Famous Souvenir Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Souvenir poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous souvenir poems. These examples illustrate what a famous souvenir poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Keith Douglas
Shall I get drunk or cut myself a piece of cake,
a pasty Syrian with a few words of English
or the Turk who says she is a princess--she dances
apparently by levitation? Or Marcelle, Parisienne
always preoccupied with her dull dead lover:
she has all the photographs and his letters
tied in a bundle and stamped Decede in mauve ink.
All this takes place in...Read more of this...
by
Edwin Arlington Robinson
A vanished house that for an hour I knew
By some forgotten chance when I was young
Had once a glimmering window overhung
With honeysuckle wet with evening dew.
Along the path tall dusky dahlias grew,
And shadowy hydrangeas reached and swung
Ferociously; and over me, among
The moths and mysteries, a blurred bat flew.
Somewhere within there were dim presences
Of days that hovered and of years...Read more of this...
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...
by
Anne Sexton
Frau Doktor,
Mama Brundig,
take out your contacts,
remove your wig.
I write for you.
I entertain.
But frogs come out
of the sky like rain.
Frogs arrive
With an ugly fury.
You are my judge.
You are my jury.
My guilts are what
we catalogue.
I'll take a knife
and chop up frog.
Frog has not nerves.
Frog is as old as a cockroach.
Frog is my father's genitals.
Frog is a malformed doorknob.
Frog is a soft...Read more of this...
by
Hart Crane
As silent as a mirror is believed
Realities plunge in silence by . . .
I am not ready for repentance;
Nor to match regrets. For the moth
Bends no more than the still
Imploring flame. And tremorous
In the white falling flakes
Kisses are,--
The only worth all granting.
It is to be learned--
This cleaving and this burning,
But only by the one who
Spends out himself again.
Twice...Read more of this...
by
Charles Baudelaire
Voici venir les temps o? vibrant sur sa tige
Chaque fleur s'?vapore ainsi qu'un encensoir;
Les sons et les parfums tournent dans l'air du soir;
Valse m?lancolique et langoureux vertige!
Chaque fleur s'?vapore ainsi qu'un encensoir;
Le violon fr?mit comme un coeur qu'on afflige;
Valse m?lancolique et langoureux vertige!
Le ciel est triste et beau comme un grand reposoir.
Le violon fr?mit comme un coeur qu'on...Read more of this...
by
Derek Walcott
There were still shards of an ancient pastoral
in those shires of the island where the cattle drank
their pools of shadow from an older sky,
surviving from when the landscape copied such objects as
"Herefords at Sunset in the valley of the Wye."
The mountain water that fell white from the mill wheel
sprinkling like petals from the...Read more of this...
by
Jennifer Reeser
Yellow makes a play for green among
the rows of some poor farmer's field outside
the Memphis city limits' northern edge.
A D. J. plays The Day He Wore My Crown,
not knowing it entices into tears
this woman never once disposed to travel
the holiday before. My children squander
unleavened bread brought forth from Taco Bell.
What sacrifice of mine could be worth mention?
Enshroud it. Christ's...Read more of this...
by
Marianne Moore
For authorities whose hopes
are shaped by mercenaries?
Writers entrapped by
teatime fame and by
commuters' comforts? Not for these
the paper nautilus
constructs her thin glass shell.
Giving her perishable
souvenir of hope, a dull
white outside and smooth-
edged inner surface
glossy as the sea, the watchful
maker of it guards it
day and night; she scarcely
eats until the eggs are hatched.
Buried eight-fold in her eight
arms, for she is in
a...Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
You've heard of "Casey at The Bat,"
And "Casey's Tabble Dote";
But now it's time
To write a rhyme
Of "Casey's Billy-goat."
Pat Casey had a billy-goat he gave the name of Shamus,
Because it was (the neighbours said) a national disgrace.
And sure enough that animal was eminently famous
For masticating every rag of laundry round the place.
For shirts to skirts prodigiously...Read more of this...
by
Marianne Moore
Fanaticism?No.Writing is exciting
and baseball is like writing.
You can never tell with either
how it will go
or what you will do;
generating excitement--
a fever in the victim--
pitcher, catcher, fielder, batter.
Victim in what category?
Owlman watching from the press box?
To whom does it apply?
Who is excited?Might it be I?
It's a pitcher's battle all the way--a duel--
a catcher's, as, with cruel
puma paw, Elston Howard lumbers...Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
Fearing that she might go one day
With some fine fellow of her choice,
I called her from her childish play,
And made a record of her voice.
And now that she is truly gone,
I hear it sweet and crystal clear
From out my wheezy gramophone:
"I love you, Daddy dear."
Indeed it's true she went away,
But Oh she went all, all alone;
Into the dark...Read more of this...
by
Philip Larkin
'This was Mr Bleaney's room. He stayed
The whole time he was at the Bodies, till
They moved him.' Flowered curtains, thin and frayed,
Fall to within five inches of the sill,
Whose window shows a strip of building land,
Tussocky, littered. 'Mr Bleaney took
My bit of garden properly in hand.'
Bed, upright chair, sixty-watt bulb, no hook
Behind the door, no room for books or...Read more of this...
by
Wallace Stevens
The poem of the mind in the act of finding
What will suffice. It has not always had
To find: the scene was set; it repeated what
Was in the script.
Then the theatre was changed
To something else. Its past was a souvenir.
It has to be living, to learn the speech of the place.
It has to face the men of the time and...Read more of this...
by
Dorothy Parker
And if, my friend, you'd have it end,
There's naught to hear or tell.
But need you try to black my eye
In wishing me farewell.
Though I admit an edged wit
In woe is warranted,
May I be frank? . . . Such words as "-"
Are better left unsaid.
There's rosemary for you and me;
But is it usual, dear,
To hire a man, and fill a...Read more of this...
by
Charles Baudelaire
Rappelez-vous l'objet que nous vîmes, mon âme,
Ce beau matin d'été si doux :
Au détour d'un sentier une charogne infame
Sur un lit semé de cailloux,
Les jambes en l'air, comme une femme lubrique,
Brûlante et suant les poisons,
Ouvrait d'une façon nonchalante et cynique
Son ventre plein d'exhalaisons.
Le soleil rayonnait sur cette pourriture,
Comme afin de la cuire à point,
Et de rendre au centuple...Read more of this...
by
Rita Dove
She was thinner, with a mannered gauntness
as she paused just inside the double
glass doors to survey the room, silvery cape
billowing dramatically behind her.What's this,
I thought, lifting a hand until
she nodded and started across the parquet;
that's when I saw she was dressed all in gray,
from a kittenish cashmere skirt and cowl
down to the graphite signature of her shoes.
"Sorry I'm late,"...Read more of this...
by
Edna St. Vincent Millay
Just a rainy day or two
In a windy tower,
That was all I had of you—
Saving half an hour.
Marred by greeting passing groups
In a cinder walk,
Near some naked blackberry hoops
Dim with purple chalk.
I remember three or four
Things you said in spite,
And an ugly coat you wore,
Plaided black and white.
Just a rainy day or two
And a bitter word.
Why do I remember...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
The Popular Heart is a Cannon first --
Subsequent a Drum --
Bells for an Auxiliary
And an Afterward of Rum --
Not a Tomorrow to know its name
Nor a Past to stare --
Ditches for Realms and a Trip to Jail
For a Souvenir --...Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
From out her shabby rain-coat pocket
The little Jew girl in the train
Produced a dinted silver locket
With pasted in it portraits twain.
"These are my parents, sir" she said;
"Or were, for now I fear they're dead.
"I know to Belsen they were sent;
I never heard of them again.
So many were like that - they went,
Our woeful quest was all in vain.
I was...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
I send you a decrepit flower
That nature sent to me
At parting -- she was going south
And I designed to stay --
Her motive for the souvenir
If sentiment for me
Or circumstances prudential
Withheld invincibly --...Read more of this...
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