Famous Crammed Poems by Famous Poets

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

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A Letter From Li Po

..., for Li Po's horse:
not these, in the self's circle so embraced:
too near, too dear, for pure assessment: no,
a letter crammed and creviced, crannied full,
storied and stored as the ripe honeycomb
with other faith than this. As of sole pride
and holy loneliness, the intrinsic face
worn by the always changing shape between
end and beginning, birth and death.
How moves that line of daring on the map?
Where was it yesterday, or where this morning
when thunder struck at seven, a...Read more of this...
by Aiken, Conrad


A Welsh Testament

...ar care
For the Welsh people. History showed us
He was too big to be nailed to the wall
Of a stone chapel, yet still we crammed him
Between the boards of a black book.

Yet men sought us despite this.
My high cheek-bones, my length of skull
Drew them as to a rare portrait
By a dead master. I saw them stare
From their long cars, as I passed knee-deep
In ewes and wethers. I saw them stand
By the thorn hedges, watching me string
The far flocks on a shrill whistle.
And always the...Read more of this...
by Thomas, R S

Blighters

...The House is crammed: tier beyond tier they grin 
And cackle at the Show, while prancing ranks 
Of harlots shrill the chorus, drunk with din; 
‘We’re sure the Kaiser loves our dear old Tanks!’ 

I’d like to see a Tank come down the stalls,
Lurching to rag-time tunes, or ‘Home, sweet Home’, 
And there’d be no more jokes in Music-halls 
To mock the riddled corpses round Ba...Read more of this...
by Sassoon, Siegfried

Bonny Dundee

...nking luck to thy bonnet, thou Bonny Dundee! 
Come fill up my cup, etc. 

With sour-featured Whigs the Grass-market was crammed, 
As if half the West had set tryst to be hanged;
There was spite in each look, there was fear in each e’e, 
As they watched for the bonnets of Bonny Dundee. 
Come fill up my cup, etc. 

These cowls of Kilmarnock had spits and had spears, 
And lang-hafted gullies to kill cavaliers; 
But they shrunk to close-heads and the causeway was free, 
At the to...Read more of this...
by Scott, Sir Walter

Fra Lippo Lippi

...hurch up fine 
And put the front on it that ought to be!" 
And hereupon he bade me daub away. 
Thank you! my head being crammed, the walls a blank, 
Never was such prompt disemburdening. 
First, every sort of monk, the black and white, 
I drew them, fat and lean: then, folk at church, 
From good old gossips waiting to confess 
Their cribs of barrel-droppings, candle-ends,-- 
To the breathless fellow at the altar-foot, 
Fresh from his murder, safe and sitting there 
With the l...Read more of this...
by Browning, Robert


Gentlmen-Rankers

...he cohort of the damned,
 To my brethren in their sorrow overseas,
Sings a gentleman of England cleanly bred, machinely crammed,
 And a trooper of the Empress, if you please.
Yea, a trooper of the forces who has run his own six horses,
 And faith he went the pace and went it blind,
And the world was more than kin while he held the ready tin,
 But to-day the Sergeant's something less than kind.
 We're poor little lambs who've lost our way,
 Baa! Baa! Baa!
 We're little black s...Read more of this...
by Kipling, Rudyard

Paradise Lost: Book 10

...
My Hell-hounds, to lick up the draff and filth 
Which Man's polluting sin with taint hath shed 
On what was pure; til, crammed and gorged, nigh burst 
With sucked and glutted offal, at one sling 
Of thy victorious arm, well-pleasing Son, 
Both Sin, and Death, and yawning Grave, at last, 
Through Chaos hurled, obstruct the mouth of Hell 
For ever, and seal up his ravenous jaws. 
Then Heaven and Earth renewed shall be made pure 
To sanctity, that shall receive no stain: 
Till ...Read more of this...
by Milton, John

Rabbi Ben Ezra

...and find and feast:
Such feasting ended, then
As sure an end to men;
Irks care the crop-full bird? Frets doubt the maw-crammed beast?

Rejoice we are allied
To That which doth provide
And not partake, effect and not receive!
A spark disturbs our clod;
Nearer we hold of God
Who gives, than of His tribes that take, I must believe.

Then, welcome each rebuff
That turns earth's smoothness rough,
Each sting that bids nor sit nor stand but go!
Be our joys three-parts pain!
Strive,...Read more of this...
by Browning, Robert

The Ballad Of Lenins Tomb

...ll, and I was racked with pain;
And ringèd around by shapes of gloom, who hoped that I would die;
For of the crowd that crammed the Tomb the sole to live was I.
They told me I had dreamed a dream that must not be revealed,
But by their eyes of evil gleam I knew my doom was sealed.

I need not tell how from my cell in Lubianka gaol,
I broke away, but listen, here's the point of all my tale. . . .
Outside the "Gay Pay Oo" none knew of that grim scene of gore;
They closed the To...Read more of this...
by Service, Robert William

The Ballad of the Kings Jest

...igh,
The knives were whetted and -- then came I
To Mahbub Ali the muleteer,
Patching his bridles and counting his gear,
Crammed with the gossip of half a year.
But Mahbub Ali the kindly said,
"Better is speech when the belly is fed."
So we plunged the hand to the mid-wrist deep
In a cinnamon stew of the fat-tailed sheep,
And he who never hath tasted the food,
By Allah! he knoweth not bad from good.

We cleansed our beards of the mutton-grease,
We lay on the mats and were fill...Read more of this...
by Kipling, Rudyard

The Great Adventure of Max Breuck

...jar; then to a vat
Lost in the distance of his cellar, ran.
Max took a pipe as graceful as the stem
Of some long tulip, crammed it full, and drew
The pungent smoke deep to his grateful lung.
It curled all blue throughout the cave and flew
Into the silver night. At once there flung
Into the crowded shop a boy, who cried to them:

6
"Oh, sirs, is there some learned lawyer here,
Some advocate, or all-wise counsellor?
My master sent me to inquire where
Such men do mostly be, but ...Read more of this...
by Lowell, Amy

The Last Tournament

...y from lawn to lawn 
Through many a league-long bower he rode. At length 
A lodge of intertwisted beechen-boughs 
Furze-crammed, and bracken-rooft, the which himself 
Built for a summer day with Queen Isolt 
Against a shower, dark in the golden grove 
Appearing, sent his fancy back to where 
She lived a moon in that low lodge with him: 
Till Mark her lord had past, the Cornish King, 
With six or seven, when Tristram was away, 
And snatched her thence; yet dreading worse than ...Read more of this...
by Tennyson, Alfred Lord

The Lost Legion

...ts,
 Is breaking the road for the rest.
Our fathers they left us their blessing --
 They taught us, and groomed us, and crammed;
But we've shaken the Clubs and the Messes
 To go and find out and be damned
 (Dear boys!),
 To go and get shot and be damned.

So some of us chivvy the slaver,
 And some of us cherish the black,
And some of us hunt on the Oil Coast,
 And some on the Wallaby track:
And some of us drift to Sarawak,
 And some of us drift up The Fly,
And some share our ...Read more of this...
by Kipling, Rudyard

The Man From Eldorado

...eath.

He grips the table tensely, and he says: "Dear friends of mine,
 I've let you dip your fingers in my purse;
I've crammed you at my table, and I've drowned you in my wine,
 And I've little left to give you but--my curse.
I've failed supremely in my plans; it's rather late to whine;
 My poke is mighty weasened up and small.
I thank you each for coming here; the happiness is mine--
 And now, you thieves and harlots, take it all."

He twists the thong from off his poke; he...Read more of this...
by Service, Robert William

The Princess (part 3)

...pretty 
Her blushing was, and how she blushed again, 
As if to close with Cyril's random wish: 
Not like your Princess crammed with erring pride, 
Nor like poor Psyche whom she drags in tow.' 

'The crane,' I said, 'may chatter of the crane, 
The dove may murmur of the dove, but I 
An eagle clang an eagle to the sphere. 
My princess, O my princess! true she errs, 
But in her own grand way: being herself 
Three times more noble than three score of men, 
She sees herself in ev...Read more of this...
by Tennyson, Alfred Lord

The Princess (part 7)

...grand designs; for on one side arose 
The women up in wild revolt, and stormed 
At the Oppian Law. Titanic shapes, they crammed 
The forum, and half-crushed among the rest 
A dwarf-like Cato cowered. On the other side 
Hortensia spoke against the tax; behind, 
A train of dames: by axe and eagle sat, 
With all their foreheads drawn in Roman scowls, 
And half the wolf's-milk curdled in their veins, 
The fierce triumvirs; and before them paused 
Hortensia pleading: angry was her...Read more of this...
by Tennyson, Alfred Lord

The Princess (The Conclusion)

...last, she fixt 
A showery glance upon her aunt, and said, 
'You--tell us what we are' who might have told, 
For she was crammed with theories out of books, 
But that there rose a shout: the gates were closed 
At sunset, and the crowd were swarming now, 
To take their leave, about the garden rails. 

So I and some went out to these: we climbed 
The slope to Vivian-place, and turning saw 
The happy valleys, half in light, and half 
Far-shadowing from the west, a land of peace; ...Read more of this...
by Tennyson, Alfred Lord

The Prospector

...l of fare was rock and sand; the tailings were its dung;
It glared around with fierce electric eyes.
Full fifty buckets crammed its maw; it bellowed out for more;
It looked like some great monster in the gloom.
With two to feed its sateless greed, it worked for seven score,
And I sighed: "Ah, old-time miner, here's your doom!"

The idle windlass turns to rust; the sagging sluice-box falls;
The holes you digged are water to the brim;
Your little sod-roofed cabins with the snug...Read more of this...
by Service, Robert William

The Wounded Bird

...o the edge of the pool with baskets.
"Of course what the poor bird wants is plenty of food!"
Their bags and pockets are crammed almost to bursting
With dinner scrapings and scraps from the servants'
lunch.
Oh! how pleased they are to be really giving!
"In the past, you know you know, you were always so
fly-away.
So seldom came to the window-sill, so rarely
Shared the delicious crumbs thrown into the yard.
Here is a delicate fragment and her a tit-bit
As good as new. And here'...Read more of this...
by Mansfield, Katherine

The Young Ones Flip Side

...In tight pants, tight skirts,
Stretched or squeezed,
Youth hurts,
Crammed in, bursting out,
Flesh will sing
And hide its doubt
In nervous hips, hopping glance,
Usurping rouge,
Provoking stance.

Put off, or put on,
Youth hurts. And then
It's gone....Read more of this...
by Emanuel, James A

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