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Famous Porridge Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry
...I cannot eat my porridge,
I weary of my play;
No longer can I sleep at night,
No longer romp by day!
Though forty pounds was once my weight,
I'm shy of thirty now;
I pine, I wither and I fade
Through love of Martha Clow.

As she rolled by this morning
I heard the nurse girl say:
"She weighs just twenty-seven pounds
And she's one year old to-day."
I threw a kiss that nestled...Read more of this...
by Field, Eugene



...in the name of dullness, be
The well-hung Balaam and cold Caleb free.
And canting Nadab let oblivion damn,
Who made new porridge for the Paschal Lamb.
Let friendship's holy band some names assure:
Some their own worth, and some let scorn secure.
Nor shall the rascal rabble here have place,
Whom kings no titles gave, and God no grace:
Not bull-faced Jonas, who could statutes draw
To mean rebellion, and make treason law.
But he, though bad, is follow'd by a worse,
The wretch, w...Read more of this...
by Dryden, John
...d never shoot it dead.

Although his cook afar doth forage
 For food to woo his appetite,
The old man lives on milk and porridge
 And now it is his last delight
At eve if one lone linnet lingers
 To pick crushed almonds from his fingers....Read more of this...
by Service, Robert William
...In the middle of our porridge plates
There was a blue butterfly painted
And each morning we tried who should reach the
butterfly first.
Then the Grandmother said: "Do not eat the poor
butterfly."
That made us laugh.
Always she said it and always it started us laughing.
It seemed such a sweet little joke.
I was certain that one fine morning
The butterfly would fly out of our plat...Read more of this...
by Mansfield, Katherine
...As I look back,
I see her rise at dawn,
 Our boots to black;
Pull us from drowsy bed,
 Wet sponge to pass,
And speed us porridge fed
 To morning class.

Our duds to make and mend,
 Far into night,
O'er needle she would spend
 By bleary light.
Yet as her head drooped low,
 With withered hair,
It seemed the candle glow
 Made halo there.

And so with silvered pow
 I sigh because
They don't make women now
 Like Mammy was....Read more of this...
by Service, Robert William



...A barefoot boy I went to school
 To save a cobbler's fee,
For though the porridge pot was full
 A frugal folk were we;
We baked our bannocks, spun our wool,
 And counted each bawbee.

We reft our living from the soil,
 And I was shieling bred;
My father's hands were warped with toil,
 And crooked with grace he said.
My mother made the kettle boil
 As spinning wheel she fed.

My granny smoked a pipe of clay,
 And yammered of her y...Read more of this...
by Service, Robert William
...sibly it is even worse to eat oatmeal with an imaginary 
 companion. 
Nevertheless, yesterday morning, I ate my oatmeal porridge, 
 as he called it with John Keats.
Keats said I was absolutely right to invite him: 
due to its glutinous texture, gluey lumpishness, hint of slime, 
 and unsual willingness to disintigrate, oatmeal should 
 not be eaten alone.
He said that in his opinion, however, it is perfectly OK to eat 
 it with an imaginary companion, and that he himself had ...Read more of this...
by Kinnell, Galway
...rn wall still hot 
Full-bellied tankards foamy-topped, the delicate 
Half-lyric lamb, a new loaf's billowy curves, 
Nor porridge, nor the tingling taste of oranges.
—An angel has no nerves.

Far richer they! I know the senses' witchery 
Guards us like air, from heavens too big to see; 
Imminent death to man that barb'd sublimity 
And dazzling edge of beauty unsheathed would be. 
Yet here, within this tiny, charmed interior, 
This parlour of the brain, their Maker shares 
With...Read more of this...
by Lewis, C S
...Pease porridge hot,  Pease porridge cold,Pease porridge in the pot,  Nine days old.Some like it hot,  Some like it cold,Some like it in the pot,  Nine days old. ...Read more of this...
by Goose, Mother
...ints blue,---claret crowns his cup: 
Nokes outdares Stokes in azure feats,---
Both gorge. Who fished the murex up?
What porridge had John Keats?

* 1 The Syrian Venus.
* 2 Molluscs from which the famous Tyrian
* purple dye was obtained....Read more of this...
by Browning, Robert
...Why is there no monument
To Porridge in our land?
It it's good enough to eat,
It's good enough to stand!

On a plinth in London
A statue we should see
Of Porridge made in Scotland
Signed, "Oatmeal, O.B.E."
(By a young dog of three)...Read more of this...
by Milligan, Spike
...closure
a bloodshot mind
finding itself unspeakable
What is the last thought?
Now I will let you know?
or, Now I know?
(porridge of skull-splinters, brain tissue
mouth and throat membrane, cranial fluid) 

Shattered head on the breast
of a wooded hill
Laid down there endlessly so
tendrils soaked into matted compose
became a root
torqued over the faint springhead
groin whence illegible
matter leaches: worm-borings, spurts of silt
volumes of sporic changes
hair long blown into ...Read more of this...
by Rich, Adrienne
...ry fibre seems to murmur "Excelsior!" - yet swallows, ere returning to the toothsome dainty, great mouthfuls of oatmeal-porridge and winkles: and just as the perfect Connoisseur in Claret permits himself but one delicate sip, and then tosses off a pint or more of boarding-school beer: so also - 


I NEVER loved a dear Gazelle -
NOR ANYTHING THAT COST ME MUCH:
HIGH PRICES PROFIT THOSE WHO SELL,
BUT WHY SHOULD I BE FOND OF SUCH? 

To glad me with his soft black eye
MY SON COMES...Read more of this...
by Carroll, Lewis
...pen
And inside there was darkness, the stars and the moon.

Out on the lake, a girl would laugh.
 "Sister, here is your porridge, sister,"
I would call; and the reeds would whisper,
 "Go to sleep, go to sleep, little swan."
My legs were all hard and webbed, and the silky

Hairs of my wings sank away like stars
 In the ripples that ran in and out of the reeds:
I heard through the lap and hiss of water
 Someone's "Sister . . . sister," far away on the shore,
And then as I opene...Read more of this...
by Jarrell, Randall
...wn,  And asked the way to Norwich;He went by the south, and burnt his mouth  With eating cold pease porridge. ...Read more of this...
by Goose, Mother
...eather,
Broke from the warmth of his home into that fog of the devil,
Into the smoke of that witch brewing her damnable porridge!

Lo, when he vanished from sight, knowing the evil that threatened,
Forth with importunate cries hastened his father and mother.
"Peter!" they shrieked in alarm, "Peter!" and evermore "Peter!"--
Ran from the house to the barn, ran from the barn to the garden,
Ran to the corn-crib anon, then to the smoke-house proceeded;
Henhouse and woodpile they p...Read more of this...
by Field, Eugene
...we know
yet. We can see her clearly
but for her it is running in black smoke.
The cluster of cells in her swelling
like porridge boiling, and bursting,
like grapes, we think. Or we think of
explosions in mud; but we know nothing.
All around us the trees
and the grasses light up with forgiveness,
so green and at this time
of the year healthy.
We would like to call something
out to her. Some form of cheering.
There is pain but no arrival at anything....Read more of this...
by Atwood, Margaret
...u would never hear me grouse
If I had a little house.

Oh if I had just enough
Dough to buy the needful stuff;
Milk and porridge, toast and tea,
How contented I would be!
You could have your cake and wine,
I on cabbage soup would dine,
Joking to the journey's end -
Had I just enough to spend.

Oh had I no boss to please
I'd give thanks on bended knees;
Could I to myself belong,
I would fill the day with song.
Freedom's crust is sweeter far
Than control and caviar;
How my ragg...Read more of this...
by Service, Robert William

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Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry