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Famous Engineer Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry
...d world, and full executor
Of their imperfect functions.
But these young scholars, who invade our hills,
Bold as the engineer who fells the wood,
And traveling often in the cut he makes,
Love not the flower they pluck, and know it not,
And all their botany is Latin names.
The old men studied magic in the flowers,
And human fortunes in astronomy,
And an omnipotence in chemistry,
Preferring things to names, for these were men,
Were unitarians of the united world,
An...Read more of this...
by Emerson, Ralph Waldo



...ransient, the gloss

Cannot last, the wind

Says no.





8



Item: one photograph

Of South Accom

Taken by the City

Engineers, relating to

A cycling accident,

June 3rd. 1905





9



The grate that trapped

The cyclist’s wheel

Is still in place

But nothing else

Except the vast

Brick wall dividing

The road in two.





10



A novelty then

The camera drew

Crowds from the Bridgefields

A boy in an Eton collar

His bowler-hatted father

Girls with braided curls

Dr...Read more of this...
by Tebb, Barry
...Clerk and the Mayor.

And if some Preservationist attempts to interfere
A 'dangerous structure' notice from the Borough Engineer
Will settle any buildings that are standing in our way -
The modern style, sir, with respect, has really come to stay....Read more of this...
by Betjeman, John
...s that teem with originality. 

Have no fear for the way is clear – we'll shackle the hands of greed – 
Every lad is an engineer in his country's hour of need; 
Many are brilliant, swift to learn, quick at invention too, 
Born inventors whose young hearts burn to show what the South can do! 

To show what the South can do, done well, and more than the North can do. 
They'll make us the cartridge and make the shell, and the gun to carry true, 
Give us the gear and the South is...Read more of this...
by Lawson, Henry
...
Only the invoice from the liquor store. 
The grape-vine brought the word. I switched to beer: 
She had become a civil engineer. 
When I went walking birds and children fled. 
I took my love, myself, behind the shed; 
The shed burned down. I switched to milk and eggs. 
At night a dream ran up and down my legs. 

I have endured, as Godless Nazarite, 
Life like a bone even a dog would slight; 
All that the dog would have, I have refused. 
May I, of all your subjects, be excuse...Read more of this...
by Levine, Philip



...ittle Maxim gun. 
For when the Lord He made the earth, it seems uncommon clear, 
He gave the job of Africa to some good engineer, 
Who started building fortresses on fashions of his own -- 
Lunettes, redoubts, and counterscarps all made of rock and stone. 
The Boer need only bring a gun, for ready to his hand 
He finds these heaven-built fortresses all scattered through the land; 
And there he sits and winks his eye and wheels his gun about, 
And we must charge across the pla...Read more of this...
by Paterson, Andrew Barton
...e Italian or Frenchman is sure, and the German is sure, and the Spaniard is sure, and
 the
 island
 Cuban is sure; 
The engineer, the deck-hand on the great lakes, or on the Mississippi, or St. Lawrence, or
 Sacramento, or Hudson, or Paumanok Sound, claims him. 

The gentleman of perfect blood acknowledges his perfect blood;
The insulter, the prostitute, the angry person, the beggar, see themselves in the ways of
 him—he strangely transmutes them, 
They are not vile any more—...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt
...anted him to have a education.
We sent him to High School,
An' then he went up to Boston to Technology.
He was a minin' engineer,
An' doin' real well,
A credit to his bringin' up.
But his very first position ther was an explosion in the mine.
And I'm glad! I'm glad!
He ain't here to see me now.
Neddy! Neddy!
I'm your mother still, Neddy.
Don't turn from me like that.
I can't abear it. I can't! I can't!
What did you say?
Oh, yes, Sir.
I'm here.
I'm very sorry,
I don't know wha...Read more of this...
by Lowell, Amy
...to them at the station now ! 
They're raising cheer on cheer, 
The man who brought the railway through, 
Our friend the engineer....Read more of this...
by Paterson, Andrew Barton
...an go play.
She’ll dig in her mine,
going deeper and deeper,
then fight off a skeleton,
zombie, or creeper.
She’ll engineer buildings
from dirt, wood, and stone,
then go out exploring
the landscape alone.
She’ll build and collect and
she’ll run, jump, and swing.
There’s only one problem…
we don’t learn a thing.
 --Kenn Nesbitt

Copyright © Kenn Nesbitt 2016. All Rights Reserved....Read more of this...
by Nesbitt, Kenn
...When the Waters were dried an' the Earth did appear,
 ("It's all one," says the Sapper),
The Lord He created the Engineer,
 Her Majesty's Royal Engineer,
 With the rank and pay of a Sapper!

When the Flood come along for an extra monsoon,
'Twas Noah constructed the first pontoon
 To the plans of Her Majesty's, etc.

But after fatigue in the wet an' the sun,
Old Noah got drunk, which he wouldn't ha' done
 If he'd trained with, etc.

When the Tower o' Babel had mixed up ...Read more of this...
by Kipling, Rudyard
...COOL your heels on the rail of an observation car.
Let the engineer open her up for ninety miles an hour.
Take in the prairie right and left, rolling land and new hay crops, swaths of new hay laid in the sun.
A gray village flecks by and the horses hitched in front of the post-office never blink an eye.
A barnyard and fifteen Holstein cows, dabs of white on a black wall map, never blink an eye.
A signalman in a towe...Read more of this...
by Sandburg, Carl
...ical works, where medicines are made for curing many ills. 

Besides, there are sugar refineries and distilleries,
Also engineer works, saw-mills, rope-works, and breweries,
Where many of the inhabitants are daily employed,
And the wages they receive make their hearts feel overjoyed. 

In past times Leith shared the fortunes of Edinboro',
Because if withstood nine months' siege, which caused them great sorrow;
They fought against the Protestants in 1559 and in '60,
But they b...Read more of this...
by McGonagall, William Topaz
...ghtway went and fetched him back. 

And with a sympathetic tear 
He'd say, "How dare you interfere, 
You most misguided engineer? 

"Your sordid manners please amend -- 
No man can possibly offend 
Who has a Member for a friend. 

"With euchre, or a friendly rub, 
And whisky, from the nearest 'pub', 
We'll make the dockyard like a club. 

"Heave ho, my hearties, play away, 
We'll do no weary work today. 
What odds -- the public has to pay! 

"And if the public should complain...Read more of this...
by Paterson, Andrew Barton
...her steam, and let her have it, lads! we'll fight her out to sea!" 

And the answer came with cheers 
From the stalwart engineers, 
From the grim and grimy firemen at the furnaces below; 
And above the sullen roar 
Of the breakers on the shore 
Came the throbbing of the engines as they laboured to and fro. 

If the strain should find a flaw, 
Should a bolt or rivet draw, 
Then -- God help them! for the vessel were a plaything in the tide! 
With a face of honest cheer 
Quoth a...Read more of this...
by Paterson, Andrew Barton
...s, and the engine sounds.
There were all those people reading--some
From Thoreau, some from Henry Ward Beecher.
And the engineer smoking and putting his head out.

I wonder when that happened. Was it after
High School, or was it the year we were two?
We entered this narrow place, and we heard the sound
Above us--the train couldn't move fast enough.

It isn't clear what happened next. Are you and I
Still sitting there in the train, waiting for the lights
To go on? Or did the r...Read more of this...
by Bly, Robert
...'The man who brought the railway through -- our friend the engineer.' 
They cheer his pluck and enterprise and engineering skill! 
'Twas my old husband found the pass behind that big red hill. 
Before the engineer was born we'd settled with our stock 
Behind that great big mountain chain, a line of range and rock -- 
A line that kept us starving there in weary weeks of drought, 
With ne'er a track across the range t...Read more of this...
by Paterson, Andrew Barton
...'The man who brought the railway through -- our friend the engineer.' 
They cheer his pluck and enterprise and engineering skill! 
'Twas my old husband found the pass behind that big red hill. 
Before the engineer was born we'd settled with our stock 
Behind that great big mountain chain, a line of range and rock -- 
A line that kept us starving there in weary weeks of drought, 
With ne'er a track across the range t...Read more of this...
by Paterson, Andrew Barton
...uld I lose his large sound council, miss his keen amending
 eyes.
 He is bailiff, woodman, wheelwright, field-surveyor, engineer,
 And if flagrantly a poacher--'tain't for me to interfere.

 "Hob, what about that River-bit?" I turn to him again,
 With Fabricius and Ogier and William of Warenne.
 "Hev it jest as you've a mind to, but"-and here he takes com-
 mand.
 For whoever pays the taxes old Mus' Hobden owns the land....Read more of this...
by Kipling, Rudyard
...rupted central
 tail-row! This near artichoke with head and legs and grit-equipped
 gizzard,
the night miniature artist engineer is,
 yes, Leonardo da Vinci's replica--
 impressive animal and toiler of whom we seldom hear.
 Armor seems extra. But for him,
 the closing ear-ridge--
 or bare ear lacking even this small
 eminence and similarly safe

contracting nose and eye apertures
 impenetrably closable, are not; a true ant-eater,
not cockroach eater, who endures
 exhausting s...Read more of this...
by Moore, Marianne

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Book: Reflection on the Important Things