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Famous Buff Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Burns, Robert
...
Combustion thro’ our boroughs rode,
Whistling his roaring pack abroad
 Of mad unmuzzled lions;
As Queensberry blue and buff unfurl’d,
And Westerha’ and Hopetoun hurled
 To every Whig defiance.


But cautious Queensberry left the war,
Th’ unmanner’d dust might soil his star,
 Besides, he hated bleeding:
But left behind him heroes bright,
Heroes in C&æsarean fight,
 Or Ciceronian pleading.


O for a throat like huge Mons-Meg,
To muster o’er each ardent Whig
 Beneath Dr...Read more of this...



by Burns, Robert
...;
We thought aye death wad bring relief;
But he has gotten, to our grief,
 Ane to succeed him,
A chield wha’ 11 soundly buff our beef;
 I meikle dread him.


And mony a ane that I could tell,
Wha fain wad openly rebel,
Forby turn-coats amang oursel’,
 There’s Smith 12 for ane;
I doubt he’s but a grey nick quill,
 An’ that ye’ll fin’.


O! a’ ye flocks o’er a, the hills,
By mosses, meadows, moors, and fells,
Come, join your counsel and your skills
 To cowe the lairds,
...Read more of this...

by Clampitt, Amy
...hings, fragrances, the gray-green
bayberry's cool poultice—

and what can't finally be mended, the salt air
proceeds to buff and rarefy: the lopped carnage
of the seaward spruce clump weathers
lustrous, to wood-silver.

Little is certain, other than the tide that
circumscribes us that still sets its term
to every picnic—today we stayed too long
again, and got our feet wet—

and all attachment may prove at best, perhaps,
a broken, a much-mended thing. Watching
the long...Read more of this...

by Herrick, Robert
...maids make about the hearth;
Of Christmas sports, the wassail-bowl,
That toss'd up, after Fox-i'-th'-hole;
Of Blind-man-buff, and of the care
That young men have to shoe the Mare;
Of twelf-tide cakes, of pease and beans,
Wherewith ye make those merry scenes,
Whenas ye chuse your king and queen,
And cry out, 'Hey for our town green!'--
Of ash-heaps, in the which ye use
Husbands and wives by streaks to chuse;
Of crackling laurel, which fore-sounds
A plenteous harvest to your gr...Read more of this...

by Sexton, Anne
...e. I was my own king and queen
with cheese and bread and rosé on the rocks of Rockport.
Once I sunbathed in the buff, all brown and lean,
watching the toy sloops go by, holding court
for busloads of tourists. Once I called breakfast the sexiest
meal of the day. Once I invited arrest

at the peace march in Washington. Once I was young and bold
and left hundreds of unmatched people out in the cold....Read more of this...



by Blake, William
...or fool!
She blush'd so red, with sidelong glance
At hob-nail Dick, who griev'd the chance.
But now for Blind man's Buff they call;
Of each encumbrance clear the hall--
Jenny her silken 'kerchief folds,
And blear-eyed Will the black lot holds.
Now laughing stops, with `Silence! hush!'
And Peggy Pout gives Sam a push.
The Blind man's arms, extended wide,
Sam slips between:--`O woe betide
Thee, clumsy Will!'--but titt'ring Kate
Is penn'd up in the corner straight!
A...Read more of this...

by Anonymous,
...my know-ing,—
  And I've play-ed at games enough,—
Makes us laugh, and sets us glow-ing
  Like a game at Blind-man's Buff....Read more of this...

by von Goethe, Johann Wolfgang
...OH, my Theresa dear!
Thine eyes, I greatly fear,

Can through the bandage see!
Although thine eyes are bound,
By thee I'm quickly found,

And wherefore shouldst thou catch but me?

Ere long thou held'st me fast,
With arms around me cast,

Upon thy breast I fell;
Scarce was thy bandage gone,
When all my joy was flown,

Thou coldly didst the blind repel....Read more of this...

by Marvell, Andrew
...He therefore circumscribes himself in rimes;
And swaddled in's own papers seaven times,
Wears a close Jacket of poetick Buff,
With which he doth his third Dimension Stuff.
Thus armed underneath, he over all
Does make a primitive Sotana fall;
And above that yet casts an antick Cloak,
Worn at the first Counsel of Antioch;
Which by the Jews long hid, and Disesteem'd,
He heard of by Tradition, and redeem'd.
But were he not in this black habit deck't,
This half transparent...Read more of this...

by Sandburg, Carl
...is a south-west wind kissing a corn-tassel.

(The kitchen girl on the farm is throwing oats to the chickens and the buff of their feathers says hello to the sunset’s late maroon.)

I don’t care who you are, woman:
I know sons and daughters looking for you
And they are next year’s wheat or the year after hidden in the dark and loam.

My love is a yellow hammer spinning circles in Ohio, Indiana. My love is a redbird shooting flights in straight lines in Kentucky...Read more of this...

by Stevenson, Robert Louis
...God, if this were enough,
That I see things bare to the buff
And up to the buttocks in mire;
That I ask nor hope nor hire,
Nut in the husk,
Nor dawn beyond the dusk,
Nor life beyond death:
God, if this were faith! 

Having felt thy wind in my face
Spit sorrow and disgrace,
Having seen thine evil doom
In Golgotha and Khartoum,
And the brutes, the work of thine hands,
Fill with injustice lands
And stain with blood ...Read more of this...

by Tebb, Barry
...I was never a film buff, give me Widmark and Wayne any day

Saturday matin?es with Margaret Gardener still hold sway

As my memory veers backwards this temperate Boxing Day-

Westerns and war films and a blurred Maigret,

Coupled with a worn-out sixties Penguin Mallarm?-

How about that mix for a character trait?

Try as I may I can’t get my head round the manifold virtues

Of...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...m; 
They all know him—all are affectionate to him; 
See you! some are such beautiful animals—so lofty looking!
Some are buff color’d—some mottled—one has a white line running along his
 back—some are brindled, 
Some have wide flaring horns (a good sign)—See you! the bright hides; 
See, the two with stars on their foreheads—See, the round bodies and broad backs; 
See, how straight and square they stand on their legs—See, what fine, sagacious eyes;

See, how they watch their Ta...Read more of this...

by Edgar, Marriott
...r>

'T were as if bugles called Sam to duty,
For his musket he started to search,
He found it at last in the Hen house,
Buff Orpingtons had it for perch.

Straight off to the Fusilliers' depot,
He went to rejoin his old troop...
Where he found as they couldn't recruit Him,
Until his age group was called up.

Now Sam wasn't getting no younger,
Past the three score and ten years was he,
And he reckoned by time they reached his age group,
He'd be very near te...Read more of this...

by Whittier, John Greenleaf
...en delight, 
The sleigh-drive through the frosty night, 
The rustic party, with its rough 
Accompaniment of blind-man's-buff, 
And whirling-plate, and forfeits paid, 
His winter task a pastime made. 
Happy the snow-locked homes wherein 
He tuned his merry violin, 
Or played the athlete in the barn, 
Or held the good dame's winding-yarn, 
Or mirth-provoking versions told 
Of classic legends rare and old, 
Wherein the scenes of Greece and Rome 
Had all the commonplace of ho...Read more of this...

by Seeger, Alan
...he pleasant outer country; rising here
From rustling foliage where cuckoos call
On summer evenings, stands a belvedere,
Buff-hued, of antique plaster, overrun
With flowering vines and weatherworn by rain and sun.

Still round the turrets of this antique tower
The bougainvillea hangs a crimson crown,
Wistaria-vines and clematis in flower,
Wreathing the lower surface further down,
Hide the old plaster in a very shower
Of motley blossoms like a broidered gown.
Outside, a...Read more of this...

by Masefield, John
...A policeman clutched, a fireman clutched, 
A dozen others snatched and touched. 
"By God, he's stripped down to his buff." 
"By God, we'll make him warm enough." 
"After him," "Catch him," "Out him," " Scrob him." 
"We'll give him hell." "By God, we'll mob him." 
"We'll duck him, scrout him, flog him, fratch him." 
"All right," I said. "But first you'll catch him." 

The men who don't know to the root 
The joy of being swift of foot, 
Have ...Read more of this...

by Browning, Robert
...they cling!
That day, I know, with a dozen oaths
I clad myself in thick hunting-clothes
Fit for the chase of urochs or buffle
In winter-time when you need to muffle.
But the Duke had a mind we should cut a figure,
And so we saw the lady arrive:
My friend, I have seen a white crane bigger!
She was the smallest lady alive,
Made in a piece of nature's madness,
Too small, almost, for the life and gladness
That over-filled her, as some hive
Out of the bears' reach on the high...Read more of this...

by Service, Robert William
...oul-thought -- Bing!
Twiddle your heart-strings in his clutch. "Bah!" said Smith, "let my body lie
 stripped to the buff in swinish shame,
If I can blaze in the radiant sky out of adoring stars my name.
Sober am I nonentitized; drunk am I more than half a god.
Well, let the flesh be sacrificed; spirit shall speak and shame the clod.
Who would not gladly, gladly give Life to do one thing that will live?"

Smith had a friend, we'll call him Brown; dearer than br...Read more of this...

by Service, Robert William
...ould not ever have them grieve,
Or shed a single tear for me,
To mar their joy this Christmas Eve.

Stripped to the buff and gaunt and still
Lies all the land in grim distress.
Like lost soul wailing, long and shrill,
A wolf-howl cleaves the emptiness.
Then hushed as Death is everything.
The moon rides haggard and forlorn . . .
"O hark the herald angels sing!"
God bless all men -- it's Christmas morn....Read more of this...

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Book: Reflection on the Important Things