Famous Jig Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Jig poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous jig poems. These examples illustrate what a famous jig poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Burns, Robert
...monious flow,
A sweeping, kindling, bauld strathspey—
Encore! Bravo!
A blessing on the cheery gang
Wha dearly like a jig or sang,
An’ never think o’ right an’ wrang
By square an’ rule,
But, as the clegs o’ feeling stang,
Are wise or fool.
My hand-waled curse keep hard in chase
The harpy, hoodock, purse-proud race,
Wha count on poortith as disgrace;
Their tuneless hearts,
May fireside discords jar a base
To a’ their parts.
But come, your hand, my careless br...Read more of this...
by
Burns, Robert
...ed and leal,
Wha, wanting thee, might beg or steal;
Alake, alake, the meikle deil
Wi’ a’ his witches
Are at it skelpin jig and reel,
In my poor pouches?
I modestly fu’ fain wad hint it,
That One-pound-one, I sairly want it;
If wi’ the hizzie down ye sent it,
It would be kind;
And while my heart wi’ life-blood dunted,
I’d bear’t in mind.
So may the Auld year gang out moanin’
To see the New come laden, groanin’,
Wi’ double plenty o’er the loanin’,
To thee and thine...Read more of this...
by
Laurence Dunbar, Paul
...my wife an' all de othahs,—
Male an' female, small an' big,—
Even up to gray-haired granny,
Seem jes' boun' to do a jig;
'Twell I change de style o' music,
Change de movement an' de time,
An' de ringin' little banjo
Plays an ol' hea't-feelin' hime.
An' somehow my th'oat gits choky,
An' a lump keeps tryin' to rise
Lak it wan'ed to ketch de water
Dat was flowin' to my eyes;
An' I feel dat I could sorter
Knock de socks clean off o' sin
Ez I hyeah my po' ol' granny...Read more of this...
by
Nash, Ogden
...tmare zone of persons unknown,
With neither name nor face.
And poor Dot King to one doth cling,
Joined in a ghastly jig,
While Elwell doth jape at a goblin shape
And tickle it with his wig.
See Rothstein pass like breath on a glass,
The original Black Sox kid;
He riffles the pack, riding piggyback
On the killer whose name he hid.
And smeared like brine on a slavering swine,
Starr Faithful, once so fair,
Drawn from the sea to her debauchee,
With the salt sand in h...Read more of this...
by
Pope, Alexander
...hear,
That summons you to all the pride of pray'r:
Light quirks of music, broken and uneven,
Make the soul dance upon a jig to heaven.
On painted ceilings you devoutly stare,
Where sprawl the saints of Verrio or Laguerre,
On gilded clouds in fair expansion lie,
And bring all paradise before your eye.
To rest, the cushion and soft dean invite,
Who never mentions Hell to ears polite.
But hark! the chiming clocks to dinner call;
A hundred footsteps scrape the marble...Read more of this...
by
Carroll, Lewis
...y,
Such as "Fry me!" or "Fritter my wig!"
To "What-you-may-call-um!" or "What-was-his-name!"
But especially "Thing-um-a-jig!"
While, for those who preferred a more forcible word,
He had different names from these:
His intimate friends called him "Candle-ends",
And his enemies "Toasted-cheese"
"His form is ungainly--his intellect small--"
(So the Bellman would often remark)--
"But his courage is perfect! And that, after all,
Is the thing that one needs with a Snark." ...Read more of this...
by
Goose, Mother
...bsp; Hopped upon a twig,Saying, "Out upon you! Fie upon you! Bold-faced jig!"...Read more of this...
by
Sandburg, Carl
...t and stones,
across a single yellow sunflower,
one stalk strong as a woman’s wrist;
And the play of a light rain,
the jig-time folly of a light rain,
the creepers of a drizzle on the sidewalks
for the policemen and the railroad men,
for the home-goers and the homeless,
silver fans and funnels on the asphalt,
the many feet of a fog mist that crept away;
I saw the night
put these nothings across
and the night wind came saying: Come-on:
and the curve of sky swept off white cl...Read more of this...
by
Sassoon, Siegfried
...along the morning stooped a bird ¡ª 10
Lit beside him with a blossomed sprig.
Earth was saved; and Noah danced a jig.
...Read more of this...
by
Goose, Mother
...She went to the barber's To buy him a wig;When she came back He was dancing a jig.She went to the fruiterer's To buy him some fruit;When she came back He was playing the flute.She went to the tailor's To buy him a coat;When she came back He was riding a goat.She went to the cobbler's To buy him some shoes;When she came backRead more of this...
by
Masefield, John
...on of the night.
O, to feel the beat of the rain, and the homely smell of the earth,
Is a tune for the blood to jig to, and joy past power of words;
And the blessed green comely meadows are all a-ripple with mirth
At the noise of the lambs at play and the dear wild cry of the birds....Read more of this...
by
Lowell, Amy
...by a hope, all gone. A weary man in a ruined laboratory,
that is his story. Boom! Gloom and ignorance,
and the jig of drunken brutes.
Diseases like snakes crawling over the earth, leaving trails of
slime.
Wails from people burying their dead. Through the window,
he can see
the rocking steeple. A ball of fire falls on the lead
of the roof,
and the sky tears apart on a spike of flame. Up the spire,
behind the lacings of stone, zigzagging in and o...Read more of this...
by
Stevens, Wallace
...ux, beyond Havana, far
388 Beyond carked Yucatan, he might have come
389 To colonize his polar planterdom
390 And jig his chits upon a cloudy knee.
391 But his emprize to that idea soon sped.
392 Crispin dwelt in the land and dwelling there
393 Slid from his continent by slow recess
394 To things within his actual eye, alert
395 To the difficulty of rebellious thought
396 When the sky is blue. The blue infected will.
397 It may be that the ...Read more of this...
by
Service, Robert William
...he creaking door,
And led him to a dim and dreary room;
Wherein he sat and poked the fire a-roar,
So that weird shadows jigged athwart the gloom.
He ordered wine. 'Od's blood! but he was tired.
What matter! Charles was crushed and George was King;
His party high in power; how he aspired!
Red guineas packed his purse, too tight to ring.
The fire-light gleamed upon his silken hose,
His silver buckles and his powdered wig.
What ho! more wine! He drank, he slo...Read more of this...
by
Lowell, Robert
...
Once fishing was a rabbit's foot--
O wind blow cold, O wind blow hot,
Let suns stay in or suns step out:
Life danced a jig on the sperm-whale's spout--
The fisher's fluent and obscene
Catches kept his conscience clean.
Children, the raging memory drools
Over the glory of past pools.
Now the hot river, ebbing, hauls
Its bloody waters into holes;
A grain of sand inside my shoe
Mimics the moon that might undo
Man and Creation too; remorse,
Stinking, has puddled up its ...Read more of this...
by
Carroll, Lewis
...
Such as "Fry me!" or "Fritter my wig!"
To "What-you-may-call-um!" or "What-was-his-name!"
But especially "Thing-um-a-jig!"
While, for those who preferred a more forcible word,
He had different names from these:
His intimate friends called him "Candle-ends,"
And his enemies "Toasted-cheese."
"His form in ungainly--his intellect small--"
(So the Bellman would often remark)
"But his courage is perfect! And that, after all,
Is the thing that one needs with a Snark.Read more of this...
by
Tolkien, J R R
...ster's been and drowned his wits,
and the Sun'll be rising soon!'
So the cat on the fiddle played hey-diddle-diddle,
a jig that would wake the dead:
He squeaked and sawed and quickened the tune,
While the landlord shook the Man in the Moon:
'It's after three!' he said.
They rolled the Man slowly up the hill
and bundled him into the Moon,
While his horses galloped up in rear,
And the cow came capering like a deer,
and a dish ran up with the spoon.
Now quicker the fi...Read more of this...
by
Bishop, Elizabeth
...cclesiastical.
From it four thin, warped poles spring out,
(slanted like fishing-poles or flag-poles)
and from them jig-saw work hangs down,
four lines of vaguely whittled ornament
over the edges of the boxes
to the ground.
The monument is one-third set against
a sea; two-thirds against a sky.
The view is geared
(that is, the view's perspective)
so low there is no "far away,"
and we are far away within the view.
A sea of narrow, horizontal boards
lies out beh...Read more of this...
by
Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)
...Cats develop slowly,
Jellicle Cats are not too big;
Jellicle Cats are roly-poly,
They know how to dance a gavotte and a jig.
Until the Jellicle Moon appears
They make their toilette and take their repose:
Jellicles wash behind their ears,
Jellicles dry between their toes.
Jellicle Cats are white and black,
Jellicle Cats are of moderate size;
Jellicles jump like a jumping-jack,
Jellicle Cats have moonlit eyes.
They're quiet enough in the morning hours,
They're qui...Read more of this...
by
Hughes, Ted
...eer are on the bare-blown hill
Like smiles on a nurse.
The flies are behind the plaster
Like the lost score of a jig.
Sparrows are in the ivy-clump
Like money in a pig.
Such a frost
The flimsy moon
Has lost her wits.
A star falls.
The sweating farmers
Turn in their sleep
Like oxen on spits....Read more of this...
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