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Famous Cut Off Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Silverstein, Shel
...I told him.

Well, I hit him right between the eyes and he went down
but to my surprise he came up with a knife
and cut off a piece of my ear. But I busted a chair
right across his teeth. And we crashed through
the wall and into the street kicking and a-gouging
in the mud and the blood and the beer.

I tell you I've fought tougher men but I really can't remember when.
He kicked like a mule and bit like a crocodile.
I heard him laughin' and then I heard...Read more of this...



by McGonagall, William Topaz
...let us starve on the briny flood
Or else I will drink of poor Jim's blood. 

Then he suddenly seized his knife and cut off poor Jim's arm,
Not thinking in his madness he'd done any harm;
Then poor Jim's blood he did drink and his flesh did eat,
Declaring that the blood tasted like cream, and was a treat. 

Then he asked me to taste it, saying It was good without doubt,
Then I tasted it, but in disgust I instantly spat it out;
Saying, if I was to die within an hour on...Read more of this...

by Dryden, John
...ate:
Behold a banish'd man, for your dear cause
Expos'd a prey to arbitrary laws!
Yet oh! that I alone could be undone,
Cut off from empire, and no more a son!
Now all your liberties a spoil are made;
Egypt and Tyrus intercept your trade,
And Jebusites your sacred rites invade.
My father, whom with reverence yet I name,
Charm'd into ease, is careless of his fame:
And, brib'd with petty sums of foreign gold,
Is grown in Bathsheba's embraces old:
Exalts his enemies, his fri...Read more of this...

by Browning, Elizabeth Barrett
...s and days we voyaged on the deep ;
Ten nights and days, without the common face
Of any day or night ; the moon and sun
Cut off from the green reconciling earth,
To starve into a blind ferocity
And glare unnatural ; the very sky
(Dropping its bell-net down upon the sea
As if no human heart should 'scape alive,)
Bedraggled with the desolating salt,
Until it seemed no more that holy heaven
To which my father went. All new and strange 
The universe turned stranger, for a chi...Read more of this...

by Piercy, Marge
...exhorted to come on hearty,
exercise, diet, smile and wheedle.
Her good nature wore out
like a fan belt.
So she cut off her nose and her legs
and offered them up. 

In the casket displayed on satin she lay
with the undertaker's cosmetics painted on,
a turned-up putty nose,
dressed in a pink and white nightie.
Doesn't she look pretty? everyone said.
Consummation at last.
To every woman a happy ending....Read more of this...



by Sexton, Anne
...lood pouring forth.
That is the way with amputations.
They just don't heal up like a wish.
The other sister cut off her heel
but the blood told as blood will.
The prince was getting tired.
He began to feel like a shoe salesman.
But he gave it one last try.
This time Cinderella fit into the shoe
like a love letter into its envelope.

At the wedding ceremony
the two sisters came to curry favor
and the white dove pecked their eyes out.
Two hol...Read more of this...

by Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...till drawn thro' either chasm,
Where either haven open'd on the deeps,
Roll'd a sea-haze and whelm'd the world in gray;
Cut off the length of highway on before,
And left but narrow breadth to left and right
Of wither'd holt or tilth or pasturage.
On the nigh-naked tree the Robin piped
Disconsolate, and thro' the dripping haze
The dead weight of the dead leaf bore it down.
Thicker the drizzle grew, deeper the gloom;
Last, as it seem'd, a great mist-blotted light
Flared...Read more of this...

by Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
...back in the midst of the household goods and the wagons,
Like to a gypsy camp, or a leaguer after a battle,
All escape cut off by the sea, and the sentinels near them,
Lay encamped for the night the houseless Acadian farmers.
Back to its nethermost caves retreated the bellowing ocean,
Dragging adown the beach the rattling pebbles, and leaving
Inland and far up the shore the stranded boats of the sailors.
Then, as the night descended, the herds returned from their pas...Read more of this...

by Hikmet, Nazim
...to the memory of my friend SI-YA-U,
 whose head was cut off in Shanghai

A CLAIM

Renowned Leonardo's
world-famous
"La Gioconda"
has disappeared.
And in the space
vacated by the fugitive
a copy has been placed.

The poet inscribing
the present treatise
knows more than a little
about the fate
of the real Gioconda.
She fell in love
with a seductive
graceful youth:
a honey-tongued
almond-eyed Chinese...Read more of this...

by Bryant, William Cullen
...--
For he is in his grave who taught my youth
The art of verse, and in the bud of life
Offered me to the muses. Oh, cut off
Untimely! when thy reason in its strength,
Ripened by years of toil and studious search

And watch of Nature's silent lessons, taught
Thy hand to practise best the lenient art
To which thou gavest thy laborious days.
And, last, thy life. And, therefore, when the earth
Received thee, tears were in unyielding eyes
And on hard cheeks, and they w...Read more of this...

by Homer,
...were used to draw water, in a shady place over which grew an olive shrub. And she was like an ancient woman who is cut off from childbearing and the gifts of garland-loving Aphrodite, like the nurses of king's children who deal justice, or like the house-keepers in their echoing halls. There the daughters of Celeus, son of Eleusis, saw her, as they coming for easy-drawn water, to carry it in pitchers of bronze to their dear father's house: four were they and like god...Read more of this...

by Byron, George (Lord)
...r cause inseparably bound; 
By circumstance compell'd to plunge again, 
In self-defence, amidst the strife of men. 
Cut off by some mysterious fate from those 
Whom birth and nature meant not for his foes, 
Had Lara from that night, to him accurst, 
Prepared to meet, but not alone, the worst: 
Some reason urged, whate'er it was, to shun 
Inquiry into deeds at distance done; 
By mingling with his own the cause of all, 
E'en if he fail'd, he still delay'd his fall. 
The...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...r herds, or human face divine; 
But cloud in stead, and ever-during dark 
Surrounds me, from the chearful waies of men 
Cut off, and for the Book of knowledg fair 
Presented with a Universal blanc 
Of Natures works to mee expung'd and ras'd, 
And wisdome at one entrance quite shut out. 
So much the rather thou Celestial light 
Shine inward, and the mind through all her powers 
Irradiate, there plant eyes, all mist from thence 
Purge and disperse, that I may see and tell 
...Read more of this...

by Robinson, Edwin Arlington
...stars, and are forgotten.

BURR

But why forget them? They’re the same that winked 
Upon the world when Alcibiades 
Cut off his dog’s tail to induce distinction. 
There are dogs yet, and Alcibiades 
Is not forgotten.

HAMILTON

Yes, there are dogs enough, 
God knows; and I can hear them in my dreams. 

BURR

Never a doubt. But what you hear the most 
Is your new music, something out of tune 
With your intention. How in the name of Cain,
I seem to hear ...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...or herds, or human face divine; 
But cloud instead, and ever-during dark 
Surrounds me, from the cheerful ways of men 
Cut off, and for the book of knowledge fair 
Presented with a universal blank 
Of nature's works to me expung'd and ras'd, 
And wisdom at one entrance quite shut out. 
So much the rather thou, celestial Light, 
Shine inward, and the mind through all her powers 
Irradiate; there plant eyes, all mist from thence 
Purge and disperse, that I may see and tell...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...forgive,
Are drawn to wear out miserable days,
Entangl'd with a poysnous bosom snake,
If not by quick destruction soon cut off
As I by thee, to Ages an example.

Dal: Yet hear me Samson; not that I endeavour
To lessen or extenuate my offence,
But that on th' other side if it be weigh'd
By it self, with aggravations not surcharg'd,
Or else with just allowance counterpois'd 
I may, if possible, thy pardon find
The easier towards me, or thy hatred less.
First granting, ...Read more of this...

by Byron, George (Lord)
...ts" were exhibited in the niche of the Seraglio gate: among others, the head of the Pacha of Bagdad, a brave young man, cut off by treachery, after a desperate resistance. 

(9) Clapping of the hands calls the servants. The Turks hate a superfluous expenditure of voice, and they have no bells. 

(10) "Chibouque," the Turkish pipe, of which the amber mouth-piece, and sometimes the ball which contains the leaf, is adorned with precious stones, if in possession of th...Read more of this...

by Frost, Robert
...t to live with.
For to be social is to be forgiving.
Our thief, the one who does our stealing from us,
We don't cut off from coming to church suppers,
But what we miss we go to him and ask for.
He promptly gives it back, that is if still
Uneaten, unworn out, or undisposed of.
It wouldn't do to be too hard on Brad
About his telescope. Beyond the age
Of being given one for Christmas gift,
He had to take the best way he knew how
To find himself in one. We...Read more of this...

by Bukowski, Charles
...they found him walking along the freeway
all red in
front
he had taken a rusty tin can
and cut off his sexual
machinery
as if to say --
see what you've done to
me? you might as well have the
rest.

and he put part of him
in one pocket and
part of him in
another
and that's how they found him,
walking
along.

they gave him over to the
doctors
who tried to sew the parts
back
on
but the parts were
quite contented
the way they
were.

I thin...Read more of this...

by Lowell, Robert
...crimson gold-cap,
worn all day, all night, 
he thinks only of his figure,
of slimming on sherbert and ginger ale--
more cut off from words than a seal.
This is the way day breaks in Bowditch Hall at McLean's;
the hooded night lights bring out "Bobbie,"
Porcellian '29,
a replica of Louis XVI
without the wig--
redolent and roly-poly as a sperm whale,
as he swashbuckles about in his birthday suit
and horses at chairs.

These victorious figures of bravado ossified young.<...Read more of this...

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