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Famous Sock Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Burns, Robert
...y joes hae starv’d,
 ’Mid a’ thy favours!


Say, Lassie, why, thy train amang,
While loud the trump’s heroic clang,
And sock or buskin skelp alang
 To death or marriage;
Scarce ane has tried the shepherd-sang
 But wi’ miscarriage?


In Homer’s craft Jock Milton thrives;
Eschylus’ pen Will Shakespeare drives;
Wee Pope, the knurlin’, till him rives
 Horatian fame;
In thy sweet sang, Barbauld, survives
 Even Sappho’s flame.


But thee, Theocritus, wha matches?
They’re no her...Read more of this...



by Field, Eugene
...I count my treasures o'er with care.--
The little toy my darling knew,
A little sock of faded hue,
A little lock of golden hair.

Long years ago this holy time,
My little one--my all to me--
Sat robed in white upon my knee
And heard the merry Christmas chime.

"Tell me, my little golden-head,
If Santa Claus should come to-night,
What shall he bring my baby bright,--
What treasure for my boy?" I said.

And then he named this ...Read more of this...

by Sexton, Anne
...en you did it alone,
getting a transfusion from the fire,
picking the scabs off your heart,
then wringing it out like a sock.
Next, my kinsman, you powdered your sorrow,
you gave it a back rub
and then you covered it with a blanket
and after it had slept a while
it woke to the wings of the roses
and was transformed.

Later,
when you face old age and its natural conclusion
your courage will still be shown in the little ways,
each spring will be a sword you'll sharpen,
...Read more of this...

by Berryman, John
...'t that a truly gloomy thought.
It's June, God help us, when the sight we fought
clears. One day when I take my sock
off the skin will come with it

and I'll run blood, horrible on the floor
the streaming blood reminds me of my love.
Wolves run in & out
take wolves, but terrible enough
I am dreaming of my love's hair & all her front teeth are false
as were my anti-hopes....Read more of this...

by Plath, Sylvia
...odle;
I hadn't a cat yet.

Now she's done for, the dewlapped lady
I watched settle, line by line, in my mirror—
Old sock-face, sagged on a darning egg.
They've trapped her in some laboratory jar.
Let her die there, or wither incessantly for the next fifty years,
Nodding and rocking and fingering her thin hair.
Mother to myself, I wake swaddled in gauze,
Pink and smooth as a baby....Read more of this...



by Heaney, Seamus
...
The horse strained at his clicking tongue. 

An expert. He would set the wing
And fit the bright steel-pointed sock.
The sod rolled over without breaking.
At the headrig, with a single pluck 

Of reins, the sweating team turned round
And back into the land. His eye
Narrowed and angled at the ground,
Mapping the furrow exactly. 

I stumbled in his hob-nailed wake,
Fell sometimes on the polished sod;
Sometimes he rode me on his back
Dipping and rising t...Read more of this...

by Kenyon, Jane
...ith a birch broom, to the child
whose mother has passed out from drink.
It comes to the lover, to the dog chewing
a sock, to the pusher, to the basket maker,
and to the clerk stacking cans of carrots
in the night.
It even comes to the boulder
in the perpetual shade of pine barrens,
to rain falling on the open sea, 
to the wineglass, weary of holding wine....Read more of this...

by Parker, Dorothy
...ain:
Envy, content, and sufficient champagne.

Three be the things I shall have till I die:
Laughter and hope and a sock in the eye....Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...hts as youthful poets dream
On summer eves by haunted stream.
Then to the well-trod stage anon,
If Jonson's learned sock be on,
Or sweetest Shakespeare, Fancy's child,
Warble his native wood-notes wild.
And ever, against eating cares,
Lap me in soft Lydian airs,
Married to immortal verse,
Such as the meeting soul may pierce,
In notes with many a winding bout
Of linked sweetness long drawn out
With wanton heed and giddy cunning,
The melting voice through mazes running,...Read more of this...

by Silverstein, Shel
...ammed in the closet,
His vest has been left in the hall.
A lizard named Ed is asleep in his bed,
And his smelly old sock has been stuck to the wall.
Whosever room this is should be ashamed!
Donald or Robert or Willie or--
Huh? You say it's mine? Oh, dear,
I knew it looked familiar!...Read more of this...

by Clampitt, Amy
...cold nights on the farm, a sock-shod
stove-warmed flatiron slid under
the covers, mornings a damascene-
sealed bizarrerie of fernwork
 decades ago now

waking in northwest London, tea
brought up steaming, a Peak Frean
biscuit alongside to be nibbled
as blue gas leaps up singing
 decades ago now

damp sheets in Dorset, fog-hung
habitat of bronchitis, of long
hot soaks in the bathtub, o...Read more of this...

by Brautigan, Richard
...o be a religious text of some sort.

 The girl said, "No."

 I bought a pair of tennis shoes and three pairs of socks at

a store in McCall. The socks had a written guarantee. I tried

to save the guarantee, but I put it in my pocket and lost it.

The guarantee said that if anything happened to the socks

within three months time, I would get new socks. It seemed

like a good idea.

 I was supposed to launder the old socks and send them in

with th...Read more of this...

by Edgar, Marriott
...play. 

The Queen saw nowt wrong with the number 
And would have it again and again, 
And when Richard said: "Put a sock in it!" 
She'd give 'im a look full of pain. 

The King got fed up at the finish, 
And were so sick of 'earing it played, 
That he packed his spare suit on a wagon 
And went off and joined the Crusade.

He got fighting the moment he landed,
And though Saracen lads did their best, 
He cut off their heads in such numbers, 
That the hatmakers lodge...Read more of this...

by Yeats, William Butler
...unning to paradise;
And many a darling wit's grown dull
That tossed a bare heel when at school,
Now it has filled a old sock full:
And there the king is but as the beggar.

The wind is old and still at play
While I must hurry upon my way.
For I am running to paradise;
Yet never have I lit on a friend
To take my fancy like the wind
That nobody can buy or bind:
And there the king is but as the beggar....Read more of this...

by Estep, Maggie
...fooled by my clever ruse
***** goddess? I think not
I'm just a sucker for punishment
So punish me
Spank me
Dominate my sock drawer 
And stalk me


Don't stalk Jodie Foster, David Letterman or John S. Hall
Don't go through their trash 
Their trash is boring
play with my trash
Hurry, I'm waiting
I'm pleading
Just come on and do it
Chew me choke me and stalk me
That'll teach me to write all that goddamned poetry...Read more of this...

by Service, Robert William
...alled Salvation Bill; I teach the Living Law,
And Bally-hoo the Bible with the best;
And if a guy won't listen - why, I sock him on the jaw,
And preach the Gospel sitting on his chest....Read more of this...

by Hardy, Thomas
...such prosperi-ty?"--
"O didn't you know I'd been ruined?" said she.

--"You left us in tatters, without shoes or socks,
Tired of digging potatoes, and spudding up docks;
And now you've gay bracelets and bright feathers three!"--
"Yes: that's how we dress when we're ruined," said she.

--"At home in the barton you said 'thee' and 'thou,'
And 'thik oon,' and 'theäs oon,' and 't'other'; but now
Your talking quite fits 'ee for high compa-ny!"--
"Some polish is ...Read more of this...

by Gregory, Rg
...when the dog began to sing
the people ran amok
a man shinned up a flagpole
a woman chewed her sock

children danced the drainpipe
a policeman robbed a bank
the mayor and all the councillors
fired doughnuts from a tank

the queen embraced the dustman
the clergy showed their knees
librarians in their thousands
begged mercy from the trees

the dog sang in the market
it didn't understand
the panic and predicament
it'd loosed upon the land

its head had a...Read more of this...

by Nash, Ogden
...daily refuse,
And I hold that frolicsome daughters and nieces
Are ample excuse for breaking leases.
You may take a sock at your daddy's tummy
Or climb all over your doting mummy,
But keep your attentions to me in check,
Or, sonny boy, I will wring your neck.
A happier man today I'd be
Had someone wrung it ahead of me....Read more of this...

by Lawson, Henry
...r. 

You are none the less a hero if you elevate your chin 
When you feel the pavement wearing through the leather, sock, and skin; 
You are rather more heroic than are ordinary folk 
If you scorn to fish for pity under cover of a joke; 
You will face the doubtful glances of the people that you know; 
But -- of course, you're bound to face them when your pants begin to go. 

If, when flush, you took your pleasures -- failed to make a god of Pelf, 
Some will say that f...Read more of this...

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