Famous Costume Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Costume poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous costume poems. These examples illustrate what a famous costume poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
See also:
by
Whitman, Walt
...HOLD it up sternly! See this it sends back! (Who is it? Is it you?)
Outside fair costume—within ashes and filth,
No more a flashing eye—no more a sonorous voice or springy step;
Now some slave’s eye, voice, hands, step,
A drunkard’s breath, unwholesome eater’s face, venerealee’s flesh,
Lungs rotting away piecemeal, stomach sour and cankerous,
Joints rheumatic, bowels clogged with abomination,
Blood circulating dark and poisonous str...Read more of this...
by
Service, Robert William
...not think I speak to joke:
(You know I'm not that kind of man),
I am convinced that all men folk.
Should wear the costume of a Clan.
Imagine how it's braw and clean
As in the wind it flutters free;
And so conducive to hygiene
In its sublime simplicity.
No fool fly-buttons to adjust,--
Wi' shanks and maybe buttocks bare;
Oh chiels, just take my word on trust,
A bonny kilt's the only wear.
'Twill save a lot of siller too,
(And here a canny Scotsman spea...Read more of this...
by
Whitman, Walt
...e Mississippi—he ascends a
knoll
and
sweeps his eye around;
California life—the miner, bearded, dress’d in his rude costume—the stanch
California
friendship—the sweet air—the graves one, in passing, meets, solitary, just
aside the
horsepath;
Down in Texas, the cotton-field, the *****-cabins—drivers driving mules or oxen
before
rude
carts—cotton bales piled on banks and wharves;
Encircling all, vast-darting, up and wide, the American Soul, with equal
hemispheres—o...Read more of this...
by
Pinsky, Robert
...hes, two bodies
Not moving in the open car among the pines,
A sliver of story. The tenor at Price's Hotel,
In clown costume, unfurls the sorrow gathered
In ruffles at his throat and cuffs, high quavers
That hold like splashes of light on the dark water,
The aria's closing phrases, changed and fading.
And after a gap of quiet, cheers and applause
Audible in the houses across the river,
Some in the audience weeping as if they had melted
Inside the music. Never the s...Read more of this...
by
Bishop, Elizabeth
...y's hat,
--oh, even if the joke falls flat,
we share your slight transvestite twist
in spite of our embarrassment.
Costume and custom are complex.
The headgear of the other sex
inspires us to experiment.
Anandrous aunts, who, at the beach
with paper plates upon your laps,
keep putting on the yachtsmen's caps
with exhibitionistic screech,
the visors hanging o'er the ear
so that the golden anchors drag,
--the tides of fashion never lag.
Such caps may not be w...Read more of this...
by
Carroll, Lewis
...thrill in Society),
"As to temper the Jubjub's a desperate bird,
Since it lives in perpetual passion:
Its taste in costume is entirely absurd--
It is ages ahead of the fashion:
"But it knows any friend it has met once before:
It never will look at a bride:
And in charity-meetings it stands at the door,
And collects--though it does not subscribe.
" Its flavor when cooked is more exquisite far
Than mutton, or oysters, or eggs:
(Some think it keeps best in an ...Read more of this...
by
Campbell, Thomas
...he grove
And pastoral savannas they consume!
While she, beside her buskin'd youth to rove,
Delights, in fancifully wild costume,
Her lovely brow to shade with Indian plume;
And forth in hunter-seeming vest they fare;
But not to chase the deer in forest gloom,
'Tis but the breath of heaven--the blessed air--
And interchange of hearts unknown, unseen to share.
What though the sportive dog oft round them note,
Or fawn, or wild bird bursting on the wing;
Yet who, in Love's o...Read more of this...
by
Dickinson, Emily
...ody's friend be dead
It's sharpest of the theme
The thinking how they walked alive --
At such and such a time --
Their costume, of a Sunday,
Some manner of the Hair --
A prank nobody knew but them
Lost, in the Sepulchre --
How warm, they were, on such a day,
You almost feel the date --
So short way off it seems --
And now -- they're Centuries from that --
How pleased they were, at what you said --
You try to touch the smile
And dip your fingers in the frost --
When was it ...Read more of this...
by
Alighieri, Dante
...edi,
vidi genti a la riva d'un gran fiume;
per ch'io dissi: «Maestro, or mi concedi
ch'i' sappia quali sono, e qual costume
le fa di trapassar parer s? pronte,
com'io discerno per lo fioco lume».
Ed elli a me: «Le cose ti fier conte
quando noi fermerem li nostri passi
su la trista riviera d'Acheronte».
Allor con li occhi vergognosi e bassi,
temendo no 'l mio dir li fosse grave,
infino al fiume del parlar mi trassi.
Ed ecco verso noi venir per nave
...Read more of this...
by
Alighieri, Dante
...ee
a crowd along the bank of a great river;
at which I said: "Allow me now to know
ch'i' sappia quali sono, e qual costume
le fa di trapassar parer s? pronte,
com'io discerno per lo fioco lume ».
who are these people-master-and what law
has made them seem so eager for the crossing,
as I can see despite the feeble light."
Ed elli a me: «Le cose ti fier conte
quando noi fermerem li nostri passi
su la trista riviera d'Acheronte ».
And he to me: "Whe...Read more of this...
by
García Lorca, Federico
...lence of your forehead
Ay, ay, ay, ay!
Take this " I will always love you" waltz
In Vienna I will dance with you
in a costume with
a river's head.
See how the hyacinths line my banks!
I will leave my mouth between your legs,
my soul in a photographs and lilies,
and in the dark wake of your footsteps,
my love, my love, I will have to leave
violin and grave, the waltzing ribbons...Read more of this...
by
Seeger, Alan
...Under the glare and noise and heat the galaxy of dancing whirls,
Smokers, with covered heads, and girls dressed in the costume of the street.
From tables packed around the wall the crowds that drink and frolic there
Spin serpentines into the air far out over the reeking hall,
That, settling where the coils unroll, tangle with pink and green and blue
The crowds that rag to "Hitchy-koo" and boston to the "Barcarole". . . .
Here Mimi ventures, at ...Read more of this...
by
Brautigan, Richard
...r>
Nobody ever saw him, except, of course, the victims.
They saw him.
Who would have expected?
He wore a costume of trout fishing in America. He wore
mountains on his elbows and bluejays on the collar of his
shirt. Deep water flowed through the lilies that were entwined
about his shoelaces. A bullfrog kept croaking in his watch
pocket and the air was filled with the sweet smell of ripe
blackberry bushes.
He wore trout fishing in America a...Read more of this...
by
Jonson, Ben
...e tue tempie.
Ahi! Ahi! Ahi! Ahi!
Prendi questo valzer del "Ti amo per sempre".
A Vienna ballerò con te
con un costume che abbia la testa di fiume.
Guarda queste mie rive di giacinti!
Lascerò la mia bocca tra le tue gambe,
la mia anima in foto e fiordalisi,
e nelle onde oscure del tuo passo io voglio,
amore mio, amore mio, lasciare,
violino e sepolcro, i nastri del valzer.
English Translation
Little Viennese Waltz
In Vienna there are ten little girls
...Read more of this...
by
Alighieri, Dante
...zzo novembre
non giugne quel che tu d'ottobre fili.
Quante volte, del tempo che rimembre,
legge, moneta, officio e costume
hai tu mutato e rinovate membre!
E se ben ti ricordi e vedi lume,
vedrai te somigliante a quella inferma
che non può trovar posa in su le piume,
ma con dar volta suo dolore scherma.
Purgatorio: Canto VII
Poscia che l'accoglienze oneste e liete
furo iterate tre e quattro volte,
Sordel si trasse, e disse: «Voi, chi siete?».
«Anzi che a ...Read more of this...
by
Whitman, Walt
...pper, courtship,
Large, turbulent, generous, handsome, proud, and affectionate,
Bearded, sunburnt, drest in the free costume of hunters,
Not a single one over thirty years of age.
The second First-day morning they were brought out in squads, and
massacred—it was beautiful early summer;
The work commenced about five o’clock, and was over by eight.
None obey’d the command to kneel;
Some made a mad and helpless rush—some stood stark and straight;
A fe...Read more of this...
by
Byron, George (Lord)
...and her amour with Joseph constitutes one of the finest poems in their language. It is, therefore, no violation of costume to put the names of Cain, or Noah, into the mouth of a Moslem.
(31) Paswan Oglou, the rebel of Widdin; who, for the last years of his life, set the whole power of the Porte at defiance.
(32) "Horse-tail," the standard of a Pacha.
(33) Giaffir, Pacha of Argyro Castro, or Scutari, I am not sure which, was actually taken off by the Alb...Read more of this...
by
Murray, Les
...s are all down, below the plain,
to sit around in shorts at evening
on the plank verandah -
If the cardinal points of costume
are Robes, Tat, Rig and Scunge,
where are shorts in this compass?
They are never Robes
as other bareleg outfits have been:
the toga, the kilt, the lava-lava
the Mahatma's cotton dhoti;
archbishops and field marshals
at their ceremonies never wear shorts.
The very word
means underpants in North America.
Shorts can be Tat,
Land-Rovering b...Read more of this...
by
Carroll, Lewis
...a thrill in Society),
"As to temper the Jubjub's a desperate bird,
Since it lives in perpetual passion:
Its taste in costume is entirely absurd--
It is ages ahead of the fashion:
"But it knows any friend it has met once before:
It never will look at a bride:
And in charity-meetings it stands at the door,
And collects--though it does not subscribe.
"Its flavour when cooked is more exquisite far
Than mutton, or oysters, or eggs:
(Some think it keeps best in an ivor...Read more of this...
by
Whitman, Walt
...melt from under your feet and hands;
Even now, your features, joys, speech, house, trade, manners, troubles, follies, costume,
crimes, dissipate away from you,
Your true Soul and Body appear before me,
They stand forth out of affairs—out of commerce, shops, law, science, work, forms,
clothes, the house, medicine, print, buying, selling, eating, drinking, suffering, dying.
Whoever you are, now I place my hand upon you, that you be my poem;
I whisper with my lips cl...Read more of this...
Dont forget to view our wonderful member Costume poems.