Famous Press Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Press poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous press poems. These examples illustrate what a famous press poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Robert William Service
Like prim Professor of a College
I primed my shelves with books of knowledge;
And now I stand before them dumb,
Just like a child that sucks its thumb,
And stares forlorn and turns away,
With dolls or painted bricks to play.
They glour at me, my tomes of learning.
"You dolt!" they jibe; "you undiscerning
Moronic oaf, you make a fuss,
With highbrow swank selecting us;
Saying: "I'll...Read more of this...
by
George Herbert
The Kingdom of heaven is like unto a merchant man,
seeking goodly pearls; who, when he had found one,
sold all that he had and bought it.—Matthew 13.45
I know the ways of Learning; both the head
And pipes that feed the press, and make it run;
What reason hath from nature borrowed,
Or of itself, like a good huswife, spun
In laws and...Read more of this...
by
John Davidson
I hang about the streets all day,
At night I hang about;
I sleep a little when I may,
But rise betimes the morning's scout;
For through the year I always hear
Afar, aloft, a ghostly shout.
My clothes are worn to threads and loops;
My skin shows here and there ;
About my face like seaweed droops
My tangled beard, my tangled hair;
From cavernous and shaggy brows
My...Read more of this...
by
William Shakespeare
Be wise as thou art cruel; do not press
My tongue-tied patience with too much disdain,
Lest sorrow lend me words and words express
The manner of my pity-wanting pain.
If I might teach thee wit, better it were,
Though not to love, yet, love, to tell me so,
As testy sick men, when their deaths be near,
No news but health from their physicians know.
For...Read more of this...
by
Sharmagne Leland-St John
I said coffee
I didn't say,
"would you
like to cup
my warm
soft breasts
in your
un-calloused,
long,
tapered,
ring less fingered
hands?"
I said coffee
I didn't say,
"would you
like to
run your tongue
along my neck
just below
my left ear-lobe?"
I said coffee
I didn't say,
"would you
like to
hold me
in your arms
and feel my heart
skip beats
as you press your
hard, lean body
up against mine
until I melt
into you
with desire?"
I said coffee
as we stood there
in the jasmine
scented night
my car...Read more of this...
by
Mary Darby Robinson
LOVE, I renounce thy tyrant sway,
I mock thy fascinating art,
MINE, be the calm unruffled day,
That brings no torment to the heart;
The tranquil mind, the noiseless scene,
Where FANCY, with enchanting mien,
Shall in her right-hand lead along
The graceful patroness of Song;
Where HARMONY shall softly fling
Her light tones o'er the dulcet string;
And with her magic LYRE...Read more of this...
by
Anne Sexton
This is the desk I sit at
and this is the desk where I love you too much
and this is the typewriter that sits before me
where yesterday only your body sat before me
with its shoulders gathered in like a Greek chorus,
with its tongue like a king making up rules as he goes,
with its tongue quite openly like a cat lapping...Read more of this...
by
Sir John Suckling
I prithee spare me gentle boy,
Press me no more for that slight toy,
That foolish trifle of an heart;
I swear it will not do its part,
Though thou dost thine, employ'st thy pow'r and art.
For through long custom it has known
The little secrets, and is grown
Sullen and wise, will have its will,
And like old hawks pursues that still
That makes least sport,...Read more of this...
by
William Cullen Bryant
COME let us plant the apple-tree.
Cleave the tough greensward with the spade;
Wide let its hollow bed be made;
There gently lay the roots and there
Sift the dark mould with kindly care 5
And press it o'er them tenderly
As round the sleeping infant's feet
We softly fold the cradle sheet;
So plant we the apple-tree....Read more of this...
by
Connie Wanek
Butter, like love,
seems common enough
yet has so many imitators.
I held a brick of it, heavy and cool,
and glimpsed what seemed like skin
beneath a corner of its wrap;
the decolletage revealed
a most attractive fat!
And most refined.
Not milk, not cream,
not even creme de la creme.
It was a delicacy which assured me
that bliss follows agitation,
that even pasture daisies
through the alchemy of four stomachs
may...Read more of this...
by
Ellis Parker Butler
When first we met she seemed so white
I feared her;
As one might near a spirit bright
I neared her;
An angel pure from heaven above
I dreamed her,
And far too good for human love
I deemed her.
A spirit free from mortal taint
I thought her,
And incense as unto a saint
I brought her.
Well, incense burning did not seem
To...Read more of this...
by
Andrew Barton Paterson
Pro Bono Publico
Went out the streets to scan,
And marching to and fro
He met a seedy man,
Who did a tale unfold
In solemn tones and slow
And this is what he told
Pro Bono Publico.
"For many years I led
The people's onward march;
I was the 'Fountain Head',
The 'Democratic Arch'.
"In more than regal...Read more of this...
by
Hilaire Belloc
Who was too Freely Moved to Tears, and thereby ruined his Political Career
Lord Lundy from his earliest years
Was far too freely moved to Tears.
For instance if his Mother said,
"Lundy! It's time to go to Bed!"
He bellowed like a Little Turk.
Or if his father Lord Dunquerque
Said "Hi!" in a Commanding Tone,
"Hi, Lundy! Leave the Cat alone!"
Lord Lundy, letting go...Read more of this...
by
Thomas Moore
Go where glory waits thee,
But while fame elates thee,
Oh! still remember me.
When the praise thou meetest
To thine ear is sweetest,
Oh! then remember me.
Other arms may press thee,
Dearer friends caress thee,
All the joys that bless thee,
Sweeter far may be;
But when friends are nearest,
And when joys are dearest,
Oh! then...Read more of this...
by
Robert Frost
Nothing to say to all those marriages!
She had made three herself to three of his.
The score was even for them, three to three.
But come to die she found she cared so much:
She thought of children in a burial row;
Three children in a burial row were sad.
One man's three women in a burial row
Somehow made her impatient with the man.
And...Read more of this...
by
Rupert Brooke
As those of old drank mummia
To fire their limbs of lead,
Making dead kings from Africa
Stand pandar to their bed;
Drunk on the dead, and medicined
With spiced imperial dust,
In a short night they reeled to find
Ten centuries of lust.
So I, from paint, stone, tale, and rhyme,
Stuffed love's infinity,
And sucked all lovers of all time
To rarify ecstasy.
Helen's the hair shuts out from...Read more of this...
by
John Milton
Lord God that dost me save and keep,
All day to thee I cry;
And all night long, before thee weep
Before thee prostrate lie.
Into thy presence let my praier
With sighs devout ascend
And to my cries, that ceaseless are,
Thine ear with favour bend.
For cloy'd with woes and trouble store
Surcharg'd my Soul doth lie,
My life at death's uncherful dore
Unto the grave draws...Read more of this...
by
Vachel Lindsay
[Concerning O. Henry (Sidney Porter)]
"He could not forget that he was a Sidney."
Is this Sir Philip Sidney, this loud clown,
The darling of the glad and gaping town?
This is that dubious hero of the press
Whose slangy tongue and insolent address
Were spiced to rouse on Sunday afternoon
The man with yellow journals round him strewn.
We laughed...Read more of this...
by
William Butler Yeats
The Danaan children laugh, in cradles of wrought gold,
And clap their hands together, and half close their eyes,
For they will ride the North when the ger-eagle flies,
With heavy whitening wings, and a heart fallen cold:
I kiss my wailing child and press it to my breast,
And hear the narrow graves calling my child and me.
Desolate winds that cry over the...Read more of this...
by
Horace
Lydia, by all above,
Why bear so hard on Sybaris, to ruin him with love?
What change has made him shun
The playing-ground, who once so well could bear the dust and sun?
...Read more of this...
by
Alan Seeger
First, London, for its myriads; for its height,
Manhattan heaped in towering stalagmite;
But Paris for the smoothness of the paths
That lead the heart unto the heart's delight. . . .
Fair loiterer on the threshold of those days
When there's no lovelier prize the world displays
Than, having beauty and your twenty years,
You have the means...Read more of this...
by
Andrew Barton Paterson
The drought is down on field and flock,
The river-bed is dry;
And we must shift the starving stock
Before the cattle die.
We muster up with weary hearts
At breaking of the day,
And turn our heads to foreign parts,
To take the stock away.
And it’s hunt ‘em up and dog ‘em,
And it’s get the whip...Read more of this...
by
Rudyard Kipling
"The Village That Voted the Earth Was Flat"-- A Diversity of Creatures
The Soldier may forget his Sword,
The Sailorman the Sea,
The Mason may forget the Word
And the Priest his Litany:
The Maid may forget both jewel and gem,
And the Bride her wedding-dress--
But the Jew shall forget Jerusalem
Ere we forget the Press!
Who once hath stood through the loaded...Read more of this...
by
Oliver Wendell Holmes
I love all sights of earth and skies,
From flowers that glow to stars that shine;
The comet and the penny show,
All curious things, above, below,
Hold each in turn my wandering eyes:
I claim the Christian Pagan's line,
Humani nihil, -- even so, --
And is not human life divine?
When soft the western breezes blow,
And...Read more of this...
by
T S (Thomas Stearns) Eliot
I
THE WINTER evening settles down
With smell of steaks in passageways.
Six o’clock.
The burnt-out ends of smoky days.
And now a gusty shower wraps
The grimy scraps
Of withered leaves about your feet
And newspapers from vacant lots;
The showers beat
On broken blinds and chimney-pots,
And at the corner of the street
A lonely cab-horse steams and stamps.
And then the lighting of the lamps.
II
The morning comes to consciousness
Of...Read more of this...
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