Famous Sprout Poems by Famous Poets

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

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371. Song—Lady Mary Ann

by Robert Burns
 O LADY Mary Ann looks o’er the Castle wa’,
She saw three bonie boys playing at the ba’,
The youngest he was the flower amang them a’,
 My bonie laddie’s young, but he’s growin’ yet.


O father, O father, an ye think it fit,
We’ll send him a year to the college yet,
We’ll sew a green ribbon round about his hat,
 And that...Read more of this...

You cannot make Remembrance grow

by Emily Dickinson
 You cannot make Remembrance grow
When it has lost its Root --
The tightening the Soil around
And setting it upright
Deceives perhaps the Universe
But not retrieves the Plant --
Real Memory, like Cedar Feet
Is shod with Adamant --
Nor can you cut Remembrance down
When it shall once have grown --
Its Iron Buds will sprout anew
However overthrown --...Read more of this...

jack – beyond the digits

by Rg Gregory
 so here we are at last at the ten-boy
never to be the single-figure-aged-again boy
and all the trailing clouds that cling to the not-big child
can be blown away - you're up in your own sky now
clear-blue on some days (if on others windy and wild)

now you'll have to see yourself as the tall-boy
the take-it-on-the-chin and care-for-all boy
and looking at what's...Read more of this...

Gin

by Philip Levine
 The first time I drank gin
I thought it must be hair tonic.
My brother swiped the bottle
from a guy whose father owned
a drug store that sold booze
in those ancient, honorable days
when we acknowledged the stuff
was a drug. Three of us passed
the bottle around, each tasting
with disbelief. People paid
for this? People had to have
it, the way we had to have
the women...Read more of this...

The Baldness Of Chewed-Ear

by Robert William Service
 When Chewed-ear Jenkins got hitched up to Guinneyveer McGee,
His flowin' locks, ye recollect, wuz frivolous an' free;
But in old Hymen's jack-pot, it's a most amazin' thing,
Them flowin' locks jest disappeared like snow-balls in the Spring;
Jest seemed to wilt an' fade away like dead leaves in the Fall,
An' left old Chewed-ear balder than a white-washed cannon ball.

Now Missis Chewed-ear Jenkins,...Read more of this...

Daniel MCumber

by Edgar Lee Masters
 When I went to the city, Mary McNeely,
I meant to return for you, yes I did.
But Laura, my landlady's daughter,
Stole into my life somehow, and won me away.
Then after some years whom should I meet
But Georgine Miner from Niles -- a sprout
Of the free love, Fourierist gardens that flourished
Before the war all over Ohio.
Her dilettante lover had tired of...Read more of this...

171. Burlesque Lament fo Wm. Creech's Absence

by Robert Burns
 AULD chuckie Reekie’s 1 sair distrest,
Down droops her ance weel burnish’d crest,
Nae joy her bonie buskit nest
 Can yield ava,
Her darling bird that she lo’es best—
 Willie’s awa!


O Willie was a witty wight,
And had o’ things an unco’ sleight,
Auld Reekie aye he keepit tight,
 And trig an’ braw:
But now they’ll busk her like a fright,—
 Willie’s awa!


The stiffest o’...Read more of this...

Mossbawn: Two Poems in Dedication

by Seamus Heaney
 1. Sunlight

There was a sunlit absence.
The helmeted pump in the yard
heated its iron,
water honeyed

in the slung bucket
and the sun stood
like a griddle cooling
against the wall

of each long afternoon.
So, her hands scuffled
over the bakeboard,
the reddening stove

sent its plaque of heat
against her where she stood
in a floury apron
by the window.

Now she dusts the board
with a goose's wing,
now sits, broad-lapped,
with whitened nails

and...Read more of this...

Tale Of A Tub

by Sylvia Plath
 The photographic chamber of the eye
records bare painted walls, while an electric light
lays the chromium nerves of plumbing raw;
such poverty assaults the ego; caught
naked in the merely actual room,
the stranger in the lavatory mirror
puts on a public grin, repeats our name
but scrupulously reflects the usual terror.

Just how guilty are we when the ceiling
reveals no cracks that can be decoded?...Read more of this...

Sprout

by James Lee Jobe
 It could be Valley Oak or Snap-bean,

Elderberry, or Cattail rising out of the creek;

all began the same, a spark of life inside,

the need to be coaxing their will into action.


Seed and pod, nut and bulb, cajoled awake, called 

by the warmth of the sun, moisture in the soil, 

swelling them, filling their hearts, beginning 

the slow push against the...Read more of this...

Preamble (A Rough Draft For An Ars Poetica)

by Jean Cocteau
 ...Preamble

A rough draft 
for an ars poetica

. . . . . . . 

Let's get our dreams unstuck

The grain of rye
free from the prattle of grass
et loin de arbres orateurs

I 

plant

it

It will sprout


But forget about 
the rustic festivities

For the explosive word 
falls harmlessly
eternal through
the compact generations 

and except for you

 nothing 
 denotates

its sweet-scented dynamite

Greetings
I discard eloquence
the empty sail
and...Read more of this...

How Shall My Animal

by Dylan Thomas
 How shall my animal
Whose wizard shape I trace in the cavernous skull,
Vessel of abscesses and exultation's shell,
Endure burial under the spelling wall,
The invoked, shrouding veil at the cap of the face,
Who should be furious,
Drunk as a vineyard snail, flailed like an octopus,
Roaring, crawling, quarrel
With the outside weathers,
The natural circle of the discovered skies
Draw down to its weird eyes?

How shall...Read more of this...

The Age

by Osip Mandelstam
 My age, my beast, is there anyone
Who can peer into your eyes
And with his own blood fuse
Two centuries' worth of vertebrae?
The creating blood gushes
From the throat of earthly things,
And the parasite just trembles
On the threshold of new days.

While the creature still has life,
The spine must be delivered,
While with the unseen backbone
A wave distracts itself.
Again they've brought the peak of...Read more of this...

Sighs of Autumn Rain (2)

by Du Fu
 Continuous wind long rain autumn numerous and confused Four seas eight wastes together one cloud Go horse come ox no longer distinguish Muddy Jing clear Wei how now distinguish Grain head grow ear millet ear black Farmer field wife without news City in ten litres rice exchange quilt silk Agree better consider both mutual worth ...Read more of this...

Chopin

by Emma Lazarus
 I

A dream of interlinking hands, of feet 
Tireless to spin the unseen, fairy woof 
Of the entangling waltz. Bright eyebeams meet, 
Gay laughter echoes from the vaulted roof. 
Warm perfumes rise; the soft unflickering glow 
Of branching lights sets off the changeful charms 
Of glancing gems, rich stuffs, the dazzling snow 
Of necks unkerchieft, and bare, clinging arms. 
Hark...Read more of this...

Thars More In the Man Than Thar Is In The Land

by Sidney Lanier
 I knowed a man, which he lived in Jones, 
Which Jones is a county of red hills and stones, 
And he lived pretty much by gittin' of loans, 
And his mules was nuthin' but skin and bones, 
And his hogs was flat as his corn-bread pones, 
And he had 'bout a thousand acres o' land. 

This man -- which...Read more of this...

Bleezers Ice Cream

by Jack Prelutsky
 I am Ebenezer Bleezer,
I run BLEEZER'S ICE CREAM STORE,
there are flavors in my freezer
you have never seen before,
twenty-eight divine creations
too delicious to resist,
why not do yourself a favor,
try the flavors on my list:

COCOA MOCHA MACARONI
TAPIOCA SMOKED BALONEY
CHECKERBERRY CHEDDAR CHEW
CHICKEN CHERRY HONEYDEW
TUTTI-FRUTTI STEWED TOMATO
TUNA TACO BAKED POTATO
LOBSTER LITCHI LIMA BEAN
MOZZARELLA MANGOSTEEN
ALMOND HAM MERINGUE SALAMI
YAM ANCHOVY PRUNE PASTRAMI
SASSAFRAS SOUVLAKI HASH
SUKIYAKI SUCCOTASH
BUTTER...Read more of this...

Foster The Light

by Dylan Thomas
 Foster the light nor veil the manshaped moon,
Nor weather winds that blow not down the bone,
But strip the twelve-winded marrow from his circle;
Master the night nor serve the snowman's brain
That shapes each bushy item of the air
Into a polestar pointed on an icicle.

Murmur of spring nor crush the cockerel's eggs,
Nor hammer back a season in the figs,
But graft these...Read more of this...

Bitterness

by Philip Levine
 Here in February, the fine 
dark branches of the almond 
begin to sprout tiny clusters 
of leaves, sticky to the touch. 
Not far off, about the length 
of my morning shadow, the grass 
is littered with the petals 
of the plum that less than 
a week ago blazed, a living 
candle in the hand of earth. 
I was living...Read more of this...

Knee-Deep in June

by James Whitcomb Riley
 Tell you what I like the best -- 
'Long about knee-deep in June, 
'Bout the time strawberries melts 
On the vine, -- some afternoon 
Like to jes' git out and rest, 
And not work at nothin' else! 

Orchard's where I'd ruther be -- 
Needn't fence it in fer me! -- 
Jes' the whole sky overhead, 
And the whole airth...Read more of this...

Domicilium

by Thomas Hardy
 It faces west, and round the back and sides 
High beeches, bending, hang a veil of boughs, 
And sweep against the roof. Wild honeysucks 
Climb on the walls, and seem to sprout a wish 
(If we may fancy wish of trees and plants) 
To overtop the apple trees hard-by.

Red roses, lilacs, variegated box 
Are there in plenty, and such...Read more of this...

I In My Intricate Image

by Dylan Thomas
 I

I, in my intricate image, stride on two levels,
Forged in man's minerals, the brassy orator
Laying my ghost in metal,
The scales of this twin world tread on the double,
My half ghost in armour hold hard in death's corridor,
To my man-iron sidle.

Beginning with doom in the bulb, the spring unravels,
Bright as her spinning-wheels, the colic season
Worked on a world of petals;
She...Read more of this...

The Man Born to Farming

by Wendell Berry
 The Grower of Trees, the gardener, the man born to farming,
whose hands reach into the ground and sprout
to him the soil is a divine drug. He enters into death
yearly, and comes back rejoicing. He has seen the light lie down
in the dung heap, and rise again in the corn.
His thought passes along the row ends like a mole.
What miraculous...Read more of this...

Arcades

by John Milton
 Part of an entertainment presented to the Countess Dowager of
Darby at Harefield, by som Noble persons of her Family, who
appear on the Scene in pastoral habit, moving toward the seat
of State with this Song.

I. SONG.

Look Nymphs, and Shepherds look,
What sudden blaze of majesty
Is that which we from hence descry
Too divine to be mistook:
This this is she
To whom our vows...Read more of this...

elusive wisdom

by Rg Gregory
 thoth (who became hermes who became mercury)
who was both moon and wisdom to the egyptians
manifested himself mainly as an ibis - a watery bird
a restless creature that could not stop searching
through marshy ground with its sickle-shaped beak

so to the christians the bird became a scavenger
the worst sinner from whom sins sprout forth and grow
sacred ibises have had to learn...Read more of this...

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