Famous Landlord Poems by Famous Poets

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

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The Highwayman

by Alfred Noyes
 PART ONE

The wind was a torrent of darkness among the gusty trees,
The moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas,
The road was a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor,
 And the highwayman came riding--
 Riding--riding--
The highwayman came riding, up to the old inndoor.

He'd a French cocked-hat on his forehead, a bunch of lace at his chin,
A coat...Read more of this...

Peter Anderson And Co

by Henry Lawson
 He had offices in Sydney, not so many years ago, 
And his shingle bore the legend `Peter Anderson and Co.', 
But his real name was Careless, as the fellows understood -- 
And his relatives decided that he wasn't any good. 
'Twas their gentle tongues that blasted any `character' he had -- 
He was fond of beer and leisure --...Read more of this...

The Shanty On The Rise

by Henry Lawson
 When the caravans of wool-teams climbed the ranges from the West, 
On a spur among the mountains stood `The Bullock-drivers' Rest'; 
It was built of bark and saplings, and was rather rough inside, 
But 'twas good enough for bushmen in the careless days that died -- 
Just a quiet little shanty kept by `Something-in-Disguise', 
As the bushmen called the...Read more of this...

Julot The Apache

by Robert William Service
 You've heard of Julot the apache, and Gigolette, his mome. . . .
Montmartre was their hunting-ground, but Belville was their home.
A little chap just like a boy, with smudgy black mustache, --
Yet there was nothing juvenile in Julot the apache.
From head to heel as tough as steel, as nimble as a cat,
With every trick of twist and kick, a...Read more of this...

At The Golden Pig

by Robert William Service
 Where once with lads I scoffed my beer
 The landlord's lass I've wed.
Now I am lord and master here;--
 Thank God! the old man's dead.
I stand behind a blooming bar
 With belly like a tub,
And pals say, seeing my cigar:
 'Bill's wed a pub.'

I wonder now if I did well,
 My freedom for to lose;
Knowing my wife is fly...Read more of this...

What Has Happened?

by Bertolt Brecht
 The industrialist is having his aeroplane serviced.
The priest is wondering what he said in his sermon eight weeks ago
about tithes.
The generals are putting on civvies and looking like bank clerks.
Public officials are getting friendly.
The policeman points out the way to the man in the cloth cap.
The landlord comes to see whether the water supply is working.
The journalists write the...Read more of this...

Jinny the Just

by Matthew Prior
 Releas'd from the noise of the butcher and baker 
Who, my old friends be thanked, did seldom forsake her, 
And from the soft duns of my landlord the Quaker, 

From chiding the footmen and watching the lasses, 
From Nell that burn'd milk, and Tom that broke glasses 
(Sad mischiefs thro' which a good housekeeper passes!) 

From some real care...Read more of this...

113. A Dedication to Gavin Hamilton Esq

by Robert Burns
 EXPECT na, sir, in this narration,
A fleechin, fleth’rin Dedication,
To roose you up, an’ ca’ you guid,
An’ sprung o’ great an’ noble bluid,
Because ye’re surnam’d like His Grace—
Perhaps related to the race:
Then, when I’m tir’d-and sae are ye,
Wi’ mony a fulsome, sinfu’ lie,
Set up a face how I stop short,
For fear your modesty be hurt.


 This may do—maun do, sir,...Read more of this...

Lines in Praise of the Lyric Club Banquet

by William Topaz McGonagall
 Which was Held in the Queens Hotel, Perth, on the Evening of 5th September 1894


'Twas in the year of 1894, and on the 5th of September,
Which for a long time I will remember,
And the gentlemen I entertained in the city of Perth,
Which is one of the grandest cities upon the earth. 

At the Banquet there were gentlemen of high...Read more of this...

A Bushmans Song

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 I’M travellin’ down the Castlereagh, and I’m a station hand, 
I’m handy with the ropin’ pole, I’m handy with the brand, 
And I can ride a rowdy colt, or swing the axe all day, 
But there’s no demand for a station-hand along the Castlereagh. + 

So it’s shift, boys, shift, for there isn’t the slightest doubt 
That we’ve got...Read more of this...

Phillis Or the Progress of Love

by Jonathan Swift
 Desponding Phillis was endu'd 
With ev'ry Talent of a Prude, 
She trembled when a Man drew near; 
Salute her, and she turn'd her Ear: 
If o'er against her you were plac't 
She durst not look above your Wa[i]st; 
She'd rather take you to her Bed 
Than let you see her dress her Head; 
In Church you heard her thro'...Read more of this...

The Man in the Moon Came Down Too Soon

by J R R Tolkien
 There is an inn, a merry old inn
beneath an old grey hill,
And there they brew a beer so brown
That the Man in the Moon himself came down
one night to drink his fill.

The ostler has a tipsy cat
that plays a five-stringed fiddle;
And up and down he saws his bow
Now squeaking high, now purring low,
now sawing in the middle.

The landlord keeps...Read more of this...

Richard Pigott the Forger

by William Topaz McGonagall
 Richard Pigott, the forger, was a very bad man,
And to gainsay it there's nobody can,
Because for fifty years he pursued a career of deceit,
And as a forger few men with him could compete. 

For by forged letters he tried to accuse Parnell
For the Phoenix Park murders, but mark what befell.
When his conscience smote him he confessed to the fraud,
And...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...

The three tailors

by Eugene Field
 I shall tell you in rhyme how, once on a time,
Three tailors tramped up to the inn Ingleheim,
On the Rhine, lovely Rhine;
They were broke, but the worst of it all, they were curst
With that malady common to tailors--a thirst
For wine, lots of wine.

"Sweet host," quoth the three, "we're hard up as can be,
Yet skilled in the practice of cunning...Read more of this...

Mud Soup

by Carolyn Kizer
 1.

Had the ham bone, had the lentils,
Got to meat store for the salt pork,
Got to grocery for the celery.
Had the onions, had the garlic,
Borrowed carrots from the neighbor.
Had the spices, had the parsley.
One big kettle I had not got;
Borrowed pot and lid from landlord.

2.

Dice the pork and chop the celery,
Chop the onions, chop the carrots,
Chop the tender index finger.
Put...Read more of this...

Wide Spaces

by Henry Lawson
 When the man I was denounces all the things that I was not, 
When the true souls stand like granite, while the souls of liars not – 
When the quids I gave are counted, and the trays I cadged forgot; 

Shall my spirit see the country that it wrote for once again? 
Shall it see the old selections, and...Read more of this...

The Heatherblend Club Banquet

by William Topaz McGonagall
 'Twas on the 16th of October, in the year 1894,
I was invited to Inverness, not far from the sea shore,
To partake of a banquet prepared by the Heatherblend Club,
Gentlemen who honoured me without any hubbub. 

The banquet was held in the Gellion Hotel,
And the landlord, Mr Macpherson, treated me right well;
Also the servant maids were very kind to me,
Especially...Read more of this...

The Raft

by Vachel Lindsay
 The whole world on a raft! A King is here,
The record of his grandeur but a smear.
Is it his deacon-beard, or old bald pate
That makes the band upon his whims to wait?
Loot and mud-honey have his soul defiled.
Quack, pig, and priest, he drives camp-meetings wild
Until they shower their pennies like spring rain
That he may preach upon the Spanish main.
What...Read more of this...

His Content In The Country

by Robert Herrick
 HERE, Here I live with what my board
Can with the smallest cost afford;
Though ne'er so mean the viands be,
They well content my Prue and me:
Or pea or bean, or wort or beet,
Whatever comes, Content makes sweet.
Here we rejoice, because no rent
We pay for our poor tenement;
Wherein we rest, and never fear
The landlord or the usurer.
The quarter-day does ne'er affright
Our...Read more of this...

Sweeney

by Henry Lawson
 It was somewhere in September, and the sun was going down, 
When I came, in search of `copy', to a Darling-River town; 
`Come-and-have-a-drink' we'll call it -- 'tis a fitting name, I think -- 
And 'twas raining, for a wonder, up at Come-and-have-a-drink. 

'Neath the public-house verandah I was resting on a bunk 
When a stranger rose before me,...Read more of this...

Again

by Marilyn L Taylor
 The children are back, the children are back—
They’ve come to take refuge, exhale and unpack;
The marriage has faltered, the job has gone bad,
Come open the door for them, Mother and Dad.

The city apartment is leaky and cold,
The landlord lascivious, greedy and old—
The mattress is lumpy, the oven’s encrusted,
The freezer, the fan, and the toilet have rusted.

The company caved, the...Read more of this...

A Ballad upon a Wedding

by Sir John Suckling
 I tell thee, Dick, where I have been, 
Where I the rarest things have seen, 
O, things without compare! 
Such sights again cannot be found 
In any place on English ground, 
Be it at wake or fair.

At Charing Cross, hard by the way 
Where we, thou know'st, do sell our hay, 
There is a house with stairs; 
And there...Read more of this...

What Inn is this

by Emily Dickinson
 What Inn is this
Where for the night
Peculiar Traveller comes?
Who is the Landlord?
Where the maids?
Behold, what curious rooms!
No ruddy fires on the hearth --
No brimming Tankards flow --
Necromancer! Landlord!
Who are these below?...Read more of this...

24. Song—No Churchman am I

by Robert Burns
 NO churchman am I for to rail and to write,
No statesman nor soldier to plot or to fight,
No sly man of business contriving a snare,
For a big-belly’d bottle’s the whole of my care.


The peer I don’t envy, I give him his bow;
I scorn not the peasant, though ever so low;
But a club of good fellows, like those that are...Read more of this...

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