Famous Studying Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Lines Written In The Fannie Farmer Cookbook

by Elizabeth Bishop
 You won't become a gourmet* cook 
By studying our Fannie's book-- 
Her thoughts on Food & Keeping House 
Are scarcely those of Lévi-Strauss. 
Nevertheless, you'll find, Frank dear, 
The basic elements** are here. 
And if a problem should arise: 
The Soufflé fall before your eyes, 
Or strange things happen to the Rice 
--You know I love to give advice....Read more of this...

April

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
 TELL me, eyes, what 'tis ye're seeking;

For ye're saying something sweet,

Fit the ravish'd ear to greet,
Eloquently, softly speaking.

Yet I see now why ye're roving;

For behind those eyes so bright,

To itself abandon'd quite,
Lies a bosom, truthful, loving,--

One that it must fill with pleasure

'Mongst so many, dull and blind,

One true look at length to find,
That its worth can rightly treasure.

Whilst I'm...Read more of this...

Astrophel and Stella: I

by Sir Philip Sidney
 ASTROPHEL AND STELLA: I
Loving in truth, and fain in verse my love to show,
That she, dear she, might take some pleasure of my pain,--
Pleasure might cause her read, reading might make her know,
Knowledge might pity win, and pity grace obtain,--
I sought fit words to paint the blackest face of woe;
Studying inventions fine her wits to entertain,
Oft turning others' leaves,...Read more of this...

Philology Recapitulates Ontology Poetry Is Ontology

by Delmore Schwartz
 Faithful to your commandments, o consciousness, o

Holy bird of words soaring ever whether to nothingness or
 to inconceivable fulfillment slowly:

And still I follow you, awkward as that dandy of ontology
 and as awkward as his albatross and as

another dandy of ontology before him, another shepherd
 and watchdog of being, the one who

Talked forever of forever as if forever of...Read more of this...

Judge Selah Lively

by Edgar Lee Masters
 Suppose you stood just five feet two,
And had worked your way as a grocery clerk,
Studying law by candle light
Until you became an attorney at law?
And then suppose through your diligence,
And regular church attendance,
You became attorney for Thomas Rhodes,
Collecting notes and mortgages,
And representing all the widows
In the Probate Court? And through it all
They jeered at your size, and laughed at...Read more of this...

Tree

by Richard Jones
 When the sun goes down
I have my first drink
standing in the yard,
talking to my neighbor
about the alder tree
rising between our houses,
a lowly tree that prospered
from our steady inattention
and shot up quick as a weed
to tower over our rooftops,
where it now brandishes
a rich, luxuriant crown.
Should we cut it down?
Neither of us wants to --
we agree that we like
the flourishing branches,
shade...Read more of this...

How Solemn as One by One

by Walt Whitman
 HOW solemn, as one by one, 
As the ranks returning, all worn and sweaty—as the men file by where I stand; 
As the faces, the masks appear—as I glance at the faces, studying the masks; 
(As I glance upward out of this page, studying you, dear friend, whoever you are;) 
How solemn the thought of my whispering soul, to...Read more of this...

Sonnet I: Loving In Truth

by Sir Philip Sidney
 Loving in truth, and fain in verse my love to show, 
That she (dear She) might take some pleasure of my pain: 
Pleasure might cause her read, reading might make her know, 
Knowledge might pity win, and pity grace obtain; 

I sought fit words to paint the blackest face of woe, 
Studying inventions fine, her wits to entertain: 
Oft...Read more of this...

Loving In Truth And Fain In Verse My Love To Show

by Sir Philip Sidney
 Loving in truth, and fain in verse my love to show,
That She, dear She, might take some pleasure of my pain,
—Pleasure might cause her read, reading might make her know,
Knowledge might pity win, and pity grace obtain— 
I sought fit words to paint the blackest face of woe,
Studying inventions fine, her wits to entertain,
Oft turning others' leaves, to see...Read more of this...

Our Son

by Barry Tebb
 Quarter to three: I wake again at the hour of his birth

Thirty years ago and now he paces corridors of dark

In nightmares of self-condemnation where random thoughts

Besiege his fevered imagination – England’s 

Imminent destruction, his own, the world’s…

Sixty to eighty cigarettes a day, unavailing depot injections,

Failed abscondings, failed everything: Eton and Balliol

Hold no sway on ward one, nor even...Read more of this...

The Ballad Of Blasphemous Bill

by Robert William Service
 I took a contract to bury the body of blasphemous Bill MacKie,
Whenever, wherever or whatsoever the manner of death he die--
Whether he die in the light o' day or under the peak-faced moon;
In cabin or dance-hall, camp or dive, mucklucks or patent shoon;
On velvet tundra or virgin peak, by glacier, drift or draw;
In muskeg hollow or canyon gloom, by...Read more of this...

The Mower To The Glo-Worms

by Andrew Marvell
 Ye living Lamps, by whose dear light
The Nightingale does sit so late,
And studying all the Summer-night,
Her matchless Songs does meditate;

Ye Country Comets, that portend
No War, nor Princes funeral,
Shining unto no higher end
Then to presage the Grasses fall;

Ye Glo-worms, whose officious Flame
To wandring Mowers shows the way,
That in the Night have lost their aim,
And after foolish Fires do stray;

Your courteous...Read more of this...

Now Finale to the Shore

by Walt Whitman
 NOW finale to the shore! 
Now, land and life, finale, and farewell! 
Now Voyager depart! (much, much for thee is yet in store;) 
Often enough hast thou adventur’d o’er the seas, 
Cautiously cruising, studying the charts,
Duly again to port, and hawser’s tie, returning: 
—But now obey, thy cherish’d, secret wish, 
Embrace thy friends—leave all in order; 
To port, and...Read more of this...

Beat! Beat! Drums!

by Walt Whitman
 1
BEAT! beat! drums!—Blow! bugles! blow! 
Through the windows—through doors—burst like a ruthless force, 
Into the solemn church, and scatter the congregation; 
Into the school where the scholar is studying; 
Leave not the bridegroom quiet—no happiness must he have now with his bride;
Nor the peaceful farmer any peace, plowing his field or gathering his grain; 
So fierce you whirr and...Read more of this...

The Perch

by Galway Kinnell
There is a fork in a branch
of an ancient, enormous maple,
one of a grove of such trees,
where I climb sometimes and sit and look out
over miles of valleys and low hills.
Today on skis I took a friend
to show her the trees. We set out
down the road, turned in at
the lane which a few weeks ago,
when the trees were almost empty
and...Read more of this...

The Something

by Charles Simic
 Here come my night thoughts
On crutches,
Returning from studying the heavens.
What they thought about
Stayed the same,
Stayed immense and incomprehensible.

My mother and father smile at each other
Knowingly above the mantel.
The cat sleeps on, the dog
Growls in his sleep.
The stove is cold and so is the bed.

Now there are only these crutches
To contend with.
Go ahead and laugh, while I raise one
With difficulty,
Swaying...Read more of this...

A Poem Sacred to the Memory of Sir Isaac Newton

by James Thomson
 Shall the great soul of Newton quit this earth, 
To mingle with his stars; and every muse,
Astonish'd into silence, shun the weight
Of honours due to his illustrious name?
But what can man?--Even now the sons of light,
In strains high-warbled to seraphic lyre,
Hail his arrival on the coast of bliss.
Yet am not I deterr'd, though high the theme,
And sung to harps...Read more of this...

Sailing To Byzantium

by William Butler Yeats
 I

That is no country for old men. The young
In one another's arms, birds in the trees
- Those dying generations - at their song,
The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,
Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long
Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.
Caught in that sensual music all neglect
Monuments of unageing intellect.

 II

An aged man is but a paltry thing,
A tattered coat upon...Read more of this...

Coffee

by Richard Brautigan
 Sometimes life is merely a matter of coffee and whatever intimacy a cup of coffee
affords. I once read something about coffee. The thing said that coffee is good for you;
it stimulates all the organs.
I thought at first this was a strange way to put it, and not altogether pleasant, but
as time goes by I have found out that it...Read more of this...

The Transparent Man

by Anthony Hecht
 I'm mighty glad to see you, Mrs. Curtis,
And thank you very kindly for this visit--
Especially now when all the others here
Are having holiday visitors, and I feel
A little conspicuous and in the way.
It's mainly because of Thanksgiving. All these mothers
And wives and husbands gaze at me soulfully
And feel they should break up their box of chocolates
For a donation, or...Read more of this...

A Country Life:to His Brother Mr Thomas Herrick

by Robert Herrick
 Thrice, and above, blest, my soul's half, art thou,
In thy both last and better vow;
Could'st leave the city, for exchange, to see
The country's sweet simplicity;
And it to know and practise, with intent
To grow the sooner innocent;
By studying to know virtue, and to aim
More at her nature than her name;
The last is but the least; the first doth tell
Ways less...Read more of this...

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