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Famous Maw Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Muldoon, Paul
...ast, a saline
drip into his bag of brine.

A lick and a promise. Cuckoo spittle.
I hand my sample to Doctor Maw.
She gives me back a confident All Clear....Read more of this...



by Moody, William Vaughn
..., 
And be a swift familiar of the sun 
Where aye before God's face his trumpets run? 
Or have we but the talons and the maw, 
And for the abject likeness of our heart 
Shall some less lordly bird be set apart? -- 
Some gross-billed wader where the swamps are fat? 
Some gorger in the sun? Some prowler with the bat? 


IX 

Ah no! 
We have not fallen so. 
We are our fathers' sons: let those who lead us know! 
'T was only yesterday sick Cuba's cry 
Came up the tropic wind, "...Read more of this...

by Browning, Robert
...
In this the pleasant pasture of our life 
Much you may eat without the least offence, 
Much you don't eat because your maw objects, 
Much you would eat but that your fellow-flock 
Open great eyes at you and even butt, 
And thereupon you like your mates so well 
You cannot please yourself, offending them; 
Though when they seem exorbitantly sheep, 
You weigh your pleasure with their butts and bleats 
And strike the balance. Sometimes certain fears 
Restrain you, real chec...Read more of this...

by Keats, John
...e
The squatted hare while in half sleeping fit;
Or upward ragged precipices flit
To save poor lambkins from the eagle's maw;
Or by mysterious enticement draw
Bewildered shepherds to their path again;
Or to tread breathless round the frothy main,
And gather up all fancifullest shells
For thee to tumble into Naiads' cells,
And, being hidden, laugh at their out-peeping;
Or to delight thee with fantastic leaping,
The while they pelt each other on the crown
With silvery oak apples...Read more of this...

by Keats, John
...
And long he travers'd to and fro, to acquaint
Himself with every mystery, and awe;
Till, weary, he sat down before the maw
Of a wide outlet, fathomless and dim
To wild uncertainty and shadows grim.
There, when new wonders ceas'd to float before,
And thoughts of self came on, how crude and sore
The journey homeward to habitual self!
A mad-pursuing of the fog-born elf,
Whose flitting lantern, through rude nettle-briar,
Cheats us into a swamp, into a fire,
Into the bosom of...Read more of this...



by Keats, John
...
Walk'd dizzily away. Pained and hot
His eyes went after them, until they got
Near to a cypress grove, whose deadly maw,
In one swift moment, would what then he saw
Engulph for ever. "Stay!" he cried, "ah, stay!
Turn, damsels! hist! one word I have to say.
Sweet Indian, I would see thee once again.
It is a thing I dote on: so I'd fain,
Peona, ye should hand in hand repair
Into those holy groves, that silent are
Behind great Dian's temple. I'll be yon,
At v...Read more of this...

by Moore, Thomas
...e on the wall,
And the cup falls to earth and -- the gout to his toe!
But the joy of my heart is when largely I cram
My maw with the fruits of the Squirearchy's acres,
And, knowing who made me the thing that I am,
Like the monster of Frankenstein, worry my makers.
Then riddle-me-ree, come, riddle-me-ree,
And tell, if thou knows't, who I may be....Read more of this...

by Hugo, Victor
...red monsters, in their stony way, 
 Are growling heard; the rampart lions gnaw 
 The misty air and slush with granite maw, 
 The sleet upon the griffins spits, and all 
 The Saurian monsters, answering to the squall, 
 Flap wings; while through the broken ceiling fall 
 Torrents of rain upon the forms beneath, 
 Dragons and snak'd Medusas gnashing teeth 
 In the dismantled rooms. Like armored knight 
 The granite Castle fights with all its might, 
 Resisting through...Read more of this...

by Lanier, Sidney
...r why not plunge thy blades about
Some maggot politician throng
Swarming to parcel out
The body of a land, and rout
The maw-conventicle, and ungorge Wrong?

What the cloud doeth
The Lord knoweth,
The cloud knoweth not.
What the artist doeth,
The Lord knoweth;
Knoweth the artist not?

Well-answered! -- O dear artists, ye
-- Whether in forms of curve or hue
Or tone your gospels be --
Say wrong `This work is not of me,
But God:' it is not true, it is not true.

Awful is ...Read more of this...

by Marvell, Andrew
...trade like cassowar she feeds: 
Chops off the piece wheres'e'er she close the jaw, 
Else swallows all down her indented maw. 
She stalks all day in streets concealed from sight 
And flies, like bats with leathern wings, by night; 
She wastes the country and on cities preys. 
Her, of a female harpy, in dog days, 
Black Birch, of all the earth-born race most hot 
And most rapacious, like himself, begot, 
And, of his brat enamoured, as't increased, 
Buggered in incest wi...Read more of this...

by Trumbull, John
...al whiskers' grisly hue!
On Princeton plains our heroes yield,
And spread in flight the vanquish'd field;
While fear to Mawhood's heels puts on
Wings, wide as worn by Maia's son.
Behold the Pennsylvanian shore
Enrich'd with streams of British gore;
Where many a veteran chief in bed
Of honor rests his slumb'ring head,
And in soft vales, in land of foes,
Their wearied virtue finds repose!
See plund'ring Dunmore's ***** band
Fly headlong from Virginia's strand;
And far on so...Read more of this...

by Collins, Billy
...l of a sudden the city air filled with snow,
the distinguishable flakes
blowing sideways,
looked like krill
fleeing the maw of an advancing whale.

At least they looked that way to me
from the taxi window,
and since I happened to be sitting
that fading Sunday afternoon
in the very center of the universe,
who was in a better position
to say what looked like what,
which thing resembled some other?

Yes, it was a run of white plankton
borne down the Avenue of the Americas
in...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...emed highly pleased, and Death 
Grinned horrible a ghastly smile, to hear 
His famine should be filled, and blessed his maw 
Destined to that good hour. No less rejoiced 
His mother bad, and thus bespake her sire:-- 
 "The key of this infernal Pit, by due 
And by command of Heaven's all-powerful King, 
I keep, by him forbidden to unlock 
These adamantine gates; against all force 
Death ready stands to interpose his dart, 
Fearless to be o'ermatched by living might. 
B...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...ven; 
There best, where most with ravine I may meet; 
Which here, though plenteous, all too little seems 
To stuff this maw, this vast unhide-bound corps. 
To whom the incestuous mother thus replied. 
Thou therefore on these herbs, and fruits, and flowers, 
Feed first; on each beast next, and fish, and fowl; 
No homely morsels! and, whatever thing 
The sithe of Time mows down, devour unspared; 
Till I, in Man residing, through the race, 
His thoughts, his looks, words...Read more of this...

by Browning, Robert
...seek and find and feast:
Such feasting ended, then
As sure an end to men;
Irks care the crop-full bird? Frets doubt the maw-crammed beast?

Rejoice we are allied
To That which doth provide
And not partake, effect and not receive!
A spark disturbs our clod;
Nearer we hold of God
Who gives, than of His tribes that take, I must believe.

Then, welcome each rebuff
That turns earth's smoothness rough,
Each sting that bids nor sit nor stand but go!
Be our joys three-parts pain!...Read more of this...

by Service, Robert William
...ng with fire.
It came and it came; I could breathe of its flame, but never a wink could I look.
I thrust in its maw the Fount of the Law; I fended it off with the Book.
I was weak--oh, so weak--but I thrilled at its shriek, as wildly it fled in the night;
And deathlike I lay till the dawn of the day. (Was ever so welcome the light?)

I loaded my gun at the rise of the sun; to his cabin so softly I slunk.
My neighbor was there in the frost-freighted air, al...Read more of this...

by Chaucer, Geoffrey
...ow since she was not at the feast y-slaw,* *slain
Who kepte her from drowning in the sea?
Who kepte Jonas in the fish's maw,
Till he was spouted up at Nineveh?
Well may men know, it was no wight but he
That kept the Hebrew people from drowning,
With drye feet throughout the sea passing.

Who bade the foure spirits of tempest,
That power have t' annoye land and sea,
Both north and south, and also west and east,
Annoye neither sea, nor land, nor tree?
Soothly the comman...Read more of this...

by Service, Robert William
...se and peace.
Yet see! The sky is like a cowl
 Where grimy toilers bore
The shards of steel that feed the foul
 Red maw of War.

Instead of butter give us guns;
 Instead of sugur, shells.
Devoted mothers, bear your sons
 To glut still hotter hells.
Alas! When will mad mankind wake
 To banish evermore,
And damn for God in Heaven's sake
 Mass Murder--WAR?...Read more of this...

by Walcott, Derek
...e-bell
sang service and, in hard pews ribbed like the whale,
proud with despair, we sang how our race
survive the sea's maw, our history, our peril,
and now I was ready for whatever death will.
But if that storm had strength, was in Cap'n face,
beard beading with spray, tears salting his eyes,
crucify to his post, that ****** hold fast
to that wheel, man, like the cross held Jesus,
and the wounds of his eyes like they crying for us,
and I feeding him white rum, while ever...Read more of this...

by Byron, George (Lord)
...ach scalp had a single long tuft of hair, [5] 
All the rest was shaven and bare. 
The scalps were in the wild-dog's maw, 
The hair was tangled round his jaw. 
But close by the shore, on the edge of the gulf, 
There sat a vulture flapping a wolf, 
Who had stolen from the hills, but kept away, 
Scared by the dogs, from the human prey; 
But he seized on his share of a steed that lay, 
Pick'd by the birds, on the sands of the bay. 

XVII. 

Alp turn'd him from the...Read more of this...

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