Famous Curl Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Spring And All

by William Carlos (WCW) Williams
 By the road to the contagious hospital
under the surge of the blue
mottled clouds driven from the
northeast—a cold wind. Beyond, the
waste of broad, muddy fields
brown with dried weeds, standing and fallen

patches of standing water
the scattering of tall trees

All along the road the reddish
purplish, forked, upstanding, twiggy
stuff of bushes and small trees
with dead, brown leaves under them
leafless vines—

Lifeless in appearance, sluggish
dazed...Read more of this...

The Sea And The Skylark

by Gerard Manley Hopkins
 On ear and ear two noises too old to end
 Trench—right, the tide that ramps against the shore;
 With a flood or a fall, low lull-off or all roar,
Frequenting there while moon shall wear and wend. 
Left hand, off land, I hear the lark ascend,
 His rash-fresh re-winded new-skeinèd score
 In crisps of curl off wild winch whirl, and...Read more of this...

Ai

by Denise Duhamel
 There is a chimp named Ai who can count to five.
There's a poet named Ai whose selected poems Vice
just won the National Book Award.
The name "Ai" is pronounced "I"
so that whenever I talk about the poet Ai
such as I'm teaching Ai's poems again this semester
it sounds like I'm teaching my own poems
or when I say I love Ai's work
it...Read more of this...

In Ebon Box when years have flown

by Emily Dickinson
 In Ebon Box, when years have flown
To reverently peer,
Wiping away the velvet dust
Summers have sprinkled there!

To hold a letter to the light --
Grown Tawny now, with time --
To con the faded syllables
That quickened us like Wine!

Perhaps a Flower's shrivelled check
Among its stores to find --
Plucked far away, some morning --
By gallant -- mouldering hand!

A curl, perhaps, from foreheads
Our Constancy...Read more of this...

Waves

by Katherine Mansfield
 I saw a tiny God
Sitting
Under a bright blue umbrella
That had white tassels
And forked ribs of gold.
Below him His little world
Lay open to the sun.
The shadow of His hat
Lay upon a city.
When he stretched forth His hand
A lake became a dark tremble.
When he kicked up His foot
It became night in the mountain passes.

But thou art small!
There are gods far greater...Read more of this...

Dinah Kneading Dough

by Paul Laurence Dunbar
I have seen full many a sight
Born of day or drawn by night:
Sunlight on a silver stream,
Golden lilies all a-dream,
Lofty mountains, bold and proud,
Veiled beneath the lacelike cloud;
But no lovely sight I know
Equals Dinah kneading dough.
Brown arms buried elbow-deep
Their domestic rhythm keep,
As with steady sweep they go
Through the gently yielding dough.[Pg 189]
Maids may vaunt their finer charms—
Naught to...Read more of this...

Mowglis Song

by Rudyard Kipling
 The Song of Mowgli -- I, Mowgli, am singing. Let
 the jungle listen to the things I have done.
Shere Khan said he would kill -- would kill! At the
 gates in the twilight he would kill Mowgli, the
 Frog!
He ate and he drank. Drink deep, Shere Khan, for
 when wilt thou drink again? Sleep and dream
 of the kill.
I...Read more of this...

The Englishman In Italy

by Robert Browning
 (PIANO DI SORRENTO.)

Fortu, Frotu, my beloved one,
Sit here by my side,
On my knees put up both little feet!
I was sure, if I tried,
I could make you laugh spite of Scirocco;
Now, open your eyes— 
Let me keep you amused till he vanish
In black from the skies,
With telling my memories over
As you tell your beads;
All the memories plucked at Sorrento
—The flowers,...Read more of this...

87. The Twa Dogs

by Robert Burns
 ’TWAS 1 in that place o’ Scotland’s isle,
That bears the name o’ auld King Coil,
Upon a bonie day in June,
When wearin’ thro’ the afternoon,
Twa dogs, that were na thrang at hame,
Forgather’d ance upon a time.
 The first I’ll name, they ca’d him Caesar,
Was keepit for His Honor’s pleasure:
His hair, his size, his mouth, his lugs,
Shew’d he was nane o’...Read more of this...

The Little Girl With A Curl

by Mother Goose
There was a little girl who had a little curl
Right in the middle of her forehead;
When she was good, she was very, very good,
And when she was bad she was horrid....Read more of this...

Things I Didnt Know I Loved

by Nazim Hikmet
 it's 1962 March 28th
I'm sitting by the window on the Prague-Berlin train 
night is falling
I never knew I liked
night descending like a tired bird on a smoky wet plain 
I don't like
comparing nightfall to a tired bird

I didn't know I loved the earth
can someone who hasn't worked the earth love it 
I've never worked the earth
it must be my...Read more of this...

The Mermaid

by Alfred Lord Tennyson
 I

Who would be
A mermaid fair,
Singing alone,
Combing her hair
Under the sea,
In a golden curl
With a comb of pearl,
On a throne?

II

I would be a mermaid fair;
I would sing to myself the whole of the day;
With a comb of pearl I would comb my hair;
And still as I comb'd I would sing and say,
'Who is it loves me? who loves not me?'
I...Read more of this...

The Rape of the Lock: Canto 2

by Alexander Pope
 Not with more glories, in th' etherial plain, 
The sun first rises o'er the purpled main,
Than, issuing forth, the rival of his beams
Launch'd on the bosom of the silver Thames.
Fair nymphs, and well-dress'd youths around her shone,
But ev'ry eye was fix'd on her alone.
On her white breast a sparkling cross she wore,
Which Jews might kiss, and infidels adore.
Her lively...Read more of this...

45 Mercy Street

by Anne Sexton
 In my dream, 
drilling into the marrow 
of my entire bone, 
my real dream, 
I'm walking up and down Beacon Hill 
searching for a street sign -- 
namely MERCY STREET. 
Not there. 

I try the Back Bay. 
Not there. 
Not there. 
And yet I know the number. 
45 Mercy Street. 
I know the stained-glass window 
of the foyer, 
the...Read more of this...

Knowlt Hoheimer

by Edgar Lee Masters
 I was the first fruits of the battle of Missionary Ridge.
When I felt the bullet enter my heart
I wished I had staid at home and gone to jail
For stealing the hogs of Curl Trenary,
Instead of running away and joining the army,
Rather a thousand times the county jail
Than to lie under this marble figure with wings,
And this granite pedestal
Bearing the...Read more of this...

Le Manteau De Pascal

by Jorie Graham
 I have put on my great coat it is cold.

It is an outer garment.

Coarse, woolen.

Of unknown origin.

 *

It has a fine inner lining but it is 
as an exterior that you see it — a grace.

 *

I have a coat I am wearing. It is a fine admixture.
The woman who threw the threads in the two directions
has made, skillfully,...Read more of this...

In Three Days

by Robert Browning
 I.

So, I shall see her in three days
And just one night, but nights are short,
Then two long hours, and that is morn. 
See how I come, unchanged, unworn!
Feel, where my life broke off from thine,
How fresh the splinters keep and fine,---
Only a touch and we combine!

II.

Too long, this time of year, the days!
But nights, at least the nights are...Read more of this...

Only a Curl

by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
 I.
FRIENDS of faces unknown and a land
Unvisited over the sea, 
Who tell me how lonely you stand
With a single gold curl in the hand
Held up to be looked at by me, --


II.
While you ask me to ponder and say
What a father and mother can do, 
With the bright fellow-locks put away
Out of reach, beyond kiss, in the clay
Where the...Read more of this...

Ave atque Vale (In memory of Charles Baudelaire)

by Algernon Charles Swinburne
 SHALL I strew on thee rose or rue or laurel, 
 Brother, on this that was the veil of thee? 
 Or quiet sea-flower moulded by the sea, 
Or simplest growth of meadow-sweet or sorrel, 
 Such as the summer-sleepy Dryads weave, 
 Waked up by snow-soft sudden rains at eve? 
Or wilt thou rather, as on earth before,...Read more of this...

The Blind And The Dead

by Robert William Service
 She lay like a saint on her copper couch;
 Like an angel asleep she lay,
In the stare of the ghoulish folks that slouch
 Past the Dead and sneak away.

Then came old Jules of the sightless gaze,
 Who begged in the streets for bread.
Each day he had come for a year of days,
 And groped his way to the Dead.

"What's...Read more of this...

Now I am a Plant a Weed..

by Katherine Mansfield
 Now I am a plant, a weed,
Bending and swinging
On a rocky ledge;
And now I am a long brown grass
Fluttering like flame;
I am a reed;
An old shell singing
For ever the same;
A drift of sedge;
A white, white stone;
A bone;
Until I pass
Into sand again,
And spin and blow
To and fro, to and fro,
On the edge of the sea
In the fading light--
For the light...Read more of this...

Robin Hood A Child

by James Henry Leigh Hunt
 It was the pleasant season yet,
When the stones at cottage doors
Dry quickly, while the roads are wet,
After the silver showers.

The green leaves they looked greener still,
And the thrush, renewing his tune,
Shook a loud note from his gladsome bill
Into the bright blue noon.

Robin Hood's mother looked out, and said
"It were a shame and a sin
For fear of getting a wet...Read more of this...

My Little March Girl

by Paul Laurence Dunbar
 Come to the pane, draw the curtain apart, 
There she is passing, the girl of my heart; 
See where she walks like a queen in the street, 
Weather-defying, calm, placid and sweet.
Tripping along with impetuous grace, 
Joy of her life beaming out of her face, 
Tresses all truant-like, curl upon curl, 
Wind-blown and rosy, my little March girl.

Hint of...Read more of this...

Seal Lullaby

by Rudyard Kipling
 Oh! hush thee, my baby, the night is behind us
And black are the waters that sparkled so green.
The moon, O'er the combers, looks downward to find us
At rest in the hollows that rustle between.
Where billow meets billow, there soft by the pillow.
Oh, weary wee flipperling, curl at thy ease!
The storm shall not wake thee, no shark shall overtake thee
Asleep...Read more of this...

The Lunger

by Robert William Service
 Jack would laugh an' joke all day;
Never saw a lad so gay;
Singin' like a medder lark,
Loaded to the Plimsoll mark
With God's sunshine was that boy;
Had a strangle-holt on Joy.
Held his head 'way up in air,
Left no callin' cards on Care;
Breezy, buoyant, brave and true;
Sent his sunshine out to you;
Cheerfulest when clouds was black --
 Happy Jack! Oh, Happy Jack!

Sittin'...Read more of this...

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