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Famous Digger Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry
...an apothecary, surgeon, and physician.—R. B. [back]
Note 4. Burchan’s Domestic Medicine.—R. B. [back]
Note 5. The grave-digger.—R. B. [back]...Read more of this...
by Burns, Robert



...Bab Balladeer on the loose;
Of saccarine sonnets I'm blameless,
My model has been - Mother Goose.
And I fancy my grave-digger griping
As he gives my last lodging a pat:
"This guy wrote McGrew;
'Twas the best he could do" . . .
So I'll go to my maker with that....Read more of this...
by Service, Robert William
...nd Old Rush afar,
For Lalor's gone to join you in the big camp where you are;
Roll up and give him welcome such as only diggers can,
For well he battled for the rights of miner and of Man.
In that bright golden country that lies beyond our sight,
The record of his honest life shall be his Miner's Right;
But many a bearded mouth shall twitch, and many a tear be shed,
And many a grey old digger sigh to hear that Lalor's dead.
Yet wipe your eyes, old fossickers, o'er worked-out ...Read more of this...
by Lawson, Henry
...dure and, freezing, find 
 A clear sustaining stream.

He learns to lose

 She was afraid 
 Of everything, 
 The little Digger girl. 
 Pah Utes had killed 
 Her older brother 
 Who may have been her lover 
 The way she cried 
 Over his ring -- 

 The heavy brass 
 On the heavy hand. 
 She carried it for weeks 
 Clenched in her fist 
 As if it might 
 Keep out the loneliness 
 Or the plain fact 
 That he was gone. 

 When the first snows 
 Began to fall 
 She stopped her cryin...Read more of this...
by Levine, Philip
...weary-looking woman who was following the dray. 
He had bought an empty humpy, and, instead of getting tight, 
Why, the diggers heard him working like a lunatic all night: 
And next day a sign of canvas, writ in characters of tar, 
Claimed the humpy as the office of the CAMBAROORA STAR. 

Well, I cannot read, that's honest, but I had a digger friend 
Who would read the paper to me from the title to the end; 
And the STAR contained a leader running thieves and spielers down, 
...Read more of this...
by Lawson, Henry



...flood of proud recollections made the fire in his grey eyes bright;
With pleasure they lighted and glisten'd, tho' the digger was grizzled and old,
And we gathered about him and listen'd while the tale of Eureka he told.

"Ah, those were the days," said the digger, "twas a glorious life that we led,
When fortunes were dug up and lost in a day in the whirl of the years that are dead.
But there's many a veteran now in the land - old knights of the pick and the spade,
Who could...Read more of this...
by Lawson, Henry
...The germinating and life of Death
Below, among the lifeless bones.


Since ages longer than he can know,
The grave-digger brings his human woe,
That never wears out, and lays its head
Slowly down in that earthy bed.


By all the surrounding roads, each day
They come towards him, the coffins white,
They come in processions infinite;
They come from the distances far away.
From corners obscure and out-of-the-way.
From the heart of the towns—and the wide-spreading
...Read more of this...
by Verhaeren, Emile
...ere was an old, old house renewed with paint,
And in it a piano loudly playing.

Out in the plowed ground in the cold a digger,
Among unearthed potatoes standing still,
Was counting winter dinners, one a hill,
With half an ear to the piano's vigor.

All that piano and new paint back there,
Was it some money suddenly come into?
Or some extravagance young love had been to?
Or old love on an impulse not to care--

Not to sink under being man and wife,
But get some color and musi...Read more of this...
by Frost, Robert
...p beside 'em slow, 
An' saddle up yer horses an' a-ridin' we will go, 
To the bullick-drivin', cattle-drovin', 
******, digger, roarin', rovin' 
Days o' long ago. 

Once me and Jimmy Nowlett loaded timber for the town, 
But we hadn't gone a dozen mile before the rain come down, 
An' me an' Jimmy Nowlett an' the bullicks an' the dray 
Was cut off on some risin' ground while floods around us lay; 
An' we soon run short of tucker an' terbacca, which was bad, 
An' pertaters dippe...Read more of this...
by Lawson, Henry
...ALL my weary days I pass'd

Sick at heart and poor in purse.

Poverty's the greatest curse,

Riches are the highest good!
And to end my woes at last,

Treasure-seeking forth I sped.

"Thou shalt have my soul instead!"

Thus I wrote, and with my blood.

Ring round ring I forthwith drew,

Wondrous flames collected there,

Herbs and bones in order fair,

Till...Read more of this...
by von Goethe, Johann Wolfgang

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Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry