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Famous Supper Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Burns, Robert
...is altered.—R. B. [back]
Note 16. Sowens, with butter instead of milk to them, is always the Halloween Supper.—R. B. [back]...Read more of this...



by Plath, Sylvia
...sit down to it, one on either side, admiring the gleam,

The glaze, the mirrory variety of it.
Let us eat our last supper at it, like a hospital plate.

I know why you will not give it to me,
You are terrified

The world will go up in a shriek, and your head with it,
Bossed, brazen, an antique shield,

A marvel to your great-grandchildren.
Do not be afraid, it is not so.

I will only take it and go aside quietly.
You will not even hear me opening it, no p...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...n the live oak, trailing long and low, noiselessly waved by the wind;
The camp of Georgia wagoners, just after dark—the supper-fires, and the cooking and
 eating
 by
 whites and *******, 
Thirty or forty great wagons—the mules, cattle, horses, feeding from troughs, 
The shadows, gleams, up under the leaves of the old sycamore-trees—the
 flames—with
 the
 black smoke from the pitch-pine, curling and rising; 
Southern fishermen fishing—the sounds and inlets of North Carolina’s
...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
.... Two such I saw, what time the laboured ox
In his loose traces from the furrow came,
And the swinked hedger at his supper sat.
I saw them under a green mantling vine,
That crawls along the side of yon small hill,
Plucking ripe clusters from the tender shoots;
Their port was more than human, as they stood.
I took it for a faery vision
Of some gay creatures of the element,
That in the colours of the rainbow live,
And play i' the plighted clouds. I was awe-stroo...Read more of this...

by Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
...length she returned to the tenantless house of her father.
Smouldered the fire on the hearth, on the board was the supper untasted,
Empty and drear was each room, and haunted with phantoms of terror.
Sadly echoed her step on the stair and the floor of her chamber.
In the dead of the night she heard the disconsolate rain fall
Loud on the withered leaves of the sycamore-tree by the window.
Keenly the lightning flashed; and the voice of the echoing thunder
Told ...Read more of this...



by Hugo, Victor
...drink 
 To cause deep slumber till next day's soft brink. 
 Then to the castle tower he wends his way, 
 And finds a supper laid with rich display. 
 He sups and sleeps: then to his slumbering eyes 
 The shades of kings from Bela all arise. 
 None dare the tower to enter on this night, 
 But when the morning dawns, crowds are in sight 
 The dreamer to deliver,—whom half dazed, 
 And with the visions of the night amazed, 
 They to the old church take, where rests the...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...an sufficed 
To recommend cool Zephyr, and made ease 
More easy, wholesome thirst and appetite 
More grateful, to their supper-fruits they fell, 
Nectarine fruits which the compliant boughs 
Yielded them, side-long as they sat recline 
On the soft downy bank damasked with flowers: 
The savoury pulp they chew, and in the rind, 
Still as they thirsted, scoop the brimming stream; 
Nor gentle purpose, nor endearing smiles 
Wanted, nor youthful dalliance, as beseems 
Fair couple, ...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...new 
Casual discourse draw on; which intermits 
Our day's work, brought to little, though begun 
Early, and the hour of supper comes unearned? 
To whom mild answer Adam thus returned. 
Sole Eve, associate sole, to me beyond 
Compare above all living creatures dear! 
Well hast thou motioned, well thy thoughts employed, 
How we might best fulfil the work which here 
God hath assigned us; nor of me shalt pass 
Unpraised: for nothing lovelier can be found 
In woman, than to s...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...e
 raftsmen
 with long-reaching sweep-oars, 
The little huts on the rafts, and the stream of smoke when they cook their supper at
 evening.

O something pernicious and dread! 
Something far away from a puny and pious life! 
Something unproved! Something in a trance! 
Something escaped from the anchorage, and driving free. 

O to work in mines, or forging iron!
Foundry casting—the foundry itself—the rude high roof—the ample and
 shadow’d space, 
The furnace—the hot liq...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...of the deaths of the bodies of Gods—I see the old signifiers. 

I see Christ once more eating the bread of his last supper, in the midst of youths and old
 persons;
I see where the strong divine young man, the Hercules, toil’d faithfully and long, and
 then
 died;

I see the place of the innocent rich life and hapless fate of the beautiful nocturnal son,
 the
 full-limb’d Bacchus; 
I see Kneph, blooming, drest in blue, with the crown of feathers on his head; 
I see Hermes...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...gh those of the Arkansaw; 
Torches shine in the dark that hangs on the Chattahoochee or Altamahaw; 
Patriarchs sit at supper with sons and grandsons and great-grandsons around
 them;
In walls of adobie, in canvas tents, rest hunters and trappers after their
 day’s sport; 
The city sleeps, and the country sleeps; 
The living sleep for their time, the dead sleep for their time; 
The old husband sleeps by his wife, and the young husband sleeps by his wife; 
And these on...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...the merry song, the natural life of the woods,
 the
 strong
 day’s work, 
The blazing fire at night, the sweet taste of supper, the talk, the bed of hemlock boughs,
 and
 the
 bear-skin; 
—The house-builder at work in cities or anywhere,
The preparatory jointing, squaring, sawing, mortising, 
The hoist-up of beams, the push of them in their places, laying them regular, 
Setting the studs by their tenons in the mortises, according as they were prepared, 
The blows of mallets a...Read more of this...

by Lowell, Amy
...She bustled round to shake by constant moving
The strange, weird atmosphere. She stirred the fire,
She twitched the supper-cloth as though improving
Its careful setting, then her own attire
Came in for notice, tiptoeing higher and higher
She peered into the wall-glass, now adjusting
A straying lock, or else a ribbon thrusting
This way or that to suit her. At last 
sitting,
Or rather plumping down upon a chair,
She took her work, the stocking she was knitting,
And watc...Read more of this...

by Chaucer, Geoffrey
...they shoulden stand:
My wit is short, ye may well understand.

Great cheere made our Host us every one,
And to the supper set he us anon:
And served us with victual of the best.
Strong was the wine, and well to drink us lest*. *pleased
A seemly man Our Hoste was withal
For to have been a marshal in an hall.
A large man he was with eyen steep*, *deep-set.
A fairer burgess is there none in Cheap:
Bold of his speech, and wise and well y-taught,
And of ma...Read more of this...

by Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...Nay, monk! what phantom?' answered Percivale. 
`The cup, the cup itself, from which our Lord 
Drank at the last sad supper with his own. 
This, from the blessd land of Aromat-- 
After the day of darkness, when the dead 
Went wandering o'er Moriah--the good saint 
Arimathan Joseph, journeying brought 
To Glastonbury, where the winter thorn 
Blossoms at Christmas, mindful of our Lord. 
And there awhile it bode; and if a man 
Could touch or see it, he was healed at o...Read more of this...

by Chaucer, Geoffrey
...one of this rout*. *hinder any of
Let every fellow tell his tale about, this company*
And let see now who shall the supper win.
There *as I left*, I will again begin. *where I left off*

This Duke, of whom I make mentioun,
When he was come almost unto the town,
In all his weal, and in his moste pride,
He was ware, as he cast his eye aside,
Where that there kneeled in the highe way
A company of ladies, tway and tway,
Each after other, clad in clothes black:
But suc...Read more of this...

by Khayyam, Omar
...old Khayyam, and leave the Lot
Of Kaikobad and Kaikhosru forgot:
Let Rustum lay about him as he will,
Or Hatim Tai cry Supper -- heed them not. 

XI.
With me along the strip of Herbage strown
That just divides the desert from the sown,
Where name of Slave and Sultan is forgot --
And Peace is Mahmud on his Golden Throne! 

XII.
A Book of Verses underneath the Bough,
A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread, -- and Thou
Beside me singing in the Wilderness --
Oh, Wilderness w...Read more of this...

by Byron, George (Lord)
...d. 
All this is much, and most upon a throne; 
As temperance, if at Apicius' board, 
Is more than at an anchorite's supper shown. 
I grant him all the kindest can accord; 
And this was well for him, but not for those 
Millions who found him what oppression chose. 

XLVII 

'The New World shook him off; the Old yet groans 
Beneath what he and his prepared, if not 
Completed: he leaves heirs on many thrones 
To all his vices, without what begot 
Compassion for him —...Read more of this...

by Miller, Alice Duer
...Bertie's Australian cousin Nancy.
He toId me to tell you that he'd be late 
At the Foreign Office and not to wait 
Supper for him, but to go with me, 
And try to behave as if I were he." 
I should have told him on the spot 
That I had no cousin—that I was not 
Australian Nancy—that my name 
Was Susan Dunne, and that I came 
From a small white town on a deep-cut bay 
In the smallest state in the U.S.A. 
I meant to tell him, but changed my mind—
I needed a ...Read more of this...

by Wordsworth, William
...et, Sir,  When it is light and fair,  I take my little porringer,  And eat my supper there."   "The first that died was little Jane;  In bed she moaning lay,  Till God released her of her pain,  And then she went away."   "So in the church-yard she was laid,  And all the summer dry,  Together round her grave we playe...Read more of this...

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Book: Shattered Sighs