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Famous Bully Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry
...In hopes of a laureate wreathing,
And when he has wasted his time,
 He’s kindly rewarded wi’—naething.


The thundering bully may rage,
 And swagger and swear like a heathen;
But collar him fast, I’ll engage,
 You’ll find that his courage is—naething.


Last night wi’ a feminine whig—
 A Poet she couldna put faith in;
But soon we grew lovingly big,
 I taught her, her terrors were naething.


Her whigship was wonderful pleased,
 But charmingly tickled wi’ ae thing,
Her fingers...Read more of this...
by Burns, Robert



...nce to close her Eyes,
Of Bridewell and the Compter dreams,
And feels the Lash, and faintly screams;
Or, by a faithless Bully drawn,
At some Hedge-Tavern lies in Pawn;
Or to Jamaica seems transported,
Alone, and by no Planter courted;
Or, near Fleet-Ditch's oozy Brinks,
Surrounded with a Hundred Stinks,
Belated, seems on watch to lie,
And snap some Cull passing by;
Or, struck with Fear, her Fancy runs
On Watchmen, Constables and Duns,
From whom she meets with frequent Rubs;
B...Read more of this...
by Swift, Jonathan
...city behind 
For the hills of open morn, 
For fear of our kind. 

Our brother they nailed to a tree 
For sedition; they bully and curse 
All those whom love makes free. 
Yet the very winds disperse 

Rapture of birds and brooks, 
Colours of sea and cloud,— 
Beauty not learned of books, 
Truth that is never loud. 

We model our joy into clay, 
Or help it with line and hue, 
Or hark for its breath in stray 
Wild chords and new. 

For to-morrow can only fulfil 
Dreams which to-d...Read more of this...
by Carman, Bliss
...mbles from within. 
So when Troy Chair-men bore the Wooden Steed, 
Pregnant with Greeks, impatient to be freed, 
(Those Bully Greeks, who, as the Moderns do, 
Instead of paying Chair-men, run them thro'.) 
Laoco'n struck the Outside with his Spear, 
And each imprison'd Hero quak'd for Fear.

Now from all Parts the swelling Kennels flow, 
And bear their Trophies with them as they go: 
Filth of all Hues and Odours seem to tell 
What Streets they sail'd from, by the Sight and Sm...Read more of this...
by Swift, Jonathan
...w's a gentleman 
Not greatly to my mind, 
He'll steal what seeds he can, 
And all you hide he'll find. 
Yet though he's bully and sneak, 
To small birds, bird of prey, 
He counts the days of the week, 
And keeps the Sabbath Day....Read more of this...
by Tynan, Katharine



...
 music, you horrid, you unkind (I sim- 
 ply loathe you, though you are my 
 sister), you beast, cad, coward, cheat, 
 bully, liar! 
Well? Say what’s left for me then! 

But we won’t go to your ugly music.
 (Listen!) Ben will garden and dig, 
And Claire will finish her wondrous pictures 
 All flaming and splendid and big. 
And I’ll be a perfectly marvellous carpenter, 
 and I’ll make cupboards and benches
 and tables and ... and baths, and 
 nice wooden boxes for studs and 
...Read more of this...
by Graves, Robert
...As our mother the Frigate, bepainted and fine,
Made play for her bully the Ship of the Line;
So we, her bold daughters by iron and fire,
Accost and decoy to our masters' desire.

Now, pray you, consider what toils we endure,
Night-walking wet sea-lanes, a guard and a lure;
Since half of our trade is that same pretty sort
As mettlesome wenches do practise in port.

For this is our office: to spy and make room,
As hiding ye...Read more of this...
by Kipling, Rudyard
...t, a menace to us all.

"He struts with throwing stone and spear;
And is he not the first to wear
Around his waist with bully leer
The pelt of wolf and baby bear!
Admitting that he made the kill
Why should he so exploit his skill?

"Comrades, grave counsel we must take,
And as he struts with jest and jibe,
Let us act swiftly lest he make
Himself Dictator of our Tribe:
The Gods have built him on their plan:
Let us reduce him to a man."

And so they seized him in the night,
And...Read more of this...
by Service, Robert William
...d on his understanding
and then watch him go soggy, like a wet meringue.
Watch him turn into a mess, either a fool or a bully.
Just watch the display of him, confronted with a new
 demand on his intelligence,
a new life-demand.

How beastly the bourgeois is
especially the male of the species--

Nicely groomed, like a mushroom
standing there so sleek and erect and eyeable--
and like a fungus, living on the remains of a bygone life
sucking his life out of the dead leaves of gre...Read more of this...
by Lawrence, D. H.
...ere with dying glare; the blood upon the ground;
The brutal faces round him ringed, the evil eyes aflame;
That Prussian bully standing by, as if he watched a game.
"Make haste and shoot," the Major sneered; "a minute more I give;
A minute more to kill your friend, if you yourself would live."

They only saw a bare-foot boy, with blanched and twitching face;
They did not see within his eyes the glory of his race;
The glory of a million men who for fair France have died,
The sp...Read more of this...
by Service, Robert William
...ith yourself your will can go?
If you want to know if you have grit,
Just pick out a joy that you like, and quit.

It's bully sport and it's open fight;
It will keep you busy both day and night;
For the toughest kind of a game you'll find
Is to make your body obey your mind.
And you never will know what is meant by grit
Unless there's something you've tried to quit....Read more of this...
by Guest, Edgar Albert
...s
at the Green Street tenement in Worcester
I'd have no documentary proof
that I exist. You are the first, 
my dear, to bully me
into these festive occasions.

Sometimes, you say, I wear
an abstracted look that drives you
up the wall, as though it signified
distress or disaffection.
Don't take it so to heart.
Maybe I enjoy not-being as much
as being who I am. Maybe
it's time for me to practice
growing old. The way I look 
at it, I'm passing through a phase:
gradually I'm chan...Read more of this...
by Kunitz, Stanley
...kle river beside High ones catch stick great forest top Low ones float turn sink pool hollow South village mob children bully me old without strength Bear able to face to steal be robbers  Openly carry thatch into bamboo go Lips burnt mouth dry call not succeed Return come lean on cane self sigh Soon shortly wind calm cloud ink colour Autumn sky overcast direction dark black Cotton cover many years cold like iron Beloved children badly lie kick in split Bed bed room leak no d...Read more of this...
by Fu, Du
.... . . 

Listen! Like the distant thunder of the rollers on the bar -- 
Listen, Tom! I hear the -- diggers -- shouting: `Bully for the STAR!''...Read more of this...
by Lawson, Henry
...tis right of his office poor laymen to lurch
     Who infringe the domains of our good Mother Church.
     Yet whoop, bully-boys! off with your liquor,
     Sweet Marjorie 's the word and a fig for the vicar!
     VI.

     The warder's challenge, heard without,
     Stayed in mid-roar the merry shout.
     A soldier to the portal went,—
     'Here is old Bertram, sirs, of Ghent;
     And—beat for jubilee the drum!—
     A maid and minstrel with him come.'
     Be...Read more of this...
by Scott, Sir Walter
...o' the British craft;
The skipper called to his Lascar crew, and put her about and laughed: --
"It's mainsail haul, my bully boys all -- we'll out to the seas again --
Ere they set us to paint their pirate saint, or scrub at his grapnel-chain.
It's fore-sheet free, with her head to the sea, and the swing of the unbought brine --
We'll make no sport in an English court till we come as a ship o' the Line:
Till we come as a ship o' the Line, my lads, of thirty foot in the sheer...Read more of this...
by Kipling, Rudyard
...The Captain becomes moody at sea. He's
afraid of water; such bully amounts that prove the
seas. . . 

 A glass of water is one thing. A man easily downs
it, capturing its menace in his bladder; pissing it
away. A few drops of rain do little harm, save to
remind of how grief looks upon the cheek. 

 One day the water is willing to bear your ship
upon its back like a liquid elephant. The next day
the elephant doesn't wa...Read more of this...
by Edson, Russell
...ry step:
"Come, elephant, and fight! Come, hog-eyed coward!
Come, face about and fight me, lumbering sneak!
Come, beefy bully, hit me, if you can!
Take out your gun, you duffer, give me reason
To draw and kill you. Take your billy out;
I'll crack your boar's head with a piece of brick!"
But never a word the hog-eyed one returned
But trod about the court-house, followed both
By troops of boys and watched by all the men.
All day, they walked the square. But when Apollo
Stood wi...Read more of this...
by Masters, Edgar Lee
...t is she worth— this country— not my own?

I thought of my father's deep traditional wrath
Against England— the redcoat bully— the ancient foe—
That second reaping of hate, that aftermath
Of a ruler's folly and ignorance long ago—
Long, long ago— yet who can honestly say
England is utterly changed— not I— not I.
Arrogance, ignorance, folly are here today,
And for these my son must die?
I thought of these years, these last dark terrible years
When the leaders of England bade t...Read more of this...
by Miller, Alice Duer
...oach and six a thing unweildy rolled,
Whose lumber, card more decently would hold.
As wise as calf it looked, as big as bully,
But handled, proves a mere Sir Nicholas Cully;
A bawling fop, a natural Nokes, and yet
He dares to censure as if he had wit.
To make him more ridiculous, in spite
Nature contrived the fool should be a knight.
Though he alone were dismal signet enough,
His train contributed to set him off,
All of his shape, all of the selfsame stuff.
No spleen or malic...Read more of this...
by Wilmot, John

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Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry