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Famous Cowboy Up Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry
...Spanish is the lovin' tongue,
    Soft as music, light as spray.
  'Twas a girl I learnt it from,
    Livin' down Sonora way.
  I don't look much like a lover,
  Yet I say her love words over
    Often when I'm all alone--
    "Mi amor, mi corazon."

  Nights when she knew where I'd ride
    She would listen for my spurs,
  Fling the big door o...Read more of this...
by Clark, Badger



...(_Written for Mother_)


  Oh Lord. I've never lived where churches grow.
    I love creation better as it stood
  That day You finished it so long ago
    And looked upon Your work and called it good.
  I know that others find You in the light
    That's sifted down through tinted window panes,
  And yet I seem to feel You near tonight
    In thi...Read more of this...
by Clark, Badger
...Starspangled cowboy 
sauntering out of the almost-
silly West, on your face 
a porcelain grin, 
tugging a papier-mache cactus 
on wheels behind you with a string, 


you are innocent as a bathtub
full of bullets.


Your righteous eyes, your laconic 
trigger-fingers
people the streets with villains: 
as you move, the air in front of you 
blossoms with targe...Read more of this...
by Atwood, Margaret
...You're salty and greasy and smoky as sin
    But of all grub we love you the best.
  You stuck to us closer than nighest of kin
    And helped us win out in the West,
  You froze with us up on the Laramie trail;
    You sweat with us down at Tucson;
  When Injun was painted and white man was pale
  You nerved us to grip our last chance by the tail
...Read more of this...
by Clark, Badger
...BAND concert public square Nebraska city. Flowing and circling dresses, summer-white dresses. Faces, flesh tints flung like sprays of cherry blossoms. And gigglers, God knows, gigglers, rivaling the pony whinnies of the Livery Stable Blues.

Cowboy rags and ****** rags. And boys driving sorrel horses hurl a cornfield laughter at the girls in dresses, summe...Read more of this...
by Sandburg, Carl



...And now our government
a bird with two right wings
flies on from zone to zone
while we go on having our little fun & games
at each election
as if it really mattered who the pilot is
of Air Force One
(They're interchangeable, stupid!)
While this bird with two right wings
flies right on with its corporate flight crew
And this year its the Great Movie Cowboy ...Read more of this...
by Ferlinghetti, Lawrence
...One time, 'way back where the year marks fade,
    God said: "I see I must lose my West,
  The prettiest part of the world I made,
    The place where I've always come to rest,
  For the White Man grows till he fights for bread
  And he begs and prays for a chance to spread.

  "Yet I won't give all of my last retreat;
    I'll help him to fight h...Read more of this...
by Clark, Badger
...Alphonso Rex who died in Rome
Was quite a fistful as a kid;
For when I visited his home,
That gorgeous palace in Madrid,
The grinning guide-chap showed me where
He rode his bronco up the stair.

That stairway grand of marbled might,
The most majestic in the land,
In statured splendour, flight on flight,
He urged his steed with whip in hand.
No lackey could...Read more of this...
by Service, Robert William
...Little Cowboy, what have you heard,
Up on the lonely rath's green mound?
Only the plaintive yellow bird
Sighing in sultry fields around,
Chary, chary, chary, chee-ee! -
Only the grasshopper and the bee? -
"Tip-tap, rip-rap,
Tick-a-tack-too!
Scarlet leather, sewn together,
This will make a shoe.
Left, right, pull it tight;
Summer days are warm;
Underground ...Read more of this...
by Allingham, William
...It seemed as if the enormous journey 
was finally approaching its conclusion.
From the window of the train
the last trees were dissipating,
a child-like sailor waved once,
a seal-like dog barked and died.
The conductor entered the lavatory 
and was not seen again, although 
his harmonica-playing was appreciated. 
He was not without talent, some said.
A bot...Read more of this...
by Taylor, Edward
...It seemed as if the enormous journey 
was finally approaching its conclusion.
From the window of the train
the last trees were dissipating,
a child-like sailor waved once,
a seal-like dog barked and died.
The conductor entered the lavatory 
and was not seen again, although 
his harmonica-playing was appreciated. 
He was not without talent, some said.
A bot...Read more of this...
by Tate, James
...A dying firelight slides along the quirt
Of the cast iron cowboy where he leans
Against my father's books. The lariat
Whirls into darkness. My girl in skin tight jeans
Fingers a page of Captain Marriat
Inviting insolent shadows to her shirt.

We rise together to the second floor.
Outside, across the lake, an endless wind
Whips against the headstones of the...Read more of this...
by Hecht, Anthony
...'Way high up the Mogollons,
    Among the mountain tops,
  A lion cleaned a yearlin's bones
    And licked his thankful chops,
  When on the picture who should ride,
    A-trippin' down a slope,
  But High-Chin Bob, with sinful pride
    And mav'rick-hungry rope.

    "_Oh, glory be to me," says he,_
      "_And fame's unfadin' flowers!_
    _A...Read more of this...
by Clark, Badger
...[Concerning O. Henry (Sidney Porter)]

"He could not forget that he was a Sidney."


Is this Sir Philip Sidney, this loud clown, 
The darling of the glad and gaping town? 

This is that dubious hero of the press 
Whose slangy tongue and insolent address 
Were spiced to rouse on Sunday afternoon 
The man with yellow journals round him strewn. 
We laughed an...Read more of this...
by Lindsay, Vachel
...At a roundup on the Gily,
    One sweet mornin' long ago,
  Ten of us was throwed right freely
    By a hawse from Idaho.
  And we thought he'd go-a-beggin'
    For a man to break his pride
  Till, a-hitchin' up one leggin,
    Boastful Bill cut loose and cried--

    "_I'm a on'ry proposition for to hurt;_
    _I fulfil my earthly mission with ...Read more of this...
by Clark, Badger
...I'd like to be a cowboy an' ride a fiery hoss
Way out into the big an' boundless west;
I'd kill the bears an' catamounts an' wolves I come across,
An' I'd pluck the bal' head eagle from his nest!
With my pistols at my side,
I would roam the prarers wide,
An' to scalp the savage Injun in his wigwam would I ride--
If I darst; but I darsen't!

I'd like to go ...Read more of this...
by Field, Eugene
...I rode across a valley range
    I hadn't seen for years.
  The trail was all so spoilt and strange
    It nearly fetched the tears.
  I had to let ten fences down
    (The fussy lanes ran wrong)
  And each new line would make me frown
    And hum a mournin' song.

    _Oh, it's squeak! squeak! squeak!_
      _Hear 'em stretchin' of the wire!_
...Read more of this...
by Clark, Badger
...1. Paul Venarez heard them say, in the frontier town that day,
That a band of Red Plume's warriors was upon the trail of death;
Heard them tell of a murder done: Three men killed at Rocky Run.
"They're in danger up at Crawford's," said Venarez, under breath.

2. "Crawford's"—thirty miles away—was a settlement, that lay
In a green and pleasant valley o...Read more of this...
by Rexford, Eben E.
...MOVING-PICTURE ACTRESS

(On hearing she was leaving the moving-pictures for the stage.)


Mary Pickford, doll divine,
Year by year, and every day
At the movmg-picture play,
You have been my valentine.

Once a free-limbed page in hose,
Baby-Rosalind in flower,
Cloakless, shrinking, in that hour
How our reverent passion rose,
How our fine desire you won.
Kit...Read more of this...
by Lindsay, Vachel
...The Cowboy had a sterling heart,
The Maiden was from Boston,
The Rancher saw his wealth depart—
The Steers were what he lost on.

The Villain was a banker’s limb,
His spats and cane were nifty;
The Maiden needs must marry him—
Her father was not thrifty.

The Sheepmen were as foul as pitch,
The Cowboy was a hero,
The gold mine made the hero rich,
The Villa...Read more of this...
by Butler, Ellis Parker

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Book: Reflection on the Important Things