearts are scarcely hot enough to beat,
Thy fame, O Lady of the lofty eyes,
Doth fall along the age, like as a lane
Of Spring, in whose most generous boundaries
Full many a frozen virtue...Read more of this...

The Celebrated Woman - An Epistle By A Married Man

by Friedrich von Schiller
 Can I, my friend, with thee condole?--
Can I conceive the woes that try men,
When late repentance racks the soul
Ensnared into the toils of hymen?
Can I take part in such distress?--
Poor martyr,--most devoutly, "Yes!"
Thou weep'st because thy spouse has flown
To arms preferred before thine own;--
A faithless wife,--I grant the curse,--
And yet, my friend, it might be worse!
Just hear another's tale...Read more of this...

The Trade

by Rudyard Kipling
 They bear, in place of classic names,
 Letters and numbers on their skin.
 They play their grisly blindfold games
 In little boxes made of tin.
 Sometimes they stalk the Zeppelin,
 Sometimes they learn where mines are laid,
 Or where the Baltic ice is thin.
 That is the custom of "The Trade."

 Few prize-courts sit upon their claims.
 They seldom...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...

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