Famous Louse Poems by Famous Poets

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

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132. Reply to a Trimming Epistle received from a Tailor

...,
I gie their wames a random pouse,
Is that enough for you to souse
 Your servant sae?
Gae mind your seam, ye prick-the-louse,
 An’ jag-the-flea!


King David, o’ poetic brief,
Wrocht ’mang the lasses sic mischief
As filled his after-life wi’ grief,
 An’ bluidy rants,
An’ yet he’s rank’d amang the chief
 O’ lang-syne saunts.


And maybe, Tam, for a’ my cants,
My wicked rhymes, an’ drucken rants,
I’ll gie auld cloven’s Clootie’s haunts
 An unco slip yet,
An’ snugly sit amang t...Read more of this...
by Burns, Robert


84. Address to the Deil

...young guidmen, fond, keen an’ crouse,
When the best wark-lume i’ the house,
 By cantrip wit,
Is instant made no worth a louse,
 Just at the bit.


When thowes dissolve the snawy hoord,
An’ float the jinglin’ icy boord,
Then water-kelpies haunt the foord,
 By your direction,
And ’nighted trav’llers are allur’d
 To their destruction.


And aft your moss-traversin Spunkies
Decoy the wight that late an’ drunk is:
The bleezin, curst, mischievous monkies
 Delude his eyes,
Till in s...Read more of this...
by Burns, Robert

99. To a Louse

...HA! whaur ye gaun, ye crowlin ferlie?
Your impudence protects you sairly;
I canna say but ye strunt rarely,
 Owre gauze and lace;
Tho’, faith! I fear ye dine but sparely
 On sic a place.


Ye ugly, creepin, blastit wonner,
Detested, shunn’d by saunt an’ sinner,
How daur ye set your fit upon her—
 Sae fine a lady?
Gae somewhere else and seek your dinner
 On...Read more of this...
by Burns, Robert

A Ramble in St. Jamess Park

...l forget to rant,
Schoolboys to frig, old whores to paint;
The Jesuits' fraternity
Shall leave the use of buggery;
Crab-louse, inspired with grace divine,
From earthly cod to heaven shall climb;
Physicians shall believe in Jesus,
And disobedience cease to please us,
Ere I desist with all my power
To plague this woman and undo her.
But my revenge will best be timed
When she is married that is limed.
In that most lamentable state
I'll make her feel my scorn and hate:
Pelt her w...Read more of this...
by Wilmot, John

Faces

...ld be content with all, if I thought them their own finale? 

This now is too lamentable a face for a man; 
Some abject louse, asking leave to be—cringing for it; 
Some milk-nosed maggot, blessing what lets it wrig to its hole. 

This face is a dog’s snout, sniffing for garbage;
Snakes nest in that mouth—I hear the sibilant threat. 

This face is a haze more chill than the arctic sea; 
Its sleepy and wobbling icebergs crunch as they go. 

This is a face of bitter herbs—this a...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt


Last Instructions to a Painter

...ame, 
With Hooke, then, through the microscope take aim, 
Where, like the new Comptroller, all men laugh 
To see a tall louse brandish the white staff. 
Else shalt thou oft thy guiltless pencil curse, 
Stamp on thy palette, not perhaps the worse. 
The painter so, long having vexed his cloth-- 
Of his hound's mouth to feign the raging froth-- 
His desperate pencil at the work did dart: 
His anger reached that rage which passed his art; 
Chance finished that which art could but...Read more of this...
by Marvell, Andrew

Louse Hunting

...Nudes -- stark and glistening,
Yelling in lurid glee. Grinning faces
And raging limbs
Whirl over the floor one fire.
For a shirt verminously busy
Yon soldier tore from his throat, with oaths
Godhead might shrink at, but not the lice.
And soon the shirt was aflare
Over the candle he'd lit while we lay.

Then we all sprang up and stript
To hunt the verminous...Read more of this...
by Rosenberg, Isaac

Mrs Frances Hariss Petition

...about:
"Mrs Duke," said I, "here's an ugly accident has happened out:
'Tis not that I value the money three skips of a louse:
But the thing I stand upon is the credit of the house.
'Tis true, seven pounds, four shillings, and sixpence makes a great hole in my 
wages:
Besides, as they say, service is no inheritance in these ages.
Now, Mrs Duke, you know, and everybody understands,
That though 'tis hard to judge, yet money can't go without hands."
"The devil take me!" said she...Read more of this...
by Swift, Jonathan

My Mate

...

Now wot I wants to know is, why it wasn't me was took?
 I've only got meself, 'e stands for three.
I'm plainer than a louse, while 'e was 'andsome as a dook;
 'E always WAS a better man than me.
'E was goin' 'ome next Toosday; 'e was 'appy as a lark,
 And 'e'd just received a letter from 'is kid;
And 'e struck a match to show me, as we stood there in the dark,
 When . . . that bleedin' bullet got 'im on the lid.

'E was killed so awful sudden that 'e 'adn't time to die.
 'E...Read more of this...
by Service, Robert William

Shit List; Or Omnium-gatherum Of Diversity Into Unity

...mal of
alluvial dreams)—a vast ordure is a broken down
cloaca—macaw ****, alligator **** (that floats the Nile

along), louse ****, macaque, koala, and coati ****,
antelope ****, chuck-will's-widow ****, alpaca ****
(very high stuff), gooney bird ****, chigger ****, bull

**** (the classic), caribou ****, rasbora, python, and
razorbill ****, scorpion ****, man ****, laswing
fly larva ****, chipmunk ****, other-worldly wallaby

****, gopher **** (or broke), platypus ****, aard...Read more of this...
by Ammons, A R

Stoves and sunshine

...d things;
In Italy and Spain they have no need to heat the house--
'Neath balmy skies the native picks the mandolin and louse.

Now, we've no mouldy catacombs, no feudal castles grim,
No ruined monasteries, no abbeys ghostly dim;
Our ancient history is new, our future's all ahead,
And we've got a tariff bill that's made all Europe sick abed--
But what is best, though short on tombs and academic groves,
We double discount Christendom on sunshine and on stoves.

Dear land of mi...Read more of this...
by Field, Eugene

The Haunted House

...
And through its many gaps of destitution
Dolorous moans and hollow sighings came,
Like those of dissolution.

The wood-louse dropped, and rolled into a ball,
Touched by some impulse occult or mechanic;
And nameless beetles ran along the wall
In universal panic.

The subtle spider, that, from overhead,
Hung like a spy on human guilt and error,
Suddenly turned, and up its slender thread
Ran with a nimble terror.

The very stains and fractures on the wall,
Assuming features sol...Read more of this...
by Hood, Thomas

The Idealist

...Oh you who have daring deeds to tell!
 And you who have felt Ambition's spell!
Have you heard of the louse who longed to dwell
 In the golden hair of a queen?
He sighed all day and he sighed all night,
 And no one could understand it quite,
For the head of a **** is a louse's delight,
 But he pined for the head of a queen.

So he left his kinsfolk in merry play,
 And off by his lonesome he stole away,
From the home of his youth so bright and gay,
 And glori...Read more of this...
by Service, Robert William

The Immortals

...to think the Devil hid 
In women’s smiles and wine’s carouse. 
I called him Satan, Balzebub. 
But now I call him, dirty louse....Read more of this...
by Parker, Dorothy

The Law Of The Yukon

...tside with an escort, raving with lips all afoam,
Writing a cheque for a million, driveling feebly of home;
Lost like a louse in the burning . . . or else in the tented town
Seeking a drunkard's solace, sinking and sinking down;
Steeped in the slime at the bottom, dead to a decent world,
Lost 'mid the human flotsam, far on the frontier hurled;
In the camp at the bend of the river, with its dozen saloons aglare,
Its gambling dens ariot, its gramophones all ablare;
Crimped with...Read more of this...
by Service, Robert William

The Old Armchair

...ir
And plant my kilted buttocks there,
And read with joy the Bard of Ayr
 In my own tongue;
The Diel, the Daisy and the Louse
The Hare, the Haggis and the Mouse,
(What fornication and carouse!)
 When I was young.

Though Kipling, Hardy, Stevenson
Have each my admiration won,
Today, my rhyme-race almost run,
 My fancy turns
To him who did Pegasus prod
For me, Bard of my native sod,
The sinner best-loved of God -
 Rare Robbie Burns....Read more of this...
by Service, Robert William

The Sale of Saint Thomas

...n Well, I hope so. 
There's threatening in the weather. Have you a mind 
To hug your belly to the slanted deck, 
Like a louse on a whip-top, when the boat 
Spins on an axlie in the hissing gales? 

Thomas 
Fear not. 'Tis likely indeed that storms are now 
Plotting against our voyage; ay, no doubt 
The very bottom of the sea prepares 
To stand up mountainous or reach a limb 
Out of his night of water and huge shingles, 
That he and the waves may break our keel. Fear not; 
Like...Read more of this...
by Abercrombie, Lascelles

The Shooting Of Dan McGrew

...he creeks, dog-dirty, and loaded for bear.
He looked like a man with a foot in the grave and scarcely the strength of a louse,
Yet he tilted a poke of dust on the bar, and he called for drinks for the house.
There was none could place the stranger's face, though we searched ourselves for a clue;
But we drank his health, and the last to drink was Dangerous Dan McGrew.

There's men that somehow just grip your eyes, and hold them hard like a spell;
And such was he, and he looked...Read more of this...
by Service, Robert William

To A Louse

...ON SEEING ONE ON A LADY'S BONNET AT CHURCH

Ha! whare ye gaun, ye crowlin ferlie!
Your impudence protects you sairly:
I canna say but ye strunt rarely
Owre gauze and lace;
Tho' faith, I fear ye dine but sparely
On sic a place.

Ye ugly, creepin, blastit wonner,
Detested, shunned by saunt an' sinner,
How daur ye set your fit upon her,
Sae fine a lady!
Gae s...Read more of this...
by Burns, Robert

Tomlinson

...son said, "Ay!"
The Devil he blew an outward breath, for his heart was free from care: --
"Ye have scarce the soul of a louse," he said, "but the roots of sin are there,
And for that sin should ye come in were I the lord alone.
But sinful pride has rule inside -- and mightier than my own.
Honour and Wit, fore-damned they sit, to each his priest and whore:
Nay, scarce I dare myself go there, and you they'd torture sore.
Ye are neither spirit nor spirk," he said; "ye are neithe...Read more of this...
by Kipling, Rudyard

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