Famous Magazine Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Magazine poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous magazine poems. These examples illustrate what a famous magazine poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Ogden Nash
In fourteen hundred and ninety-two,
Someone sailed the ocean blue.
Somebody borrowed the fare in Spain
For a business trip on the bounding main,
And to prove to the people, by actual test,
You could get to the East by sailing West.
Somebody said, Sail on! Sail on!
And studied China and China's lingo,
And cried from the bow, There's China now!
And promptly bumped into San Domingo.
Somebody...Read more of this...
by
Victor Hugo
("Oui, le bonheur bien vite a passé.")
{Bk. V. ii., February, 1821.}
Yes, Happiness hath left me soon behind!
Alas! we all pursue its steps! and when
We've sunk to rest within its arms entwined,
Like the Phoenician virgin, wake, and find
Ourselves alone again.
Then, through the distant future's...Read more of this...
by
Sidney Lanier
"So pulse, and pulse, thou rhythmic-hearted Noon
That liest, large-limbed, curved along the hills,
In languid palpitation, half a-swoon
With ardors and sun-loves and subtle thrills;
"Throb, Beautiful! while the fervent hours exhale
As kisses faint-blown from thy finger-tips
Up to the sun, that turn him passion-pale
And then as red as any virgin's lips.
"O tender Darkness, when June-day hath ceased,
-- Faint Odor from the day-flower's...Read more of this...
by
Victor Hugo
("Quoi! ne pouvez-vous vivre ensemble?")
{XXXV., June, 1828.}
The River Deity upbraids his Daughters, the contributary Streams:—
Ye daughters mine! will naught abate
Your fierce interminable hate?
Still am I doomed to rue the fate
That such unfriendly neighbors made?
The while ye might, in peaceful cheer,
Mirror upon...Read more of this...
by
David Lehman
He woke up in New York City on Valentine's Day,
Speeding. The body in the booth next to his was still warm,
Was gone. He had bought her a sweater, a box of chocolate
Said her life wasn't working he looked stricken she said
You're all bent out of shape, accusingly, and when he
She went from being an Ivy League professor of French
To...Read more of this...
by
Victor Hugo
("Regardez: les enfants.")
{XX., June, 1884.}
See all the children gathered there,
Their mother near; so young, so fair,
An eider sister she might be,
And yet she hears, amid their games,
The shaking of their unknown names
In the dark urn of destiny.
She wakes their smiles, she...Read more of this...
by
Vachel Lindsay
[Concerning O. Henry (Sidney Porter)]
"He could not forget that he was a Sidney."
Is this Sir Philip Sidney, this loud clown,
The darling of the glad and gaping town?
This is that dubious hero of the press
Whose slangy tongue and insolent address
Were spiced to rouse on Sunday afternoon
The man with yellow journals round him strewn.
We laughed...Read more of this...
by
Victor Hugo
("O vous que votre âge défende")
{IX., February, 1840.}
In youthful spirits wild,
Smile, for all beams on thee;
Sport, sing, be still the child,
The flower, the honey-bee.
Bring not the future near,
For Joy too soon declines—
What is man's mission here?
Toil, where no sunlight...Read more of this...
by
Vernon Scannell
It is a curious experience
And one you"re bound to know, though probably
In other realms than that of literature,
Though I speak of poems now, assuming
That you are interested, otherwise,
Of course, you wouldn"t be reading this.
It is strange to come across a poem
In an old magazine, perhaps, and fail
At first to see that it"s your own.
Sometimes you think, grateful and surprised,
"That"s...Read more of this...
by
James Joyce
Have you heard of one Humpty Dumpty
How he fell with a roll and a rumble
And curled up like Lord Olofa Crumple
By the butt of the Magazine Wall,
(Chorus) Of the Magazine Wall,
Hump, helmet and all?
He was one time our King of the Castle
Now he's kicked about like a rotten old parsnip.
And from Green street he'll be sent by...Read more of this...
by
Ellis Parker Butler
Upon Bottle Miche the autre day
While yet the nuit was early,
Je met a homme whose barbe was grey,
Whose cheveaux long and curly.
“Je am a poete, sir,” dit he,
“Je live where tres grande want teems—
I’m faim, sir. Sil vous plait give me
Un franc or cinquatite centimes.”
I donne him vingt big copper sous
But dit, “You moderne rhymers
The sacre poet name abuse—
Les...Read more of this...
by
Victor Hugo
("Je suis la Charité.")
{February, 1837.}
"Lo! I am Charity," she cries,
"Who waketh up before the day;
While yet asleep all nature lies,
God bids me rise and go my way."
How fair her glorious features shine,
Whereon the hand of God hath set
An angel's attributes divine,...Read more of this...
by
Elizabeth Smart
That day i finished
A small piece
For an obscure magazine
I popped it in the box
And such a starry elation
Came over me
That I got whistled at in the street
For the first time in a long time.
I was dirty and roughly dressed
And had circles under my eyes
And far far from flirtation
But so full of completion
Of a deed duly done
An act of consummation
That...Read more of this...
by
Victor Hugo
("Si je n'était captive.")
{IX., July, 1828.}
Oh! were I not a captive,
I should love this fair countree;
Those fields with maize abounding,
This ever-plaintive sea:
I'd love those stars unnumbered,
If, passing in the shade,
Beneath our walls I saw not
The spahi's sparkling blade.
...Read more of this...
by
Victor Hugo
("Qui leur eût dit l'austère destineé?")
{II. v., November, 1836.}
Who then, to them{1} had told the Future's story?
Or said that France, low bowed before their glory,
One day would mindful be
Of them and of their mournful fate no more,
Than of the wrecks its waters have swept o'er
...Read more of this...
by
Thomas Hardy
In Memory of one of the Writer's Family who was a Volunteer during the War
with Napoleon
In a ferny byway
Near the great South-Wessex Highway,
A homestead raised its breakfast-smoke aloft;
The dew-damps still lay steamless, for the sun had made no sky-way,
And twilight cloaked the croft.
'Twas hard to realize on
This snug side the mute horizon
That beyond it hostile armaments might steer,
Save from...Read more of this...
by
Lewis Carroll
"OH, when I was a little Ghost,
A merry time had we!
Each seated on his favourite post,
We chumped and chawed the buttered toast
They gave us for our tea."
"That story is in print!" I cried.
"Don't say it's not, because
It's known as well as Bradshaw's Guide!"
(The Ghost uneasily replied
He hardly thought it was)....Read more of this...
by
Paul Laurence Dunbar
He loved her, and through many years,
Had paid his fair devoted court,
Until she wearied, and with sneers
Turned all his ardent love to sport.
That night within his chamber lone,
He long sat writing by his bed
A note in which his heart made moan
For love; the morning found him dead.
Like him, a man of later day
Was jilted by the maid he sought,
And from...Read more of this...
by
Barry Tebb
( I )
for ‘JC’ of the TLS
Nightmare of metropolitan amalgam
Grand Hotel and myself as a guest there
Lost with my room rifled, my belongings scattered,
Purse, diary and vital list of numbers gone –
Vague sad memories of mam n’dad
Leeds 1942 back-to-back with shared outside lav.
Hosannas of sweet May mornings
Whitsun glory of lilac blooming
Sixty years on I run and run
From death,...Read more of this...
by
Victor Hugo
("J'aime le carillon dans tes cités antiques.")
{XVIII., August, 1837.}
Within thy cities of the olden time
Dearly I love to list the ringing chime,
Thou faithful guardian of domestic worth,
Noble old Flanders! where the rigid North
A flush of rich meridian glow doth feel,
Caught from reflected suns of...Read more of this...
by
Victor Hugo
("Oui, ce front, ce sourire.")
{Bk. V. xxii., November, 1825.}
That brow, that smile, that cheek so fair,
Beseem my child, who weeps and plays:
A heavenly spirit guards her ways,
From whom she stole that mixture rare.
Through all her features shining mild,
The poet sees an angel there,
...Read more of this...
by
Victor Hugo
To prayer, my child! and O, be thy first prayer
For her who, many nights, with anxious care,
Rocked thy first cradle; who took thy infant soul
From heaven and gave it to the world; then rife
With love, still drank herself the gall of life,
And left for thy young lips the honeyed...Read more of this...
by
Victor Hugo
("À quoi je songe?")
{XXIII., July, 1836.}
What do I dream of? Far from the low roof,
Where now ye are, children, I dream of you;
Of your young heads that are the hope and crown
Of my full summer, ripening to its fall.
Branches whose shadow grows along my wall,
...Read more of this...
by
Charles Bukowski
the phone rang at 1:30 a.m.
and it was a man from Denver:
"Chinaski, you got a following in
Denver..."
"yeah?"
"yeah, I got a magazine and I want some
poems from you..."
"**** YOU, CHINASKI!" I heard a voice
in the background...
"I see you have a friend,"
I said.
"yeah," he answered, "now, I want
six poems..."
...Read more of this...
by
Victor Hugo
("Laissez-moi pleurer sur cette race.")
{I. v.}
Oh! let me weep that race whose day is past,
By exile given, by exile claimed once more,
Thrice swept away upon that fatal blast.
Whate'er its blame, escort we to our shore
These relics of the monarchy of yore;
And to th' outmarching...Read more of this...
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