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Famous Melbourne Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry
..., 
I must make a heavy dinner; 
Heavily dine and heavily sup, 
Of indigestible things fill up, 
Next month they run the Melbourne Cup, 
And I have to dream the winner. 
Stoke it in, boys! the half-cooked ham, 
The rich ragout and the charming cham., 
I've got to mix my liquor; 
Give me a gander's gaunt hind leg, 
Hard and tough as a wooden peg, 
And I'll keep it down with a hard-boiled egg, 
'Twill make me dream the quicker. 

Now that I'm full of fearful feed, 
Oh, but I'll ...Read more of this...
by Paterson, Andrew Barton



...and O'Sullivan sing, 
-- It's enough to make any man nervous. 

Does he think he'll be waked in the dead of night 
From Melbourne to go willy-nilly, 
To live in the Federal Capital site 
At Tumut or Wagra-go-billy? 
Well, the Melbournites may let the Capital go 
(Here we wink with one eye, please observe us!) 
But not in a hurry! By no means! Oh, no! 
He has not the least need to be nervous!...Read more of this...
by Paterson, Andrew Barton
...Uphill in Melbourne on a beautiful day
a woman is walking ahead of her hair.
Like teak oiled soft to fracture and sway
it hung to her heels and seconded her
as a pencilled retinue, an unscrolling title
to ploughland, edged with ripe rows of dress,
a sheathed wing that couldn't fly her at all,
only itself, loosely, and her spirits.
 A largesse 
of life and self, brushe...Read more of this...
by Murray, Les
...e shades of night close fast,
Three hundred sleep beside their arms, and thirty sleep their last.

About the streets of Melbourne town the sound of bells is borne
That call the citizens to prayer that fateful Sabbath morn;
But there upon Eureka's hill, a hundred miles away,
The diggers' forms lie white and still above the blood-stained clay.
The bells that toll the diggers' death might also ring a knell
For those few gallant soldiers, dead, who did their duty well.
The sight ...Read more of this...
by Lawson, Henry
...night like that, 
Five miles in darkness on a country track, 
But when you do, that's what you think. 
Five bells. 

In Melbourne, your appetite had gone, 
Your angers too; they had been leeched away 
By the soft archery of summer rains 
And the sponge-paws of wetness, the slow damp 
That stuck the leaves of living, snailed the mind, 
And showed your bones, that had been sharp with rage, 
The sodden ectasies of rectitude. 
I thought of what you'd written in faint ink, 
Your j...Read more of this...
by Slessor, Kenneth



...em; 
I am a real Parisian; 
I am a habitan of Vienna, St. Petersburg, Berlin, Constantinople;
I am of Adelaide, Sidney, Melbourne; 
I am of London, Manchester, Bristol, Edinburgh, Limerick; 
I am of Madrid, Cadiz, Barcelona, Oporto, Lyons, Brussels, Berne, Frankfort, Stuttgart,
 Turin,
 Florence; 
I belong in Moscow, Cracow, Warsaw—or northward in Christiania or Stockholm—or in Siberian
 Irkutsk—or in some street in Iceland; 
I descend upon all those cities, and rise from the...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt
...,
 I dream my dream, by rock and heath and pine,
Of Empire to the northward. Ay, one land
 From Lion's Head to Line!


 MELBOURNE

Greeting! Nor fear nor favour won us place,
 Got between greed of gold and dread of drouth,
Loud-voiced and reckless as the wild tide-race
 That whips our harbour-mouth!


 SYDNEY

Greeting! My birth-stain have I turned to good;
 Forcing strong wills perverse to steadfastness:
The first flush of the tropics in my blood,
 And at my feet Success!


...Read more of this...
by Kipling, Rudyard
...m off the grass 
And fed and groomed the old horse up; 
His coat began to shine like glass -- 
You'd think he'd win the Melbourne Cup. 
And when they'd got him fat and flash 
They asked the new chum -- fifty -- cash! 

And when he said the price was high, 
Their indignation knew no bounds. 
They said, "It's seldom you can buy 
A horse like that for fifty pounds! 
We'll refund twenty if The Trap 
Should fail to win the handicap!" 

The deed was done, the price was paid, 
The n...Read more of this...
by Paterson, Andrew Barton
...its light and gay,
Left Gravesend harbour, and sailed gaily away
On board the steamship "London,"
Bound for the city of Melbourne,
Which unfortunately was her last run,
Because she was wrecked on the stormy main,
Which has caused many a heart to throb with pain,
Because they will ne'er look upon their lost ones again. 

'Twas on the 11th of January they anchored at the Nore;
The weather was charming -- the like was seldom seen before,
Especially the next morning as they came ...Read more of this...
by McGonagall, William Topaz

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Book: Reflection on the Important Things