10 Best Famous Dowdy Poems

Here is a collection of the top 10 all-time best famous Dowdy poems. This is a select list of the best famous Dowdy poetry. Reading, writing, and enjoying famous Dowdy poetry (as well as classical and contemporary poems) is a great past time. These top poems are the best examples of dowdy poems.

• All Famous Dowdy Poems

 for all my country poses
my cells belong to a town
grass is symbol-deep in me
but brick dips deeper down

mountains knock me sideways
a moor chills my bones
a field of wheat exults me
i'm awed by ancient stones

but lines of dowdy shop-fronts
mean unpolished streets
sever the green man in me
coddle my heart's retreats

my marrow's grey as asphalt
my brain's a shirley tram
the royal pier dreams fish for me
what southampton was - i am

i'm an ecological liar
a trickster with mother earth
dreaming grass may ravel me -
bricks nourish my birth

 We're marchin' on relief over Injia's sunny plains,
A little front o' Christmas-time an' just be'ind the Rains;
Ho! get away you bullock-man, you've 'eard the bugle blowed,
There's a regiment a-comin' down the Grand Trunk Road;
 With its best foot first
 And the road a-sliding past,
 An' every bloomin' campin'-ground exactly like the last;
 While the Big Drum says,
 With 'is "rowdy-dowdy-dow!" --
 "Kiko kissywarsti don't you hamsher argy jow?"*

* Why don't you get on?

Oh, there's them Injian temples to admire when you see,
There's the peacock round the corner an' the monkey up the tree,
An' there's that rummy silver grass a-wavin' in the wind,
An' the old Grand Trunk a-trailin' like a rifle-sling be'ind.
 While it's best foot first, . . .

At half-past five's Revelly, an' our tents they down must come,
Like a lot of button mushrooms when you pick 'em up at 'ome.
But it's over in a minute, an' at six the column starts,
While the women and the kiddies sit an' shiver in the carts.
 An' it's best foot first, . . .

Oh, then it's open order, an' we lights our pipes an' sings,
An' we talks about our rations an' a lot of other things,
An' we thinks o' friends in England, an' we wonders what they're at,
An' 'ow they would admire for to hear us sling the bat.*
 An' it's best foot first, . . .


* Language. Thomas's first and firmest conviction is that he is a profound Orientalist and a fluent speaker of Hindustani. As a matter of fact, he depends largely on the sign-language.

It's none so bad o' Sunday, when you're lyin' at your ease,
To watch the kites a-wheelin' round them feather-'eaded trees,
For although there ain't no women, yet there ain't no barrick-yards,
So the orficers goes shootin' an' the men they plays at cards.
 Till it's best foot first, . . .

So 'ark an' 'eed, you rookies, which is always grumblin' sore,
There's worser things than marchin' from Umballa to Cawnpore;
An' if your 'eels are blistered an' they feels to 'urt like 'ell,
You drop some tallow in your socks an' that will make 'em well.
 For it's best foot first, . . .

We're marchin' on relief over Injia's coral strand,
Eight 'undred fightin' Englishmen, the Colonel, and the Band;
Ho! get away you bullock-man, you've 'eard the bugle blowed,
There's a regiment a-comin' down the Grand Trunk Road;
 With its best foot first
 And the road a-sliding past,
 An' every bloomin' campin'-ground exactly like the last;
 While the Big Drum says,
 With 'is "rowdy-dowdy-dow!" --
 "Kiko kissywarsti don't you amsher argy jow?"

 To the Critic

Methinks I see some crooked mimic jeer, 
And tax my Muse with this fantastic grace, 
Turning my papers asks, "What have we here?" 
Making withal some filthy antic face. 
I fear no censure, nor what thou canst say, 
Nor shall my spirit one jot of vigor lose; 
Think'st thou my wit shall keep the pack-horse way 
That every dudgen low invention goes? 
Since sonnets thus in bundles are imprest 
And every drudge doth dull our satiate ear, 
Think'st thou my love shall in those rags be drest 
That every dowdy, every trull, doth wear? 
Up to my pitch no common judgement flies; 
I scorn all earthly dung-bred scarabies.