Get Your Premium Membership

Famous Umbrella Poems by Famous Poets

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

See also:

by Carroll, Lewis
...There are certain things--as, a spider, a ghost,
 The income-tax, gout, an umbrella for three--
That I hate, but the thing that I hate the most
 Is a thing they call the Sea.

Pour some salt water over the floor--
 Ugly I'm sure you'll allow it to be:
Suppose it extended a mile or more,
 That's very like the Sea.

Beat a dog till it howls outright--
 Cruel, but all very well for a spree:
Suppose that he did so day and night...Read more of this...



by Lehman, David
...o much isolationism
and too few foreign entanglements
we need more Baudelaire on the quai 
d'Anjou more olive trees and umbrella pines 
fewer leafless branches on the rue Auguste Comte
too much sociology not enough Garcia Lorca
more colons and dashes fewer commas
less love based on narrow self-interest
more lust based on a feast of kisses
too many novels too few poems
too many poets not enough poetry...Read more of this...

by Lawrence, D. H.
...finitesimal pipe. 
Little lumps that fly in air and have voices indefinite, wildly vindictive; 

Wings like bits of umbrella. 

Bats! 

Creatures that hang themselves up like an old rag, to sleep; 
And disgustingly upside down. 

Hanging upside down like rows of disgusting old rags 
And grinning in their sleep. 
Bats! 

Not for me!...Read more of this...

by Hope, Alec Derwent (A D)
...me seed of enterprise. 

Each day he caught the seven-thirty train 
To work, watered his garden after tea, 
Took an umbrella if it looked like rain A 
nd was remarkably like you or me. 

He had his hair cut once a fortnight, tried 
Not to forget the birthday of his wife, 
And might have lived unnoticed till he died 
Had not ambition entered Henry's life. 

He met her in the lounge of an hotel - 
A most unusual place for him to go - 
But there he was and there she ...Read more of this...

by Collins, Billy
...The way the dog trots out the front door
every morning
without a hat or an umbrella,
without any money
or the keys to her doghouse
never fails to fill the saucer of my heart
with milky admiration.

Who provides a finer example 
of a life without encumbrance—
Thoreau in his curtainless hut
with a single plate, a single spoon?
Gandhi with his staff and his holy diapers?

Off she goes into the material world
with nothing but her b...Read more of this...



by Carroll, Lewis
...he sailors knew how. 

There was one who was famed for the number of things
He forgot when he entered the ship:
His umbrella, his watch, all his jewels and rings,
And the clothes he had bought for the trip. 

He had forty-two boxes, all carefully packed,
With his name painted clearly on each:
But, since he omitted to mention the fact, 
They were all left behind on the beach. 

The loss of his clothes hardly mattered, because
He had seven coats on when he came,
Wit...Read more of this...

by Hikmet, Nazim
...ilded fish.
I tried to reach him,
my boat a Chinese teacup
and my sail
 the embroidered silk
 of a Japanese
 bamboo umbrella...


NEWS FROM THE PARIS WIRELESS


 HALLO
 HALLO
 HALLO

 PARIS
 PARIS
 PARIS

The radio station signs off.
Once more
 blue-shirted Parisians
 fill Paris with red voices
 and red colors...


FROM GIOCONDA'S DIARY


2 May

Today my Chinese failed to show up.


5 May

Still no sign of him...


8 May

My day...Read more of this...

by Lowell, Amy
...parel
Of his gunners is a joy.
Tommy is a lucky boy.
Boom! Boom! Ta-ra!

The old mandarin nods under his purple umbrella. The 
rose in his hand
shoots its petals up in thin quills of crimson. Then 
they collapse
and shrivel like red embers. The fire sizzles.

Tommy is galloping his cavalry, two by two, over the floor. They 
must pass
the open terror of the door and gain the enemy encamped under the 
wash-stand.
The mounted band is very grand, p...Read more of this...

by Bishop, Elizabeth
...vish my eyes. You edge
the beds of silver cabbages
with red carnations, and lettuces
mix with alyssum. And then
umbrella ants arrive,
or it rains for a solid week
and the whole thing's ruined again
and I buy you more pounds of seeds,
imported, guaranteed,
and eventually you bring me
a mystic thee-legged carrot,
or a pumpkin "bigger than the baby."

I watch you through the rain,
trotting, light, on bare feet,
up the steep paths you have made—
or your father and gra...Read more of this...

by Collins, Billy
...ift the bottom of the calendar
just enough to reveal a glimpse of what
the future holds in store: ah,
the red polka dot umbrella of April and her
upturned palm extended coyly into the rain....Read more of this...

by Bishop, Elizabeth
...nt of the piccolo.*

The time has come to call a halt.
I met him walking with Varella
and hit him twice with my umbrella.
Perhaps that occasion was my fault,
but the time has come to call a halt.

Go drink your wine and go get tight.
 Let the piccolo play.
 I'm sick of all your fussing anyway.
 Now I'm pursuing my own way.
I'm leaving on the bus tonight.
 Far down the highway wet and black
 I'll ride and ride and not come back.
 I'm goi...Read more of this...

by Stojanovic, Dejan
...pervading reality. 
To hear another soul and to whisper to another soul; 
To be a lantern in the darkness 
Or an umbrella in a stormy day; 
To feel much more than know. 
To be the eyes of an eagle, slope of a mountain; 
To be a wave understanding the influence of the moon; 
To be a tree and read the memory of the leaves; 
To be an insignificant pedestrian on the streets 
Of crazy cities watching, watching, and watching. 
To be a smile on the face of a wo...Read more of this...

by Hall, Donald
...ought me a small rabbit
which we devoured together, under
the Empire Table
while the men shrieked
repossessing the gold umbrella.

Now the beard on my clock turns white.
My cat stares into dark corners
missing her gold umbrella.
She is in love
with the Alligator Bride.

Ah, the tiny fine white
teeth! The Bride, propped on her tail
in white lace
stares from the holes
of her eyes. Her stuck-open mouth
laughs at minister and people.

On bare new wood
four...Read more of this...

by Lindsay, Vachel
...ed on the table,
Beat an empty barrel with the handle of a broom,
Hard as they were able,
Boom, boom, BOOM,
With a silk umbrella and the handle of a broom,
Boomlay, boomlay, boomlay, BOOM.
THEN I had religion, THEN I had a vision.
I could not turn from their revel in derision.
THEN I SAW THE CONGO, CREEPING THROUGH THE BLACK,
More deliberate. Solemnly chanted.
CUTTING THROUGH THE FOREST WITH A GOLDEN TRACK.
Then along that riverbank
A thousand miles
Ta...Read more of this...

by Sexton, Anne
...the grave, 
so humble, so willing to be beat upon 
with its awful lettering and 
the body lying underneath 
without an umbrella. 
Depression is boring, I think 
and I would do better to make 
some soup and light up the cave....Read more of this...

by Carroll, Lewis
...he sailors knew how.

There was one who was famed for the number of things
 He forgot when he entered the ship:
His umbrella, his watch, all his jewels and rings,
 And the clothes he had bought for the trip.

He had forty-two boxes, all carefully packed,
 With his name painted clearly on each:
But, since he omitted to mention the fact,
 They were all left behind on the beach.

The loss of his clothes hardly mattered, because
 He had seven coats on when he came,
Wi...Read more of this...

by Carroll, Lewis
...There are certain things -a spider, a ghost,
The income-tax, gout, an umbrella for three - 
That I hate, but the thing that I hate the most
Is a thing they call the SEA.

Pour some salt water over the floor - 
Ugly I'm sure you'll allow it to be:
Suppose it extended a mile or more,
That's very like the SEA.

Beat a dog till it howls outright - 
Cruel, but all very well for a spree;
Suppose that one did so day and night...Read more of this...

by Walcott, Derek
...renades, her sex was the slit throat 
of an Indian, her hair had the blue-black sheen of the crow. 
She was a black umbrella blown inside out 
by the wind of revolution, La Madre Dolorosa, 
a black rose of sorrow, a black mine of silence, 
raped wife, empty mother, Aztec virgin 
transfixed by arrows from a thousand guitars, 
a stone full of silence, which, if it gave tongue 
to the tortures done in the name of the Father, 
would curdle the blood of the marauding wolf, 
th...Read more of this...

by Carroll, Lewis
...hat, 

All to the feet of one who stood
Like maid enchanted in a wood,
Frowning as darkly as she could. 

With huge umbrella, lank and brown,
Unerringly she pinned it down,
Right through the centre of the crown. 

Then, with an aspect cold and grim,
Regardless of its battered rim,
She took it up and gave it him. 

A while like one in dreams he stood,
Then faltered forth his gratitude
In words just short of being rude: 

For it had lost its shape and shine,
And it ...Read more of this...

by Tebb, Barry
...Moortown

Was a disaster. Walking home in the rain I put my arm

Around you and you did not resist, we shared your umbrella

Then we kissed.



I liked the taste of your lips, the tingle of your fingertips,

Your mild perfume. When a sudden gust blew your umbrella inside out

We sheltered underneath a cobbled arch, a rainy arch, a rainbow arch.



“I’m sorry”, you said about nothing in particular, perhaps the class

Gone wrong, the weather, I’ll never know bu...Read more of this...

Dont forget to view our wonderful member Umbrella poems.


Book: Shattered Sighs