Famous Lining Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Villons Straight Tip to All Cross Coves

by William Ernest Henley
 "Tout aux tavernes et aux filles."
Suppose you screeve? or go cheap-jack?
Or fake the broads? or fig a nag?
Or thimble-rig? or knap a yack?
Or pitch a snide? or smash a rag?
Suppose you duff? or nose and lag?
Or get the straight, and land your pot?
How do you melt the multy swag?
Booze and the blowens cop the lot.
Fiddle, or fence, or mace,...Read more of this...

Meaning

by Czeslaw Milosz
 When I die, I will see the lining of the world.
The other side, beyond bird, mountain, sunset.
The true meaning, ready to be decoded.
What never added up will add Up,
What was incomprehensible will be comprehended.
- And if there is no lining to the world?
If a thrush on a branch is not a sign,
But just a thrush on the branch? If...Read more of this...

Delicate Cluster

by Walt Whitman
 DELICATE cluster! flag of teeming life! 
Covering all my lands! all my sea-shores lining! 
Flag of death! (how I watch’d you through the smoke of battle pressing! 
How I heard you flap and rustle, cloth defiant!) 
Flag cerulean! sunny flag! with the orbs of night dappled!
Ah my silvery beauty! ah my woolly white and crimson! 
Ah to sing the...Read more of this...

The Return of Albert

by Marriott Edgar
 You've 'eard 'ow young Albert Ramsbottom,
In the Zoo up at Blackpool one year,
With a stick and 'orse's 'ead 'andle,
Gave a lion a poke in the ear.

The name of the lion was Wallace,
The poke in the ear made 'im wild;
And before you could say 'Bob's your Uncle,'
'E'd up and 'e'd swallered the child.

'E were sorry the moment 'e'd done it,
With...Read more of this...

The Days Work

by Rudyard Kipling
 We now, held in captivity,
 Spring to our bondage nor grieve--
 See now, how it is blesseder,
 Brothers, to give than receive!
 Keep trust, wherefore we were made,
 Paying the debt that we owe;
 For a clean thrust, and the shear of the blade,
 Will carry us where would go.
 The Ship that Found Herself.

 All the world over,...Read more of this...

Alberts Return

by Marriott Edgar
 You've `eard `ow young Albert Ramsbottom 
At the zoo up at Blackpool one year 
With a stick with an `orse's `ead `andle
Gave a lion a poke in the ear? 

The name of the lion was Wallace, 
The poke in the ear made `im wild 
And before you could say "Bob's yer uncle" 
E'd upped and `e'd swallowed the child....Read more of this...

Le Manteau De Pascal

by Jorie Graham
 I have put on my great coat it is cold.

It is an outer garment.

Coarse, woolen.

Of unknown origin.

 *

It has a fine inner lining but it is 
as an exterior that you see it — a grace.

 *

I have a coat I am wearing. It is a fine admixture.
The woman who threw the threads in the two directions
has made, skillfully,...Read more of this...

At This Moment Of Time

by Delmore Schwartz
 Some who are uncertain compel me. They fear
The Ace of Spades. They fear
Loves offered suddenly, turning from the mantelpiece,
Sweet with decision. And they distrust
The fireworks by the lakeside, first the spuft,
Then the colored lights, rising.
Tentative, hesitant, doubtful, they consume
Greedily Caesar at the prow returning,
Locked in the stone of his act and office.
While the brass band brightly bursts over the...Read more of this...

The Autopsy

by Russell Edson
 In a back room a man is performing an autopsy 
on an old raincoat.
 His wife appears in the doorway with a candle 
and asks, how does it go?
 Not now, not now, I'm just getting to the lining, 
he murmurs with impatience.
 I just wanted to know if you found any blood clots?
 Blood clots?!
 For my necklace...Read more of this...

Oatmeal

by Galway Kinnell
 I eat oatmeal for breakfast.
I make it on the hot plate and put skimmed milk on it.
I eat it alone. 
I am aware it is not good to eat oatmeal alone.
Its consistency is such that is better for your mental health 
 if somebody eats it with you.
That is why I often think up an imaginary companion to have...Read more of this...

The Poplar

by Richard Aldington
 Why do you always stand there shivering 
Between the white stream and the road? 

The people pass through the dust 
On bicycles, in carts, in motor-cars; 
The waggoners go by at down; 
The lovers walk on the grass path at night. 

Stir from your roots, walk, poplar! 
You are more beautiful than they are. 

I know that the white...Read more of this...

The Raven

by Edgar Allan Poe
Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore—
    While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
“’Tis some visitor,” I muttered, “tapping at my chamber door—
        ...Read more of this...

68. The Holy Fair

by Robert Burns
 UPON 1 a simmer Sunday morn
 When Nature’s face is fair,
I walked forth to view the corn,
 An’ snuff the caller air.
The rising sun owre Galston muirs
 Wi’ glorious light was glintin;
The hares were hirplin down the furrs,
 The lav’rocks they were chantin
 Fu’ sweet that day.


As lightsomely I glowr’d abroad,
 To see a scene sae gay,
Three hizzies, early...Read more of this...

The Spice-Tree

by Vachel Lindsay
 This is the song
The spice-tree sings:
"Hunger and fire,
Hunger and fire,
Sky-born Beauty—
Spice of desire,"
Under the spice-tree
Watch and wait,
Burning maidens
And lads that mate. 

The spice-tree spreads
And its boughs come down
Shadowing village and farm and town.
And none can see
But the pure of heart
The great green leaves
And the boughs descending,
And hear the song that is never ending.

The deep roots whisper,
The branches say:—
"Love to-morrow,
And...Read more of this...

551. Ballad on Mr. Heron's Election—No. 4

by Robert Burns
 WHA will buy my troggin, fine election ware,
Broken trade o’ Broughton, a’ in high repair?


Chorus.—Buy braw troggin frae the banks o’ Dee;
Wha wants troggin let him come to me.


There’s a noble Earl’s fame and high renown,
For an auld sang—it’s thought the gudes were stown—
 Buy braw troggin, &c.


Here’s the worth o’ Broughton in a needle’s e’e;
Here’s a reputation tint...Read more of this...

A Green Crabs Shell

by Mark Doty
 Not, exactly, green:
closer to bronze
preserved in kind brine,

something retrieved
from a Greco-Roman wreck,
patinated and oddly

muscular. We cannot
know what his fantastic
legs were like--

though evidence
suggests eight
complexly folded

scuttling works
of armament, crowned
by the foreclaws'

gesture of menace
and power. A gull's
gobbled the center,

leaving this chamber
--size of a demitasse--
open to reveal

a shocking, Giotto blue.
Though it smells
of seaweed and ruin,

this little traveling case
comes with such lavish lining!
Imagine breathing

surrounded...Read more of this...

Hero and Leander: The First Sestiad

by Christopher Marlowe
 1 On Hellespont, guilty of true love's blood,
2 In view and opposite two cities stood,
3 Sea-borderers, disjoin'd by Neptune's might;
4 The one Abydos, the other Sestos hight.
5 At Sestos Hero dwelt; Hero the fair,
6 Whom young Apollo courted for her hair,
7 And offer'd as a dower his burning throne,
8 Where she could sit for men to gaze upon.
9 The...Read more of this...

Suitcase

by Charles Webb
 Its silver clasp looks like a man grasping
his hands above his head in victory;
the latches, like twin hatchbacks headed away.

There are no wheels, just four steel nipples for sliding.
A hexagonal seal announces the defunct
"U.S. Trunk Company." The frame is wood—

big, heavy, cheap—covered with imitation leather,
its blue just slightly darker than Mom's eyes.
"It's beautiful. Much too expensive," she told Dad,

and...Read more of this...

Then

by Philip Levine
 A solitary apartment house, the last one 
before the boulevard ends and a dusty road 
winds its slow way out of town. On the third floor 
through the dusty windows Karen beholds 
the elegant couples walking arm in arm 
in the public park. It is Saturday afternoon, 
and she is waiting for a particular young man 
whose name I...Read more of this...

The Plaid Dress

by Edna St. Vincent Millay
 Strong sun, that bleach
The curtains of my room, can you not render
Colourless this dress I wear?—
This violent plaid
Of purple angers and red shames; the yellow stripe
Of thin but valid treacheries; the flashy green of kind deeds done
Through indolence high judgments given here in haste; 
The recurring checker of the serious breach of taste?

No more uncoloured than unmade,
I fear, can...Read more of this...

One to Four

by Omer Tarin
I

One quarter of a century has elapsed
the diurnal movement of a life-cycle
rotating on its own axis
turned inwards and away from
hung by a nail upon the casement 

II

Two of the nine lives have drifted 
sinking somewhere near the embankment
while out prowling the empty streets at night
digging in this corner and that
poking here and there
in the trashcans lining the alley

III

Three horsemen have...Read more of this...

The Auction Sale

by Robert William Service
 Her little head just topped the window-sill;
She even mounted on a stool, maybe;
She pressed against the pane, as children will,
And watched us playing, oh so wistfully!
And then I missed her for a month or more,
And idly thought: "She's gone away, no doubt,"
Until a hearse drew up beside the door . . .
I saw a tiny coffin carried out.

And after...Read more of this...

The Proud Farmer

by Vachel Lindsay
 [In memory of E. S. Frazee, Rush County, Indiana]


Into the acres of the newborn state 
He poured his strength, and plowed his ancient name, 
And, when the traders followed him, he stood 
Towering above their furtive souls and tame. 

That brow without a stain, that fearless eye 
Oft left the passing stranger wondering 
To find such knighthood in the...Read more of this...

Flowers

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
 Spake full well, in language quaint and olden,
One who dwelleth by the castled Rhine,
When he called the flowers, so blue and golden,
Stars, that in earth's firmament do shine.

Stars they are, wherein we read our history,
As astrologers and seers of eld;
Yet not wrapped about with awful mystery,
Like the burning stars, which they beheld.

Wondrous truths, and manifold as wondrous,
God hath written...Read more of this...

Flee On Your Donkey

by Anne Sexton
 Because there was no other place
to flee to,
I came back to the scene of the disordered senses,
came back last night at midnight,
arriving in the thick June night
without luggage or defenses,
giving up my car keys and my cash,
keeping only a pack of Salem cigarettes
the way a child holds on to a toy.
I signed myself in where a stranger
puts the inked-in...Read more of this...

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