Famous Prices Poems by Famous Poets

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

See also:

Floss wont save you from an Abyss

by Emily Dickinson
 Floss won't save you from an Abyss
But a Rope will --
Notwithstanding a Rope for a Souvenir
Is not beautiful --

But I tell you every step is a Trough --
And every stop a Well --
Now will you have the Rope or the Floss?
Prices reasonable --...Read more of this...

They Should Have Asked My Husband

by Pam Ayres
You know this world is complicated, imperfect and oppressed
And it’s not hard to feel timid, apprehensive and depressed.
It seems that all around us tides of questions ebb and flow
And people want solutions but they don’t know where to go.

Opinions abound but who is wrong and who is right.
People need a prophet, a diffuser of the light.
Someone they can turn to...Read more of this...

At Pleasure Bay

by Robert Pinsky
 In the willows along the river at Pleasure Bay
A catbird singing, never the same phrase twice.
Here under the pines a little off the road
In 1927 the Chief of Police
And Mrs. W. killed themselves together,
Sitting in a roadster. Ancient unshaken pilings
And underwater chunks of still-mortared brick
In shapes like bits of puzzle strew the bottom
Where the landing was for Price's Hotel...Read more of this...

Journey Of The Magi

by T S (Thomas Stearns) Eliot
 'A cold coming we had of it,
Just the worst time of the year
For a journey, and such a journey:
The ways deep and the weather sharp,
The very dead of winter.'
And the camels galled, sore-footed, 
 refractory,
Lying down in the melting snow.
There were times we regretted
The summer palaces on slopes, the 
 terraces,
And the silken girls bringing sherbet.

Then the camel men...Read more of this...

Prelude

by Robert William Service
 Because the rhymes I make for raiment
Fail to avail its meed of payment,
I fain must make my well-worn tweeds
Suffice me for tomorrow's needs--
Until my verse the public reads.

I used to go to Savile Row,
But now their prices are so high,
With royalties at all time low,
Because my books few want to buy . . .
No, I don't blame them, but...Read more of this...

A Hill

by Anthony Hecht
 In Italy, where this sort of thing can occur,
I had a vision once - though you understand
It was nothing at all like Dante's, or the visions of saints,
And perhaps not a vision at all. I was with some friends,
Picking my way through a warm sunlit piazza
In the early morning. A clear fretwork of shadows
From huge umbrellas littered the pavement...Read more of this...

Theme with Variations

by Lewis Carroll
 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 trotting home from school; 
He's had a fight but can't tell why-- 
He always was a little fool! 

But, when he came...Read more of this...

Corn and Catholics

by Thomas Moore
 "What! still those two infernal questions,
That with our meals our slumbers mix --
That spoil our tempers and digestions --
Eternal Corn and Catholics!

Gods! were there ever two such bores?
Nothing else talk'd of night or morn --
Nothing in doors, or out of doors,
But endless Catholics and Corn!

Never was such a brace of pests --
While Ministers, still worse than either,
Skill'd but in...Read more of this...

The Scapegoat

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 We have all of us read how the Israelites fled 
From Egypt with Pharaoh in eager pursuit of 'em, 
And Pharaoh's fierce troop were all put "in the soup" 
When the waters rolled softly o'er every galoot of 'em. 
The Jews were so glad when old Pharaoh was "had" 
That they sounded their timbrels and capered like mad. 
You...Read more of this...

In The Kalahari Desert

by Craig Raine
 The sun rose like a tarnished
looking-glass to catch the sun

and flash His hot message
at the missionaries below--

Isabella and the Rev. Roger Price,
and the Helmores with a broken axle

left, two days behind, at Fever Ponds.
The wilderness was full of home:

a glinting beetle on its back
struggled like an orchestra

with Beethoven. The Hallé,
Isabella thought and hummed.

Makololo, their Zulu guide,
puzzled out the Bible,...Read more of this...

The Auctioneer of Parting

by Emily Dickinson
 The Auctioneer of Parting
His "Going, going, gone"
Shouts even from the Crucifix,
And brings his Hammer down --
He only sells the Wilderness,
The prices of Despair
Range from a single human Heart
To Two -- not any more --...Read more of this...

Tema con Variazioni

by Lewis Carroll
 Why is it that Poetry has never yet been subjected to that process of Dilution which has proved so advantageous to her sister-art Music? The Diluter gives us first a few notes of some well-known Air, then a dozen bars of his own, then a few more notes of the Air, and so on alternately: thus saving the listener,...Read more of this...

A Disqualified Jockeys Story

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 You see, the thing was this way -- there was me, 
That rode Panopply, the Splendor mare, 
And Ikey Chambers on the Iron Dook, 
And Smith, the half-caste rider on Regret, 
And that long bloke from Wagga -- him that rode 
Veronikew, the Snowy River horse. 
Well, none of them had chances -- not a chance 
Among the lot,...Read more of this...

It Is March

by W S Merwin
 It is March and black dust falls out of the books
Soon I will be gone
The tall spirit who lodged here has
Left already
On the avenues the colorless thread lies under
Old prices

When you look back there is always the past
Even when it has vanished
But when you look forward
With your dirty knuckles and the wingless
Bird on your shoulder
What can you write

The bitterness...Read more of this...

The Wargeilah Handicap

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 Wargeilah town is very small, 
There's no cathedral nor a club, 
In fact the township, all in all, 
Is just one unpretentious pub; 
And there, from all the stations round, 
The local sportsmen can be found. 

The sportsmen of Wargeilah-side 
Are very few but very fit; 
There's scarcely any sport been tried 
But they can hold their own at...Read more of this...

Dont forget to view our wonderful member Prices poems.

Get a Premium Membership
Turn off ads, get more exposure for your poetry, and get more features with a Premium Membership.
Book: Diverse Voices: The Poetry of Human Rights and the Pursuit of Peace