Famous Likes Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Wagner

by Rupert Brooke
 Creeps in half wanton, half asleep,
One with a fat wide hairless face.
He likes love-music that is cheap;
Likes women in a crowded place;
And wants to hear the noise they're making.

His heavy eyelids droop half-over,
Great pouches swing beneath his eyes.
He listens, thinks himself the lover,
Heaves from his stomach wheezy sighs;
He likes to feel his heart's a-breaking.

The music swells. His gross legs...Read more of this...

Our teacher likes Minecraft

by Kenn Nesbitt
Our teacher likes Minecraft.
She plays it all day.
She tells us to study
so she can go play.
She’ll dig in her mine,
going deeper and deeper,
then fight off a skeleton,
zombie, or creeper.
She’ll engineer buildings
from dirt, wood, and stone,
then go out exploring
the landscape alone.
She’ll build and collect and
she’ll run, jump, and swing.
There’s only one problem…
we don’t learn a thing.
 --Kenn Nesbitt

Copyright © Kenn Nesbitt...Read more of this...

The Yarn of the Loch Achray

by John Masefield
 The Loch Achray was a clipper tall
With seven-and-twenty hands in all.
Twenty to hand and reef and haul,
A skipper to sail and mates to bawl
'Tally on to the tackle-fall,
Heave now 'n' start her, heave 'n' pawl!'
Hear the yarn of a sailor,
An old yarn learned at sea.

Her crew were shipped and they said 'Farewell,
So-long, my Tottie, my lovely gell;
We sail to-day...Read more of this...

Lotus Hurt by the Cold

by D. H. Lawrence
 How many times, like lotus lilies risen 
Upon the surface of a river, there 
Have risen floating on my blood the rare 
Soft glimmers of my hope escaped from prison.

So I am clothed all over with the light
And sensitive beautiful blossoming of passion;
Till naked for her in the finest fashion 
The flowers of all my mud swim into sight....Read more of this...

The Black Dudeen

by Robert William Service
 Humping it here in the dug-out,
 Sucking me black dudeen,
I'd like to say in a general way,
 There's nothing like Nickyteen;
There's nothing like Nickyteen, me boys,
 Be it pipes or snipes or cigars;
So be sure that a bloke
Has plenty to smoke,
 If you wants him to fight your wars.

When I've eat my fill and my belt is snug,
I begin...Read more of this...

Weathers

by Thomas Hardy
 This is the weather the cuckoo likes, 
And so do I; 
When showers betumble the chestnut spikes, 
And nestlings fly; 
And the little brown nightingale bills his best, 
And they sit outside at 'The Traveller's Rest,' 
And maids come forth sprig-muslin drest, 
And citizens dream of the south and west, 
And so do I. 

This is the weather the...Read more of this...

The Amateur Rider

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 Him goin' to ride for us! Him -- with the pants and the eyeglass and all. 
Amateur! don't he just look it -- it's twenty to one on a fall. 
Boss must be gone off his head to be sending out steeplechase crack 
Out over fences like these with an object like that on his back. 
Ride! Don't tell...Read more of this...

The Sea

by Lewis Carroll
 There are certain things -a spider, a ghost,
The income-tax, gout, an umbrella for three - 
That I hate, but the thing that I hate the most
Is a thing they call the SEA.

Pour some salt water over the floor - 
Ugly I'm sure you'll allow it to be:
Suppose it extended a mile or more,
That's very like the SEA.

Beat a dog...Read more of this...

I think the Hemlock likes to stand

by Emily Dickinson
 I think the Hemlock likes to stand
Upon a Marge of Snow --
It suits his own Austerity --
And satisfies an awe

That men, must slake in Wilderness --
And in the Desert -- cloy --
An instinct for the Hoar, the Bald --
Lapland's -- necessity --

The Hemlock's nature thrives -- on cold --
The Gnash of Northern winds
Is sweetest nutriment -- to him --
His...Read more of this...

The Gundaroo Bullock

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 Oh, there's some that breeds the Devon that's as solid as a stone, 
And there's some that breeds the brindle which they call the "Goulburn Roan"; 
But amongst the breeds of cattle there are very, very few 
Like the hairy-whiskered bullock that they breed at Gundaroo. 
Far away by Grabben Gullen, where the Murrumbidgee flows, 
There's a block of...Read more of this...

Myself and Mine

by Walt Whitman
 MYSELF and mine gymnastic ever, 
To stand the cold or heat—to take good aim with a gun—to sail a boat—to
 manage
 horses—to beget superb children, 
To speak readily and clearly—to feel at home among common people, 
And to hold our own in terrible positions, on land and sea. 

Not for an embroiderer;
(There will always be plenty of embroiderers—I welcome...Read more of this...

Admonitions to a Special Person

by Anne Sexton
 Watch out for power, 
for its avalanche can bury you, 
snow, snow, snow, smothering your mountain. 

Watch out for hate, 
it can open its mouth and you’ll fling yourself out 
to eat off your leg, an instant leper. 

Watch out for friends, 
because when you betray them, 
as you will, 
they will bury their heads in the toilet 
and...Read more of this...

My Shadow

by Robert Louis Stevenson
 From Child's Garden of Verses

I have a little shadow that goes in and out with me,
And what can be the use of him is more than I can see.
He is very, very like me from the heels up to the head;
And I see him jump before me, when I jump into my bed.

The funniest thing about him is the...Read more of this...

I was an Inkstand new

by Edward Lear
I  was an Inkstand new,Papa he likes to use it; He keeps it in his pocket now,For fear that he should lose it. ...Read more of this...

Epistles to Several Persons: Epistle IV To Richard Boyle

by Alexander Pope
 Est brevitate opus, ut currat sententia, neu se 
Impediat verbis lassas onerantibus aures: 
Et sermone opus est modo tristi, saepe jocoso, 
Defendente vicem modo Rhetoris atque Poetae, 
Interdum urbani, parcentis viribus, atque
Extenuantis eas consulto.
(Horace, Satires, I, x, 17-22)
'Tis strange, the miser should his cares employ 
To gain those riches he can ne'er enjoy:
Is it less strange, the prodigal should...Read more of this...

Lui Et Elle

by D. H. Lawrence
 She is large and matronly
And rather dirty,
A little sardonic-looking, as if domesticity had driven her to it.
Though what she does, except lay four eggs at random in the garden once a year
And put up with her husband,
I don't know.

She likes to eat.
She hurries up, striding reared on long uncanny legs
When food is going.
Oh yes, she can make haste when...Read more of this...

Sonnet XXX: Whether the Turkish New Moon

by Sir Philip Sidney
 Whether the Turkish new moon minded be 
To fill his horns this year on Christian coast; 
How Poles' right king means, with leave of host, 
To warm with ill-made fire cold Muscovy; 

If French can yet three parts in one agree; 
What now the Dutch in their full diets boast; 
How Holland hearts, now so good towns be lost,...Read more of this...

Loud Music

by Stephen Dobyns
 My stepdaughter and I circle round and round.
You see, I like the music loud, the speakers
throbbing, jam-packing the room with sound whether
Bach or rock and roll, the volume cranked up so
each bass notes is like a hand smacking the gut.
But my stepdaughter disagrees. She is four
and likes the music decorous, pitched below
her own voice-that tenuous projection of self.
With music...Read more of this...

A Sea Dirge

by Lewis Carroll
 There are certain things--as, a spider, a ghost,
 The income-tax, gout, an umbrella for three--
That I hate, but the thing that I hate the most
 Is a thing they call the Sea.

Pour some salt water over the floor--
 Ugly I'm sure you'll allow it to be:
Suppose it extended a mile or more,
 That's very like the Sea.

Beat a dog...Read more of this...

The Ballad Of Hard-Luck Henry

by Robert William Service
 Now wouldn't you expect to find a man an awful crank
That's staked out nigh three hundred claims, and every one a blank;
That's followed every fool stampede, and seen the rise and fall
Of camps where men got gold in chunks and he got none at all;
That's prospected a bit of ground and sold it for a song
To see it yield...Read more of this...

The Pros and Cons

by Sophie Hannah
 He’ll be pleased if I phone to ask him how he is.
It will make me look considerate and he likes considerate people.

He’ll be reassured to see that I haven’t lost interest,
Which might make him happy and then I’ll have done him a favour.

If I phone him right now I’ll get to speak to him sooner
Than I will if I...Read more of this...

The Gallery

by Andrew Marvell
Clora, come view my soul, and tell
Whether I have contrived it well.
Now all its several lodgings lie
Composed into one gallery;
And the great arras-hangings, made
Of various faces, by are laid;
That, for all furniture, you'll find
Only your picture in my mind.

Here thou art painted in the dress
Of an inhuman murderess;
Examining upon our hearts
Thy fertile shop of cruel arts:
Engines more keen than ever...Read more of this...

Its Raining In Love

by Richard Brautigan
 I don't know what it is,
 but I distrust myself
 when I start to like a girl
 a lot.

 It makes me nervous.
 I don't say the right things
 or perhaps I start
 to examine,
 evaluate,
 compute
 what I am saying.

 If I say, "Do you think it's going to rain?"
 and she says, "I don't know,"
 I start...Read more of this...

The Definition of Gardening

by Edward Taylor
 Jim just loves to garden, yes he does. 
He likes nothing better than to put on 
his little overalls and his straw hat. 
He says, "Let's go get those tools, Jim." 
But then doubt begins to set in.
He says, "What is a garden, anyway?"
And thoughts about a "modernistic" garden
begin to trouble him, eat away at his resolve. 
He stands...Read more of this...

Reasonable Interest

by Ellis Parker Butler
 I want to know how Bernard Shaw
Likes beefsteak—fairly done, or raw?
I want to know what kinds of shoes
M. Maeterlinck and Howells use.

I have great curiosity
Regarding George Ade’s new boot tree.
Has Carolyn Wells of late employed
Hairpins of wire or celluliod?

What kind of soap does London like?
Does Robert Chambers ever “hike”?
Or did he ever? Or, if not,
Does he like cabbage, cheese,...Read more of this...

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