Famous Potion Poems by Famous Poets

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

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68. The Holy Fair

by Robert Burns
 UPON 1 a simmer Sunday morn
 When Nature’s face is fair,
I walked forth to view the corn,
 An’ snuff the caller air.
The rising sun owre Galston muirs
 Wi’ glorious light was glintin;
The hares were hirplin down the furrs,
 The lav’rocks they were chantin
 Fu’ sweet that day.


As lightsomely I glowr’d abroad,
 To see a scene sae gay,
Three hizzies, early...Read more of this...

You Thought I Was That Type

by Anna Akhmatova
 You thought I was that type:
That you could forget me,
And that I'd plead and weep
And throw myself under the hooves of a bay mare,

Or that I'd ask the sorcerers
For some magic potion made from roots and send you a terrible gift:
My precious perfumed handkerchief.

Damn you! I will not grant your cursed soul
Vicarious tears or a single glance.

And I swear...Read more of this...

On Pain

by Kahlil Gibran
 Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses 
your understanding. 

Even as the stone of the fruit must break, that its 
heart may stand in the sun, so must you know pain. 

And could you keep your heart in wonder at the 
daily miracles of your life, your pain would not seem 
less wondrous than your joy;...Read more of this...

Ive a Pain in my Head

by Jane Austen
 'I've a pain in my head' 
Said the suffering Beckford; 
To her Doctor so dread. 
'Oh! what shall I take for't?'

Said this Doctor so dread 
Whose name it was Newnham. 
'For this pain in your head 
Ah! What can you do Ma'am?'

Said Miss Beckford, 'Suppose 
If you think there's no risk, 
I take a good Dose 
Of calomel brisk.'--

'What...Read more of this...

The Night Game

by Robert Pinsky
 Some of us believe
We would have conceived romantic
Love out of our own passions
With no precedents,
Without songs and poetry--
Or have invented poetry and music
As a comb of cells for the honey.

Shaped by ignorance,
A succession of new worlds,
Congruities improvised by
Immigrants or children.

I once thought most people were Italian,
Jewish or Colored.
To be white and called
Something like Ed Ford
Seemed aristocratic,
A rare distinction.

Possibly I...Read more of this...

87. The Twa Dogs

by Robert Burns
 ’TWAS 1 in that place o’ Scotland’s isle,
That bears the name o’ auld King Coil,
Upon a bonie day in June,
When wearin’ thro’ the afternoon,
Twa dogs, that were na thrang at hame,
Forgather’d ance upon a time.
 The first I’ll name, they ca’d him Caesar,
Was keepit for His Honor’s pleasure:
His hair, his size, his mouth, his lugs,
Shew’d he was nane o’...Read more of this...

The Height of Land

by Duncan Campbell Scott
 Here is the height of land:
The watershed on either hand
Goes down to Hudson Bay
Or Lake Superior;
The stars are up, and far away
The wind sounds in the wood, wearier
Than the long Ojibwa cadence
In which Potàn the Wise
Declares the ills of life
And Chees-que-ne-ne makes a mournful sound
Of acquiescence. The fires burn low
With just sufficient glow
To light the flakes of ash that...Read more of this...

The edge of the green wave whitely doth hiss

by Fernando Pessoa
The edge of the green wave whitely doth hiss

Upon the wetted sand. I look, yet dream.

Surely reality cannot be this!

Somehow, somewhere this surely doth but seem!

The sky, the sea, this great extent disclosed

Of outward joy, this bulk of life we feel,

Is not something, but something interposed.

Only what in this is not this is real.

If this be to have sense, if...Read more of this...

His Litany to the Holy Spirit

by Robert Herrick
 In the hour of my distress, 
When temptations me oppress, 
And when I my sins confess, 
Sweet Spirit comfort me! 

When I lie within my bed, 
Sick in heart, and sick in head, 
And with doubts discomforted, 
Sweet Spirit comfort me! 

When the house doth sigh and weep, 
And the world is drown'd in sleep, 
Yet mine eyes the...Read more of this...

Through Agony

by Claude McKay
 I 

All night, through the eternity of night, 
Pain was my potion though I could not feel. 
Deep in my humbled heart you ground your heel, 
Till I was reft of even my inner light, 
Till reason from my mind had taken flight, 
And all my world went whirling in a reel. 
And all my swarthy strength turned cold...Read more of this...

549. Epistle to Colonel de Peyster

by Robert Burns
 MY honor’d Colonel, deep I feel
Your interest in the Poet’s weal;
Ah! now sma’ heart hae I to speel
 The steep Parnassus,
Surrounded thus by bolus pill,
 And potion glasses.


O what a canty world were it,
Would pain and care and sickness spare it;
And Fortune favour worth and merit
 As they deserve;
And aye rowth o’ roast-beef and claret,
 Syne, wha wad starve?


Dame...Read more of this...

The Captive

by Rudyard Kipling
 Not with an outcry to Allah nor any complaining
He answered his name at the muster and stood to the chaining.
When the twin anklets were nipped on the leg-bars that held them,
He brotherly greeted the armourers stooping to weld them.
Ere the sad dust of the marshalled feet of the chain-gang swallowed him,
Observing him nobly at ease, I alighted and followed...Read more of this...

The Death Of The Fly

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
 WITH eagerness he drinks the treach'rous potion,

Nor stops to rest, by the first taste misled;
Sweet is the draught, but soon all power of motion

He finds has from his tender members fled;
No longer has he strength to plume his wing,
No longer strength to raise his head, poor thing!
E'en in enjoyment's hour his life he loses,
His little foot to bear his...Read more of this...

Paradise Motel

by Charles Simic
 Millions were dead; everybody was innocent.
I stayed in my room. The President
Spoke of war as of a magic love potion.
My eyes were opened in astonishment.
In a mirror my face appeared to me
Like a twice-canceled postage stamp.

I lived well, but life was awful.
there were so many soldiers that day,
So many refugees crowding the roads.
Naturally, they all vanished
With a touch of...Read more of this...

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