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Famous Cramp Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Marvell, Andrew
...ipwrackt into Health again.

Body
But Physick yet could never reach
The Maladies Thou me dost teach;
Whom first the Cramp of Hope does Tear:
And then the Palsie Shakes of Fear.
The Pestilence of Love does heat :
Or Hatred's hidden Ulcer eat.
Joy's chearful Madness does perplex:
Or Sorrow's other Madness vex.
Which Knowledge forces me to know;
And Memory will not foregoe.
What but a Soul could have the wit
To build me up for Sin so fit?
So Architects do squ...Read more of this...



by Service, Robert William
...>

To see it all, the wide world-way,
 From the fig-leaf belt to the Pole;
With never a one to say me nay,
 And none to cramp my soul.
In belly-pinch I will pay the price,
 But God! let me be free;
For once I know in the long ago,
 They made a slave of me.

In a flannel shirt from earth's clean dirt,
 Here, pal, is my calloused hand!
Oh, I love each day as a rover may,
 Nor seek to understand.
To enjoy is good enough for me;
 The gipsy of God am I;
Then here's a h...Read more of this...

by Dubie, Norman
...ays
began when they stripped the postage stamps
of their lies and romance.

The chaff of the hillsides
rises like a cramp, defeating a paring of moon . . . its
hot, modest conjunction of planets . . . 

And with this sudden hard rain
the bells on the ferry boat
begin a long elicit angelus.

Two small Turkish boys run out into the storm--
here, by superstition,
they must laugh and sing--like condemned lovers,

ashen and kneeling,
who are being w...Read more of this...

by Thomas, Dylan
...she blows.

We are the dark derniers let us summon
Death from a summer woman,
A muscling life from lovers in their cramp
From the fair dead who flush the sea
The bright-eyed worm on Davy's lamp
And from the planted womb the man of straw.

We summer boys in this four-winded spinning,
Green of the seaweeds' iron
Hold up the noisy sea and drop her birds,
Pick the world's ball of wave and froth
To choke the deserts with her tides,
And comb the county gardens for a wreath...Read more of this...

by Trumbull, John
...,
And public spirit, once so fair,
Evaporate in open air.
But thou, great favourite of Venus,
By no such luck shalt cramp thy genius;
Thy friendly stars, till wars shall cease,
Shall ward th' ill fortune of release,
And hold thee fast in bonds not feeble,
In good condition still to scribble.
Such merit fate shall shield from firing,
Bomb, carcase, langridge and cold iron,
Nor trust thy doubly-laurell'd head,
To rude assaults of flying lead.
Hence thou, from Yankee...Read more of this...



by Jonson, Ben
...That at thy birth, mad'st the poor smith afraid, Who with his axe, thy father's midwife plaid.  Go,  cramp dull Mars, light Venus, when he snorts, Or, with thy tribade trine, invent new sports ; Thou nor thy looseness with my making sorts.  Let the old boy, your son, ply his old task, Turn the stale prologue to some painted mask ; His absence in my verse, is all I ask.  Hermes, the cheater, shall not mix with us, Th...Read more of this...

by Service, Robert William
...a tail?

"Don't you wish that you could wear
In the place of stuffy clothes,
Just a silky coat of hair,
Never shoes to cramp your toes?
Never need to toil for bread,
Round you nuts and fruit and spice;
And with palm tuft for a bed
Happily to crack your lice?"

Said I: "You are right, maybe:
Witting naught of wordly woe,
Gloriously you are free,
And of death you nothing know.
Envying your monkey mind,
Innocent of blight and bale,
As I touch my bald behind
How I wish I had...Read more of this...

by Lawson, Henry
...nd we saw the sugar leaking through the bottoms of the bags, 
And we couldn't raise a chorus, for the toothache and the cramp, 
While we spent the hours of darkness draining puddles round the camp. 

Would you like to change with Clancy -- go a-droving? tell us true, 
For we rather think that Clancy would be glad to change with you, 
And be something in the city; but 'twould give your muse a shock 
To be losing time and money through the foot-rot in the flock, 
And you wo...Read more of this...

by Crowley, Aleister
...lonely camp,
Only the desert leagues encompass it;
Waterless wastes, a wilderness of wit,
Embattled Cold, Imagination's Cramp.
Now were the Desolation fain to stamp
The congealed Spirit of man into the pit,
Save that, unquenchable because unlit,
The Love of God burns steady, like a Lamp.

It burns ! beyond the sands, beyond the stars.
It burns ! beyond the bands, beyond the bars.
And so the Expanse of Mystery, veil by veil,
Burns inward, plume on plume still f...Read more of this...

by Levis, Larry
...else, not even the sleep
Of some asylum at a wood's edge with the sound
Of a pond's spillway beside it. But as each cramp
Grew worse & lasted longer than the one before,
It was hard to keep myself aloof from the threadbare
World walking on that road. After all,
Even as they moved, the peasants, the herds of goats
And cattle, the spiralling leaves, at least were part
Of that spell, that stillness.
 After a while,
The villages grew even poorer, then thinned out,
The...Read more of this...

by Paterson, Andrew Barton
...atching them starve in the droughts and die. 

One, in the town where all cares are rife, 
Weary with troubles that cramp and kill, 
Fain would be done with the restless strife, 
Fain would go back to the old bush life, 
Back to the shadow of Kiley's Hill. 

One is away on the roving quest, 
Seeking his share of the golden spoil; 
Out in the wastes of the trackless west, 
Wandering ever he gives the best 
Of his years and strength to the hopeless toil. 

What of t...Read more of this...

by Montgomery, Lucy Maud
...With tears they buried you to-day,
But well I knew no turf could hold
Your gladness long beneath the mould,
Or cramp your laughter in the clay;
I smiled while others wept for you
Because I knew. 

And now you sit with me to-night
Here in our old, accustomed place;
Tender and mirthful is your face,
Your eyes with starry joy are bright­
Oh, you are merry as a song
For love is strong! 

They think of you as lying there
Down in the churchyard grim and old;
They think...Read more of this...

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