Famous Making Poems by Famous Poets

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

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The Scapegoat

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 We have all of us read how the Israelites fled 
From Egypt with Pharaoh in eager pursuit of 'em, 
And Pharaoh's fierce troop were all put "in the soup" 
When the waters rolled softly o'er every galoot of 'em. 
The Jews were so glad when old Pharaoh was "had" 
That they sounded their timbrels and capered like mad. 
You...Read more of this...

Dreams

by Lisa Zaran
 It is later than late, 
the simmered down darkness 
of the jukebox hour. 

The hour of drunkenness 
and cigarettes. 
The fools hour. 

In my dreams, 
I still smoke, cigarette after cigarette. 
It's okay, I'm dreaming. 
In dreams, smoking can't kill me. 

It's warm outside. 
I have every window open. 
There's no such thing as danger, 
only the dangerous face...Read more of this...

Making Good

by Robert William Service
 No man can be a failure if he thinks he's a success;
he may not own his roof-tree overhead,
He may be on his uppers and have hocked his evening dress -
(Financially speaking - in the red)
He may have chronic shortage to repay the old home mortgage,
And almost be a bankrupt in his biz.,
But though he skips his dinner,
And each day...Read more of this...

Dedication

by Rainer Maria Rilke
 Dedication 
These to His Memory--since he held them dear, 
Perchance as finding there unconsciously 
Some image of himself--I dedicate, 
I dedicate, I consecrate with tears-- 
These Idylls. 

And indeed He seems to me 
Scarce other than my king's ideal knight, 
`Who reverenced his conscience as his king; 
Whose glory was, redressing human wrong; 
Who spake no slander, no, nor...Read more of this...

Making Love To Concrete

by Audre Lorde
 An upright abutment in the mouth
of the Willis Avenue bridge
a beige Honda leaps the divider
like a steel gazelle inescapable
sleek leather boots on the pavement
rat-a-tat-tat best intentions
going down for the third time
stuck in the particular

You cannot make love to concrete
if you care about being
non-essential wrong or worn thin
if you fear ever becoming
diamonds or lard
you cannot make love to concrete
if you...Read more of this...

Fit the Sixth ( Hunting of the Snark )

by Lewis Carroll
 The Barrister's Dream 

They sought it with thimbles, they sought it with care;
They pursued it with forks and hope; 
They threatened its life with a railway-share; 
They charmed it with smiles and soap. 
But the Barrister, weary of proving in vain
That the Beaver's lace-making was wrong, 
Fell asleep, and in dreams saw the creature quite plain
That his fancy had...Read more of this...

Verse-Making Was Least of My Virtues

by Robert Browning
 Verse-making was least of my virtues: I viewed with despair 
Wealth that never yet was but might be--all that verse-making were 
If the life would but lengthen to wish, let the mind be laid bare. 
So I said, "To do little is bad, to do nothing is worse"-- 
And made verse. 

Love-making,--how simple a matter! No depths to explore,...Read more of this...

The Runcorn Ferry

by Marriott Edgar
 On the banks of the Mersey, o'er on Cheshire side, 
Lies Runcorn that's best known to fame 
By Transporter Bridge as takes folks over t'stream, 
Or else brings them back across same. 

In days afore Transporter Bridge were put up, 
A ferryboat lay in the slip, 
And old Ted the boatman would row folks across 
At per tuppence per...Read more of this...

The Burning of the Leaves

by Laurence Binyon
 Now is the time for the burning of the leaves, 
They go to the fire; the nostrils prick with smoke 
Wandering slowly into the weeping mist. 
Brittle and blotched, ragged and rotten sheaves! 
A flame seizes the smouldering ruin, and bites 
On stubborn stalks that crackle as they resist. 
The last hollyhock’s fallen tower is dust: 
All the spices...Read more of this...

Making Light Of It

by Philip Levine
 I call out a secret name, the name
of the angel who guards my sleep,
and light grows in the east, a new light
like no other, as soft as the petals
of the blown rose in late summer.
Yes, it is late summer in the West.
Even the grasses climbing the Sierras
reach for the next outcropping of rock
with tough, burned fingers. The thistle
sheds its...Read more of this...

Sonnet XCV

by William Shakespeare
 How sweet and lovely dost thou make the shame
Which, like a canker in the fragrant rose,
Doth spot the beauty of thy budding name!
O, in what sweets dost thou thy sins enclose!
That tongue that tells the story of thy days,
Making lascivious comments on thy sport,
Cannot dispraise but in a kind of praise;
Naming thy name blesses an ill report.
O, what a...Read more of this...

Ametas And Thestylis Making Hay-Ropes

by Andrew Marvell
 Ametas
Think'st Thou that this Love can stand,
Whilst Thou still dost say me nay?
Love unpaid does soon disband:
Love binds Love as Hay binds Hay.

Thestylis
Think'st Thou that this Rope would twine
If we both should turn one way?
Where both parties so combine,
Neither Love will twist nor Hay.

Ametas
Thus you vain Excuses find,
Which your selve and us delay:
And Love tyes a Womans Mind
Looser then...Read more of this...

The Page And The Millers Daughter

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
 PAGE.

WHERE goest thou? Where?
Miller's daughter so fair!

Thy name, pray?--

MILLER'S DAUGHTER.

'Tis 
Lizzy.

PAGE.
Where goest thou? Where?
With the rake in thy hand?

MILLER'S DAUGHTER.
Father's meadows and land

To visit, I'm busy.

PAGE.
Dost go there alone?

MILLER'S DAUGHTER.
By this rake, sir, 'tis shown

That we're making the hay;
And the pears ripen fast
In the garden at last,

So I'll pick them to-day.

PAGE.
Is't a silent thicket I yonder view?

MILLER'S DAUGHTER.
Oh, yes!...Read more of this...

Sonnet CVI

by William Shakespeare
 When in the chronicle of wasted time
I see descriptions of the fairest wights,
And beauty making beautiful old rhyme
In praise of ladies dead and lovely knights,
Then, in the blazon of sweet beauty's best,
Of hand, of foot, of lip, of eye, of brow,
I see their antique pen would have express'd
Even such a beauty as you master now.
So all their praises are...Read more of this...

Dream Song 77: Seedy Henry rose up shy

by John Berryman
 Seedy Henry rose up shy in de world
& shaved & swung his barbells, duded Henry up
and p.a.'d poor thousands of persons on topics of grand
moment to Henry, ah to those less & none.
Wif a book of his in either hand
he is stript down to move on.

-”Come away, Mr. Bones.

-”Henry is tired of the winter,
& haircuts, & a squeamish comfy...Read more of this...

After Making Love We Hear Footsteps

by Galway Kinnell
 For I can snore like a bullhorn 
or play loud music 
or sit up talking with any reasonably sober Irishman 
and Fergus will only sink deeper 
into his dreamless sleep, which goes by all in one flash, 
but let there be that heavy breathing 
or a stifled come-cry anywhere in the house 
and he will wrench himself awake 
and...Read more of this...

Brumbys Run

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 It lies beyond the Western Pines 
Towards the sinking sun, 
And not a survey mark defines 
The bounds of "Brumby's Run". 

On odds and ends of mountain land, 
On tracks of range and rock 
Where no one else can make a stand, 
Old Brumby rears his stock. 

A wild, unhandled lot they are 
Of every shape and breed. 
They...Read more of this...

Making The Lion For All Its Got -- A Ballad

by Allen Ginsberg
 I came home and found a lion in my room...
[First draft of "The Lion for Real" CP 174-175]


A lion met America
in the road
they stared at each other
two figures on the crossroads in the desert.

America screamed
The lion roared
They leaped at each other
America desperate to win
Fighting with bombs, flamethrowers,
knives forks submarines.

The lion ate America, bit off her head
and loped off to...Read more of this...

Gods Law

by The Bible
“The law of Jehovah is perfect, bringing back the soul.
The reminder of Jehovah is trustworthy, making the inexperienced one wise.”—Ps. 19:7.
...Read more of this...

Sonnet I

by William Shakespeare
 FROM fairest creatures we desire increase,
That thereby beauty's rose might never die,
But as the riper should by time decease,
His tender heir might bear his memory:
But thou, contracted to thine own bright eyes,
Feed'st thy light'st flame with self-substantial fuel,
Making a famine where abundance lies,
Thyself thy foe, to thy sweet self too cruel.
Thou that art now the world's fresh ornament
And only...Read more of this...

Making It Work

by Philip Levine
 3-foot blue cannisters of nitro 
along a conveyor belt, slow fish 
speaking the language of silence. 
On the roof, I in my respirator 
patching the asbestos gas lines 
as big around as the thick waist 
of an oak tree. "These here are 
the veins of the place, stuff 
inside's the blood." We work in rain, 
heat, snow, sleet. First...Read more of this...

Big Miniature

by Dejan Stojanovic
To transform a grimace into a sound
Sounds impossible, yet it is possible
To transform a vision into music, 
To go outside an enslaved personality, 
To become impersonal by transforming
Into sand, into water, into light, 
To feel the air and breathe the air
By becoming the air, become
A bird, the first cell, the first man, 
Become a wandering comet, 
A dying star, a...Read more of this...

Take care, take good care of making noise in a tavern!

by Omar Khayyam
Take care, take good care of making noise in a tavern!
Pass the time there, but avoid all agitation. Sell the
turban, sell the book [the Koran] to buy wine. Finally,
let us pass through the medresseh [school of the mosques],
but let us not stop there....Read more of this...

The Bankrupt Peace-Maker

by Vachel Lindsay
 I opened the ink-well and smoke filled the room.
The smoke formed the giant frog-cat of my doom.
His web feet left dreadful slime tracks on the floor.
He had hammer and nails that he laid by the door.
He sprawled on the table, claw-hands in my hair.
He looked through my heart to the mud that was there.
Like a black-mailer hating his victim...Read more of this...

A Terre

by Wilfred Owen
 (Being the philosophy of many Soldiers.)


Sit on the bed; I'm blind, and three parts shell,
Be careful; can't shake hands now; never shall.
Both arms have mutinied against me -- brutes.
My fingers fidget like ten idle brats.

I tried to peg out soldierly -- no use!
One dies of war like any old disease.
This bandage feels like pennies on my eyes.
I have my...Read more of this...

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