Famous Batten Poems by Famous Poets

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

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A Far Cry From Africa

...A wind is ruffling the tawny pelt
Of Africa, Kikuyu, quick as flies,
Batten upon the bloodstreams of the veldt.
Corpses are scattered through a paradise.
Only the worm, colonel of carrion, cries:
"Waste no compassion on these separate dead!"
Statistics justify and scholars seize
The salients of colonial policy.
What is that to the white child hacked in bed?
To savages, expendable as Jews?
Threshed out by beaters, the long rus...Read more of this...
by Walcott, Derek


A Song To David

...III 
The cheerful holly, pensive yew, 
And holy thorn, their trim renew; 
 The squirrel hoards his nuts; 
All creatures batten o'er their stores, 
And careful nature all her doors 
 For ADORATION shuts. 

 LXIV 
For ADORATION, DAVID's psalms 
Life up the heart to deeds of alms; 
 And he, who kneels and chants, 
Prevails his passions to control, 
Finds meat and med'cine to the soul, 
 Which for translation pants. 

 LXV 
For ADORATION, beyond match, 
The scholar bullfinch aims...Read more of this...
by Smart, Christopher

For Bartleby The Scrivener

..."Every time we get a big gale around here
 some people just refuse to batten down."

we estimate that

ice skating into a sixty
mile an hour wind, fully exerting
the legs and swinging arms

you will be pushed backward
an inch every twenty minutes.

in a few days, depending on
the size of the lake,
the backs of your skates
will touch land.

you will then fall on your ass
and be blown into the forest.

if you gather enough speed...Read more of this...
by Collins, Billy

His Content In The Country

...The landlord or the usurer.
The quarter-day does ne'er affright
Our peaceful slumbers in the night:
We eat our own, and batten more,
Because we feed on no man's score;
But pity those whose flanks grow great,
Swell'd with the lard of other's meat.
We bless our fortunes, when we see
Our own beloved privacy;
And like our living, where we're known
To very few, or else to none....Read more of this...
by Herrick, Robert

The Hawk and the Babe

...ed gaps!
Let it be! Content thy car
With the voyage to things that are!

Nor, an thou perchance behold
How I plunge and batten on
Earth's exentrate carrion,
Deem torquoise match midden-mould
Or deny the Hawk of Gold!...Read more of this...
by Crowley, Aleister


The Lady of the Lake

...t savage groom,
     To break his fall, one downy plume!
     No!—deep amid disjointed stones,
     The wolves shall batten on his bones,
     And then shall his detested plaid,
     By bush and brier in mid-air stayed,
     Wave forth a banner fail and free,
     Meet signal for their revelry.'
     XXIV

     'Hush thee, poor maiden, and be still!'
     'O! thou look'st kindly, and I will.
     Mine eye has dried and wasted been,
     But still it loves the Lin...Read more of this...
by Scott, Sir Walter

The Whistling Girl

...Back of my back, they talk of me,
Gabble and honk and hiss;
Let them batten, and let them be-
Me, I can sing them this:

"Better to shiver beneath the stars,
Head on a faithless breast,
Than peer at the night through rusted bars,
And share an irksome rest.

"Better to see the dawn come up,
Along of a trifling one,
Than set a steady man's cloth and cup
And pray the day be done.

"Better be left by twenty dears
Than lie in a lo...Read more of this...
by Parker, Dorothy

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