Famous Grizzled Poems by Famous Poets

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

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The Man From Athabaska

by Robert William Service
 Oh the wife she tried to tell me that 'twas nothing but the thrumming
 Of a wood-pecker a-rapping on the hollow of a tree;
And she thought that I was fooling when I said it was the drumming
 Of the mustering of legions, and 'twas calling unto me;
 'Twas calling me to pull my freight and hop across the sea.

And...Read more of this...

Egypt Tobago

by Derek Walcott
 There is a shattered palm
on this fierce shore,
its plumes the rusting helm-
et of a dead warrior.

Numb Antony, in the torpor
stretching her inert
sex near him like a sleeping cat,
knows his heart is the real desert.

Over the dunes
of her heaving,
to his heart's drumming
fades the mirage of the legions,

across love-tousled sheets,
the triremes fading.
Ar the carved door of her temple
a fly wrings its...Read more of this...

The Retreat From Moscow

by Victor Hugo
 ("Il neigeait.") 
 
 {Bk. V. xiii., Nov. 25-30, 1852.} 


 It snowed. A defeat was our conquest red! 
 For once the eagle was hanging its head. 
 Sad days! the Emperor turned slowly his back 
 On smoking Moscow, blent orange and black. 
 The winter burst, avalanche-like, to reign 
 Over the endless blanched sheet of...Read more of this...

The Fight at Eureka Stockade

by Henry Lawson
 "Was I at Eureka?" His figure was drawn to a youthful height,
And a 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...Read more of this...

Spats

by Robert William Service
 When young I was a Socialist
 Despite my tender years;
No blessed chance I ever missed
 To slam the profiteers.
Yet though a fanatic I was,
 And cursed aristocrats,
The Party chucked me out because
 I sported Spats.

Aye, though on soap boxes I stood,
 And spouted in the parks,
They grizzled that my foot-wear would
 Be disavowed my Marx.
It's buttons of a pearly...Read more of this...

T.y.s.o.n

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 Across the Queensland border line
The mobs of cattle go;
They travel down in sun and shine
On dusty stage, and slow.
The drovers, riding slowly on
To let the cattle spread,
Will say: "Here's one old landmark gone,
For old man Tyson's dead."
What tales there'll be in every camp
By men that Tyson knew!
The swagmen, meeting on the tramp,
Will yarn the long day through,
And tell of...Read more of this...

The Last Meeting

by Siegfried Sassoon
 I

Because the night was falling warm and still 
Upon a golden day at April’s end, 
I thought; I will go up the hill once more 
To find the face of him that I have lost, 
And speak with him before his ghost has flown
Far from the earth that might not keep him long. 

So down the road I went,...Read more of this...

In the Smoking Car

by Richard Wilbur
 The eyelids meet. He'll catch a little nap. 
The grizzled, crew-cut head drops to his chest. 
It shakes above the briefcase on his lap. 
Close voices breathe, "Poor sweet, he did his best." 

"Poor sweet, poor sweet," the bird-hushed glades repeat, 
Through which in quiet pomp his litter goes, 
Carried by native girls with naked feet. 
A sighing stream...Read more of this...

The Ballad Of How Macpherson Held The Floor

by Robert William Service
 Said President MacConnachie to Treasurer MacCall:
"We ought to have a piper for our next Saint Andrew's Ball.
Yon squakin' saxophone gives me the syncopated gripes.
I'm sick of jazz, I want to hear the skirling of the pipes."
"Alas! it's true," said Tam MacCall. "The young folk of to-day
Are fox-trot mad and dinna ken a reel from Strathspey.
Now, what we want's a...Read more of this...

With the Cattle

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 The drought is down on field and flock, 
The river-bed is dry; 
And we must shift the starving stock 
Before the cattle die. 
We muster up with weary hearts 
At breaking of the day, 
And turn our heads to foreign parts, 
To take the stock away. 
And it’s hunt ‘em up and dog ‘em, 
And it’s get the whip...Read more of this...

The Galley-Slave

by Rudyard Kipling
 Oh gallant was our galley from her caren steering-wheel
To her figurehead of silver and her beak of hammered steel;
The leg-bar chafed the ankle and we gasped for cooler air,
But no galley on the waters with our galley could compare!

Our bulkheads bulged with cotton and our masts were stepped in gold --
We ran a mighty merchandise of niggers in the...Read more of this...

The Old Timers Steeplechase

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 The sheep were shorn and the wool went down 
At the time of our local racing; 
And I'd earned a spell -- I was burnt and brown -- 
So I rolled my swag for a trip to town 
And a look at the steeplechasing. 
Twas rough and ready--an uncleared course 
As rough as the blacks had found it; 
With...Read more of this...

Penmaen Pool

by Gerard Manley Hopkins
 For the Visitors' Book at the Inn


Who long for rest, who look for pleasure
Away from counter, court, or school
O where live well your lease of leisure
But here at, here at Penmaen Pool? 
You'll dare the Alp? you'll dart the skiff?— 
Each sport has here its tackle and tool:
Come, plant the staff by Cadair cliff;
Come, swing the sculls on Penmaen...Read more of this...

Sonnet VIII: Theres Nothing Grieves Me

by Michael Drayton
 There's nothing grieves me, but that Age should haste, 
That in my days I may not see thee old, 
That where those two clear sparkling eyes are plac'd 
Only two loop-holes then I might behold; 
That lovely, arched, ivory, polish'd brow 
Defac'd with wrinkles that I might but see; 
Thy dainty hair, so curl'd and crisped now, 
Like grizzled...Read more of this...

Music In The Bush

by Robert William Service
 O'er the dark pines she sees the silver moon,
 And in the west, all tremulous, a star;
And soothing sweet she hears the mellow tune
 Of cow-bells jangled in the fields afar.

Quite listless, for her daily stent is done,
 She stands, sad exile, at her rose-wreathed door,
And sends her love eternal with the sun
 That goes to gild the land...Read more of this...

The Death Of Marie Toro

by Robert William Service
 We're taking Marie Toro to her home in Père-La-Chaise;
We're taking Marie Toro to her last resting-place.
Behold! her hearse is hung with wreaths till everything is hid
Except the blossoms heaping high upon her coffin lid.
A week ago she roamed the street, a draggle and a ****,
A by-word of the Boulevard and everybody's butt;
A week ago she haunted us, we heard...Read more of this...

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