Famous Jug Poems by Famous Poets

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

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A Game Of Chess

...100
  Filled all the desert with inviolable voice
  And still she cried, and still the world pursues,
  "Jug Jug" to dirty ears.
  And other withered stumps of time
  Were told upon the walls; staring forms
  Leaned out, leaning, hushing the room enclosed.
  Footsteps shuffled on the stair.
  Under the firelight, under the brush, her hair
  Spread out in fiery points
  Glowed into words, then would be savagely still.                        110

  "My n...Read more of this...
by Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)


Amidst the Flowers a Jug of Wine

...Amidst the flowers a jug of wine, 
I pour alone lacking companionship. 
So raising the cup I invite the Moon, 
Then turn to my shadow which makes three of us. 
Because the Moon does not know how to drink, 
My shadow merely follows the movement of my body. 
The moon has brought the shadow to keep me company a while, 
The practice of mirth should keep pace with spring. 
I start a ...Read more of this...
by Po, Li

An Epitaph

...t news of public grief, or joy. 
When bells were rung, and bonfires made, 
If asked they ne'er denied their aid: 
Their jug was to the ringers carried, 
Whoever either died, or married. 
Their billet at the fire was found, 
Whoever was depos'd or crown'd. 
Nor good, nor bad, nor fools, nor wise; 
They would not learn, nor could advise; 
Without love, hatred, joy, or fear, 
They led--a kind of--as it were: 
Nor wish'd nor car'd, nor laugh'd nor cry'd: 
And so they liv'd; and s...Read more of this...
by de la Mare, Walter

Balloons

...ueak like a cat.
Seeming to see
A funny pink world he might eat on the other side of it,
He bites,

Then sits
Back, fat jug
Contemplating a world clear as water.
A red
Shred in his little fist....Read more of this...
by Plath, Sylvia

Bishop Blougrams Apology

...eep up from your utterly naked boards 
Into some snug and well-appointed berth, 
Like mine for instance (try the cooler jug-- 
Put back the other, but don't jog the ice!) 
And mortified you mutter "Well and good; 
"He sits enjoying his sea-furniture; 
"'T is stout and proper, and there's store of it: 
"Though I've the better notion, all agree, 
"Of fitting rooms up. Hang the carpenter, 
"Neat ship-shape fixings and contrivances-- 
"I would have brought my Jerome, frame and al...Read more of this...
by Browning, Robert


Cinderella

.... The flame-blue glances, 
The wings gauzy as the membrane that the ashes 
Draw over an old ember --as the mother 
In a jug of cider-- were a comfort to her. 
They sat by the fire and told each other stories. 

"What men want..." said the godmother softly-- 
How she went on it is hard for a man to say. 
Their eyes, on their Father, were monumental marble. 
Then they smiled like two old women, bussed each other, 
Said, "Gossip, gossip"; and, lapped in each other's looks, 
Mirr...Read more of this...
by Jarrell, Randall

Drinking Alone

...I take my wine jug out among the flowers
to drink alone, without friends.

I raise my cup to entice the moon.
That, and my shadow, makes us three.

But the moon doesn't drink,
and my shadow silently follows.

I will travel with moon and shadow,
happy to the end of spring.

When I sing, the moon dances.
When I dance, my shadow dances, too.

We share life's joys when sober.
...Read more of this...
by Po, Li

Leaving Early

...ostrils prickle with nostalgia.
Henna hags:cloth of your cloth.
They tow old water thick as fog.

The roses in the Toby jug
Gave up the ghost last night. High time.
Their yellow corsets were ready to split.
You snored, and I heard the petals unlatch,
Tapping and ticking like nervous fingers.
You should have junked them before they died.
Daybreak discovered the bureau lid 
Littered with Chinese hands. Now I'm stared at
By chrysanthemums the size
Of Holofernes' head, dipped in ...Read more of this...
by Plath, Sylvia

Letters From A Man In Solitary

...doubt my state can be explained
physiologically, psychologically, etc.
Or maybe it's
 this barred window,
 this earthen jug,
 these four walls,
 which for months have kept me from hearing
 another human voice.

It's five o'clock, my dear.
Outside,
 with its dryness,
 eerie whispers,
 mud roof,
and lame, skinny horse
 standing motionless in infinity
-- I mean, it's enough to drive the man inside crazy with grief --
outside, with all its machinery and all its art,
a plains nigh...Read more of this...
by Hikmet, Nazim

May

...d stops
The nightingale its ditty weaves
Hid in a multitude of leaves
The boy stops short to hear the strain
And 'sweet jug jug' he mocks again
The yellow hammer builds its nest
By banks where sun beams earliest rest
That drys the dews from off the grass
Shading it from all that pass
Save the rude boy wi ferret gaze
That hunts thro evry secret maze
He finds its pencild eggs agen
All streakd wi lines as if a pen
By natures freakish hand was took
To scrawl them over like a book...Read more of this...
by Clare, John

Ode To Wine

...ing, happiness
bursts through the earth like a plant,
walls crumble,
and rocky cliffs,
chasms close,
as song is born.
A jug of wine, and thou beside me
in the wilderness,
sang the ancient poet.
Let the wine pitcher
add to the kiss of love its own.

My darling, suddenly
the line of your hip
becomes the brimming curve
of the wine goblet,
your breast is the grape cluster,
your nipples are the grapes,
the gleam of spirits lights your hair,
and your navel is a chaste seal
stamped ...Read more of this...
by Neruda, Pablo

Ode To Wine

...ing, happiness
bursts through the earth like a plant,
walls crumble,
and rocky cliffs,
chasms close,
as song is born.
A jug of wine, and thou beside me
in the wilderness,
sang the ancient poet.
Let the wine pitcher
add to the kiss of love its own.

My darling, suddenly
the line of your hip
becomes the brimming curve
of the wine goblet,
your breast is the grape cluster,
your nipples are the grapes,
the gleam of spirits lights your hair,
and your navel is a chaste seal
stamped ...Read more of this...
by Neruda, Pablo

The Ballad Of Lenins Tomb

...This is the yarn he told me
 As we sat in Casey's Bar,
 That Rooshun mug who scammed from the jug
 In the Land of the Crimson Star;
 That Soviet guy with the single eye,
 And the face like a flaming scar.

Where Lenin lies the red flag flies, and the rat-grey workers wait
To tread the gloom of Lenin's Tomb, where the Comrade lies in state.
With lagging pace they scan his face, so weary yet so firm;
For years a score they've laboured sore to save him ...Read more of this...
by Service, Robert William

The Dungeon

...rovoke each other's songs—  With skirmish and capricious passagings,  And murmurs musical and swift jug jug  And one low piping sound more sweet than all—  Stirring the air with such an harmony,  That should you close your eyes, you might almost  Forget it was not day!                         ...Read more of this...
by Wordsworth, William

The Everlasting Mercy

...table on the kettle, 
I sent Joe's quart of cider spinning. 
"Lo, here begins my second inning." 
Each bottle, mug, and jug and pot 
I smashed to crocks in half a tot; 
And Joe, and Si, and Nick, and Percy 
I rolled together topsy versy. 
And as I ran I heard 'em call, 
"Now damn to hell, what's gone with Saul?" 
Out into street I ran uproarious 
The devil dancing in me glorious. 
And as I ran I yell and shriek 
"Come on, now, turn the other cheek." 
Across the way by almshou...Read more of this...
by Masefield, John

The Fire Sermon

...200
  They wash their feet in soda water
  Et O ces voix d'enfants, chantant dans la coupole!

  Twit twit twit
  Jug jug jug jug jug jug
  So rudely forc'd.
  Tereu

  Unreal City
  Under the brown fog of a winter noon
  Mr. Eugenides, the Smyrna merchant
  Unshaven, with a pocket full of currants                                210
  C.i.f. London: documents at sight,
  Asked me in demotic French
  To luncheon at the Cannon Street Hotel
  Followed by a weeke...Read more of this...
by Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)

The Generations of Men

...isten. When I lean like this 
I can make out old Grandsir Stark distinctly,-- 
With his pipe in his mouth and his brown jug-- 
Bless you, it isn't Grandsir Stark, it's Granny, 
But the pipe's there and smoking and the jug. 
She's after cider, the old girl, she's thirsty; 
Here's hoping she gets her drink and gets out safely." 
"Tell me about her. Does she look like me?" 
"She should, shouldn't she, you're so many times 
Over descended from her. I believe 
She does look like y...Read more of this...
by Frost, Robert

The Millers Tale

...ing in the balks*; *beams
And victualed them, kemelin, trough, and tub,
With bread and cheese, and good ale in a jub*, *jug
Sufficing right enough as for a day.
But ere that he had made all this array,
He sent his knave*, and eke his wench** also, *servant **maid
Upon his need* to London for to go. *business
And on the Monday, when it drew to night,
He shut his door withoute candle light,
And dressed* every thing as it should be. *prepared
And shortly up they climbed all the ...Read more of this...
by Chaucer, Geoffrey

The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam

...Slave and Sultan is forgot --
And Peace is Mahmud on his Golden Throne! 

XII.
A Book of Verses underneath the Bough,
A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread, -- and Thou
Beside me singing in the Wilderness --
Oh, Wilderness were Paradise enow! 

XIII.
Some for the Glories of This World; and some
Sigh for the Prophet's Paradise to come;
Ah, take the Cash, and let the Promise go,
Nor heed the rumble of a distant Drum! 

XIV.
Were it not Folly, Spider-like to spin
The Thread of present ...Read more of this...
by Khayyam, Omar

The Waste Land

...t there the nightingale 
Filled all the desert with inviolable voice
And still she cried, and still the world pursues,
"Jug Jug" to dirty ears.
And other withered stumps of time
Were told upon the walls; staring forms
Leaned out, leaning, hushing the room enclosed.
Footsteps shuffled on the stair.
Under the firelight, under the brush, her hair
Spread out in fiery points
Glowed into words, then would be savagely still. 
 "My nerves are bad to-night. Yes, bad. Stay with me.
"Sp...Read more of this...
by Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)

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