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Famous Hard Up Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Laurence Dunbar, Paul
...mpulse, thine the forming thought.
Ah, I have wrought,
And these sad hands have right to tell their story,
It was no hard up striving after glory,
Catching and losing, gaining and failing,
Raging me back at the world's raucous railing.
Simply and humbly from stone and from wood,
Wrought I the things that to thee might seem good.
If they are little, ah God! but the cost,
Who but thou knowest the all that is lost!
If they are few, is the workmanship true?
Try them an...Read more of this...



by Cummings, Edward Estlin (E E)
...s containing the words country home and
mother when sung at the old howard

Humanity i love you because
when you're hard up you pawn your
intelligence to buy a drink and when
you're flush pride keeps 

you from the pawn shops and
because you are continually committing
nuisances but more
especially in your own house

Humanity i love you because you 
are perpetually putting the secret of
life in your pants and forgetting
it's there and sitting down

on it
and...Read more of this...

by Lawson, Henry
...He had offices in Sydney, not so many years ago, 
And his shingle bore the legend `Peter Anderson and Co.', 
But his real name was Careless, as the fellows understood -- 
And his relatives decided that he wasn't any good. 
'Twas their gentle tongues that blasted any `character' he had -- 
He was fond of beer and leisure -- and the Co. was just ...Read more of this...

by Berry, Wendell
...
not belittled by my saying that I possess it.
Even an hour of love is a moral predicament, a blessing
a man may be hard up to be worthy of. He can only
accept it, as a plant accepts from all the bounty of the light
enough to live, and then accepts the dark,
passing unencumbered back to the earth, as I
have fallen tine and again from the great strength
of my desire, helpless, into your arms.

VI.

What I am learning to give you is my death
to set you free of m...Read more of this...

by Lawson, Henry
...The Shame of Going Back And the reason of your failure isn't anybody's fault -- 
When you haven't got a billet, and the times are very slack, 
There is nothing that can spur you like the shame of going back; 
Crawling home with empty pockets, 
Going back hard-up; 
Oh! it's then you learn the meaning of humiliation's cup. 

When the place and you are st...Read more of this...



by Field, Eugene
...e curst
With that malady common to tailors--a thirst
For wine, lots of wine.

"Sweet host," quoth the three, "we're hard up as can be,
Yet skilled in the practice of cunning are we,
On the Rhine, genial Rhine;
And we pledge you we will impart you that skill
Right quickly and fully, providing you'll fill
Us with wine, cooling wine."

But that host shook his head, and he warily said:
"Though cunning be good, we take money instead,
On the Rhine, thrifty Rhine;
If ye fanc...Read more of this...

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