Famous Lap Up Poems by Famous Poets

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

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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...

Gates and Doors

by Joyce Kilmer
 (For Richardson Little Wright)

There was a gentle hostler
(And blessed be his name!)
He opened up the stable
The night Our Lady came.
Our Lady and Saint Joseph,
He gave them food and bed,
And Jesus Christ has given him
A glory round his head.
So let the gate swing open
However poor the yard,
Lest weary people visit you
And find their passage barred;
Unlatch the door at midnight
And let...Read more of this...

Night Journey

by Theodore Roethke
 Now as the train bears west,
Its rhythm rocks the earth,
And from my Pullman berth
I stare into the night
While others take their rest.
Bridges of iron lace,
A suddenness of trees,
A lap of mountain mist
All cross my line of sight,
Then a bleak wasted place,
And a lake below my knees.
Full on my neck I feel
The straining at a curve;
My muscles move with steel,
I...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...

To Ye Kings

by Victor Hugo
 When the Christians were doomed to the lions of old 
 By the priest and the praetor, combined to uphold 
 An idolatrous cause, 
 Forth they came while the vast Colosseum throughout 
 Gathered thousands looked on, and they fell 'mid the shout 
 Of "the People's" applause. 
 
 On the eve of that day of their...Read more of this...

Psalm Concerning the Castle

by Denise Levertov
 Let me be at the place of the castle.
Let the castle be within me.
Let it rise foursquare from the moat's ring.
Let the moat's waters reflect green plumage of ducks, let the shells of swimming turtles break the surface or be seen through the rippling depths.
Let horsemen be stationed at the rim of it, and a dog,
always alert on the...Read more of this...

The Rum Tum Tugger

by T S (Thomas Stearns) Eliot
 The Rum Tum Tugger is a Curious Cat:
If you offer him pheasant he would rather have grouse.
If you put him in a house he would much prefer a flat,
If you put him in a flat then he'd rather have a house.
If you set him on a mouse then he only wants a rat,
If you set him on a rat...Read more of this...

To Ailsa Rock

by John Keats
 Hearken, thou craggy ocean-pyramid,
Give answer by thy voice—the sea-fowls' screams!
When were thy shoulders mantled in huge streams?
When from the sun was thy broad forehead hid?
How long is't since the mighty Power bid
Thee heave to airy sleep from fathom dreams— 
Sleep in the lap of thunder or sunbeams— 
Or when grey clouds are thy cold coverlid!
Thou answer'st not; for thou...Read more of this...

The Death King

by Anne Sexton
 I hired a carpenter
to build my coffin
and last night I lay in it,
braced by a pillow,
sniffing the wood,
letting the old king
breathe on me,
thinking of my poor murdered body,
murdered by time,
waiting to turn stiff as a field marshal,
letting the silence dishonor me,
remembering that I'll never cough again.

Death will be the end of fear
and the fear of dying,
fear like a dog...Read more of this...

The Three Roses

by Walter Savage Landor
 When the buds began to burst,
Long ago, with Rose the First
I was walking; joyous then
Far above all other men,
Till before us up there stood
Britonferry's oaken wood,
Whispering, "Happy as thou art,
Happiness and thou must part."
Many summers have gone by
Since a Second Rose and I
(Rose from the same stem) have told
This and other tales of old.
She upon her wedding day
Carried home...Read more of this...

Lepracaun or Fairy Shoemaker The

by William Allingham
 Little Cowboy, what have you heard,
Up on the lonely rath's green mound?
Only the plaintive yellow bird
Sighing in sultry fields around,
Chary, chary, chary, chee-ee! -
Only the grasshopper and the bee? -
"Tip-tap, rip-rap,
Tick-a-tack-too!
Scarlet leather, sewn together,
This will make a shoe.
Left, right, pull it tight;
Summer days are warm;
Underground in winter,
Laughing at the storm!"
Lay your ear close to the hill.
Do you not catch...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...

The Poet VIII

by Kahlil Gibran
 He is a link between this and the coming world. 
He is 
A pure spring from which all thirsty souls may drink. 


He is a tree watered by the River of Beauty, bearing 
Fruit which the hungry heart craves; 
He is a nightingale, soothing the depressed 
Spirit with his beautiful melodies; 
He is a white cloud appearing over the...Read more of this...

In a London Drawingroom

by George Eliot
 The sky is cloudy, yellowed by the smoke. 
For view there are the houses opposite 
Cutting the sky with one long line of wall 
Like solid fog: far as the eye can stretch 
Monotony of surface & of form 
Without a break to hang a guess upon. 
No bird can make a shadow as it flies, 
For all is...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...

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...

The Sycamores

by John Greenleaf Whittier
 In the outskirts of the village 
On the river's winding shores 
Stand the Occidental plane-trees, 
Stand the ancient sycamores. 

One long century hath been numbered, 
And another half-way told 
Since the rustic Irish gleeman 
Broke for them the virgin mould. 

Deftly set to Celtic music 
At his violin's sound they grew, 
Through the moonlit eves of summer, 
Making Amphion's...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...

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...

310. Tam o' Shanter: A Tale

by Robert Burns
 WHEN chapman billies leave the street,
And drouthy neibors, neibors, meet;
As market days are wearing late,
And folk begin to tak the gate,
While we sit bousing at the nappy,
An’ getting fou and unco happy,
We think na on the lang Scots miles,
The mosses, waters, slaps and stiles,
That lie between us and our hame,
Where sits our sulky, sullen dame,
Gathering her brows like gathering...Read more of this...

How We Are

by Lisa Zaran
 Pale scrapings of people 
with lipstick ringed glasses 
and cigarettes burning, 
and laughter trickling up and down 
their knotty throats. 
What is this, 
a gathering of henhouse critics? 

My father's voice in the back of my head, 
saying, forget that I'm dead and if you 
can not do that than pretend. 

I am standing 
just outside the gallery 
beneath...Read more of this...

Visions of the worlds vanitie

by Edmund Spenser
 One day, whiles that my daylie cares did sleepe,
My spirit, shaking off her earthly prison,
Began to enter into meditation deepe
Of things exceeding reach of common reason;
Such as this age, in which all good is geason,
And all that humble is and meane debaced,
Hath brought forth in her last declining season,
Griefe of good mindes, to see goodnesse disgraced.
On which when as...Read more of this...

Memorial Verses

by Matthew Arnold
 Goethe in Weimar sleeps, and Greece,
Long since, saw Byron's struggle cease.
But one such death remain'd to come;
The last poetic voice is dumb--
We stand to-day by Wordsworth's tomb.

When Byron's eyes were shut in death,
We bow'd our head and held our breath.
He taught us little; but our soul
Had felt him like the thunder's roll.
With shivering heart the strife we saw 
Of...Read more of this...

De Profundis

by Georg Trakl
 There is a stubble field on which a black rain falls.
There is a tree which, brown, stands lonely here.
There is a hissing wind which haunts deserted huts---
How sad this evening.

Past the village pond
The gentle orphan still gathers scanty ears of corn.
Golden and round her eyes are gazing in the dusk
And her lap awaits the heavenly bridegroom.

Returning home
Shepherds found the...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...

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