Famous Schoolroom Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Off the Ground

by Walter de la Mare
 Three jolly Farmers 
Once bet a pound 
Each dance the others would 
Off the ground. 
Out of their coats 
They slipped right soon, 
And neat and nicesome 
Put each his shoon. 
One--Two--Three! 
And away they go, 
Not too fast, 
And not too slow; 
Out from the elm-tree's 
Noonday shadow, 
Into the sun 
And across the meadow. 
Past the schoolroom,...Read more of this...

Morning News

by Marilyn Hacker
 Spring wafts up the smell of bus exhaust, of bread
and fried potatoes, tips green on the branches,
repeats old news: arrogance, ignorance, war.
A cinder-block wall shared by two houses
is new rubble. On one side was a kitchen
sink and a cupboard, on the other was
a bed, a bookshelf, three framed photographs.

Glass is shattered across the photographs;
two half-circles of hardened pocket bread
sit...Read more of this...

Schoolroom On A Wet Afternoon

by Vernon Scannell
 The unrelated paragraphs of morning
Are forgotten now; the severed heads of kings
Rot by the misty Thames; the roses of York
And Lancaster are pressed between the leaves
Of history; ******* sleep in Africa.
The complexities of simple interest lurk
In inkwells and the brittle sticks of chalk:
Afternoon is come and English Grammar.

Rain falls as though the sky has been bereaved,
Stutters its inarticulate grief...Read more of this...

Bonnie Kilmany

by William Topaz McGonagall
 Bonnie Kilmany, in the County of Fife,
Is a healthy spot to reside in to lengthen one's life.
The scenery there in the summer time is truly grand,
Especially the beautiful hills and the woodland. 

Chorus --

Then, bonnie Annie, will you go with me
And leave the crowded city of Dundee,
And breathe the pure, fragrant air
In the Howe of Kilmany, so lovely and...Read more of this...

The Clock

by Mother Goose
There's a neat little clock,--
  In the schoolroom it stands,--
And it points to the time
  With its two little hands.

And may we, like the clock,
  Keep a face clean and bright,
With hands ever ready
  To do what is right....Read more of this...

Among School Children

by William Butler Yeats
 I

I walk through the long schoolroom questioning;
A kind old nun in a white hood replies;
The children learn to cipher and to sing,
To study reading-books and histories,
To cut and sew, be neat in everything
In the best modern way - the children's eyes
In momentary wonder stare upon
A sixty-year-old smiling public man.

 II

I dream of a Ledaean body, bent
Above a sinking fire....Read more of this...

The ABC

by Spike Milligan
 'Twas midnight in the schoolroom
And every desk was shut
When suddenly from the alphabet 
Was heard a loud "Tut-Tut!"

Said A to B, "I don't like C;
His manners are a lack.
For all I ever see of C
Is a semi-circular back!"

"I disagree," said D to B,
"I've never found C so.
From where I stand he seems to be
An uncompleted O."

C was vexed, "I'm...Read more of this...

The Doctor Of The Heart

by Anne Sexton
 Take away your knowledge, Doktor.
It doesn't butter me up.

You say my heart is sick unto.
You ought to have more respect!

you with the goo on the suction cup.
You with your wires and electrodes

fastened at my ankle and wrist,
sucking up the biological breast.

You with your zigzag machine
playing like the stock market up and down.

Give me the Phi Beta key you always...Read more of this...

I shall know why -- when Time is over

by Emily Dickinson
 I shall know why -- when Time is over --
And I have ceased to wonder why --
Christ will explain each separate anguish
In the fair schoolroom of the sky --

He will tell me what "Peter" promised --
And I -- for wonder at his woe --
I shall forget the drop of Anguish
That scalds me now -- that scalds me now!...Read more of this...

September The First Day Of School

by Howard Nemerov
 I

My child and I hold hands on the way to school,
And when I leave him at the first-grade door
He cries a little but is brave; he does
Let go. My selfish tears remind me how
I cried before that door a life ago.
I may have had a hard time letting go.

Each fall the children must endure together
What every child also endures...Read more of this...

Casabianca

by Elizabeth Bishop
 Love's the boy stood on the burning deck
trying to recite "The boy stood on
the burning deck." Love's the son
 stood stammering elocution
 while the poor ship in flames went down.

Love's the obstinate boy, the ship,
even the swimming sailors, who
would like a schoolroom platform, too,
 or an excuse to stay
 on deck. And love's the burning boy....Read more of this...

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