Famous Town Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Town poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous town poems. These examples illustrate what a famous town poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Thomas Hardy
(A Reminiscence, 1893)
She wore a 'terra-cotta' dress,
And we stayed, because of the pelting storm,
Within the hansom's dry recess,
Though the horse had stopped; yea, motionless
We sat on, snug and warm.
Then the downpour ceased, to my sharp sad pain,
And the glass that had screened our forms before
Flew up, and out she sprang to her door:
I should have kissed her if...Read more of this...
by
William Cullen Bryant
The country ever has a lagging Spring,
Waiting for May to call its violets forth,
And June its roses--showers and sunshine bring,
Slowly, the deepening verdure o'er the earth;
To put their foliage out, the woods are slack,
And one by one the singing-birds come back.
Within the city's bounds the time of flowers
Comes earlier. Let a mild and sunny day,
Such as full often, for...Read more of this...
by
Paul Laurence Dunbar
When labor is light and the morning is fair,
I find it a pleasure beyond all compare
To hitch up my nag and go hurrying down
And take Katie May for a ride into town;
For bumpety-bump goes the wagon,
But tra-la-la-la our lay.
There's joy in a song as we rattle along
In the light of the glorious day.
A coach would be fine, but a spring...Read more of this...
by
Paul Laurence Dunbar
Come away to dreamin' town,
Mandy Lou, Mandy Lou,
Whaih de skies don' nevah frown,
Mandy Lou;
Whaih he streets is paved with gol',
Whaih de days is nevah col',
An' no sheep strays f'om de fol',
Mandy Lou.
Ain't you tiahed of every day,
Mandy Lou, Mandy Lou,
Tek my han' an' come away,
Mandy Lou,
To the place whaih dreams is King,
Whaih my heart hol's everything,
An' my soul can allus...Read more of this...
by
Lewis Carroll
AY, 'twas here, on this spot,
In that summer of yore,
Atalanta did not
Vote my presence a bore,
Nor reply to my tenderest talk "She had
heard all that nonsense before."
She'd the brooch I had bought
And the necklace and sash on,
And her heart, as I thought,
Was alive to my passion;
And she'd done up her hair in the style that
the Empress had brought...Read more of this...
by
Laurie Lee
On eves of cold, when slow coal fires,
rooted in basements, burn and branch,
brushing with smoke the city air;
When quartered moons pale in the sky,
and neons glow along the dark
like deadly nightshade on a briar;
Above the muffled traffic then
I hear the owl, and at his note
I shudder in my private chair.
For like an auger he has come
to roost among our...Read more of this...
by
Kenneth Patchen
We go out together into the staring town
And buy cheese and bread and little jugs with
flowered labels
Everywhere is a tent where we put on our whirling
show
A great deal has been said of the handless serpents
Which war has set loose in the gay milk of our
heads
But because you braid your hair and taste like
honey of heaven
We go together into...Read more of this...
by
Robert Burns
Chorus—I’ll aye ca’ in by yon town,
And by yon garden-green again;
I’ll aye ca’ in by yon town,
And see my bonie Jean again.
THERE’S nane sall ken, there’s nane can guess
What brings me back the gate again,
But she, my fairest faithfu’ lass,
And stownlins we sall meet again.
I’ll aye ca’ in, &c.
She’ll wander by the aiken tree,
...Read more of this...
by
Lucy Maud Montgomery
Shut from the clamor of the street
By an old wall with lichen grown,
It holds apart from jar and fret
A peace and beauty all its own.
The freshness of the springtime rains
And dews of morning linger here;
It holds the glow of summer noons
And ripest twilights of the year.
Above its bloom the evening stars
Look down at closing of the day,
And...Read more of this...
by
Nick Flynn
I want to erase your footprints
from my walls. Each pillow
is thick with your reasons. Omens
fill the sidewalk below my window: a woman
in a party hat, clinging
to a tin-foil balloon. Shadows
creep slowly across the tar, someone yells, "Stop!"
and I close my eyes. I can't watch
as this town slowly empties, leaving me
strung between bon-voyages, like so many clothes
on...Read more of this...
by
Rupert Brooke
Here, where love's stuff is body, arm and side
Are stabbing-sweet 'gainst chair and lamp and wall.
In every touch more intimate meanings hide;
And flaming brains are the white heart of all.
Here, million pulses to one centre beat:
Closed in by men's vast friendliness, alone,
Two can be drunk with solitude, and meet
On the sheer point where sense with knowing's one.
Here the green-purple...Read more of this...
by
John Dryden
Ask not the cause why sullen spring
So long delays her flow'rs to bear;
Why warbling birds forget to sing,
And winter storms invert the year?
Chloris is gone; and Fate provides
To make it spring where she resides.
Chloris is gone, the cruel fair;
She cast not back a pitying eye:
But left her lover in despair,
To sigh, to languish, and to...Read more of this...
by
Amy Levy
Out of town the sky was bright and blue,
Never fog-cloud, lowering, thick, was seen to frown;
Nature dons a garb of gayer hue,
Out of town.
Spotless lay the snow on field and down,
Pure and keen the air above it blew;
All wore peace and beauty for a crown.
London sky, marred by smoke, veiled from view,
London snow, trodden thin, dingy brown,
Whence that strange...Read more of this...
by
Andrew Barton Paterson
I thought, in the days of the droving,
Of steps I might hope to retrace,
To be done with the bush and the roving
And settle once more in my place.
With a heart that was well nigh to breaking,
In the long, lonely rides on the plain,
I thought of the pleasure of taking
The hand of a...Read more of this...
by
Edward Estlin (E E) Cummings
anyone lived in a pretty how town
(with up so floating many bells down)
spring summer autumn winter
he sang his didn't he danced his did
Women and men(both little and samll)
cared for anyone not at all
they sowed their isn't they reaped their
same
sun moon stars rain
children guessed(but only a few
and down they forgot as up they grew
autumn winter spring summer)
that noone loved him more...Read more of this...
by
Mother Goose
There was a man in our town,
And he was wondrous wise,
He jumped into a bramble bush,
And scratched out both his eyes;
But when he saw his eyes were out,
With all his might and main,
He jumped into another bush,
And scratched 'em in again....Read more of this...
by
Charles Bukowski
drunk on the dark streets of some city,
it's night, you're lost, where's your
room?
you enter a bar to find yourself,
order scotch and water.
damned bar's sloppy wet, it soaks
part of one of your shirt
sleeves.
It's a clip joint-the scotch is weak.
you order a bottle of beer.
Madame Death walks up to you
wearing a dress.
she sits down, you buy her a
beer, she stinks...Read more of this...
by
T S (Thomas Stearns) Eliot
Bustopher Jones is not skin and bones--
In fact, he's remarkably fat.
He doesn't haunt pubs--he has eight or nine clubs,
For he's the St. James's Street Cat!
He's the Cat we all greet as he walks down the street
In his coat of fastidious black:
No commonplace mousers have such well-cut trousers
Or such an impreccable back.
In the whole of St. James's the smartest of...Read more of this...
by
Badger Clark
We're the children of the open and we hate the haunts o' men,
But we had to come to town to get the mail.
And we're ridin' home at daybreak--'cause the air is cooler then--
All 'cept one of us that stopped behind in jail.
Shorty's nose won't bear paradin',...Read more of this...
by
Carl Sandburg
THE BRIDGE says: Come across, try me; see how good I am.
The big rock in the river says: Look at me; learn how to stand up.
The white water says: I go on; around, under, over, I go on.
A kneeling, scraggly pine says: I am here yet; they nearly got me last year.
A sliver of moon slides by on a...Read more of this...
by
Andrew Barton Paterson
The fields of youth are filled with flowers,
The wine of youth is strong:
What need have we to count the hours?
The summer days are long.
But soon we find to our dismay
That we are drifting down
The barren slopes that fall away
Towards the foothills grim and grey
That lead to Old Man's Town.
And marching...Read more of this...
by
Robert Burns
Chorus—O wat ye wha’s in yon town,
Ye see the e’enin sun upon,
The dearest maid’s in yon town,
That e’ening sun is shining on.
NOW haply down yon gay green shaw,
She wanders by yon spreading tree;
How blest ye flowers that round her blaw,
Ye catch the glances o’ her e’e!
O wat ye wha’s, &c.
How blest ye birds that...Read more of this...
by
Robert Bly
It is a cold and snowy night. The main street is deserted.
The only things moving are swirls of snow.
As I lift the mailbox door I feel its cold iron.
There is a privacy I love in this snowy night.
Driving around I will waste more time....Read more of this...
by
Sir Thomas Wyatt
MY mother's maids, when they did sew and spin,
They sang sometime a song of the field mouse,
That for because her livelood was but thin [livelihood]
Would needs go seek her townish sister's house.
She thought herself endured to much pain:
The stormy blasts her cave so sore did souse
That when the furrows swimmed with the rain...Read more of this...
by
Edna St. Vincent Millay
As I sat down by Saddle Stream
To bathe my dusty feet there,
A boy was standing on the bridge
Any girl would meet there.
As I went over Woody Knob
And dipped into the hollow,
A youth was coming up the hill
Any maid would follow.
Then in I turned at my own gate,—
And nothing to be sad for—
To such a...Read more of this...
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