Get Your Premium Membership

Famous Jumping Poems by Famous Poets

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

See also:

by Burns, Robert
...ie-Nansie’s held the splore,
 To drink their orra duddies;
 Wi’ quaffing an’ laughing,
 They ranted an’ they sang,
 Wi’ jumping an’ thumping,
 The vera girdle rang,


First, neist the fire, in auld red rags,
Ane sat, weel brac’d wi’ mealy bags,
 And knapsack a’ in order;
His doxy lay within his arm;
Wi’ usquebae an’ blankets warm
 She blinkit on her sodger;
An’ aye he gies the tozie drab
 The tither skelpin’ kiss,
While she held up her greedy gab,
 Just like an aumous dish;
 ...Read more of this...



by Neruda, Pablo
...the shores of the sea
in the lonely winter of Isla Negra
where the wintering birds filled the sky
and my hairy dog was jumping about
full of the voltage of the sea's movement:
my wandering dog, sniffing away
with his golden tail held high,
face to face with the ocean's spray.

Joyful, joyful, joyful,
as only dogs know how to be happy
with only the autonomy
of their shameless spirit.

There are no good-byes for my dog who has died,
and we don't now and never did lie t...Read more of this...

by Prior, Matthew
...o a tin-man's shop?
There, Thomas, didst thou never see
('Tis but by way of simile)
A squirrel spend his little rage
In jumping round a rolling cage?
The cage, as either side turn'd up,
Striking a ring of bells a-top?--

Mov'd in the orb, pleas'd with the chimes,
The foolish creature thinks he climbs:
But here or there, turn wood or wire,
He never gets two inches higher.

So fares it with those merry blades,
That frisk it under Pindus' shades.
In noble songs, and loft...Read more of this...

by Sexton, Anne
...y with lemon, she of the feather and dust,
not I. Nonetheless I came sneaking across the salt lawn
in bare feet and jumping-jack pajamas in the spongy dawn.

Oh Angel of the blizzard and blackout, Madam white face,
take me back to that red mouth, that July 21st place.



6. ANGEL OF BEACH HOUSES AND PICNICS

Angel of beach houses and picnics, do you know solitaire?
Fifty-two reds and blacks and only myslef to blame.
My blood buzzes like a hornet's nest.Read more of this...

by Bukowski, Charles
...ink the beer straight down
order a shot
fast
to give me the guts and the love to
go
on. 
from "poems written before jumping out of an 8 story window" - 1966...Read more of this...



by Gregory, Rg
...eaking themselves
as poetry's protectors - publishers
editors literature officers
poetry societies and centres

all all jumping on the flagship
competition's crock of gold
find the winners pick the famous
all the hopefuls cry please name us
aspiring poets search their wardrobes
for the wordy swimsuit likely
to catch the eyeful of the judges
(winners too in previous contests

inured to the needle of success
but this time though now they are tops
totally pissed-off with the pro...Read more of this...

by Ginsberg, Allen
...m park to 
 pad to bar to Bellevue to museum to the Brook- 
 lyn Bridge, 
lost battalion of platonic conversationalists jumping 
 down the stoops off fire escapes off windowsills 
 off Empire State out of the moon, 
yacketayakking screaming vomiting whispering facts 
 and memories and anecdotes and eyeball kicks 
 and shocks of hospitals and jails and wars, 
whole intellects disgorged in total recall for seven days 
 and nights with brilliant eyes, meat for the 
 Synagogue ca...Read more of this...

by Brautigan, Richard
...y fly drift down onto along

branch of the tree, next to a bird.

 Go-wham !

 I set the hook and the trout started jumping.

 "Giraffe races at Kilimanjaro!" he shouted, and every

time the trout jumped, he jumped.

 "Bee races at Mount Everest !" he shouted.

 I didn't have a net with me so I fought the trout over to

the edge of the creek and swung it up onto the shore.

The trout had a big red stripe down its side.

 It was a good rainbow.

 "W...Read more of this...

by Brautigan, Richard
...he creek was soft and

spread out in the grass like a beer belly. The fishing was

difficult. Summer ducks were jumping up into flight. They

were big mallards with their Rainier Ale-like offspring.

 I believe I saw a woodcock. He had a long bill like putting

a fire hydrant into a pencil sharpener, then pasting it onto

a bird and letting the bird fly away in front of me with this

thing on its face for no other purpose than to amaze me.

 I worked m...Read more of this...

by Brautigan, Richard
...alls.

 I've always liked cutthroat trout. They put up a good fight,

running against the bottom and then broad jumping. Under

their throats they fly the orange banner of Jack the Ripper.

 Also in the creek were a few stubborn rainbow trout, sel-

dom heard from, but there all the same, like certified pub-

lic accountants. I'd catch one every once in a while. They

were fat and chunky, almost as wide as they were long. I've

heard those trout ca...Read more of this...

by Frost, Robert
...--
By shrinking the rawhide to natural length.
That's what is called a stretcher. But I guess
The one about his jumping so's to land
With both his feet at once against the ceiling,
And then land safely right side up again,
Back on the floor, is fact or pretty near fact.
Well, this is such a yarn. Paul sawed his wife
Out of a white-pine log. Murphy was there
And, as you might say, saw the lady born.
Paul worked at anything in lumbering.
He'd been ba...Read more of this...

by Clare, John
...sting
Or that pleasures like a flock of birds would ever take to
 wing
Leaving nothing but a little naked spring


When jumping time away on old cross berry way
And eating awes like sugar plumbs ere they had lost the may
And skipping like a leveret before the peep of day
On the rolly polly up and downs of pleasant swordy well
When in round oaks narrow lane as the south got black again
We sought the hollow ash that was shelter from the rain
With our pockets full of peas we had...Read more of this...

by Hunt, James Henry Leigh
...Jenny kiss'd me when we met,
Jumping from the chair she sat in;
Time, you thief, who love to get
Sweets into your list, put that in!
Say I'm weary, say I'm sad,
Say that health and welth have miss'd me,
Say I'm growing old, but add,
Jenny kiss'd me....Read more of this...

by Browning, Robert
...witnessing murmured, persistent and low,
With their obstinate, all but hushed voices---``E'en so, it is so!''

* 1 The jumping hare.
* 2 One of the three cities of Refuge.
* 3 A brook in Jerusalem....Read more of this...

by Ginsberg, Allen
...bread joys
Carry big whistles & long bamboo sticks
to whack them in line They play hungry tricks

Breaking the line and jumping in front 
Into the circle sneaks one skinny runt
Two brothers dance forward on the mud stage
Teh gaurds blow their whistles & chase them in rage

Why are these infants massed in this place
Laughing in play & pushing for space
Why do they wait here so cheerful & dread
Why this is the House where they give children bread

The man in the bread door Crie...Read more of this...

by Service, Robert William
...his bag-pipes skirl,
And he set his sporran swinging, and he gave his kilts a whirl.
And President MacConnachie was jumping like a flea,
And there was joy and rapture in the Scottish Commy-tee.
"Jist let them have their saxophones wi' constipated squall;
We're having Heaven's music now," said Treasurer MacCall.
But the dancers waxed impatient, and they rather seemed to fret
For Maloney and the jazz of his Hibernian Quartette.
Yet little recked the Piper, as he...Read more of this...

by Sexton, Anne
...those nails.
I had been carried out like Moses
and hidden by the paws
of ten Boston bull terriers,
ten angry bulls
jumping like enormous roaches.
At first I was lapped,
rough as sandpaper.
I became very clean.
Then my arm was missing.
I was coming apart.
They loved me until
I was gone.



2. THE DY-DEE DOLL

My Dy-dee doll
died twice.
Once when I snapped
her head off
and let if float in the toilet
and once under the sun lamp
trying to get ...Read more of this...

by Kunitz, Stanley
...his dear ones on shore,
but in the rolling fog
they had already lost their faces.
Too tired even to choose
between jumping and calling,
somehow he felt absolved and free
of his burdens, those mottoes
stamped on his name-tag:
conscience, ambition, and all
that caring.
He was content to lie down
with the family ghosts
in the slop of his cradle,
buffeted by the storm,
endlessly drifting.
Peace! Peace!
To be rocked by the Infinite!
As if it didn't matter
which way wa...Read more of this...

by Basho, Matsuo
...wazu tobikomu 
mizu no oto

 -- Basho



Literal Translation

Fu-ru (old) i-ke (pond) ya, 
ka-wa-zu (frog) to-bi-ko-mu (jumping into) 
mi-zu (water) no o-to (sound)






 The old pond--
a frog jumps in,
 sound of water.


Translated by Robert Hass



Old pond...
a frog jumps in
water's sound.


Translated by William J. Higginson



An old silent pond...
A frog jumps into the pond,
splash! Silence again.


Translated by Harry Behn



Th...Read more of this...

by Troupe, Quincy
...c african-american rhythms alive here
in this ancient grand place of europe
this confluence point of nations & cultures
jumping off place for beer & cuisines
fused with music, poetry & stone
here in this blinding, beautiful square
sunlit now as the golden eye of God shoots through
flowers all over the cobbled ground, up in the music
the air brightly cool as light after jeweled rain
still, there are these hats slicing foreheads off in the middle
of crowds that need explaining,...Read more of this...

Dont forget to view our wonderful member Jumping poems.


Book: Shattered Sighs