Get Your Premium Membership

Famous Loaf Poems by Famous Poets

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

See also:

by Aiken, Conrad
...er Earth.
The winds of doctrine blow our minds away,
and we are absent till another birth.

X

Beyond the Sugar Loaf, in the far wood,
under the four-day rain, gunshot is heard
and with the falling leaf the falling bird
flutters her crimson at the huntsman's foot.
Life looks down at death, death looks up at life,
the eyes exchange the secret under rain,
rain all the way from heaven: and all three
know and are known, share and are shared, a silent
moment of union a...Read more of this...



by Bishop, Elizabeth
...hoped that the coffee 
would be very hot, seeing that the sun 
was not going to warm us; and that the crumb 
would be a loaf each, buttered, by a miracle. 
At seven a man stepped out on the balcony. 

He stood for a minute alone on the balcony 
looking over our heads toward the river. 
A servant handed him the makings of a miracle, 
consisting of one lone cup of coffee 
and one roll, which he proceeded to crumb, 
his head, so to speak, in the clouds—along with the...Read more of this...

by Angelou, Maya
...Lying, thinking
Last night
How to find my soul a home
Where water is not thirsty
And bread loaf is not stone
I came up with one thing
And I don't believe I'm wrong
That nobody,
But nobody
Can make it out here alone.

Alone, all alone
Nobody, but nobody
Can make it out here alone.

There are some millionaires
With money they can't use
Their wives run round like banshees
Their children sing the blues
They've got expensive doctors
To cure the...Read more of this...

by Levine, Philip
...untangle the mess. His neighbors line up behind him 
wondering what's going on. A middle-aged woman carrying 
a loaf of fresh bread asks him to step aside so she 
can enter, ascend the two steep flights to her apartment, 
and begin the daily task of preparing lunch for her Monsieur. 
Vallejo pretends he hears nothing or perhaps he truly 
hears nothing so absorbed is he in this odd task consuming 
his late morning. Did I forget to mention that no one else 
can ...Read more of this...

by Hecht, Anthony
...was born in a Free City, near the North Sea.

2) In the year of my birth, money was shredded into 
confetti. A loaf of bread cost a million marks. Of 
course I do not remember this.

3) Parents and grandparents hovered around me. The 
world I lived in had a soft voice and no claws.

4) A cornucopia filled with treats took me into a building 
with bells. A wide-bosomed teacher took me in.

5) At home the bookshelves connected heaven and earth.<...Read more of this...



by Betjeman, John
...,
When I can satisfy my want
With ears of corn around the font.
I climb the eagle's brazen head
To burrow through a loaf of bread.
I scramble up the pulpit stair
And gnaw the marrows hanging there.
It is enjoyable to taste
These items ere they go to waste,
But how annoying when one finds
That other mice with pagan minds
Come into church my food to share
Who have no proper business there.
Two field mice who have no desire
To be baptized, invade the choir.
A...Read more of this...

by Yevtushenko, Yevgeny
...a--
he's always right in the center
 and, not faltering,
he carries his poetry to the people
as simply and calmly
 as a loaf of bread.
Many poets follow false paths,
but if the poet is with the people to the bitter end,
like a conscience-
 then nothing
can possibly overthrow poetry. 
1973 

Translated by Arthur Boyars amd Simon Franklin...Read more of this...

by Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
...and emblazoned its windows.
Long within had been spread the snow-white cloth on the table;
There stood the wheaten loaf, and the honey fragrant with wild-flowers;
There stood the tankard of ale, and the cheese fresh brought from the dairy;
And, at the head of the board, the great arm-chair of the farmer.
Thus did Evangeline wait at her father's door, as the sunset
Threw the long shadows of trees o'er the broad ambrosial meadows.
Ah! on her spirit within a deeper ...Read more of this...

by Browning, Robert
...rl, her apron o'er her head, 
(Which the intense eyes looked through) came at eve 
On tiptoe, said a word, dropped in a loaf, 
Her pair of earrings and a bunch of flowers 
(The brute took growling), prayed, and so was gone. 
I painted all, then cried " `T#is ask and have; 
Choose, for more's ready!"--laid the ladder flat, 
And showed my covered bit of cloister-wall. 
The monks closed in a circle and praised loud 
Till checked, taught what to see and not to see, 
Being...Read more of this...

by Browning, Robert
...te:
Next, a handful of blossoms I plucked
To bury him with, my bookshelf's magnate;
Then I went in-doors, brought out a loaf,
Half a cheese, and a bottle of Chablis;
Lay on the grass and forgot the oaf
Over a jolly chapter of Rabelais.

V.

Now, this morning, betwixt the moss
And gum that locked our friend in limbo,
A spider had spun his web across,
And sat in the midst with arms akimbo:
So, I took pity, for learning's sake,
And, _de profundis, accentibus ltis,
Cantat...Read more of this...

by Hikmet, Nazim
...da Vinci's brush
had conceived me
 under the gilded sun of China!
That the painted mountain behind me
had been a sugar-loaf Chinese mountain,
that the pink-white color of my long face
 could fade,
that my eyes were almond-shaped!
And if only my smile
 could show what I feel in my heart!
Then in the arms of him who is far away
 I could have roamed through China...


FROM THE AUTHOR'S NOTEBOOK


I had a heart-to-heart talk with Gioconda today.
The hours flew by...Read more of this...

by Frost, Robert
... He’ll plan for us and plan
To help us, but he’ll take it out in planning.
Well, you can set the table with the loaf.
Let’s see you find your loaf. I’ll light the fire.
I like chairs occupying other chairs
Not offering a lady—”

“There again, Joe!
You’re tired.”

“I’m drunk-nonsensical tired out;
Don’t mind a word I say. It’s a day’s work
To empty one house of all household goods
And fill another with ’em fifteen miles away,
Although you do no more...Read more of this...

by Hacker, Marilyn
...es. (Or was the team a covert branch
of a banned group; were maps drawn in the kitchen,
a bomb thrust in a hollowed loaf of bread?)
What did the old men pray for in their houses

of prayer, the teachers teach in schoolhouses
between blackouts and blasts, when each word was
flensed by new censure, books exchanged for bread, 
both hostage to the happenstance of war?
Sometimes the only schoolroom is a kitchen.
Outside the window, black strokes on a graph
of broken glass,...Read more of this...

by Hacker, Marilyn
...itamin pills, backed
by no statistics. Each day I enact
survivor's rituals, blessing the crust
I tear from the warm loaf, blessing the hours
in which I didn't or in which I did
consider my own death. I am not yet
statistically a survivor (that
is sixty months). On paper, someone flowers
and flares alive. I knew her. But she's dead.

She flares alive. I knew her. But she's dead.
I flirted with her, might have been her friend,
but transatlant...Read more of this...

by St Vincent Millay, Edna
...e a boy breeches,
Nor shears to cut a cloth with,
Nor thread to take stitches.

"There's nothing in the house
But a loaf-end of rye,
And a harp with a woman's head
Nobody will buy,"
And she began to cry.

That was in the early fall.
When came the late fall,
"Son," she said, "the sight of you
Makes your mother's blood crawl,—

"Little skinny shoulder-blades
Sticking through your clothes!
And where you'll get a jacket from
God above knows.

"It's lucky for me, l...Read more of this...

by Aiken, Conrad
...;
We close our eyes to music in bright cafees.
We diverge from clamorous streets to streets that are silent.
We loaf where the wind-spilled fountain plays.

And, growing tired, we turn aside at last,
Remember our secret selves, seek out our towers,
Lay weary hands on the banisters, and climb;
Climbing, each, to his little four-square dream
Of love or lust or beauty or death or crime.


VI.

Over the darkened city, the city of towers,
The city of a thousand...Read more of this...

by Khayyam, Omar
...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 Life aw...Read more of this...

by Fitzgerald, Edward
...om the sown,
Where name of Slave and Sultan scarce is known,
And pity Sultan Mahmud on his Throne.

11

Here with a Loaf of Bread beneath the Bough,
A Flask of Wine, a Book of Verse—and Thou
Beside me singing in the Wilderness— 
And Wilderness is Paradise enow.

12

"How sweet is mortal Sovranty!"—think some:
Others—"How blest the Paradise to come!"
Ah, take the Cash in hand and waive the Rest;
Oh, the brave Music of a distant Drum!

13

Look to the Rose that blows ab...Read more of this...

by Carroll, Lewis
...f breath,
   And all of us are fat!"
"No hurry!" said the Carpenter.
  They thanked him much for that.

"A loaf of bread," the Walrus said,
   "Is what we chiefly need;
Pepper and vinegar besides
   Are very good indeed—
Now if you're ready, Oysters dear,
   We can begin to feed."

"But not on us!" the Oysters cried,
   Turning a little blue.
"After such kindness, that would be
   A dismal thing to do!"
"The night is fine," the Walrus said,
  ...Read more of this...

by Hughes, Ted
...longer feel.
 But the carp is in its depth
 Like a planet in its heaven.
 And the badger in its bedding
 Like a loaf in the oven.
 And the butterfly in its mummy
 Like a viol in its case.
 And the owl in its feathers
 Like a doll in its lace. 

Freezing dusk has tightened
 Like a nut screwed tight
On the starry aeroplane
 Of the soaring night.
 But the trout is in its hole
 Like a chuckle in a sleeper.
 The hare strays down the highway
 Like a root...Read more of this...

Dont forget to view our wonderful member Loaf poems.


Book: Shattered Sighs