Famous Cudgel Poems by Famous Poets

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

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The Wake

by Robert Herrick
 Come, Anthea, let us two
Go to feast, as others do:
Tarts and custards, creams and cakes,
Are the junkets still at wakes;
Unto which the tribes resort,
Where the business is the sport:
Morris-dancers thou shalt see,
Marian, too, in pageantry;
And a mimic to devise
Many grinning properties.
Players there will be, and those
Base in action as in clothes;
Yet with strutting they will please
The incurious villages.
Near the...Read more of this...

The Confessor a Sanctified Tale

by Mary Darby Robinson
 When SUPERSTITION rul'd the land
And Priestcraft shackled Reason,
At GODSTOW dwelt a goodly band,
Grey monks they were, and but to say
They were not always giv'n to pray,
Would have been construed Treason.
Yet some did scoff, and some believ'd
That sinners were themselves deceiv'd;
And taking Monks for more than men
They prov'd themselves, nine out of ten,
Mere dupes of these Old Fathers hoary;
But read--and...Read more of this...

84. Address to the Deil

by Robert Burns
 O THOU! whatever title suit thee—
Auld Hornie, Satan, Nick, or Clootie,
Wha in yon cavern grim an’ sootie,
 Clos’d under hatches,
Spairges about the brunstane cootie,
 To scaud poor wretches!


Hear me, auld Hangie, for a wee,
An’ let poor damned bodies be;
I’m sure sma’ pleasure it can gie,
 Ev’n to a deil,
To skelp an’ scaud poor dogs like me,
 An’ hear us...Read more of this...

A Song at Cock-Crow

by Rudyard Kipling
 The first time that Peter denied his Lord
 He shrank from the cudgel, the scourge and the cord,
But followed far off to see what they would do,
 Till the cock crew--till the cock crew--
After Gethsemane, till the cock crew!

The first time that Peter denied his Lord
 'Twas only a maid in the palace who heard,
As he sat by the...Read more of this...

The Battle of Cressy

by William Topaz McGonagall
 'Twas on the 26th of August, the sun was burning hot,
In the year of 1346, which will never be forgot,
Because the famous field of Cressy was slippery and gory,
By the loss of innocent blood which I'11 relate in story. 

To the field of Cressy boldly King Philip did advance,
Aided by the Bohemian Army and chosen men of France,
And treble...Read more of this...

Song from Aella

by Thomas Chatterton
 O SING unto my roundelay, 
O drop the briny tear with me; 
Dance no more at holyday, 
Like a running river be: 
 My love is dead, 
 Gone to his death-bed 
All under the willow-tree. 

Black his cryne as the winter night, 
White his rode as the summer snow, 
Red his face as the morning light, 
Cold he...Read more of this...

Tim Turpin

by Thomas Hood
 Tim Turpin he was gravel-blind,
And ne'er had seen the skies :
For Nature, when his head was made,
Forgot to dot his eyes. 

So, like a Christmas pedagogue,
Poor Tim was forced to do -
Look out for pupils; for he had
A vacancy for two.

There's some have specs to help their sight
Of objects dim and small : 
But Tim had specks within his...Read more of this...

Death in the Family

by Julie Hill Alger
 They call it stroke.
Two we loved were stunned
by that same blow of cudgel
or axe to the brow.
Lost on the earth
they left our circle
broken.


 One spent five months
falling from our grasp
mute, her grace, wit,
beauty erased.
Her green eyes gazed at us
as if asking, as if aware,
as if hers. One night
she slipped away;
machinery of mercy
brought her back 
to die more slowly. 
At...Read more of this...

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