Famous Combed Poems by Famous Poets

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

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A Bush Lawyer

...dan the water rat was exquisitely dressed, 
For not a seal in Bass's Straits had half as fine a coat, 
And every day he combed and brushed his golden-yellow vest, 
A contrast with the white cravat he wore beneath his throat. 

And Dan-di-dan the water rat could move with ease and grace, 
So Ironbark appeared to him a creature out of place, 
With iron-plated overcoat and dirty little face. 

A crawfish at the point of death came drifting down the drains. 
Said he, "I'm scalded...Read more of this...
by Paterson, Andrew Barton


Ballad Of The Long-Legged Bait

...he country tide is cobbled with towns

And steeples pierce the cloud on her shoulder
And the streets that the fisherman combed
When his long-legged flesh was a wind on fire
And his loin was a hunting flame

Coil from the thoroughfares of her hair
And terribly lead him home alive
Lead her prodigal home to his terror,
The furious ox-killing house of love.

Down, down, down, under the ground,
Under the floating villages,
Turns the moon-chained and water-wound
Metropolis of fishe...Read more of this...
by Thomas, Dylan

California Plush

...a little nervous yet."

It seems to me
an emblem of Bishop--



For watching the room, as the waitresses in their
back-combed, Parisian, peroxided, bouffant hairdos,
and plastic belts,
moved back and forth

I thought of Wallace, and
the room suddenly seemed to me
 not uninteresting at all:

 they were the same. Every plate and chair

 had its congruence with

 all the choices creating

 these people, created

 by them--by me,

for this is my father's chosen country, my origi...Read more of this...
by Bidart, Frank

Charmides

...pottery.


II.


But some good Triton-god had ruth, and bare
The boy's drowned body back to Grecian land,
And mermaids combed his dank and dripping hair
And smoothed his brow, and loosed his clenching hand;
Some brought sweet spices from far Araby,
And others bade the halcyon sing her softest lullaby.

And when he neared his old Athenian home,
A mighty billow rose up suddenly
Upon whose oily back the clotted foam
Lay diapered in some strange fantasy,
And clasping him unto it...Read more of this...
by Wilde, Oscar

Fit the Fourth ( Hunting of the Snark )

...Then the Banker endorsed a blank cheque (which he crossed),
And changed his loose silver for notes:
The Baker with care combed his whiskers and hair.
And shook the dust out of his coats: 

The Boots and the Broker were sharpening a spade--
Each working the grindstone in turn:
But the Beaver went on making lace, and displayed
No interest in the concern: 

Though the Barrister tried to appeal to its pride
And vainly proceeded to cite
A number of cases, in which making laces
Had...Read more of this...
by Carroll, Lewis


Milton's Appeal To Cromwell

...e worthy, he and his, 
 So rule the rest for ages! be it grander thus 
 To be a Cromwell than a Carolus. 
 No lapdog combed by wantons, but the watch 
 Upon the freedom that we won! Dismiss 
 Your flatterers—let no harpings, no gay songs 
 Prevent your calm dictation of good laws 
 To guard, to fortify, and keep enlinked 
 England and Freedom! Be thine old self alone! 
 And make, above all else accorded me, 
 My most desired claim on all posterity, 
 That thou in M...Read more of this...
by Hugo, Victor

Mirror Mirror

...A young spring-tender girl
combed her joyous hair
'You are very ugly' said the mirror.
But,
on her lips hung
a smile of dove-secret loveliness,
for only that morning had not
the blind boy said,
'You are beautiful'?...Read more of this...
by Milligan, Spike

Plegaria (Prayer)

...curtains on rose visions…For looking so far, they never see!    Piety for the tidy heads of hair–Mystical haloes–Gently combed like lakesWhich the storm’s black fan,Black and enormous, never thrashes;Piety for the spirits, illustrious,Carved of diamonds,High, clear, ecstaticLightning rods on pious domes;Piety for the lips like celestial settingsWhere the invisible pearls of the Host gleam;–Lips that never existed,Never seized anything,A fiery vampireWith more thirst and hunge...Read more of this...
by Agustini, Delmira

Statue of a Couple

...we are
as two still plams lying in darlmess,
as two black banks of a frozen stream
in the chasm of the world.

Our hair combed back is carved in wood,
the moon walks over our ebony shoulders.
A distant cockcrow, the night goes by, silent.
Rich is the rime of love, withered the dowry.

Where are you, living in what depths of time,
love, stepping down into what waters,
now, when the frost of our voiceless lips
does not fend off the divine fires?

In a forest of clouds, of fcam,...Read more of this...
by Milosz, Czeslaw

The Ballad Of The Black Fox Skin

...and plot of man with grim, ironic frown.

The trail was steep; 'twas at the time when swiftly sinks the snow;
All honey-combed, the river ice was rotting down below;
The river chafed beneath its rind with many a mighty throe.

And up the swift and oozy drift a woman climbed in fear,
Clutching to her a black fox fur as if she held it dear;
And hard she pressed it to her breast--then Windy Ike drew near.

She made no moan--her heart was stone--she read his smiling face,
And lik...Read more of this...
by Service, Robert William

The Code

...me in the hayfield 
To load the load, thinks I, Look out for trouble. 
I built the load and topped it off; old Sanders 
Combed it down with a rake and says, 'O. K.' 
Everything went well till we reached the barn 
With a big catch to empty in a bay. 
You understand that meant the easy job 
For the man up on top of throwing down 
The hay and rolling it off wholesale, 
Where on a mow it would have been slow lifting. 
You wouldn't think a fellow'd need much urging 
Under these ci...Read more of this...
by Frost, Robert

The Cooks Tale

...lliard* he was, as goldfinch in the shaw**, *lively **grove
Brown as a berry, a proper short fellaw:
With lockes black, combed full fetisly.* *daintily
And dance he could so well and jollily,
That he was called Perkin Revellour.
He was as full of love and paramour,
As is the honeycomb of honey sweet;
Well was the wenche that with him might meet.
At every bridal would he sing and hop;
He better lov'd the tavern than the shop.
For when there any riding was in Cheap,
Out of t...Read more of this...
by Chaucer, Geoffrey

The Forsaken Merman

...ay?
Once she sate with you and me,
On a red gold throne in the heart of the sea,
And the youngest sate on her knee.
She combed its bright hair, and she tended it well,
When down swung the sound of a far-off bell.
She sighed, she looked up through the clear green sea;
She said: 'I must go, for my kinsfolk pray
In the little grey church on the shore today.
'Twill be Easter-time in the world—ah me!
And I lose my poor soul, Merman! here with thee.'
I said: 'Go up, dear heart, thr...Read more of this...
by Arnold, Matthew

The House Of Dust: Complete (Long)

...ting beside her,
Or reaching from behind
To lay pale hands upon her shoulders . . .
Or was this in her mind? . . .

She combed her hair. The sunlight glimmered
Along the tossing strands.
Was there a stillness in this hair,—
A quiet in these hands?

Death was a dream. It could not change these eyes,
Blow out their light, or turn this mouth to dust.
She combed her hair and sang. She would live forever.
Leaves flew past her window along a gust . . .
And graves were dug in the ea...Read more of this...
by Aiken, Conrad

The House Of Dust: Part 02: 10: Sudden Death

...ting beside her,
Or reaching from behind
To lay pale hands upon her shoulders . . .
Or was this in her mind? . . .

She combed her hair. The sunlight glimmered
Along the tossing strands.
Was there a stillness in this hair,—
A quiet in these hands?

Death was a dream. It could not change these eyes,
Blow out their light, or turn this mouth to dust.
She combed her hair and sang. She would live forever.
Leaves flew past her window along a gust . . .
And graves were dug in the ea...Read more of this...
by Aiken, Conrad

The Hunting Of The Snark

...Then the Banker endorsed a blank check (which he crossed),
 And changed his loose silver for notes.
The Baker with care combed his whiskers and hair,
 And shook the dust out of his coats.

The Boots and the Broker were sharpening a spade--
 Each working the grindstone in turn:
But the Beaver went on making lace, and displayed
 No interest in the concern:

Though the Barrister tried to appeal to its pride,
 And vainly proceeded to cite
A number of cases, in which making laces
...Read more of this...
by Carroll, Lewis

The Knights Tale

...head
They glowed betwixte yellow and red,
And like a griffin looked he about,
With kemped* haires on his browes stout; *combed
His limbs were great, his brawns were hard and strong,
His shoulders broad, his armes round and long.
And as the guise* was in his country, *fashion
Full high upon a car of gold stood he,
With foure white bulles in the trace.
Instead of coat-armour on his harness,
With yellow nails, and bright as any gold,
He had a beare's skin, coal-black for old...Read more of this...
by Chaucer, Geoffrey

The Millers Tale

...yed gay, *at point devise.* *with exact care*
But first he chewed grains and liquorice,
To smelle sweet, ere he had combed his hair.
Under his tongue a true love  he bare,
For thereby thought he to be gracious.

Then came he to the carpentere's house,
And still he stood under the shot window;
Unto his breast it raught*, it was so low; *reached
And soft he coughed with a semisoun'.* *low tone
"What do ye, honeycomb, sweet Alisoun?
My faire bird, my sweet cinamome*, *ci...Read more of this...
by Chaucer, Geoffrey

The Sea-Child

...Into the world you sent her, mother,
Fashioned her body of coral and foam,
Combed a wave in her hair's warm smother,
And drove her away from home

In the dark of the night she crept to the town
And under a doorway she laid her down,
The little blue child in the foam-fringed gown.

And never a sister and never a brother
To hear her call, to answer her cry.
Her face shone out from her hair's warm smother
Like a moonkin up in the sky....Read more of this...
by Mansfield, Katherine

When Golda Meir was in Africa

...When Golda Meir
Was in Africa
She shook out her hair
And combed it
Everywhere she went.


According to her autobiography
Africans loved this.


In Russia, Minneapolis, London, Washington, D.C.,
Germany, Palestine, Tel Aviv and
Jerusalem
She never combed at all.
There was no point. In those
Places people said, "She looks like
Any other aging grandmother. She looks
Like a troll. Let's sell her cookery...Read more of this...
by Walker, Alice

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