Famous Pours Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Muse

by Meena Alexander
I was young when you came to me. 
Each thing rings its turn, 
you sang in my ear, a slip of a thing 
dressed like a convent girl—
white socks, shoes, 
dark blue pinafore, white blouse.

A pencil box in hand: girl, book, tree—
those were the words you gave me. 
Girl was penne, hair drawn back, 
gleaming on the scalp, 
the self...Read more of this...

Ode to the Muse

by Mary Darby Robinson
 O, let me seize thy pen sublime
That paints, in melting dulcet rhyme, 
The glowing pow'r, the magic art, 
Th' extatic raptures of the Heart; 
Soft Beauty's timid smile serene,
The dimples of Love's sportive mien; 
The sweet descriptive tale to trace; 
To picture Nature's winning grace;
To steal the tear from Pity's eye; 
To catch the sympathetic sigh; 
O teach me,...Read more of this...

O comrades dear, when hither ye repair

by Omar Khayyam
O comrades dear, when hither ye repair
In times to come, communion sweet to share,
While the cupbearer pours your old Magh wine,
Call poor Khayyam to mind, and breathe a prayer....Read more of this...

Epistle To My Brother George

by John Keats
 Full many a dreary hour have I past,
My brain bewildered, and my mind o'ercast
With heaviness; in seasons when I've thought
No spherey strains by me could e'er be caught
From the blue dome, though I to dimness gaze
On the far depth where sheeted lightning plays;
Or, on the wavy grass outstretched supinely,
Pry 'mong the stars, to strive to think divinely:
That I should...Read more of this...

Psalm 104

by Isaac Watts
 The glory of God in creation and providence.

My soul, thy great Creator praise:
When clothed in his celestial rays,
He in full majesty appears,
And, like a robe, his glory wears.

The heav'ns are for his curtains spread,
The unfathomed deep he makes his bed.
Clouds are his chariot when he flies
On winged storms across the skies.

Angels, whom his own breath inspires,
His ministers, are flaming...Read more of this...

Till the Friend pours his wine to glad my heart,

by Omar Khayyam
Till the Friend pours his wine to glad my heart,
No kisses to my face will heaven impart
They say, «Repent in time»; but how repent,
Ere Allah's grace hath softened my hard heart?...Read more of this...

Into the Dusk-Charged Air

by John Ashbery
 Far from the Rappahannock, the silent
Danube moves along toward the sea.
The brown and green Nile rolls slowly
Like the Niagara's welling descent.
Tractors stood on the green banks of the Loire
Near where it joined the Cher.
The St. Lawrence prods among black stones
And mud. But the Arno is all stones.
Wind ruffles the Hudson's
Surface. The Irawaddy is overflowing.
But the yellowish, gray Tiber
Is contained...Read more of this...

From "The Marshes Of The Glynn"

by Sidney Lanier
As the marsh-hen secretly builds on the watery sod,
Behold I will build me a nest on the greatness of God:
I will fly in the greatness of God as the marsh-hen flies
In the freedom that fills all the space ’twixt the marsh and the skies:
By so many roots as the marsh-grass sends in the sod
I will heartily lay me a-hold on...Read more of this...

Suzanne

by Leonard Cohen
 Suzanne takes you down to her place near the river 
You can hear the boats go by 
You can spend the night beside her 
And you know that she's half crazy 
But that's why you want to be there 
And she feeds you tea and oranges 
That come all the way from China 
And just when you mean to...Read more of this...

Barclay Of Ury

by John Greenleaf Whittier
 Up the streets of Aberdeen,
By the kirk and college green,
Rode the Laird of Ury;
Close behind him, close beside,
Foul of mouth and evil-eyed,
Pressed the mob in fury.

Flouted him the drunken churl,
Jeered at him the serving-girl,
Prompt to please her master;
And the begging carlin, late
Fed and clothed at Ury's gate,
Cursed him as he passed her.

Yet, with calm and stately mien,
Up the streets...Read more of this...

Berck-Plage

by Sylvia Plath
(1)

This is the sea, then, this great abeyance.
How the sun's poultice draws on my inflammation.

Electrifyingly-colored sherbets, scooped from the freeze
By pale girls, travel the air in scorched hands.

Why is it so quiet, what are they hiding?
I have two legs, and I move smilingly..

A sandy damper kills the vibrations;
It stretches for miles, the shrunk voices

Waving and crutchless, half their old size.
The...Read more of this...

The Poor Mans Lamb

by Anne Kingsmill Finch
 NOW spent the alter'd King, in am'rous Cares, 
The Hours of sacred Hymns and solemn Pray'rs: 
In vain the Alter waits his slow returns, 
Where unattended Incense faintly burns: 
In vain the whisp'ring Priests their Fears express, 
And of the Change a thousand Causes guess. 
Heedless of all their Censures He retires, 
And in his Palace feeds his secret...Read more of this...

189. Verses on Castle Gordon

by Robert Burns
 STREAMS that glide in orient plains,
Never bound by Winter’s chains;
 Glowing here on golden sands,
There immix’d with foulest stains
 From Tyranny’s empurpled hands;
These, their richly gleaming waves,
I leave to tyrants and their slaves;
Give me the stream that sweetly laves
 The banks by Castle Gordon.


Spicy forests, ever gray,
Shading from the burning ray
 Hapless wretches sold to toil;
Or the ruthless native’s...Read more of this...

Sympathy

by Emily Brontë
 There should be no despair for you
While nightly stars are burning,
While evening pours its silent dew
And sunshine gilds the morning.
There should be no despair - though tears
May flow down like a river:
Are not the best beloved of years
Around your heart forever? 

They weep - you weep - it must be so;
Winds sigh as you are sighing,
And Winter sheds his...Read more of this...

he and the hilltown

by Rg Gregory
 when they look into his mind they find a hill town
somewhat surprised they go off to their learned books
outside (architecturally) he’d seems a little wind-blown
not special – a common sort of shackman by his looks
not the sure kind to want the sun to get its hooks
into his self-containment (his bunched-up notions)
thoughts crammed like the heads of ripened corn in...Read more of this...

Roast Leviathan

by Louis Untermeyer
"Old Jews!" Well, David, aren't we?
What news is that to make you see so red,
To swear and almost tear your beard in half?
Jeered at? Well, let them laugh.
You can laugh longer when you're dead.
What? Are you still too blind to see?
Have you forgot your Midrash!... They were right,
The little goyim, with their angry stones.
You should be buried in the desert...Read more of this...

The Book of Thel

by William Blake
 THEL'S MOTTO 

1 Does the Eagle know what is in the pit? 
2 Or wilt thou go ask the Mole?
3 Can Wisdom be put in a silver rod?
4 Or Love in a golden bowl? 

I 

1.1 The daughters of the Seraphim led round their sunny flocks, 
1.2 All but the youngest: she in paleness sought the secret air,
1.3 To...Read more of this...

Spring Day

by Amy Lowell
 Bath
The day is fresh-washed and fair, and there is 
a smell of tulips and narcissus
in the air.
The sunshine pours in at the bath-room window and 
bores through the water
in the bath-tub in lathes and planes of greenish-white. It 
cleaves the water
into flaws like a jewel, and cracks it to bright light.
Little spots of sunshine lie on the surface of...Read more of this...

Each mouthful of wine which the cupbearer pours into

by Omar Khayyam
Each mouthful of wine which the cupbearer pours into
the cup helps to extinguish the fire of anger in thy burning
eyes. Has it not been said, O great God, that wine
is an elixir which drives from the heart a hundred sorrows
that oppress it?
326...Read more of this...

The House Of Dust: Part 03: 05: Melody In A Restaurant

by Conrad Aiken
 The cigarette-smoke loops and slides above us,
Dipping and swirling as the waiter passes;
You strike a match and stare upon the flame.
The tiny fire leaps in your eyes a moment,
And dwindles away as silently as it came.

This melody, you say, has certain voices—
They rise like nereids from a river, singing,
Lift white faces, and dive to darkness again.
Wherever you go you...Read more of this...

I Vent My Wrath On Animals

by Jerome Rothenberg
 I came alive
when things went
crazy.
I pulled the plug on
the reports of 
sturm & drang
When someone
signaled I 
left open
what I 
could not close.
I broke a 
covenant that
was more fierce
than murder.
I vent my wrath
on animals
pretending they will turn
divine.
I open up
rare certainties
that test free will.
I take from animals
a place in which
the taste of death
pours from their mouths
& drowns them.
I support a 
lesser...Read more of this...

The Widows Home

by Mary Darby Robinson
 Close on the margin of a brawling brook
That bathes the low dell's bosom, stands a Cot;
O'ershadow'd by broad Alders. At its door
A rude seat, with an ozier canopy
Invites the weary traveller to rest.
'Tis a poor humble dwelling; yet within,
The sweets of joy domestic, oft have made
The long hour not unchearly, while the Moor
Was covered with deep snow, and the...Read more of this...

202. On the Death of Robert Dundas Esq. of Arniston

by Robert Burns
 LONE on the bleaky hills the straying flocks
Shun the fierce storms among the sheltering rocks;
Down from the rivulets, red with dashing rains,
The gathering floods burst o’er the distant plains;
Beneath the blast the leafless forests groan;
The hollow caves return a hollow moan.
Ye hills, ye plains, ye forests, and ye caves,
Ye howling winds, and wintry swelling waves!
Unheard, unseen, by human ear...Read more of this...

Milton

by Henry Van Dyke
 I 

Lover of beauty, walking on the height 
Of pure philosophy and tranquil song; 
Born to behold the visions that belong 
To those who dwell in melody and light; 
Milton, thou spirit delicate and bright!
What drew thee down to join the Roundhead throng
Of iron-sided warriors, rude and strong, 
Fighting for freedom in a world half night? 

Lover of Liberty...Read more of this...

The Four Brothers

by Carl Sandburg
 MAKE war songs out of these;
Make chants that repeat and weave.
Make rhythms up to the ragtime chatter of the machine guns;
Make slow-booming psalms up to the boom of the big guns.
Make a marching song of swinging arms and swinging legs,
 Going along,
 Going along,
On the roads from San Antonio to Athens, from Seattle to Bagdad—
The boys and men in...Read more of this...

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