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Famous Calf Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Bukowski, Charles
...gh heels. They drive me crazy. These modern women
don't know what they're missing. The high heel shapes the calf, the thigh, the ass; it
puts rythm into the walk. It really turns me on!"
"You talk like a poet, George. Sometimes you talk like that. You are one hell of a
dishwasher."
"You know what I'd really like to do?" 
"What?" 
"I'd like to whip you with my belt on the legs, the ass, the thighs. I'd like to
make you quiver and cry and then wh...Read more of this...



by Dryden, John
...d
An idol-monarch which their hands had made:
Thought they might ruin him they could create;
Or melt him to that golden calf, a state.
But these were random bolts: no form'd design,
Nor interest made the factious crowd to join:
The sober part of Israel, free from stain,
Well knew the value of a peaceful reign:
And, looking backward with a wise afright,
Saw seams of wounds, dishonest to the sight:
In contemplation of whose ugly scars,
They curst the memory of civil wars.Read more of this...

by Harjo, Joy
...naked in the bar of misfits
blew deer magic.Henry jack, who could not survive a sober day, thought she
was Buffalo Calf Woman come back, passed out, his head by the toilet.All
night he dreamed a dream he could not say.The next day he borrowed
money, went home, and sent back the money I lent.Now that's a miracle.
Some people see vision in a burned tortilla, some in the face of a woman.

This is the bar of broken survivors, the club of the shotgun, knif...Read more of this...

by Donne, John
...if we o'erlick
Our love, and force it new strange shapes to take,
We err, and of a lump a monster make.
Were not a calf a monster that were grown
Faced like a man, though better than his own?
Perfection is in unity: prefer
One woman first, and then one thing in her.
I, when I value gold, may think upon
The ductileness, the application,
The wholsomeness, the ingenuity,
From rust, from soil, from fire ever free;
But if I love it, 'tis because 'tis made
By our new natur...Read more of this...

by Smart, Christopher
...shadow of death into the morning,the Lord is his name. 

For I am come home again, but there is nobody to kill the calf or to pay the musick. 

For the hour of my felicity, like the womb of Sarah, shall come at the latter end. 

For I shou'd have avail'd myself of waggery, had not malice been multitudinous. 

For there are still serpents that can speak -- God bless my head, my heart and my heel. 

For I bless God that I am of the same seed as Ehud, Mutius...Read more of this...



by Trumbull, John
...ies nursed in all their stages,
For sake of liveries and wages;
In Stephen's Chapel then in state too
Set up her golden calf to pray to;
Proclaim'd its power and right divine,
And call'd for worship at its shrine;
And for poor heretics to burn us,
Bade North prepare his fiery furnace;
Struck bargains with the Romish churches,
Infallibility to purchase;
Set wide for Popery the door,
Made friends with Babel's scarlet whore,
Till both the matrons join'd in clan;
No sisters made ...Read more of this...

by Gunn, Thom
..., black, as flies hanging in heat, the Boy, 
Until the distance throws them forth, their hum 
Bulges to thunder held by calf and thigh. 
In goggles, donned impersonality, 
In gleaming jackets trophied with the dust, 
They strap in doubt--by hiding it, robust-- 
And almost hear a meaning in their noise. 

Exact conclusion of their hardiness 
Has no shape yet, but from known whereabouts 
They ride, directions where the tires press. 
They scare a flight of birds acro...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...ed in brutish forms 
Rather than human. Nor did Israel scape 
Th' infection, when their borrowed gold composed 
The calf in Oreb; and the rebel king 
Doubled that sin in Bethel and in Dan, 
Likening his Maker to the grazed ox-- 
Jehovah, who, in one night, when he passed 
From Egypt marching, equalled with one stroke 
Both her first-born and all her bleating gods. 
Belial came last; than whom a Spirit more lewd 
Fell not from Heaven, or more gross to love 
Vice for it...Read more of this...

by Muir, Edwin
...pride of pelf. Long since the young
Fought in great bloody battles to carve out
This towering pulpit of the Golden Calf,
Montrose, Mackail, Argyle, perverse and brave,
Twisted the stream, unhooped the ancestral hill.
Never had Dee or Don or Yarrow or Till
Huddled such thriftless honour in a grave.
Such wasted bravery idle as a song,
Such hard-won ill might prove Time's verdict wrong,
And melt to pity the annalist's iron tongue....Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...rawn on the slip-noose—where the heat hatches
 pale-green eggs in the dented sand;
Where the she-whale swims with her calf, and never forsakes it; 
Where the steam-ship trails hind-ways its long pennant of smoke; 
Where the fin of the shark cuts like a black chip out of the water; 
Where the half-burn’d brig is riding on unknown currents, 
Where shells grow to her slimy deck—where the dead are corrupting below;
Where the dense-starr’d flag is borne at the head of the r...Read more of this...

by Chesterton, G K
...o lay it on,
But he leaned on his spear as on a staff,
With might and little mood to laugh,
Or ever he sighted chick or calf
Of Colan of Caerleon.

For the man dwelt in a lost land
Of boulders and broken men,
In a great grey cave far off to the south
Where a thick green forest stopped the mouth,
Giving darkness in his den.

And the man was come like a shadow,
From the shadow of Druid trees,
Where Usk, with mighty murmurings,
Past Caerleon of the fallen kings,
Goes out...Read more of this...

by Chaucer, Geoffrey
...y-shorn;
His top was docked like a priest beforn
Full longe were his legges, and full lean
Y-like a staff, there was no calf y-seen
Well could he keep a garner* and a bin* *storeplaces for grain
There was no auditor could on him win
Well wist he by the drought, and by the rain,
The yielding of his seed and of his grain
His lorde's sheep, his neat*, and his dairy *cattle
His swine, his horse, his store, and his poultry,
Were wholly in this Reeve's governing,
And by his cov'nan...Read more of this...

by Lindsay, Vachel
...Æsop awaited him without the door, — 
Æsop the Greek, who made dull masters laugh 
With little tales of fox and dog and calf . 

And be it said, mid these his pranks so odd 
With something nigh to chivalry he trod 
And oft the drear and driven would defend — 
The little shopgirls' knight unto the end. 
Yea, he had passed, ere we could understand 
The blade of Sidney glimmered in his hand. 
Yea, ere we knew, Sir Philip's sword was drawn 
With valiant cut and thrust...Read more of this...

by Chaucer, Geoffrey
...
As any swallow chittering on a bern*. *barn
Thereto* she coulde skip, and *make a game* *also *romp*
As any kid or calf following his dame.
Her mouth was sweet as braket, or as methe* *mead
Or hoard of apples, laid in hay or heath.
Wincing* she was as is a jolly colt, *skittish
Long as a mast, and upright as a bolt.
A brooch she bare upon her low collere,
As broad as is the boss of a bucklere.
Her shoon were laced on her legges high;
She was a primero...Read more of this...

by Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...life was yet in bud and blade, bethrothed 
To one, a neighbouring Princess: she to me 
Was proxy-wedded with a bootless calf 
At eight years old; and still from time to time 
Came murmurs of her beauty from the South, 
And of her brethren, youths of puissance; 
And still I wore her picture by my heart, 
And one dark tress; and all around them both 
Sweet thoughts would swarm as bees about their queen. 

But when the days drew nigh that I should wed, 
My father sent ambass...Read more of this...

by Riley, James Whitcomb
...he horses, an' feeds 'em hay;
An' he opens the shed -- an' we all ist laugh
When he drives out our little old wobble-ly calf;
An' nen -- ef our hired girl says he can --
He milks the cow fer 'Lizabuth Ann. --
 Ain't he a' awful good Raggedy Man?
 Raggedy! Raggedy! Raggedy Man!


W'y, The Raggedy Man -- he's ist so good,
He splits the kindlin' an' chops the wood;
An' nen he spades in our garden, too,
An' does most things 'at boys can't do. --
He clumbed clean up in our...Read more of this...

by Walcott, Derek
...e crying, to make the crew laugh;
it move like a flying fish, the silver knife
that catch him right in the plump of his calf,
and he faint so slowly, and he turn more white
than he thought he was. I suppose among men
you need that sort of thing. It ain't right
but that's how it is. There wasn't much pain,
just plenty blood, and Vincie and me best friend,
but none of them go **** with my poetry again.


9 Maria Concepcion & the Book of Dreams

The jet that was ...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...of
 the
 phoebe-bird,
And the Third-month lambs, and the sow’s pink-faint litter, and the mare’s foal,
 and
 the
 cow’s calf, 
And the noisy brood of the barn-yard, or by the mire of the pond-side, 
And the fish suspending themselves so curiously below there—and the beautiful curious
 liquid, 
And the water-plants with their graceful flat heads—all became part of him. 

The field-sprouts of Fourth-month and Fifth-month became part of him;
Winter-grain sprouts, and those o...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...she-birds sit on their nests,
The young of poultry break through the hatch’d eggs, 
The new-born of animals appear—the calf is dropt from the cow, the colt from the
 mare, 
Out of its little hill faithfully rise the potato’s dark green leaves, 
Out of its hill rises the yellow maize-stalk—the lilacs bloom in the door-yards; 
The summer growth is innocent and disdainful above all those strata of sour dead.

What chemistry! 
That the winds are really not infectious, 
That ...Read more of this...

by Wilmot, John
...e and spew.
From coach 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 ...Read more of this...

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