Famous Mechanics Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Mechanics poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous mechanics poems. These examples illustrate what a famous mechanics poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
See also:
by
Whitman, Walt
...ld and young!
You on the Mississippi, and on all the branches and bayous of the Mississippi!
You friendly boatmen and mechanics! You roughs!
You twain! And all processions moving along the streets!
I wish to infuse myself among you till I see it common for you to walk hand in hand!...Read more of this...
by
Whitman, Walt
...onvening every Twelfth-month, the members duly coming up from the uttermost
parts;
Surrounding the noble character of mechanics and farmers, especially the young men,
Responding their manners, speech, dress, friendships—the gait they have of persons
who
never knew how it felt to stand in the presence of superiors,
The freshness and candor of their physiognomy, the copiousness and decision of their
phrenology,
The picturesque looseness of their carriage, their fiercenes...Read more of this...
by
Jeffers, Robinson
...erty and Carthage off until the Romans arrive,
We are easy to manage, a gregarious people,
Full of sentiment, clever at mechanics, and we love our luxuries....Read more of this...
by
Whitman, Walt
...ooms,
’Mid plenteous books and journals, paintings on the walls, fine statuettes,
Were groups of friendly journeymen, mechanics, young and old,
Reading, conversing.
All, all the shows of laboring life,
City and country, women’s, men’s and children’s,
Their wants provided for, hued in the sun, and tinged for once with joy,
Marriage, the street, the factory, farm, the house-room, lodging-room,
Labor and toil, the bath, gymnasium, play-ground, library, college,
The s...Read more of this...
by
Browning, Robert
...strikes through the sea, the snake both swims
And slides, forth range the beasts, the birds take flight,
Till life's mechanics can no further go--
And all this joy in natural life is put
Like fire from off thy finger into each,
So exquisitely perfect is the same.
But 'tis pure fire, and they mere matter are;
It has them, not they it: and so I choose
For man, thy last premeditated work
(If I might add a glory to the scheme),
That a third thing should stand apart...Read more of this...
by
Whitman, Walt
...pt they tumultuous—and lo! Manhattan arming.
3
To the drum-taps prompt,
The young men falling in and arming;
The mechanics arming, (the trowel, the jack-plane, the blacksmith’s hammer, tost
aside
with
precipitation;)
The lawyer leaving his office, and arming—the judge leaving the court;
The driver deserting his wagon in the street, jumping down, throwing the reins abruptly
down on
the
horses’ backs;
The salesman leaving the store—the boss, book-keeper, porter, ...Read more of this...
by
Whitman, Walt
...I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear,
Those of mechanics, each one singing his as it should be blithe and strong,
The carpenter singing his as he measures his plank or beam,
The mason singing his as he makes ready for work, or leaves off work,
The boatman singing what belongs to him in his boat, the deckhand
singing on the steamboat deck,
The shoemaker singing as he sits on his bench, the hatte...Read more of this...
by
Whitman, Walt
...snows, the sleigh-bells—the broken ice in the river, passing along, up or
down,
with the flood tide or ebb-tide;
The mechanics of the city, the masters, well-form’d, beautiful-faced, looking you
straight
in the eyes;
Trottoirs throng’d—vehicles—Broadway—the women—the shops and
shows,
The parades, processions, bugles playing, flags flying, drums beating;
A million people—manners free and superb—open voices—hospitality—the
most
courageous and friendly young men;
The...Read more of this...
by
Whittier, John Greenleaf
...d reply;
Through the thronged towns of Essex the startling summons rang,
And up from bench and loom and wheel her young mechanics sprang!
The voice of free, broad Middlesex, of thousands as of one,
The shaft of Bunker calling to that Lexington;
From Norfolk's ancient villages, from Plymouth's rocky bound
To where Nantucket feels the arms of ocean close to her round;
From rich and rural Worcester, where through the calm repose
Of cultured vales and fringing woods the gentle ...Read more of this...
by
Whitman, Walt
...uisite, delicate, thin curve of the new moon in spring;
Or whether I go among those I like best, and that like me best—mechanics, boatmen,
farmers,
Or among the savans—or to the soiree—or to the opera,
Or stand a long while looking at the movements of machinery,
Or behold children at their sports,
Or the admirable sight of the perfect old man, or the perfect old woman,
Or the sick in hospitals, or the dead carried to burial,
Or my own eyes and figure in the glass;
Thes...Read more of this...
by
Whitman, Walt
...alks among the Congress, and one Representative says to another, Here is our equal,
appearing
and new.
Then the mechanics take him for a mechanic,
And the soldiers suppose him to be a soldier, and the sailors that he has follow’d
the
sea,
And the authors take him for an author, and the artists for an artist,
And the laborers perceive he could labor with them and love them;
No matter what the work is, that he is the one to follow it, or has follow’d it,
No matter...Read more of this...
by
Brautigan, Richard
...an in
Nature, by Marston Bates
"But no animal up a tree can initiate a culture. " -"The
Simian Basis of Human Mechanics," in Twilight of Man, by
Earnest Albert Hooton
Expressing a human need, I always wanted to write abook
that ended with the word Mayonnaise.
THE MAYONNAISE CHAPTER
Feb 3-1952
Dearest Florence and Harv.
I just heard from Edith about
the passing of Mr. Good. Our heart
goes out to you in deepest sympathy...Read more of this...
by
Whitman, Walt
...us cities, with wealth
incalculable;
I see numberless farms—I see the farmers working in their fields or barns;
I see mechanics working—I see buildings everywhere founded, going up, or
finish’d;
I see trains of cars swiftly speeding along railroad tracks, drawn by the locomotives;
I see the stores, depots, of Boston, Baltimore, Charleston, New Orleans;
I see far in the west the immense area of grain—I dwell awhile, hovering;
I pass to the lumber forests of the north, an...Read more of this...
by
Whitman, Walt
...and sets it firmly in the socket;
The shadowy processions of the portraits of the past users also,
The primal patient mechanics, the architects and engineers,
The far-off Assyrian edifice and Mizra edifice,
The Roman lictors preceding the consuls,
The antique European warrior with his axe in combat,
The uplifted arm, the clatter of blows on the helmeted head,
The death-howl, the limpsey tumbling body, the rush of friend and foe thither,
The siege of revolted lieges det...Read more of this...
by
Whitman, Walt
...procession moves,)
Behold, Mother of All, thy countless sailors, boatmen, coasters!
The myriads of thy young and old mechanics!
Mark—mark the spirit of invention everywhere—thy rapid patents,
Thy continual workshops, foundries, risen or rising;
See, from their chimneys, how the tall flame-fires stream!
Mark, thy interminable farms, North, South,
Thy wealthy Daughter-States, Eastern, and Western,
The varied products of Ohio, Pennsylvania, Missouri, Georgia, Texas, and...Read more of this...
by
Whitman, Walt
...enied;
The birth, the hasting after the physician, the beggar’s tramp, the drunkard’s stagger,
the
laughing party of mechanics,
The escaped youth, the rich person’s carriage, the fop, the eloping couple,
The early market-man, the hearse, the moving of furniture into the town, the return back
from
the
town,
They pass—I also pass—anything passes—none can be interdicted;
None but are accepted—none but are dear to me.
3
You air that serves me with breath to speak! ...Read more of this...
by
Whitman, Walt
...ng the
steam-whistle;
See, ploughmen, ploughing farms—See, miners, digging mines—See, the
numberless factories;
See, mechanics, busy at their benches, with tools—See from among them,
superior judges, philosophs, Presidents, emerge, drest in working dresses;
See, lounging through the shops and fields of The States, me, well-belov’d,
close-held by day and night;
Hear the loud echoes of my songs there! Read the hints come at last.
20O Camerado close!
O you and me a...Read more of this...
by
Bukowski, Charles
...eep the mailman busy.
and the butterflies and ants and bridges and
cemeteries
the rocket-makers and dogs and garage mechanics
will still go on a
while
until we run out of stamps
and/or
ideas.
don't be ashamed of
anything; I guess God meant it all
like
locks on
doors....Read more of this...
by
Mansell, Chris
...
our thoughts with the television
back through the aerials and
transmission towers prodding
through the literal fog
the mechanics of which distance
does not startle us or the ears
pretend to hear the telephone
the page also wearies
us we have taken the meaning
out of things by laying them face to
face in our dictionary of emotions
we are so entirely alone that we
are unaware of it
and we enjoy the religion of solitude
because religions are at base
meaningless and we can turn
...Read more of this...
by
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
...y the English cannon
Joined the chorus!
Peasants in the field,
Sailors on the roaring ocean,
Students, tradesmen, pale mechanics,
All have sung them.
Thou hast been their friend;
They, alas! have left thee friendless!
Yet at least by one warm fireside
Art thou welcome.
And, as swallows build
In these wide, old-fashioned chimneys,
So thy twittering songs shall nestle
In my bosom,--
Quiet, close, and warm,
Sheltered from all molestation,
And recalling by their voice...Read more of this...
Dont forget to view our wonderful member Mechanics poems.