Famous Frisky Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Letter

by Victor Hugo
 You can see it already: chalks and ochers; 
Country crossed with a thousand furrow-lines;
Ground-level rooftops hidden by the shrubbery; 
Sporadic haystacks standing on the grass;
Smoky old rooftops tarnishing the landscape; 
A river (not Cayster or Ganges, though:
A feeble Norman salt-infested watercourse); 
On the right, to the north, bizarre terrain
All angular--you'd think a shovel did it. 
So that's the foreground....Read more of this...

For My Father, Karachi 1947

by Meena Alexander
Mid-May, centipedes looped over netting at the well's mouth.
Girls grew frisky in summer frocks, lilies spotted with blood.

You were bound to meteorology,
Science of fickle clouds, ferocious winds.

The day you turned twenty-six fighter planes cut a storm,
Fissured air baring the heart's intricate meshwork

Of want and need—
Springs of cirrus out of which sap and shoot you raised me.

Crossing Chand Bibi Road,
Named after...Read more of this...

The Wreck of the Barque Wm. Paterson of Liverpool

by William Topaz McGonagall
 Ye landsmen all attend my verse, and I'll tell to ye a tale
Concerning the barque "Wm. Paterson" that was lost in a tempestuous gale;
She was on a voyage from Bangkok to the Clyde with a cargo of Teakwood,
And the crew numbered Fifteen in all of seamen firm and good. 

'Twas on the 11th of March, when a violent gale...Read more of this...

The Otter

by Seamus Heaney
 When you plunged
The light of Tuscany wavered
And swung through the pool
From top to bottom.

I loved your wet head and smashing crawl,
Your fine swimmer's back and shoulders
Surfacing and surfacing again
This year and every year since.

I sat dry-throated on the warm stones.
You were beyond me.
The mellowed clarities, the grape-deep air
Thinned and disappointed.

Thank God for the slow loadening,
When I hold you now
We...Read more of this...

88. The Author's Earnest Cry and Prayer

by Robert Burns
 YE Irish lords, ye knights an’ squires,
Wha represent our brughs an’ shires,
An’ doucely manage our affairs
 In parliament,
To you a simple poet’s pray’rs
 Are humbly sent.


Alas! my roupit Muse is hearse!
Your Honours’ hearts wi’ grief ’twad pierce,
To see her sittin on her ****
 Low i’ the dust,
And scriechinh out prosaic verse,
 An like to brust!


Tell them wha hae the...Read more of this...

Dream Song 115: Her properties like her of course and frisky and new

by John Berryman
 Her properties, like her of course & frisky & new:
a stale cake sold to kids, a 7-foot weed
inside in the Great Neck night,
a record ('great'), her work all over as u-
sual rejected. She odd in a bakery.
The owner stand beside her

and she have to sell to the brother & sister jumping
without say 'One week old.' Her indifference
to the fate...Read more of this...

The Parting

by Robert William Service
 Sky's a-waxin' grey,
Got to be a-goin';
Gittin' on my way,
Where? I ain't a-knowin'.
Fellers, no more jokes,
Fun an' frisky greetin'--
So long, all you folks,
Been nice our meetin'.

Sky's a-growin' dark,
Have to be a-startin'.
Feeble is the spark,
Pitiful the partin'.
Family an' all,
Thanks for joy I owe you;
Gotta take my call;
Been sweet to know you.

Sky's a-mighty black,
Close my heart's to breakin'.
Lonesome is the track
I must...Read more of this...

The Bonnie Lass o Dundee

by William Topaz McGonagall
 O' a' the toons that I've been in,
I dearly love Dundee,
It's there the bonnie lassie lives,
The lass I love to see. Her face is fair, broon is her hair,
And dark blue is her e'e,
And aboon a' the lasses e'er I saw,
There's nane like her to me
The bonnie broon-hair'd lassie o' Bonnie Dundee. 

I see her in my night dreams,
Wi'...Read more of this...

The Centenarian

by Robert William Service
 Great Grandfather was ninety-nine
 And so it was our one dread,
That though his health was superfine
 He'd fail to make the hundred.
Though he was not a rolling stone
 No moss he seemed to gather:
A patriarch of brawn and bone
 Was Great Grandfather.

He should have been senile and frail
 Instead of hale and hearty;
But no, he loved a mug of...Read more of this...

De Critters' Dance

by Paul Laurence Dunbar
Ain't nobody nevah tol' you not a wo'd a-tall,
'Bout de time dat all de critters gin dey fancy ball?
Some folks tell it in a sto'y, some folks sing de rhyme,
'Peahs to me you ought to hyeahed it, case hit 's ol' ez time.
Well, de critters all was p'osp'ous, now would be de chance
Fu' to tease ol' Pa'son Hedgehog, givin' of...Read more of this...

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