Famous Fives Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Just Before April Came

by Carl Sandburg
 THE SNOW piles in dark places are gone.
Pools by the railroad tracks shine clear.
The gravel of all shallow places shines.
A white pigeon reels and somersaults.

Frogs plutter and squdge—and frogs beat the air with a recurring thin steel sliver of melody.
Crows go in fives and tens; they march their black feathers past a blue pool; they celebrate an old festival.
A...Read more of this...

A Dream of the Melbourne Cup

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 Bring me a quart of colonial beer 
And some doughy damper to make good cheer, 
I must make a heavy dinner; 
Heavily dine and heavily sup, 
Of indigestible things fill up, 
Next month they run the Melbourne Cup, 
And I have to dream the winner. 
Stoke it in, boys! the half-cooked ham, 
The rich ragout and the charming cham.,...Read more of this...

Not On It

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 The new chum's polo pony was the smartest pony yet -- 
The owner backed it for the Cup for all that he could get. 
The books were laying fives to one, in tenners; and you bet 
He was on it. 
The bell was rung, the nags came out their quality to try, 
The band played, "What Ho! Robbo!" as...Read more of this...

A Game of Fives

by Lewis Carroll
 Five little girls, of Five, Four, Three, Two, One:
Rolling on the hearthrug, full of tricks and fun. 

Five rosy girls, in years from Ten to Six:
Sitting down to lessons - no more time for tricks. 

Five growing girls, from Fifteen to Eleven:
Music, Drawing, Languages, and food enough for seven! 

Five winsome girls, from Twenty to Sixteen:
Each young man that...Read more of this...

Route Marchin

by Rudyard Kipling
 We're marchin' on relief over Injia's sunny plains,
A little front o' Christmas-time an' just be'ind the Rains;
Ho! get away you bullock-man, you've 'eard the bugle blowed,
There's a regiment a-comin' down the Grand Trunk Road;
 With its best foot first
 And the road a-sliding past,
 An' every bloomin' campin'-ground exactly like the last;
 While the Big Drum says,
 With 'is...Read more of this...

Tortoise Shell

by D. H. Lawrence
 The Cross, the Cross
Goes deeper in than we know,
Deeper into life;
Right into the marrow
And through the bone.
Along the back of the baby tortoise
The scales are locked in an arch like a bridge,
Scale-lapping, like a lobster's sections
Or a bee's.

Then crossways down his sides
Tiger-stripes and wasp-bands.

Five, and five again, and five again,
And round the edges twenty-five little ones,
The sections of the...Read more of this...

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