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Famous Taverns Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry
...e square
They burned Giordano Bruno.
Henchmen kindled the pyre
Close-pressed by the mob.
Before the flames had died
The taverns were full again,
Baskets of olives and lemons
Again on the vendors' shoulders.

I thought of the Campo dei Fiori
In Warsaw by the sky-carousel
One clear spring evening
To the strains of a carnival tune.
The bright melody drowned
The salvos from the ghetto wall,
And couples were flying
High in the cloudless sky.

At times wind from the burning
Would d...Read more of this...
by Milosz, Czeslaw



...Of her back, bidding them be hidden beyond the tiny bulk of his poems

To be found by the faithful far from the yawning taverns of eager tourists.

Alone with Nessie and her shadows in sleep as the wood of Madron

Moved slowly towards that final deep....Read more of this...
by Tebb, Barry
...In taverns better far commune with Thee,
Than pray in mosques, and fail Thy face to see!
O first and last of all Thy creatures Thou,
'Tis Thine to burn, and Thine to cherish me!...Read more of this...
by Khayyam, Omar
...ith clay hands
on flint gates where clouds and desserts decay.

The fat lady came first
with the crowds from the ships, taverns, and parks.
Vomit was delicately shaking its drums
among a few little girls of blood
who were begging the moon for protection.
Who could imagine my sadness?
The look on my face was mine, but now isn't me,
the naked look on my face, trembling for alcohol
and launching incredible ships
through the anemones of the piers.
I protect myself with this look
...Read more of this...
by García Lorca, Federico
...ds of every day.

To rhyme of rich and rainy nights,
When like a legion leap the lights
And take the town with gold;
Of taverns quaint where poets dream,
Of cafes gaudily agleam,
And vice that's overbold;
Of crystal shimmer, silver sheen,
Of soft and soothing nicotine,
Of wine that's rich and old,

Of gutters, chimney-tops and stars,
Of apple-carts and motor-cars,
The sordid and sublime;
Of wealth and misery that meet
In every great and little street,
Of glory and of grime;
O...Read more of this...
by Service, Robert William



...dred feet
From a shelf road in the Hasiampa Valley:
Men and places they are I never saw.

I have seen three White Horse taverns,
One in Illinois, one in Pennsylvania,
One in a timber-hid road of Wisconsin.

I bought cheese and crackers
Between sun showers in a place called White Pigeon
Nestling with a blacksmith shop, a post-office,
And a berry-crate factory, where four roads cross.

On the Pecatonica River near Freeport
I have seen boys run barefoot in the leaves
Throwing cl...Read more of this...
by Sandburg, Carl
...s with tropes;
Which, though from our own vapors fed,
Shall point its thunders on our head!
I see the Mob, beflipp'd at taverns,
Hunt us, like wolves, through wilds and caverns!
What dungeons open on our fears!
What horsewhips whistle round our ears!
Tar, yet in embryo in the pine,
Shall run on Tories' backs to shine;
Trees, rooted fair in groves of sallows,
Are growing for our future gallows;
And geese unhatch'd, when pluck'd in fray,
Shall rue the feathering of that day.


...Read more of this...
by Trumbull, John
...lds
Perivale stood all alone,
And from Greenford scent of mayfields
Most enticingly was blown
Over market gardens tidy,
Taverns for the bona fide,
Cockney singers, cockney shooters,
Murray Poshes, Lupin Pooters,
Long in Kelsal Green and Highgate silent under soot and stone....Read more of this...
by Betjeman, John
...tes:    l.9    He it says, he it assays, i.e., tries it on.    l.11  Steals to ordinaries, goes to taverns.    l.16  Physic, medicine.    l.23  In his trim, in his own fashion, i.e., she has given him             a taste of his own medicine.    l.24  Pocky, diseased. ] ...Read more of this...
by Jonson, Ben
...ext year as like as not: 
But ay, but then we shall be twenty-four. 

We for a certainty are not the first 
Have sat in taverns while the tempest hurled 
Their hopeful plans to emptiness, and cursed 
Whatever brute and blackguard made the world. 

It is in truth iniquity on high 
To cheat our sentenced souls of aught they crave, 
And mar the merriment as you and I 
Fare on our long fool's-errand to the grave. 

Iniquity it is; but pass the can. 
My lad, no pair of kings our m...Read more of this...
by Housman, A E
...thick
To be cleft with such cuffs
Of a sword. Now a lick
Down the side of your face.
What a pretty, red line!
Tell the taverns that scar
Was an honour. Don't whine
That a stranger has marked you.
* * 
* * *
The tree's there, You Swine!
Did you think to get in
At the back, while your friends
Made a little diversion
In front? So it ends,
With your sword clattering down
On the ground. 'Tis amends
I make for your courteous
Reception of me,
A foreigner, landed
From over the sea.
...Read more of this...
by Lowell, Amy
...3.60 Sardana Pallas now survives in me.
3.61 Cards, Dice, and Oaths, concomitant, I love;
3.62 To Masques, to Plays, to Taverns still I move;
3.63 And in a word, if what I am you'd hear,
3.64 Seek out a British, bruitish Cavalier.
3.65 Such wretch, such monster am I; but yet more
3.66 I want a heart all this for to deplore.
3.67 Thus, thus alas! I have mispent my time,
3.68 My youth, my best, my strength, my bud, and prime,
3.69 Remembring not the dreadful day of Doom,
3.70 N...Read more of this...
by Bradstreet, Anne
...rly the prize. *songs
His neck was white as is the fleur-de-lis.
Thereto he strong was as a champion,
And knew well the taverns in every town.
And every hosteler and gay tapstere,
Better than a lazar* or a beggere, *leper
For unto such a worthy man as he
Accordeth not, as by his faculty,
To have with such lazars acquaintance.
It is not honest, it may not advance,
As for to deale with no such pouraille*, *offal, refuse
But all with rich, and sellers of vitaille*. *victuals
And...Read more of this...
by Chaucer, Geoffrey
...When the brethren heard of us, they came to meet us as far as Appii Forum, and The Three Taverns.—(Acts xxviii, 15)


Herodion, Apelles, Amplias,
And Andronicus? Is it you I see—
At last? And is it you now that are gazing
As if in doubt of me? Was I not saying 
That I should come to Rome? I did say that;
And I said furthermore that I should go 
On westward, where the gateway of the world 
Lets in the central sea. I did say that, 
But I say only,...Read more of this...
by Robinson, Edwin Arlington
...lected
Light of dawn; & it settled like dust on windowsills
Downtown, filling the smug cafés, schools, 
Banks, offices, taverns, gymnasiums, hotels,
Newsstands, courtrooms, opium parlors, Basque
Restaurants, Armenian steam baths,
French bakeries, & two of the florists' shops--
Their plate glass windows smashed forever.
Finally it tried to infiltrate the exact
Center of my city, a small square bordered
With palm trees, olives, cypresses, a square
Where no one gathered, not eve...Read more of this...
by Levis, Larry
...dreamy youth I wandered
By the Baltic,--

When I paused to hear
The old ballad of King Christian
Shouted from suburban taverns
In the twilight.

Thou recallest bards,
Who in solitary chambers,
And with hearts by passion wasted,
Wrote thy pages.

Thou recallest homes
Where thy songs of love and friendship
Made the gloomy Northern winter
Bright as summer.

Once some ancient Scald,
In his bleak, ancestral Iceland,
Chanted staves of these old ballads
To the Vikings.

Once in Els...Read more of this...
by Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
...Pg 120]Who jeers at me:
And so, my comrade and my brother,
We wander on and hate each other.
Ay, there be taverns and to spare,
Beside the road;
But some strange goad
Lets me not stop to taste their fare.
Knew I the goal
Toward which my soul
And I made way, hope made life fragrant:
But no. We wander, aimless, vagrant!
...Read more of this...
by Laurence Dunbar, Paul
...We make the wine-jar's lip our place of prayer,
And drink in lessons of true manhood there,
And pass our lives in taverns, if perchance
The time mis-spent in mosques we may repair....Read more of this...
by Khayyam, Omar

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Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry