Famous Handle Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Handle poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous handle poems. These examples illustrate what a famous handle poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Burns, Robert
...
To liken them to your auld-warld squad,
I must needs say, comparisons are odd.
In Ayr, wag-wits nae mair can hae a handle
To mouth ’a Citizen,’ a term o’ scandal;
Nae mair the Council waddles down the street,
In all the pomp of ignorant conceit;
Men wha grew wise priggin owre hops and raisins,
Or gather’d lib’ral views in Bonds and Seisins:
If haply Knowledge, on a random tramp,
Had shor’d them with a glimmer of his lamp,
And would to Common-sense for once betray’d them,...Read more of this...
by
Whitman, Walt
...
A song of farms—a song of the soil of fields.
A song with the smell of sun-dried hay, where the nimble pitchers handle the pitch-fork;
A song tasting of new wheat, and of fresh-husk’d maize.
2
For the lands, and for these passionate days, and for myself,
Now I awhile return to thee, O soil of Autumn fields,
Reclining on thy breast, giving myself to thee,
Answering the pulses of thy sane and equable heart,
Tuning a verse for thee.
O Earth, that hast no v...Read more of this...
by
Sidney, Sir Philip
...er paine.
Princes in subiects wrong must deeme themselues abused.
Your client, poore my selfe, shall Stella handle so!
Reuenge! revenge! my Muse! defiance trumpet blow;
Threaten what may be done, yet do more then you threaten;
Ah, my sute granted is, I feele my breast doth swell;
No, child, a lesson new you shall begin to spell,
Sweet babes must babies haue, but shrewd gyrles must be beaten.
Thinke now no more to heare of warme fine-odour'd snow,
Nor ...Read more of this...
by
Snyder, Gary
...il
Showing Kai how to throw a hatchet
One-half turn and it sticks in a stump.
He recalls the hatchet-head
Without a handle, in the shop
And go gets it, and wants it for his own.
A broken-off axe handle behind the door
Is long enough for a hatchet,
We cut it to length and take it
With the hatchet head
And working hatchet, to the wood block.
There I begin to shape the old handle
With the hatchet, and the phrase
First learned from Ezra Pound
Rings in my ears!
"When ...Read more of this...
by
Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...vel what thou art.'
'Damsel,' he said, 'you be not all to blame,
Saving that you mistrusted our good King
Would handle scorn, or yield you, asking, one
Not fit to cope your quest. You said your say;
Mine answer was my deed. Good sooth! I hold
He scarce is knight, yea but half-man, nor meet
To fight for gentle damsel, he, who lets
His heart be stirred with any foolish heat
At any gentle damsel's waywardness.
Shamed? care not! thy foul sayings fought ...Read more of this...
by
Ginsberg, Allen
...fts his flyswatter above the desk
-- whap!
*
A green-letter'd shield on the pressboard wall!
"Life is fragile. Handle with care" --
My Goodness! here's where they make the nuclear bomb
triggers.
August 17, 1978
VI -- Numbers in Red Notebook
2,000,000 killed in Vietnam
13,000,000 refugees in Indochina 1972
200,000,000 years for the Galaxy to revolve on its core
24,000 the Babylonian Great Year
24,000 half life of plutonium
2,000 the most I ever got for a po...Read more of this...
by
Brautigan, Richard
...ation:
Wine
Address:
C/O Nelson Algren
Chicago
And there would be stickers all over the crate, saying:
"GLASS/HANDLE WITH CARE/SPECIAL HANDLING/GLASS
/DON'T SPILL/THIS SIDE UP/HANDLE THIS WINO LIKE HE
WAS AN ANGEL"
And Trout Fishing in America Shorty, grumbling, puking
and cursing in his crate would travel across America, from
San Francisco to Chicago.
And Trout Fishing in America Shorty, wondering what it
was all about, would travel on, shouting, "Wher...Read more of this...
by
Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)
...ight comes down; returning as before
Except for a slight sensation of being ill at ease
I mount the stairs and turn the handle of the door
And feel as if I had mounted on my hands and knees.
“And so you are going abroad; and when do you return?
But that’s a useless question.
You hardly know when you are coming back,
You will find so much to learn.”
My smile falls heavily among the bric-à-brac.
“Perhaps you can write to me.”
My self-possession flares up fo...Read more of this...
by
Lux, Thomas
...More like a vault -- you pull the handle out
and on the shelves: not a lot,
and what there is (a boiled potato
in a bag, a chicken carcass
under foil) looking dispirited,
drained, mugged. This is not
a place to go in hope or hunger.
But, just to the right of the middle
of the middle door shelf, on fire, a lit-from-within red,
heart red, sexual red, wet neon red,
shining red in their ...Read more of this...
by
Carroll, Lewis
...the water
Till to swim you are able.
Sit close to the table.
Take care of a candle.
Shut a door by the handle,
Don't push with your shoulder
Until you are older.
Lose not a button.
Refuse cold mutton.
Starve your canaries.
Believe in fairies.
If you are able,
Don't have a stable
With any mangers.
Be rude to strangers.
Moral: Behave....Read more of this...
by
Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)
...nd there's not a speck of dust on the floor.
There is every sort of light-you can make it dark or bright;
There's a handle that you turn to make a breeze.
There's a funny little basin you're supposed to wash your face in
And a crank to shut the window if you sneeze.
Then the guard looks in politely and will ask you very brightly
"Do you like your morning tea weak or strong?"
But Skimble's just behind him and was ready to remind him,
For Skimble won't let anything ...Read more of this...
by
Frost, Robert
...to speak when he was here.
Their number’s—twenty-one? The thing won’t work.
Someone’s receiver’s down. The handle stumbles.
The stubborn thing, the way it jars your arm!
It’s theirs. She’s dropped it from her hand and gone.”
“Try speaking. Say ‘Hello’!”
“Hello. Hello.”
“What do you hear?”
“I hear an empty room—
You know—it sounds that way. And yes, I hear—
I think I hear a clock—and windows rattling.
No step though. If she...Read more of this...
by
Whitman, Walt
...e
bricks,
The bricks, one after another, each laid so workmanlike in its place, and set with a knock
of
the
trowel-handle,
The piles of materials, the mortar on the mortar-boards, and the steady replenishing by
the
hod-men;
—Spar-makers in the spar-yard, the swarming row of well-grown apprentices,
The swing of their axes on the square-hew’d log, shaping it toward the shape of a mast,
The brisk short crackle of the steel driven slantingly into the pine,
The butter-c...Read more of this...
by
Lindsay, Vachel
...gged and reeled and pounded on the table,
A deep rolling bass.
Pounded on the table,
Beat an empty barrel with the handle of a broom,
Hard as they were able,
Boom, boom, BOOM,
With a silk umbrella and the handle of a broom,
Boomlay, boomlay, boomlay, BOOM.
THEN I had religion, THEN I had a vision.
I could not turn from their revel in derision.
THEN I SAW THE CONGO, CREEPING THROUGH THE BLACK,
More deliberate. Solemnly chanted.
CUTTING THROUGH THE FORE...Read more of this...
by
Bonnefoy, Yves
...
In the hall, near the darkened staircase, but in vain,
So high had the water already risen in the room.
I took the handle, it was hard to turn,
I could almost hear the noises of the other shore,
The laughter of the children playing in the tall grass,
The games of the others, always the others, in their joy....Read more of this...
by
Lanier, Sidney
...France; my France,
Wilt never walk on glory's hills again?
Wilt never work among thy vines again?
Art footless and art handless evermore?
-- Thou felon, War, I do arraign thee now
Of mayhem of the four main limbs of France!
Thou old red criminal, stand forth; I charge
-- But O, I am too utter sorrowful
To urge large accusation now.
Nathless,
My work to-day, is still more grievous. Hear!
The stains that war hath wrought upon the land
Show but as faint white flecks, if...Read more of this...
by
Chaucer, Geoffrey
..." quoth Absolon, "be as be may;
I shall well tell it thee another day:"
And caught the culter by the colde stele*. *handle
Full soft out at the door he gan to steal,
And went unto the carpentere's wall
He coughed first, and knocked therewithal
Upon the window, light as he did ere*. *before
This Alison answered; "Who is there
That knocketh so? I warrant him a thief."
"Nay, nay," quoth he, "God wot, my sweete lefe*, *love
I am thine Absolon, my own darling....Read more of this...
by
Pope, Alexander
...e are seen
Of Bodies chang'd to various Forms by Spleen.
Here living Teapots stand, one Arm held out,
One bent; the Handle this, and that the Spout:
A Pipkin there like Homer's Tripod walks;
Here sighs a Jar, and there a Goose Pie talks;
Men prove with Child, as pow'rful Fancy works,
And Maids turn'd Bottels, call aloud for Corks.
Safe past the Gnome thro' this fantastick Band,
A Branch of healing Spleenwort in his hand.
Then thus addrest the Pow'r--Hail wayward...Read more of this...
by
St Vincent Millay, Edna
...of me
Thou hast received. I have prepared for thee
Within my house a spacious chamber, where
Are delicate things to handle and to wear,
And all these things are thine. Dost thou love song?
My minstrels shall attend thee all day long.
Or sigh for flowers? My fairest gardens stand
Open as fields to thee on every hand.
And all thy days this word shall hold the same:
No pleasure shalt thou lack that thou shalt name.
But as for tasks—" he smiled, and shook his ...Read more of this...
by
Chaucer, Geoffrey
...to dwell,
And not bewray* a thing that men us tell. *give away
But that tale is not worth a rake-stele.* *rake-handle
Pardie, we women canne nothing hele,* *hide 9
Witness on Midas; will ye hear the tale?
Ovid, amonges other thinges smale* *small
Saith, Midas had, under his longe hairs,
Growing upon his head two ass's ears;
The whiche vice he hid, as best he might,
Full subtlely from every man's sight,
That, save his wife, there knew of it no mo';
He lov'd her most, ...Read more of this...
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