Famous Trip Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Bottle O

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 I ain't the kind of bloke as takes to any steady job; 
I drives me bottle cart around the town; 
A bloke what keeps 'is eyes about can always make a bob -- 
I couldn't bear to graft for every brown. 
There's lots of handy things about in everybody's yard, 
There's cocks and hens a-runnin' to an' fro, 
And...Read more of this...

To Ladies Of A Certain Age

by John Trumbull
 Ye ancient Maids, who ne'er must prove
The early joys of youth and love,
Whose names grim Fate (to whom 'twas given,
When marriages were made in heaven)
Survey'd with unrelenting scowl,
And struck them from the muster-roll;
Or set you by, in dismal sort,
For wintry bachelors to court;
Or doom'd to lead your faded lives,
Heirs to the joys of former wives;
Attend! nor fear in state...Read more of this...

A Valediction Forbidding Mourning

by Adrienne Rich
 My swirling wants. Your frozen lips.
The grammar turned and attacked me.
Themes, written under duress.
Emptiness of the notations.

They gave me a drug that slowed the healing of wounds.

I want you to see this before I leave:
the experience of repetition as death
the failure of criticism to locate the pain
the poster in the bus that said:
my bleeding is under control

A red plant...Read more of this...

Proud Word You Never Spoke

by Walter Savage Landor
 Proud word you never spoke, but you will speak
Four not exempt from pride some future day.
Resting on one white hand a warm wet cheek,
Over my open volume you will say,
'This man loved me'—then rise and trip away....Read more of this...

Winding River (1)

by Du Fu
 One petal blossom fly reduce but spring Wind flutter ten thousand points now sorrow person Now watch soon exhaust flower pass eyes Not satisfied much wine enter lip River on little hall nest halcyon bird Decorative border high tomb lie unicorn Careful investigate natural law must seek joy What use undeserved reputation trip up this body Read more of this...

In The Baggage Room At Greyhound

by Allen Ginsberg
 I

In the depths of the Greyhound Terminal 
sitting dumbly on a baggage truck looking at the sky 
 waiting for the Los Angeles Express to depart 
worrying about eternity over the Post Office roof in 
 the night-time red downtown heaven 
staring through my eyeglasses I realized shuddering 
 these thoughts were not eternity, nor the poverty 
 of...Read more of this...

Symphonic Studies (After Schumann)

by Emma Lazarus
 Prelude 

Blue storm-clouds in hot heavens of mid-July 
Hung heavy, brooding over land and sea: 
Our hearts, a-tremble, throbbed in harmony 
With the wild, restless tone of air and sky. 
Shall we not call im Prospero who held 
In his enchanted hands the fateful key 
Of that tempestuous hour's mystery, 
And with controlling wand our spirits spelled, 
With him...Read more of this...

The Runcorn Ferry

by Marriott Edgar
 On the banks of the Mersey, o'er on Cheshire side, 
Lies Runcorn that's best known to fame 
By Transporter Bridge as takes folks over t'stream, 
Or else brings them back across same. 

In days afore Transporter Bridge were put up, 
A ferryboat lay in the slip, 
And old Ted the boatman would row folks across 
At per tuppence per...Read more of this...

Lesson

by Forrest Hamer
 It was 1963 or 4, summer,
and my father was driving our family
from Ft. Hood to North Carolina in our 56 Buick.
We'd been hearing about Klan attacks, and we knew

Mississippi to be more dangerous than usual.
Dark lay hanging from the trees the way moss did,
and when it moaned light against the windows
that night, my father pulled off the road to...Read more of this...

Supernatural Songs

by William Butler Yeats
 I. Ribh at the Tomb of Baile and Aillinn

Because you have found me in the pitch-dark night
With open book you ask me what I do.
Mark and digest my tale, carry it afar
To those that never saw this tonsured head
Nor heard this voice that ninety years have cracked.
Of Baile and Aillinn you need not speak,
All know their tale, all know...Read more of this...

The Lowestoft Boat

by Rudyard Kipling
 In Lowestoft a boat was laid,
 Mark well what I do say!
And she was built for the herring-trade,
 But she has gone a-rovin', a-rovin', a-rovin',
 The Lord knows where!

They gave her Government coal to burn,
And a Q.F. gun at bow and stern,
And sent her out a-rovin', etc.

Her skipper was mate of a bucko ship
Which always killed one man per...Read more of this...

The Popular Heart is a Cannon first --

by Emily Dickinson
 The Popular Heart is a Cannon first --
Subsequent a Drum --
Bells for an Auxiliary
And an Afterward of Rum --

Not a Tomorrow to know its name
Nor a Past to stare --
Ditches for Realms and a Trip to Jail
For a Souvenir --...Read more of this...

Nancy Knapp

by Edgar Lee Masters
 Well, don't you see this was the way of it:
We bought the farm with what he inherited,
And his brothers and sisters accused him of poisoning
His fathers mind against the rest of them.
And we never had any peace with our treasure.
The murrain took the cattle, and the crops failed.
And lightning struck the granary.
So we mortgaged the farm to keep going.
And...Read more of this...

Albert and the Eadsman

by Marriott Edgar
 On young Albert Ramsbottom's birthday
His parents asked what he'd like most;
He said to see t' Tower of London
And gaze upon Anne Boleyn's ghost.

They thowt this request were unusual
And at first to refuse were inclined,
'Til Pa said a trip t' metrollopse
Might broaden the little lad's mind.

They took charrybank up to London
And got there at quarter to fower,
Then seeing as pubs...Read more of this...

Sez You

by Henry Lawson
 When the heavy sand is yielding backward from your blistered feet, 
And across the distant timber you can SEE the flowing heat; 
When your head is hot and aching, and the shadeless plain is wide, 
And it's fifteen miles to water in the scrub the other side -- 
Don't give up, don't be down-hearted, to a man's strong heart...Read more of this...

The Nostomaniac

by Robert William Service
 On the ragged edge of the world I'll roam,
And the home of the wolf shall be my home,
And a bunch of bones on the boundless snows
The end of my trail . . . who knows, who knows!

I'm dreaming to-night in the fire-glow, alone in my study tower,
My books battalioned around me, my Kipling flat on my knee;
But I'm not...Read more of this...

The Wind Is Blowin'

by Badger Clark
  My tired hawse nickers for his own home bars;
    A hoof clicks out a spark.
  The dim creek flickers to the lonesome stars;
    The trail twists down the dark.
  The ridge pines whimper to the pines below.
  The wind is blowin' and I want you so.

  The birch...Read more of this...

Wide Spaces

by Henry Lawson
 When the man I was denounces all the things that I was not, 
When the true souls stand like granite, while the souls of liars not – 
When the quids I gave are counted, and the trays I cadged forgot; 

Shall my spirit see the country that it wrote for once again? 
Shall it see the old selections, and...Read more of this...

The Addict

by Anne Sexton
 Sleepmonger,
deathmonger,
with capsules in my palms each night,
eight at a time from sweet pharmaceutical bottles
I make arrangements for a pint-sized journey.
I'm the queen of this condition.
I'm an expert on making the trip
and now they say I'm an addict.
Now they ask why.
WHY!

Don't they know that I promised to die!
I'm keeping in practice.
I'm merely staying in shape.
The pills are a mother, but...Read more of this...

The Billy-Goat Overland

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 Come all ye lads of the droving days, ye gentlemen unafraid, 
I'll tell you all of the greatest trip that ever a drover made, 
For we rolled our swags, and we packed our bags, and taking our lives in hand, 
We started away with a thousand goats, on the billy-goat overland. 
There wasn't a fence that'd hold the mob,...Read more of this...

The Division Of Parts

by Anne Sexton
 1.
Mother, my Mary Gray,
once resident of Gloucester
and Essex County,
a photostat of your will
arrived in the mail today.
This is the division of money.
I am one third
of your daughters counting my bounty
or I am a queen alone
in the parlor still,
eating the bread and honey.
It is Good Friday.
Black birds pick at my window sill.
Your coat in my closet,
your bright stones on my...Read more of this...

Anonymous Drawing

by Donald Justice
 A delicate young ***** stands
With the reins of a horse clutched loosely in his hands;
So delicate, indeed, that we wonder if he can hold the spirited creature
beside him
Until the master shall arrive to ride him.
Already the animal's nostrils widen with rage or fear.
But if we imagine him snorting, about to rear,
This boy, who should know about such things better...Read more of this...

The Bonnie Lass o Ruily

by William Topaz McGonagall
 'Twas in the village of Ruily there lived a bonnie lass
With red, pouting lips which few lasses could surpass,
And her eyes were as azure the blue sky,
Which caused Donald McNeill to heave many a love sigh 

Beyond the township of Ruily she never had been,
This pretty maid with tiny feet and aged eighteen;
And when Donald would ask her to...Read more of this...

Questions of Travel

by Elizabeth Bishop
 There are too many waterfalls here; the crowded streams 
hurry too rapidly down to the sea, 
and the pressure of so many clouds on the mountaintops 
makes them spill over the sides in soft slow-motion, 
turning to waterfalls under our very eyes. 
--For if those streaks, those mile-long, shiny, tearstains, 
aren't waterfalls yet, 
in a quick age or so,...Read more of this...

LAllegro

by John Milton
 Hence, loathed Melancholy,
............Of Cerberus and blackest Midnight born
In Stygian cave forlorn
............'Mongst horrid shapes, and shrieks, and sights
unholy!
Find out some uncouth cell,
............Where brooding Darkness spreads his jealous wings,
And the night-raven sings;
............There, under ebon shades and low-browed rocks,
As ragged as thy locks,
............In dark Cimmerian desert ever dwell.
But come, thou Goddess fair and free,
In heaven yclept Euphrosyne,
And by men heart-easing Mirth;
Whom lovely...Read more of this...

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