Famous Bust Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Bust poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous bust poems. These examples illustrate what a famous bust poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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...Throw the ashes and the dust.
Don't go down at once. I trust
You will find excuse to "snake
Three days' casual on the bust."
Get your fun for old sake's sake.
I could never stand the Plains.
Think of blazing June and May
Think of those September rains
Yearly till the Judgment Day!
I should never rest in peace,
I should sweat and lie awake.
Rail me then, on my decease,
To the Hills for old sake's sake....Read more of this...
by
Kipling, Rudyard
...,
it seems I had to fight my whole life through.
Some gal would giggle and I'd get red
and some guy would laugh and I'd bust his head,
I tell you, life ain't easy for a boy named Sue.
Well, I grew up quick and I grew up mean.
My fist got hard and my wits got keen.
Roamed from town to town to hide my shame,
but I made me a vow to the moon and the stars,
I'd search the honky tonks and bars and kill
that man that gave me that awful name.
But it was Gatlinburg in mid July and I...Read more of this...
by
Silverstein, Shel
...ilege of man.
Vain were their searches, and their reason vain,
Else whence the sculptur'd image of a god,
And marble bust ador'd as deity,
Altar and hecatomb prepar'd for these,
Or human sacrifice when hecatomb
Consum'd in vain with ceremony dire,
And rites abhorr'd, denied the wish'd success.
Reason is dark, else why heroic deem'd
Fell suicide, as if 'twere fortitude
And higher merit to recede from life,
Shunning the ills of poverty, or pain,
Or wasting sickness,...Read more of this...
by
Brackenridge, Hugh Henry
...her course to be
Headlong thitherward o'er the starry sea-
But when its glory swell'd upon the sky,
As glowing Beauty's bust beneath man's eye,
We paused before the heritage of men,
And thy star trembled- as doth Beauty then!"
Thus, in discourse, the lovers whiled away
The night that waned and waned and brought no day.
They fell: for Heaven to them no hope imparts
Who hear not for the beating of their hearts....Read more of this...
by
Poe, Edgar Allan
...ollars, dey makes or dey breaks a man.
If Schmitt haf collared der dollars, he collars der girl deremit;
But if Schmitt bust in der pizness, we collars der girl from Schmitt."
They passed one resolution: -- "Your sub-committee believe
You can lighten the curse of Adam when you've lightened the curse of Eve.
But till we are built like angels, with hammer and chisel and pen,
We will work for ourself and a woman, for ever and ever, amen."
Now this is the tale of the Council th...Read more of this...
by
Kipling, Rudyard
...other; Auntie Nellie
Was working at the Maypole
So you told me, at twelve,
16
Your troubles, “They just went
Bust once gaffer died, his lad
Just couldn’t thoil it, so we got
Our cards and that was that”.
17
For months he moped, they told him
Copper-smiths were no more use,
“It’s plastics now” and he was
Far too old to learn another trade
And then the Maypole folded too
When supermarkets came and Nellie
Stayed with you at home until
She dropped behi...Read more of this...
by
Tebb, Barry
...er my cucumbers!
"You pray to the Lord to send you luck
An' you loose your steers in my garden-truck:
"An' now you're bust, as you ought to be,
You can keep on prayin' but not to me!"
Then Abel saw it meant the life;
But, in those days, there was no Knife:
So he up with his big bull-goad instead,
But--Cain hit first and dropped him dead!
The Herd-bulls ran when they smelt the blood,
An' horned an' pawed in that Red Mud.
The Calves they bawled, and the Steers they milled,...Read more of this...
by
Kipling, Rudyard
...e room three times,
learn to yodel, shave our heads, call
our ancestors back from the dead--"
poetrywise it's still a bust, bankrupt.
You haven't scribbled a syllable of it.
You're a nowhere man misfiring
the very essence of your life, flustering
nothing from nothing and back again.
The hereafter may not last all that long.
Radiant childhood sweetheart,
secret code of everlasting joy and sorrow,
fanciful pen strokes beneath the eyelids:
all day, all night meditation, knot ...Read more of this...
by
Tate, James
...e room three times,
learn to yodel, shave our heads, call
our ancestors back from the dead--"
poetrywise it's still a bust, bankrupt.
You haven't scribbled a syllable of it.
You're a nowhere man misfiring
the very essence of your life, flustering
nothing from nothing and back again.
The hereafter may not last all that long.
Radiant childhood sweetheart,
secret code of everlasting joy and sorrow,
fanciful pen strokes beneath the eyelids:
all day, all night meditation, knot ...Read more of this...
by
Taylor, Edward
...gh the long-drawn aisle, and fretted vault,
The pealing anthem swells the note of praise.
Can storied urn, or animated bust,
Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath?
Can Honour's voice provoke the silent dust,
Or Flattery soothe the dull cold ear of Death?
Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid
Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire;
Hands, that the rod of empire might have swayed,
Or waked to ecstasy the living lyre;
But Knowledge to their eyes her ample page,
...Read more of this...
by
Gray, Thomas
...and she knows not to forgive;
Oblige her, and she'll hate you while you live:
But die, and she'll adore you--Then the Bust
And Temple rise--then fall again to dust.
Last night, her Lord was all that's good and great;
A Knave this morning, and his Will a Cheat.
Strange! by the Means defeated of the Ends,
By Spirit robb'd of Pow'r, by Warmth of Friends,
By Wealth of Followers! without one distress
Sick of herself thro' very selfishness!
Atossa, curs'd with ev'ry grant...Read more of this...
by
Pope, Alexander
...taunts insult the ashes of the brave;
While proud AMBITION weeps thy rancour to assuage.
The laurels round the POET's bust,
Twin'd by the liberal hand of Taste,
By thy malignant grasp defac'd,
Fade to their native dust:
Thy ever-watchful eye no labour tires,
Beneath thy venom'd touch the angel TRUTH expires.
When in thy petrifying car
Thy scaly dragons waft thy form,
Then, swifter, deadlier far
Than the keen lightning's lance,
That wings its way across the yelling...Read more of this...
by
Robinson, Mary Darby
...lectrify the sage.
Farewell ! and ne'er may Envy dare
To wring one baleful poison drop
From the crushed laurels of thy bust ;
But while the lark sings sweet in air,
Still may the grateful pilgrim stop,
To bless the spot that holds thy dust....Read more of this...
by
Campbell, Thomas
...was not really bad at heart,
But only rather rude and wild;
She was an aggravating child...
It happened that a marble bust
Of Abraham was standing just
Above the door this little lamb
Had carefully prepared to slam,
And down it came! It knocked her flat!
It laid her out! She looked like that.
Her funeral sermon (which was long
And followed by a sacred song)
Mentioned her virtues, it is true,
But dwelt upon her vices too,
And showed the deadful end of one
Who goes and slams...Read more of this...
by
Belloc, Hilaire
...ome mountain, the last to withstand her, that held (he alone,
While the vale laughed in freedom and flowers) on a broad bust of stone
A year's snow bound about for a breastplate,---leaves grasp of the sheet?
Fold on fold all at once it crowds thunderously down to his feet,
And there fronts you, stark, black, but alive yet, your mountain of old,
With his rents, the successive bequeathings of ages untold---
Yea, each harm got in fighting your battles, each furrow and scar
Of hi...Read more of this...
by
Browning, Robert
...o Doctors plug him full of dope, for if he drops to dust,
So will collapse their faith and hope, the whole combine will bust.
But say, Tovarich; hark to me . . . a secret I'll disclose,
For I did see what none did see; I know what no one knows.
I was a Cheko terrorist - Oh I served the Soviets well,
Till they put me down on the bone-yard list, for the fear that I might tell;
That I might tell the thing I saw, and that only I did see,
They held me in quod with a firing squad ...Read more of this...
by
Service, Robert William
...not a minute stopped or stayed he;
But, with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber door—
Perched upon a bust of Pallas just above my chamber door—
Perched, and sat, and nothing more.
Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling,
By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore,
“Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou,” I said, “art sure no craven,
Ghastly grim and ancient Raven wandering from the Nightly shore—
Tell...Read more of this...
by
Poe, Edgar Allan
...envy, want, the patron, and the jail.
159 See nations slowly wise, and meanly just,
160 To buried merit raise the tardy bust.
161 If dreams yet flatter, once again attend,
162 Hear Lydiat's life, and Galileo's end.
163 Nor deem, when learning her last prize bestows
164 The glitt'ring eminence exempt from foes;
165 See when the vulgar 'scape, despis'd or aw'd,
166 Rebellion's vengeful talons seize on Laud.
167 From meaner minds, tho' smaller fines content
168 The plunder'd pa...Read more of this...
by
Johnson, Samuel
...the fever of the bone.
. . . . .
Grishkin is nice: her Russian eye
Is underlined for emphasis;
Uncorseted, her friendly bust
Gives promise of pneumatic bliss.
The couched Brazilian jaguar
Compels the scampering marmoset
With subtle effluence of cat;
Grishkin has a maisonette;
The sleek Brazilian jaguar
Does not in its arboreal gloom
Distil so rank a feline smell
As Grishkin in a drawing-room.
And even the Abstract Entities
Circumambulate her charm;
But our lot crawls betwe...Read more of this...
by
Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)
...through the dust
In shimmering exhaust
Searching to slake
Its fever in ocean
Will play and be idle or else it will bust.
The swallow of summer, the barbed harpoon,
She flings from the furnace, a rainbow of purples,
Dips her glow in the pond and is perfect.
But the serpent of cars that collapsed on the beach
Disgorges its organs
A scamper of colours
Which roll like tomatoes
Nude as tomatoes
With sand in their creases
To cringe in the sparkle of rollers and screec...Read more of this...
by
Hughes, Ted
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