Famous Popular Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Popular poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous popular poems. These examples illustrate what a famous popular poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Denise Duhamel
According to Culture Shock:
A Guide to Customs and Etiquette
of Filipinos, when my husband says yes,
he could also mean one of the following:
a.) I don't know.
b.) If you say so.
c.) If it will please you.
d.) I hope I have said yes unenthusiastically enough
for you to realize I mean no.
You can imagine the confusion
surrounding our movie dates, the laundry,
who...Read more of this...
by
William Butler Yeats
I
Under the Great Comedian's tomb the crowd.
A bundle of tempestuous cloud is blown
About the sky; where that is clear of cloud
Brightness remains; a brighter star shoots down;
What shudders run through all that animal blood?
What is this sacrifice? Can someone there
Recall the Cretan barb that pierced a star?
Rich foliage that the starlight glittered through,
A frenzied crowd, and where the branches...Read more of this...
by
Edward Field
The poster with my picture on it
Is hanging on the bulletin board in the Post Office.
I stand by it hoping to be recognized
Posing first full face and then profile
But everybody passes by and I have to admit
The photograph was taken some years ago.
I was unwanted then and I'm unwanted now
Ah guess ah'll go up echo mountain and crah.
I wish...Read more of this...
by
William Cowper
Hark! 'tis the twanging horn! O'er yonder bridge,
That with its wearisome but needful length
Bestrides the wintry flood, in which the moon
Sees her unwrinkled face reflected bright,
He comes, the herald of a noisy world,
With spatter'd boots, strapp'd waist, and frozen locks;
News from all nations lumb'ring at his back.
True to his charge, the close-pack'd load behind,
Yet careless what he brings, his...Read more of this...
by
Richard Hugo
Dear Condor: Much thanks for that telephonic support
from North Carolina when I suddenly went ape
in the Iowa tulips. Lord, but I'm ashamed.
I was afraid, it seemed, according to the doctor
of impending success, winning some poetry prizes
or getting a wet kiss. The more popular I got,
the softer the soft cry in my head: Don't believe them.
You were never good. Then...Read more of this...
by
Ogden Nash
Being a father
Is quite a bother.
You are as free as air
With time to spare,
You're a fiscal rocket
With change in your pocket,
And then one morn
A child is born.
Your life has been runcible,
Irresponsible,
Like an arrow or javelin
You've been constantly travelin'.
But mostly, I daresay,
Without a chaise percée,
To which by comparison
Nothing's embarison.
But all children matures,
Maybe even yours.
You improve them mentally
And straighten them dentally,
They...Read more of this...
by
William Butler Yeats
She that but little patience knew,
From childhood on, had now so much
A grey gull lost its fear and flew
Down to her cell and there alit,
And there endured her fingers' touch
And from her fingers ate its bit.
Did she in touching that lone wing
Recall the years before her mind
Became a bitter, an abstract thing,
Her thought some popular enmity:
Blind and leader of...Read more of this...
by
Wystan Hugh (W H) Auden
He was found by the Bureau of Statistics to beOne against whom there was no official complaint,And all the reports on his conduct agreeThat, in the modern sense of an old-fashioned word, he was asaint,For in everything he did he served the Greater Community.Except for the War till the day he retiredHe worked in a factory and never got fired,But...Read more of this...
by
Robert Southey
Author Note: The story of the following ballad was related to me, when a school boy, as a fact which had really happened in the North of England. I have
adopted the metre of Mr. Lewis's Alonzo and Imogene--a poem deservedly
popular.
I.
Who is she, the poor Maniac, whose wildly-fix'd eyes
Seem a heart overcharged to express?
She weeps not, yet often and deeply...Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
Oh you who are shy of the popular eye,
(Though most of us seek to survive it)
Just think of the goldfish who wanted to die
Because she could never be private.
There are pebbles and reeds for aquarium needs
Of eel and of pike who are bold fish;
But who gives a thought to a sheltering spot
For the sensitive soul of a goldfish?
So the...Read more of this...
by
Lewis Carroll
The Beaver's Lesson
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.
Then the Butcher contrived an ingenious plan
For making a separate sally;
And fixed on a spot unfrequented by man,
A dismal and desolate valley....Read more of this...
by
William Butler Yeats
They hold their public meetings where
Our most renowned patriots stand,
One among the birds of the air,
A stumpier on either hand;
And all the popular statesmen say
That purity built up the State
And after kept it from decay;
And let all base ambition be,
For intellect would make us proud
And pride bring in impurity:
The three old rascals laugh aloud....Read more of this...
by
William Butler Yeats
Hic. On the grey sand beside the shallow stream
Under your old wind-beaten tower, where still
A lamp burns on beside the open book
That Michael Robartes left, you walk in the moon,
And, though you have passed the best of life, still trace,
Enthralled by the unconquerable delusion,
Magical shapes.
Ille. By the help of an image
I call to my own opposite, summon all
That I...Read more of this...
by
Tupac Shakur
Lets not talk of money
let us 4 get the world
4 a moment lets just reveal
in our eternal comadery
in my heart i know
there will never be a day
that i don't remember
the times we shared
u were a friend
when i was at my lowest
and being a friend to me
was not easy or fashionable
regardless of how popular
I became u remain
my unconditional friend
unconditional in it's...Read more of this...
by
Phillis Wheatley
The poet asks, and Phillis can't refuse
To show th' obedience of the Infant muse.
She knows the Quail of most inviting taste
Fed Israel's army in the dreary waste;
And what's on Britain's royal standard borne,
But the tall, graceful, rampant Unicorn?
The Emerald with a vivid verdure glows
Among the gems which regal crowns compose;
Boston's a town, polite and debonair,
To which the beaux...Read more of this...
by
Billy Collins
Remember the 1340's? We were doing a dance called the Catapult.
You always wore brown, the color craze of the decade,
and I was draped in one of those capes that were popular,
the ones with unicorns and pomegranates in needlework.
Everyone would pause for beer and onions in the afternoon,
and at night we would play a game called "Find the Cow."
Everything was...Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
Drunk or sober Uncle Jim
Played the boy;
Never glum or sour or grim,
Oozin' joy.
Most folks thought he was no good,
Blamin' him;
But where kiddies were, you could
Bank on Jim.
Sure he allus hated work,
Lovin' play.
"Jest a good fer nuthin' jerk,"
Lots would say.
Yet how the children fell for him,
Whooped with glee:
Guys so popular as Jim
Seldom...Read more of this...
by
Andrew Marvell
Sit further, and make room for thine own fame,
Where just desert enrolles thy honour'd Name
The good Interpreter. Some in this task
Take of the Cypress vail, but leave a mask,
Changing the Latine, but do more obscure
That sence in English which was bright and pure.
So of Translators they are Authors grown,
For ill Translators make the Book their own.
Others do strive with...Read more of this...
by
William Butler Yeats
(Imitated from Ronsard)
Dear Craoibhin Aoibhin, look into our case.
When we are high and airy hundreds say
That if we hold that flight they'll leave the place,
While those same hundreds mock another day
Because we have made our art of common things,
So bitterly, you'd dream they longed to look
All their lives through into some drift of wings.
You've dandled them and fed them...Read more of this...
by
Charles Bukowski
having the low down blues and going
into a restraunt to eat.
you sit at a table.
the waitress smiles at you.
she's dumpy. her ass is too big.
she radiates kindess and symphaty.
live with her 3 months and a man would no real agony.
o.k., you'll tip her 15 percent.
you order a turkey sandwich and a
beer.
the man at the table across from you
has watery...Read more of this...
by
Friedrich von Schiller
I, too, at length discerned great Hercules' energy mighty,--
Saw his shade. He himself was not, alas, to be seen.
Round him were heard, like the screaming of birds,
the screams of tragedians,
And, with the baying of dogs, barked dramaturgists around.
There stood the giant in all his terrors; his bow was extended,
And the bolt, fixed on the string, steadily aimed at the...Read more of this...
by
William Topaz McGonagall
All ye tourists who wish to be away
From the crowded city for a brief holiday;
The town of Nairn is worth a visit, I do confess,
And it's only about fifteen miles from Inverness.
And in the summer season it's a very popular bathing-place,
And the visitors from London and Edinburgh finds solace,
As they walk along the yellow sand beach inhaling fresh...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
The Popular Heart is a Cannon first --
Subsequent a Drum --
Bells for an Auxiliary
And an Afterward of Rum --
Not a Tomorrow to know its name
Nor a Past to stare --
Ditches for Realms and a Trip to Jail
For a Souvenir --...Read more of this...
by
William Butler Yeats
Because there is safety in derision
I talked about an apparition,
I took no trouble to convince,
Or seem plausible to a man of sense.
Distrustful of thar popular eye
Whether it be bold or sly.
Fifteen apparitions have I seen;
The worst a coat upon a coat-hanger.
I have found nothing half so good
As my long-planned half solitude,
Where I can sit up half the night
With some...Read more of this...
by
Robert Frost
But outer Space,
At least this far,
For all the fuss
Of the populace
Stays more popular
Than populous...Read more of this...
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