Famous On Base Poems by Famous Poets

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

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The Ballad Of The Ice-Worm Cocktail

by Robert William Service
 To Dawson Town came Percy Brown from London on the Thames.
A pane of glass was in his eye, and stockings on his stems.
Upon the shoulder of his coat a leather pad he wore,
To rest his deadly rifle when it wasn't seeking gore;
The which it must have often been, for Major Percy Brown,
According to his story was a hunter of...Read more of this...

Procreation

by Robert William Service
 It hurts my pride that I should be
 The issue of a night of lust;
Yet even Bishops, you'll agree,
 Obey the biologic 'must';
Though no doubt with more dignity
 Than we of layman dust.

I think the Lord made a mistake
 When he designed the human race,
That man and angel in the make
 Should have brutality for base.
Jehovah might have planned...Read more of this...

Djolan

by Ellis Parker Butler
 Soft was the night, the eve how airy,
When through the big, fat dictionary
I wandered on in careless ease,
And read the a's, b's, c's and d's!

But stop! What is this form I see,
Beginning with a hump-backed d?
I pause! I gasp! I falter there!
It is the djolan, I declare!

It is the djolan, wond'rous word!
The Buceros plicatus bird!
Ne'er, ne'er before had I...Read more of this...

Sparkles from The Wheel

by Walt Whitman
 1
WHERE the city’s ceaseless crowd moves on, the live-long day, 
Withdrawn, I join a group of children watching—I pause aside with them. 

By the curb, toward the edge of the flagging, 
A knife-grinder works at his wheel, sharpening a great knife; 
Bending over, he carefully holds it to the stone—by foot and knee,
With measur’d tread, he turns rapidly—As he...Read more of this...

Motel Seedy

by Thomas Lux
 The artisans of this room, who designed the lamp base
(a huge red slug with a hole
where its heart should be) or chose this print
of a butterscotch sunset,
must have been abused in art class
as children, forced to fingerpaint
with a nose, or a tongue. To put this color
green--exhausted grave grass--to cinder blocks
takes an understanding of loneliness
and/or institutions that terrifies.
It would seem...Read more of this...

The Comforters

by Rudyard Kipling
 Until thy feet have trod the Road
 Advise not wayside folk,
 Nor till thy back has borne the Load
 Break in upon the broke.

 Chase not with undesired largesse
 Of sympathy the heart
 Which, knowing her own bitterness,
 Presumes to dwell apart.

 Employ not that glad hand to raise
 The God-forgotten head
 To Heaven and all the neighbours' gaze--
...Read more of this...

104. The Lament

by Robert Burns
 O THOU pale orb that silent shines
 While care-untroubled mortals sleep!
Thou seest a wretch who inly pines.
 And wanders here to wail and weep!
 With woe I nightly vigils keep,
Beneath thy wan, unwarming beam;
 And mourn, in lamentation deep,
How life and love are all a dream!


I joyless view thy rays adorn
 The faintly-marked, distant hill;
I joyless view thy trembling...Read more of this...

Poetry

by Marianne Moore
 I, too, dislike it: there are things that are important beyond all 
 this fiddle.
 Reading it, however, with a perfect contempt for it, one 
 discovers in
 it after all, a place for the genuine.
 Hands that can grasp, eyes
 that can dilate, hair that can rise
 if it must, these things are important not because a

high-sounding interpretation...Read more of this...

Want

by Robert Herrick
 Want is a softer wax, that takes thereon,
This, that, and every base impression,...Read more of this...

On a Columnar Self --

by Emily Dickinson
 On a Columnar Self --
How ample to rely
In Tumult -- or Extremity --
How good the Certainty

That Lever cannot pry --
And Wedge cannot divide
Conviction -- That Granitic Base --
Though None be on our Side --

Suffice Us -- for a Crowd --
Ourself -- and Rectitude --
And that Assembly -- not far off
From furthest Spirit -- God --...Read more of this...

Life -- is what we make of it --

by Emily Dickinson
 Life -- is what we make of it --
Death -- we do not know --
Christ's acquaintance with Him
Justify Him -- though --

He -- would trust no stranger --
Other -- could betray --
Just His own endorsement --
That -- sufficeth Me --

All the other Distance
He hath traversed first --
No New Mile remaineth --
Far as Paradise --

His sure foot preceding --
Tender Pioneer...Read more of this...

Base of all Metaphysics The

by Walt Whitman
 AND now, gentlemen, 
A word I give to remain in your memories and minds, 
As base, and finale too, for all metaphysics. 

(So, to the students, the old professor, 
At the close of his crowded course.)

Having studied the new and antique, the Greek and Germanic systems, 
Kant having studied and stated—Fichte and Schelling and Hegel, 
Stated the lore of...Read more of this...

Base Details

by Siegfried Sassoon
 If I were fierce, and bald, and short of breath 
I'd live with scarlet Majors at the Base, 
And speed glum heroes up the line to death. 
You'd see me with my puffy petulant face, 
Guzzling and gulping in the best hotel, 
Reading the Roll of Honour. "Poor young chap," 
I'd say -- "I used to know his father...Read more of this...

O skyey wheel, all base men you supply

by Omar Khayyam
O skyey wheel, all base men you supply
With baths, mills, and canals that run not dry,
While good men have to pawn their goods for bread:
Pray, who would give a fig for such a sky?...Read more of this...

Let not base avarice enslave thy mind,

by Omar Khayyam
Let not base avarice enslave thy mind,
Nor vain ambition in its trammels bind;
Be sharp as fire, as running water swift,
Not, like earth's dust, the sport of every wind!...Read more of this...

Twas Love -- not me

by Emily Dickinson
 'Twas Love -- not me --
Oh punish -- pray --
The Real one died for Thee --
Just Him -- not me --

Such Guilt -- to love Thee -- most!
Doom it beyond the Rest --
Forgive it -- last --
'Twas base as Jesus -- most!

Let Justice not mistake --
We Two -- looked so alike --
Which was the Guilty Sake --
'Twas Love's --...Read more of this...

Vexed by this wheel of things, that pets the base,

by Omar Khayyam
Vexed by this wheel of things, that pets the base,
My sorrow-laden life drags on apace;
Like rosebud, from the storm I wrap me close,
And blood-spots on my heart, like tulip, trace....Read more of this...

An Arundel Tomb

by Philip Larkin
 Side by side, their faces blurred,
The earl and countess lie in stone,
Their proper habits vaguely shown
As jointed armour, stiffened pleat,
And that faint hint of the absurd -
The little dogs under their feet.

Such plainness of the pre-baroque
Hardly involves the eye, until
It meets his left-hand gauntlet, still
Clasped empty in the other; and
One sees, with a sharp tender shock,
His hand withdrawn, holding...Read more of this...

241. Written in Friars' Carse Hermitage (Second Version)

by Robert Burns
 THOU whom chance may hither lead,
Be thou clad in russet weed,
Be thou deckt in silken stole,
Grave these counsels on thy soul.


 Life is but a day at most,
Sprung from night,—in darkness lost;
Hope not sunshine ev’ry hour,
Fear not clouds will always lour.


 As Youth and Love with sprightly dance,
Beneath thy morning star advance,
Pleasure with her siren air
May delude the thoughtless...Read more of this...

Lewin and Gynneth

by Mary Darby Robinson
 "WHEN will my troubled soul have rest?"
The beauteous LEWIN cried;
As thro' the murky shade of night
With frantic step she hied. 

"When shall those eyes my GYNNETH'S face,
My GYNNETH'S form survey ?
When shall those longing eyes again
Behold the dawn of day ?" 

Cold are the dews that wet my cheek,
The night-mist damps the ground;
Appalling echoes strike mine ear,
And spectres gleam...Read more of this...

A Satyre Against Mankind

by John Wilmot
 Were I - who to my cost already am
One of those strange, prodigious creatures, man -
A spirit free to choose for my own share
What sort of flesh and blood I pleased to wear,
I'd be a dog, a monkey, or a bear,
Or anything but that vain animal,
Who is so proud of being rational.

His senses are too gross; and he'll contrive
A...Read more of this...

The Faerie Queene Book VI Canto X

by Edmund Spenser
Calidore sees the Graces daunce,
To Colins melody:
The whiles his Pastorell is led,
[I]nto captiuity.
 

W Ho now does follow the foule Blatant Beast,
Whilest Calidore does follow that faire Mayd,
Vnmyndfull of his vow and high beheast,
Which by the Faery Queene was on him layd,
That he should neuer leaue, nor be delayd
From chacing him, till he had it attchieued?
But now entrapt of loue,...Read more of this...

No base or light-weight coins pass current here,

by Omar Khayyam
No base or light-weight coins pass current here,
Of such a broom has swept our dwelling clear
Forth from the tavern comes a sage and cries,
«Drink! for ye all must sleep through ages drear»...Read more of this...

Sonnets xi

by William Shakespeare
 THEY that have power to hurt and will do none, 
That do not do the thing they most do show, 
Who, moving others, are themselves as stone, 
Unmoved, cold, and to temptation slow-- 
They rightly do inherit heaven's graces, 
And husband nature's riches from expense; 
They are the Lords and owners of their faces, 
Others, but stewards of their...Read more of this...

466. Ode for General Washington's Birthday

by Robert Burns
 NO Spartan tube, no Attic shell,
 No lyre Æolian I awake;
’Tis liberty’s bold note I swell,
 Thy harp, Columbia, let me take!
See gathering thousands, while I sing,
A broken chain exulting bring,
 And dash it in a tyrant’s face,
And dare him to his very beard,
And tell him he no more is feared—
 No more the despot of Columbia’s race!
A tyrant’s...Read more of this...

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