Famous Grins Poems by Famous Poets

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

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A Meeting

...y grow no older.
It is I who have changed,
grown strange to what I was.
Yet I, the changed one,
ask: "How you been?"
He grins and looks at me.
"I been eating peaches
off some mighty fine trees."...Read more of this...
by Berry, Wendell


Badger

...savage in the fray,
Lies down and licks his feet and turns away.
The bulldog knows his match and waxes cold,
The badger grins and never leaves his hold.
He drives the crowd and follows at their heels
And bites them through—the drunkard swears and reels

The frighted women take the boys away,
The blackguard laughs and hurries on the fray.
He tries to reach the woods, and awkward race,
But sticks and cudgels quickly stop the chase.
He turns again and drives the noisy crowd 
And...Read more of this...
by Clare, John

Behind the Arras

...that wheel and hang in the air; 
And beings with hair, 
And moving eyes in the face, 
And white bone teeth and hideous grins, who race 
From place to place; 

They build great temples to their John-a-nod, 
And fume and plod 
To deck themselves with gold, 
And paint themselves like chattels to be sold, 
Then turn to mould. 

Sometimes they seem almost as real as I; 
I hear them sigh; 
I see them bow with grief, 
Or dance for joy like any aspen leaf; 
But that is brief. 

They...Read more of this...
by Carman, Bliss

Conversion

...,
Drunk with rum,
Feasting on strange cassava,
Yielding to new words and a weak palabra
Of a white-faced sardonic god--
Grins, cries
Amen,
Shouts hosanna....Read more of this...
by Toomer, Jean

Escape

...hosts. 
“Life! life! I can’t be dead! I won’t be dead! 
Damned if I’ll die for any one!” I said…. 

Cerberus stands and grins above me now, 
Wearing three heads—lion, and lynx, and sow.
“Quick, a revolver! But my Webley’s gone, 
Stolen!… No bombs … no knife…. The crowd swarms on, 
Bellows, hurls stones…. Not even a honeyed sop… 
Nothing…. Good Cerberus!… Good dog!… but stop! 
Stay!… A great luminous thought … I do believe
There’s still some morphia that I bought on leave.” 
T...Read more of this...
by Graves, Robert


Gioconda And Si-Ya-U

...ttered on my head.
While the desire to cry writhes inside me
 I smile demurely;
like a stuffed pig's head
 my ugly face grins on...
 Leonardo da Vinci,
 may your bones
 become the brush of a Cubist painter
for grabbing me by the throat -- your hands dripping with paint --
and sticking in my mouth like a gold-plated tooth
this cursed smile...


Part Two
The Flight


FROM THE AUTHOR'S NOTEBOOK


Ah, friends, Gioconda is in a bad way...
Take it from me,
 if she didn't have hopes...Read more of this...
by Hikmet, Nazim

Lizards And Snakes

...He's as like as twins.
 He can crack us like lice with his fingernail.
I can see him plain as a pikestaff. Look how he grins
And swings the scaly horror of his folded tail."...Read more of this...
by Hecht, Anthony

Look What You Did Christopher!

...Regal Russians, and ripe Roumanians.
There came the French
And there came the Finns,
And the Japanese
With their formal grins.
The Tartars came,
And the Terrible Turks -
In a word, humanity shot the works.
And the country that should have been Cathay
Decided to be
The U.S.A.

And that, you may think, my friends, was that.
But it wasn't. Not by a fireman's hat.
Christopher C. was the cornerstone,
And well enough wasn't left alone.
For those who followed
When he was through,
Th...Read more of this...
by Nash, Ogden

Room 7: The Coco-Fiend

...staring, glaring,
Shadows! I don't care.
Once my room I gain
Then my life begins.
Shut the door on pain;
How the Devil grins!
Grin with might and main;
Grin and grin in vain;
Here's where Heav'n begins:
Cocaine! Cocaine!

A whiff! Ah, that's the thing.
How it makes me gay!
Now I want to sing,
Leap, laugh, play.
Ha! I've had my fling!
Mistress of a king
In my day.
Just another snuff . . .
Oh, the blessed stuff!
How the wretched room
Rushes from my sight;
Misery and gloom
Melt...Read more of this...
by Service, Robert William

Round About Midnight

...r, in my ears,
Round about Midnight.

Stirring up laughter, dying tears,
Round about Midnight.

Soft blue voices, muted grins,
Excited voices, Father's sins,
Round about Midnight.

Come on baby, take off your clothes,
Round about Midnight....Read more of this...
by Kaufman, Bob

Talking To Little Birdies

...seed worth a holler;
The traffic of cats in the yard;
Strangers leaving the widow's house,
Tieless and wearing crooked grins.

Or have you got wind of the world's news?
Some new horror I haven't heard about yet?
Which one of you was so bold as to warn me,
Our sweet setup is in danger?

Kids are playing soldiers down the road,
Pointing their rifles and playing dead.
Little birdies, are you sneaking wary looks
In the thick foliage as you hear me say this?...Read more of this...
by Simic, Charles

The Concert

...
in the skeletons of fish

The French horn player believes
in enormous golden snails

The piano believes in nothing
and grins from ear to ear

Strings are scratching their bellies
openly, enjoying it

Flutes and oboes complain
in dialects of the same tongue

Drumsticks rattle a calfskin
from the sleep of another life

because the supernatural crow
on the podium flaps his wings

and death is no excuse...Read more of this...
by St. Vincent Millay, Edna

The Englishman In Italy

...-way up in our house-side,
Like blood the juice spins,
While your brother all bare-legged is dancing
Till breathless he grins
Dead-beaten, in effort on effort
To keep the grapes under,
Since still when he seems all but master,
In pours the fresh plunder
From girls who keep coming and going
With basket on shoulder,
And eyes shut against the rain's driving,
Your girls that are older,— 
For under the hedges of aloe,
And where, on its bed
Of the orchard's black mould, the love-ap...Read more of this...
by Browning, Robert

The Lady of the Lake

...a hunting-spear,
     And broadswords, bows, and arrows store,
     With the tusked trophies of the boar.
     Here grins the wolf as when he died,
     And there the wild-cat's brindled hide
     The frontlet of the elk adorns,
     Or mantles o'er the bison's horns;
     Pennons and flags defaced and stained,
     That blackening streaks of blood retained,
     And deer-skins, dappled, dun, and white,
     With otter's fur and seal's unite,
     In rude and unco...Read more of this...
by Scott, Sir Walter

The Rhyme of the Three Greybeards

...back again. 
Well, stay at least a twelve-month – we might be dead by then." 

Two greybeards down at Coolan – familiar grins they had – 
They took delivery of the goods, and also of the bad. 
(Some bread and meat had come by train – Joe Swallow was the bad.) 

They'd met him shearing west o' Bourke in some forgotten year. 
They introduced him to the town and pints of Wagga beer. 
(And Wagga pints are very good –- I wish I had some here.) 

It was the Busy Bee Hotel where no ...Read more of this...
by Lawson, Henry

The Soudan, The Sphinxes, The Cup, The Lamp

...ke falls fate. 
 Those who in rightful purple are arrayed, 
 The prideful vanquisher, like vanquished, fade. 
 Death grins as he the fallen man bestrides— 
 And less of faults than of his glories hides. 
 
 THE SEVENTH SPHINX. 
 
 The time is come for Belus' tomb to fall, 
 Long has been ruined its high granite wall; 
 And its cupola, sister of the cloud, 
 Has now to lowest mire its tall head bowed. 
 The herdsman comes to it to choose the stones 
 To build a hu...Read more of this...
by Hugo, Victor

The Volunteer

...Sez I: My Country calls? Well, let it call.
 I grins perlitely and declines wiv thanks.
Go, let 'em plaster every blighted wall,
 'Ere's ONE they don't stampede into the ranks.
Them politicians with their greasy ways;
 Them empire-grabbers -- fight for 'em? No fear!
I've seen this mess a-comin' from the days
 Of Algyserious and Aggydear:
 I've felt me passion rise and swell,
 But . . . wot the 'ell, Bill...Read more of this...
by Service, Robert William

Troll Sat Alone on His Seat of Stone

...over! Trover!
Though dead he be, it belongs to he;
So hand the old bone over!'

'For a couple o' pins,' says Troll, and grins,
'I'll eat thee too, and gnaw thy shins.
A bit o' fresh meat will go down sweet!
I'll try my teeth on thee now.
Hee now! See now!
I'm tired o' gnawing old bones and skins;
I've a mind to dine on thee now.'

But just as he thought his dinner was caught,
He found his hands had hold of naught.
Before he could mind, Tom slipped behind
And gave him the boot...Read more of this...
by Tolkien, J R R

We Wear the Mask

...We wear the mask that grins and lies,
It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes—
This debt we pay to human guile;
With torn and bleeding hearts we smile,
And mouth with myriad subtleties.

Why should the world be over-wise,
In counting all our tears and sighs?
Nay, let them only see us, while
          We wear the mask.

We smile, but, O great Christ, our cries
To thee ...Read more of this...
by Laurence Dunbar, Paul

What Happened

...la-oo and cleared his dah-blade from the scabbard.


What became of Mookerjee? Smoothly, who can say?
Yar Mahommed only grins in a nasty way,
Jowar Singh is reticent, Chimbu Singh is mute.
But the belts of all of them simply bulge with loot.

What became of Ballard's guns? Afghans black and grubby
Sell them for their silver weight to the men of Pubbi;
And the shiny bowie-knife and the town-made sword are
Hanging in a Marri camp just across the Border.

What became of Mookerje...Read more of this...
by Kipling, Rudyard

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