Get Your Premium Membership

Famous Hens Poems by Famous Poets

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

See also:

by Bukowski, Charles
...are
altered
but the wind still blows over
Savannah
and in the Spring
the turkey buzzard struts and
flounces before his
hens....Read more of this...



by Yeats, William Butler
...e stream
Changes minute by minute;
A horse-hoof slides on the brim,
And a horse plashes within it;
The long-legged moor-hens dive,
And hens to moor-cocks call;
Minute by minute they live:
The stone's in the midst of all.

Too long a sacrifice
Can make a stone of the heart.
O when may it suffice?
That is Heaven's part, our part
To murmur name upon name,
As a mother names her child
When sleep at last has come
On limbs that had run wild.
What is it but nightfall?
No,...Read more of this...

by Bradstreet, Anne
...I had eight birds hatched in one nest,
Four cocks there were, and hens the rest.
I nursed them up with pain and care,
Nor cost, nor labour did I spare,
Till at the last they felt their wing,
Mounted the trees, and learned to sing;
Chief of the brood then took his flight
To regions far and left me quite.
My mournful chirps I after send,
Till he return, or I do end:
Leave not thy nest, thy dam and sire,
Fly back and ...Read more of this...

by Hugo, Victor
...a big wheelbarrow 
Is rusting; and before me lies the vast
Horizon, all its notches filled with ocean blue; 
Cocks and hens spread their gildings, and converse
Beneath my window; and the rooftop attics, 
Now and then, toss me songs in dialect.
In my lane dwells a patriarchal rope-maker; 
The old man makes his wheel run loud, and goes
Retrograde, hemp wreathed tightly round the midriff. 
I like these waters where the wild gale scuds;
All day the country tempts me to g...Read more of this...

by Kinnell, Galway
...nto wood,
I would let nothing of you go, ever,

until washerwomen
feel the clothes fall asleep in their hands,
and hens scratch their spell across hatchet blades,
and rats walk away from the cultures of the plague,
and iron twists weapons toward the true north,
and grease refuses to slide in the machinery of progress,
and men feel as free on earth as fleas on the bodies of men,
and lovers no longer whisper to the presence beside them in the
dark, O corpse-to-be .Read more of this...



by Lowell, Amy
...
II
Gallop! Gallop! The General 
brooks no delay. Make way, good people,
and scatter out of his path, you, and your hens, and your dogs,
and your children. The General is returned from Egypt, 
and is come
in a `caleche' and four to visit his new property. Throw 
open the gates,
you, Porter of Malmaison. Pull off your cap, my man, 
this is your master,
the husband of Madame. Faster! Faster! A 
jerk and a jingle
and they are arrived, he and she. Madame h...Read more of this...

by Clare, John
...ested wren
Hangs up his glowing nest agen
And sticks it to the furry leaves
As martins theirs beneath the eaves
The old hens leave the roost betimes
And oer the garden pailing climbs
To scrat the gardens fresh turnd soil
And if unwatchd his crops to spoil
Oft cackling from the prison yard
To peck about the houseclose sward
Catching at butterflys and things
Ere they have time to try their wings
The cattle feels the breath of may
And kick and toss their heads in play
The ass be...Read more of this...

by Trumbull, John
...not send your charters o'er,
And give you lands you own'd before,
Permit you all to spill your blood,
And drive out heathens where you could;
On these mild terms, that, conquest won,
The realm you gain'd should be their own?
And when of late attack'd by those,
Whom her connection made your foes,
Did they not then, distress'd by war,
Send generals to your help from far,
Whose aid you own'd, in terms less haughty,
And thankfully o'erpaid your quota?
Say, at what period did they...Read more of this...

by Raine, Kathleen
...n, factory farming,
monocrops for supermarkets,
pesticides, weed-killers
birdless springs, 
endangered species,
battery-hens, hormone injections,
artificial insemination,
implants, transplants, sterilization,
surrogate births, contraception,
cloning, genetic engineering, abortion,
and our days shall be short
in the land we have sown
with the Dragon’s teeth
where our armies arise
fully armed on our killing-fields
with land-mines and missiles,
tanks and artillery,
gas-masks and...Read more of this...

by Kipling, Rudyard
...
Henceforward I keep my cash in my coffer,
 Because the Lord has afflicted me.


 Material

I run eight hundred hens to the acre
 They die by dozens mysteriously. . . .
I am more than doubtful concerning my Maker,
 Why has the Lord afflicted me?
What a return for all my endeavour--
 Not to mention the L. S. D!
I am an atheist now and for ever,
 Because this God has afflicted me!


 Progressive

Money spent on an Army or Fleet
 Is homicidal luna...Read more of this...

by Jarrell, Randall
...Moving from Cheer to Joy, from Joy to All,
I take a box
And add it to my wild rice, my Cornish game hens.
The slacked or shorted, basketed, identical
Food-gathering flocks
Are selves I overlook. Wisdom, said William James,

Is learning what to overlook. And I am wise
If that is wisdom.
Yet somehow, as I buy All from these shelves
And the boy takes it to my station wagon,
What I've become
Troubles me even if I shut my eyes.

When I was y...Read more of this...

by Sandburg, Carl
...eir selves.
I feel like tickling you under the chin—honey—and a-asking: Why Does a Chicken Cross the Road?
When the hens are a-laying eggs, and the roosters pluck-pluck-put-akut and you—honey—put new potatoes and gravy on the table, and there ain’t too much rain or too little:
 Say, why do I feel so gabby?
 Why do I want to holler all over the place?. . .
Do you remember I held empty hands to you
 and I said all is yours
 the handfuls of nothing?. . .<...Read more of this...

by Bishop, Elizabeth
...om protruding chests
in green-gold medals dressed,
planned to command and terrorize the rest,

the many wives 
who lead hens' lives
of being courted and despised;

deep from raw throats
a senseless order floats
all over town. A rooster gloats

over our beds
from rusty irons sheds
and fences made from old bedsteads,

over our churches 
where the tin rooster perches,
over our little wooden northern houses,

making sallies 
from all the muddy alleys,
marking out maps like Ra...Read more of this...

by Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...
Chafferings and chatterings at the market-cross, 
Rejoice, small man, in this small world of mine, 
Yea, even in their hens and in their eggs-- 
O brother, saving this Sir Galahad, 
Came ye on none but phantoms in your quest, 
No man, no woman?' 

Then Sir Percivale: 
`All men, to one so bound by such a vow, 
And women were as phantoms. O, my brother, 
Why wilt thou shame me to confess to thee 
How far I faltered from my quest and vow? 
For after I had lain so many night...Read more of this...

by Frost, Robert
...e. 
I hate to think of the old place when we're gone, 
With the brook going by below the yard, 
And no one here but hens blowing about. 
If he could sell the place, but then, he can't: 
No one will ever live on it again. 
It's too run down. This is the last of it. 
What I think he will do, is let things smash. 
He'll sort of swear the time away. He's awful! 
I never saw a man let family troubles 
Make so much difference in his man's affairs. 
H...Read more of this...

by Alcott, Louisa May
...s perch 
Crowed daily loud and clear, 
"Stay in the puddle, foolish bird, 
That is your proper sphere," 

The ducks and hens said, one and all, 
In gossip by the pool, 
"Our children never play such pranks; 
My dear, that fowl's a fool." 

The owls came out and flew about, 
Hooting above the rest, 
"No useful egg was ever hatched 
From transcendental nest." 

Good little goslings at their play 
And well-conducted chicks 
Were taught to think poor goosey's flights 
Wer...Read more of this...

by Field, Eugene
...a,
An' I'd keep on lickin' folks till I got through!
You bet! I'd run away
From my lessons to my play,
An' I'd shoo the hens, an' tease the cat, an' kiss the girls all day--
If I darst; but I darsen't!...Read more of this...

by Bishop, Elizabeth
...the fog,
shifting, salty, thin,
comes closing in.

Its cold, round crystals
form and slide and settle
in the white hens' feathers,
in gray glazed cabbages,
on the cabbage roses
and lupins like apostles;

the sweet peas cling
to their wet white string
on the whitewashed fences;
bumblebees creep
inside the foxgloves,
and evening commences.

One stop at Bass River.
Then the Economies 
Lower, Middle, Upper;
Five Islands, Five Houses,
where a woman shakes a tablecloth...Read more of this...

by Mansfield, Katherine
...!
"May I help, if I can, little old man?"
"Bravo!" he said,
"You may dine with me.
I've two old eggs
From two white hens
and a loaf from a kind ladie:
Some fresh nutmegs,
Some cutlet ends
In pink and white paper frills:
And--I've--got
A little hot-pot
From the town between the hills."

He nodded his head
And made her a sign
To sit under the spray
Of a trailing vine.

But when the little girl joined her hands
And said the grace she had learned to say,
The little ol...Read more of this...

by Riley, James Whitcomb
...d you hear the kyouck and gobble of the struttin' turkey-cock,
And the clackin' of the guineys, and the cluckin' of the hens,
And the rooster's hallylooyer as he tiptoes on the fence;
O, it's then's the times a feller is a-feelin' at his best,
With the risin' sun to greet him from a night of peaceful rest,
As he leaves the house, bareheaded, and goes out to feed the stock,
When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder's in the shock.

They's something kindo' harty-like a...Read more of this...

Dont forget to view our wonderful member Hens poems.


Book: Shattered Sighs