Get Your Premium Membership

Famous Knocks Poems by Famous Poets

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

See also:

by Dickinson, Emily
...A Deed knocks first at Thought
And then -- it knocks at Will --
That is the manufacturing spot
And Will at Home and well

It then goes out an Act
Or is entombed so still
That only to the ear of God
Its Doom is audible --...Read more of this...



by Kipling, Rudyard
...ey call you "pretty maid," and chuck you 'neath the chin,
Don't you tell where no one is, nor yet where no one's been!

Knocks and footsteps round the house -- whistles after dark --
You've no call for running out till the house-dogs bark.
Trusty's here, and Pincher's here, and see how dumb they lie --
They don't fret to follow when the Gentlemen go by!

If you do as you've been told, 'likely there's a chance,
You'll be given a dainty doll, all the way from France,
With a...Read more of this...

by Auden, Wystan Hugh (W H)
...ter,Plunge them in up to the wrist;Stare, stare in the basinAnd wonder what you've missed. 'The glacier knocks in the cupboard,The desert sighs in the bed,And the crack in the tea-cup opensA lane to the land of the dead. 'Where the beggars raffle the banknotesAnd the Giant is enchanting to Jack,And the Lily-white Boy is a Roarer,And Jill goes down on her back. 'O look, look in the mirror,O look in your distress:Life rema...Read more of this...

by Wignesan, T
...yawns
And in the back of ears, strange noises
As from afar and a million feet tramp.
One infinitesimal particle knocks another
And the whirl begins in a silent rage
And the human heart beats harder
While in and around, this London
This atomic mammoth roams
In the wastes of wars and tumbling empires.
...Read more of this...

by Plath, Sylvia
...state of mind?
I am the ghost of an infamous suicide,
My own blue razor rusting at my throat.
O pardon the one who knocks for pardon at
Your gate, father -- your hound-*****, daughter, friend.
It was my love that did us both to death....Read more of this...



by Sexton, Anne
...self in where a stranger
puts the inked-in X's—
for this is a mental hospital,
not a child's game.

Today an intern knocks my knees,
testing for reflexes.
Once I would have winked and begged for dope.
Today I am terribly patient.
Today crows play black-jack
on the stethoscope.

Everyone has left me
except my muse,
that good nurse.
She stays in my hand,
a mild white mouse.

The curtains, lazy and delicate,
billow and flutter and drop
like the Victor...Read more of this...

by Bronte, Charlotte
...ithout or tear or stain. 

'Tis somewhat late­the city clocks
Twelve deep vibrations toll,
As Gilbert at the portal knocks, 
Which is his journey's goal.
The street is still and desolate, 
The moon hid by a cloud;
Gilbert, impatient, will not wait,­ 
His second knock peals loud. 

The clocks are hushed; there's not a light
In any window nigh,
And not a single planet bright
Looks from the clouded sky;
The air is raw, the rain descends,
A bitter north-wind blows;
Hi...Read more of this...

by Plath, Sylvia
...theatrical
Comeback in broad day
To the same place, the same face, the same brute
Amused shout:
'A miracle!'
That knocks me out.
There is a charge
For the eyeing my scars, there is a charge
For the hearing of my heart---
It really goes.
And there is a charge, a very large charge
For a word or a touch
Or a bit of blood
Or a piece of my hair on my clothes.
So, so, Herr Doktor.
So, Herr Enemy.
I am your opus,
I am your valuable,
The pure go...Read more of this...

by Marvell, Andrew
...avior binds, 
But the just street does the next house invade, 
Mounting the neighbour couple on lean jade, 
The distaff knocks, the grains from kettle fly, 
And boys and girls in troops run hooting by: 
Prudent antiquity, that knew by shame, 
Better than law, domestic crimes to tame, 
And taught youth by spect?cle innocent! 
So thou and I, dear Painter, represent 
In quick effigy, others' faults, and feign 
By making them ridiculous, to restrain. 
With homely sight they c...Read more of this...

by Lowell, Amy
...!
Over the glass domes of the hot-houses drenches 
the rain. Behind her
a clock ticks -- ticks again. The sound knocks upon her 
thought
with the echoing shudder of hollow vases. She places 
her hands on her ears,
but the minutes pass, knocking. Tears in Malmaison. And 
years to come
each knocking by, minute after minute. Years, many years, 
and tears,
and cold pouring rain.
"I feel as though I had died, and the only sensation 
I have
is that I am ...Read more of this...

by Neruda, Pablo
...lence.

Death arrives among all that sound
like a shoe with no foot in it, like a suit with no man in it,
comes and knocks, using a ring with no stone in it, with no
 finger in it,
comes and shouts with no mouth, with no tongue, with no
 throat.
Nevertheless its steps can be heard
and its clothing makes a hushed sound, like a tree.

I'm not sure, I understand only a little, I can hardly see,
but it seems to me that its singing has the color of damp violets,
of vio...Read more of this...

by Neruda, Pablo
...ts magnetism;
it is the wedding
of the day,
parsley
hoists
its flag,
potatoes
bubble vigorously,
the aroma
of the roast
knocks
at the door,
it's time!
come on!
and, on
the table, at the midpoint
of summer,
the tomato,
star of earth, recurrent
and fertile
star,
displays
its convolutions,
its canals,
its remarkable amplitude
and abundance,
no pit,
no husk,
no leaves or thorns,
the tomato offers
its gift
of fiery color
and cool completeness....Read more of this...

by Lowell, Amy
...ngs! Wings!
And a little ruffled-out throat which sings.
The forest bends, tumultuous
With song.
The woodpecker knocks,
And the song-sparrow trills,
Every fir, and cedar, and yew
Has a nest or a bird,
It is quite absurd
To hear them cutting across each other:
Peewits, and thrushes, and larks, all at once,
And a loud cuckoo is trying to smother
A wood-pigeon perched on a birch,
"Roo -- coo -- oo -- oo --"
"Cuckoo! Cuckoo! That's 
one for you!"
A blackbird whistles, how...Read more of this...

by Pushkin, Alexander
...t of humor
For his visitor that day;
As the rainstorm is increasing,
Nightfall brings a hurricane -
And the drowned man knocks, unceasing,
By the gates and at the pane.


Translated by: Genia Gurarie, 11/95
Copyright retained by Genia Gurarie.
email: egurarie@princeton.edu
http://www.princeton.edu/~egurarie/
For permission to reproduce, write personally to the translator....Read more of this...

by Masefield, John
...round's end 
When my two seconds, Ed and Jimmy, 
Had sixty seconds help to gimme. 
But in the ninth, with pain and knocks 
I stopped: I couldn't fight nor box. 
Bill missed his swing, the light was tricky, 
But I went down, and stayed down, dicky. 
"Get up," cried Jim. I said, "I will." 
Then all the gang yelled, "Out him, bill. 
Out him." Bill rushed . . . and Clink, Clink, Clink. 
Time! And Jim's knee, and rum to drink. 
And ...Read more of this...

by Bradstreet, Anne
...What crudities my cold stomach hath bred?
2.74 Whence vomits, worms, and flux have issued?
2.75 What breaches, knocks, and falls I daily have?
2.76 And some perhaps, I carry to my grave.
2.77 Sometimes in fire, sometimes in water fall:
2.78 Strangely preserv'd, yet mind it not at all.
2.79 At home, abroad, my danger's manifold
2.80 That wonder 'tis, my glass till now doth hold.
2.81 I've done: unto my elders I give way,
2.82 Fo...Read more of this...

by Service, Robert William
...)
Yet those two in the silence there, seemed less weariful than before.
Hark! a step on the garret stair, a postman knocks at the flimsy door.
"Registered letter!" Brown thrills with fear; opens, and reads, then bends above:
"Glorious tidings! Egypt, dear! The book is accepted -- life and love."...Read more of this...

by Frost, Robert
...ll Weiss shut off the water in the wheel-pit. 
That's how I think I didn't lose my head. 
But my legs got their knocks against the ceiling." 
"Awful. Why didn't they throw off the belt 
Instead of going clear down in the wheel-pit?" 
"They say some time was wasted on the belt-- 
Old streak of leather--doesn't love me much 
Because I make him spit fire at my knuckles, 
The way Ben Franklin used to make the kite-string. 
That must be it. Some days he won...Read more of this...

by Yeats, William Butler
...eternities,
That of race and that of soul,
And ancient Ireland knew it all.
Whether man die in his bed
Or the rifle knocks him dead,
A brief parting from those dear
Is the worst man has to fear.
Though grave-diggers' toil is long,
Sharp their spades, their muscles strong.
They but thrust their buried men
Back in the human mind again.

 III

You that Mitchel's prayer have heard,
'Send war in our time, O Lord!'
Know that when all words are said
And a man is figh...Read more of this...

by Sandburg, Carl
...My head knocks against the stars.
My feet are on the hilltops.
My finger-tips are in the valleys and shores of
universal life.
Down in the sounding foam of primal things I
reach my hands and play with pebbles of
destiny.
I have been to hell and back many times.
I know all about heaven, for I have talked with God.
I dabble in the blood and gut...Read more of this...

Dont forget to view our wonderful member Knocks poems.


Book: Reflection on the Important Things