Famous Mutton Poems by Famous Poets

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

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The Widows Party

by Rudyard Kipling
 "Where have you been this while away,
 Johnnie, Johnnie?"
'Long with the rest on a picnic lay,
 Johnnie, my Johnnie, aha!
They called us out of the barrack-yard
To Gawd knows where from Gosport Hard,
And you can't refuse when you get the card,
 And the Widow gives the party.
 (Bugle: Ta--rara--ra-ra-rara!)

"What did you get to eat and drink,
 Johnnie, Johnnie?"
Standing water as...Read more of this...

Out of White Lips

by Carl Sandburg
 OUT of white lips a question: Shall seven million dead ask for their blood a little land for the living wives and children, a little land for the living brothers and sisters?

Out of white lips:—Shall they have only air that sweeps round the earth for breath of their nostrils and no footing on the dirt of the earth for...Read more of this...

Corporal Stare

by Robert Graves
 Back from the line one night in June, 
I gave a dinner at Bethune— 
Seven courses, the most gorgeous meal 
Money could buy or batman steal. 
Five hungry lads welcomed the fish
With shouts that nearly cracked the dish; 
Asparagus came with tender tops, 
Strawberries in cream, and mutton chops. 
Said Jenkins, as my hand he shook, 
“They’ll put this...Read more of this...

To Stella Who Collected and Transcribed His Poems

by Jonathan Swift
 As, when a lofty pile is raised,
We never hear the workmen praised,
Who bring the lime, or place the stones;
But all admire Inigo Jones:
So, if this pile of scattered rhymes
Should be approved in aftertimes;
If it both pleases and endures,
The merit and the praise are yours.
Thou, Stella, wert no longer young,
When first for thee my harp was strung,
Without one word of...Read more of this...

The White Knights Song

by Lewis Carroll
 'Haddock's Eyes' or 'The Aged Aged Man' or
'Ways and Means' or 'A-Sitting On A Gate'

I'll tell thee everything I can;
There's little to relate.
I saw an aged, aged man,
A-sitting on a gate.
'Who are you, aged man?' I said.
'And how is it you live?'
And his answer trickled through my head
Like water through a sieve.

He said 'I look for butterflies
That sleep among...Read more of this...

A Sourdough Story

by Robert William Service
 Hark to the Sourdough story, told at sixty below,
When the pipes are lit and we smoke and spit
Into the campfire glow.
Rugged are we and hoary, and statin' a general rule,
A genooine Sourdough story
Ain't no yarn for the Sunday School.

A Sourdough came to stake his claim in Heav'n one morning early.
Saint Peter cried: "Who waits outside them gates so bright...Read more of this...

Dublinesque

by Philip Larkin
 Down stucco sidestreets,
Where light is pewter
And afternoon mist
Brings lights on in shops
Above race-guides and rosaries,
A funeral passes.

The hearse is ahead,
But after there follows
A troop of streetwalkers
In wide flowered hats,
Leg-of-mutton sleeves,
And ankle-length dresses.

There is an air of great friendliness,
As if they were honouring
One they were fond of;
Some caper a few steps,
Skirts held skilfully
(Someone claps time),

And of great sadness also.
As they...Read more of this...

Albert and the Eadsman

by Marriott Edgar
 On young Albert Ramsbottom's birthday
His parents asked what he'd like most;
He said to see t' Tower of London
And gaze upon Anne Boleyn's ghost.

They thowt this request were unusual
And at first to refuse were inclined,
'Til Pa said a trip t' metrollopse
Might broaden the little lad's mind.

They took charrybank up to London
And got there at quarter to fower,
Then seeing as pubs...Read more of this...

Bustopher Jones: The Cat About Town

by T S (Thomas Stearns) Eliot
 Bustopher Jones is not skin and bones--
In fact, he's remarkably fat.
He doesn't haunt pubs--he has eight or nine clubs,
For he's the St. James's Street Cat!
He's the Cat we all greet as he walks down the street
In his coat of fastidious black:
No commonplace mousers have such well-cut trousers
Or such an impreccable back.
In the whole of St. James's the smartest of...Read more of this...

The Sausage Candidate-A Tale of the Elections

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 Our fathers, brave men were and strong, 
And whisky was their daily liquor; 
They used to move the world along 
In better style than now -- and quicker. 
Elections then were sport, you bet! 
A trifle rough, there's no denying 
When two opposing factions met 
The skin and hair were always flying. 
When "cabbage-trees" could still be worn 
Without...Read more of this...

The Maoris Wool

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 The Maoris are a mighty race -- the finest ever known; 
Before the missionaries came they worshipped wood and stone; 
They went to war and fought like fiends, and when the war was done 
They pacified their conquered foes by eating every one. 
But now-a-days about the pahs in idleness they lurk, 
Prepared to smoke or drink or talk...Read more of this...

The Ladys Dressing Room

by Jonathan Swift
 Five hours, (and who can do it less in?)
By haughty Celia spent in dressing;
The goddess from her chamber issues,
Arrayed in lace, brocades, and tissues.
Strephon, who found the room was void
And Betty otherwise employed,
Stole in and took a strict survey
Of all the litter as it lay;
Whereof, to make the matter clear,
An inventory follows here.
And first a dirty smock appeared,
Beneath the...Read more of this...

The Ballad of the Kings Jest

by Rudyard Kipling
 When spring-time flushes the desert grass,
Our kafilas wind through the Khyber Pass.
Lean are the camels but fat the frails,
Light are the purses but heavy the bales,
As the snowbound trade of the North comes down
To the market-square of Peshawur town.

In a turquoise twilight, crisp and chill,
A kafila camped at the foot of the hill.
Then blue smoke-haze of the cooking rose,
And...Read more of this...

Ye Carpette Knyghte

by Lewis Carroll
 I have a horse - a ryghte good horse -
Ne doe Y envye those
Who scoure ye playne yn headye course
Tyll soddayne on theyre nose
They lyghte wyth unexpected force
Yt ys - a horse of clothes. 

I have a saddel - "Say'st thou soe?
Wyth styrruppes, Knyghte, to boote?"
I sayde not that - I answere "Noe" -
Yt lacketh such, I woote:
Yt ys...Read more of this...

The Lang Coortin

by Lewis Carroll
 The ladye she stood at her lattice high,
Wi' her doggie at her feet;
Thorough the lattice she can spy
The passers in the street, 

"There's one that standeth at the door,
And tirleth at the pin:
Now speak and say, my popinjay,
If I sall let him in." 

Then up and spake the popinjay
That flew abune her head:
"Gae let him in that tirls the...Read more of this...

Charles Augustus Fortescue

by Hilaire Belloc
 The nicest child I ever knew
Was Charles Augustus Fortescue.
He never lost his cap, or tore
His stockings or his pinafore:
In eating Bread he made no Crumbs,
He was extremely fond of sums,

To which, however, he preferred
The Parsing of a Latin Word--
He sought, when it was within his power,
For information twice an hour,

And as for finding Mutton-Fat
Unappatising, far from that!
He often, at...Read more of this...

The Hock-cart or Harvest Home

by Robert Herrick
 To the Right Honourable Mildmay, Earl of Westmoreland

Come, sons of summer, by whose toil 
We are the lords of wine and oil; 
By whose tough labours, and rough hands, 
We rip up first, then reap our lands. 
Crown'd with the ears of corn, now come, 
And to the pipe sing Harvest Home. 
Come forth, my lord, and see the...Read more of this...

The Man Of Tobago

by Mother Goose
There was an old man of Tobago
Who lived on rice, gruel, and sago,
    Till much to his bliss,
    His physician said this:
"To a leg, sir, of mutton, you may go."...Read more of this...

So long as I possess two maunds of wine,

by Omar Khayyam
So long as I possess two maunds of wine,
Bread of the flower of wheat, and mutton chine,
And you, O Tulip cheek, to share my hut,
Not every Sultan's lot can vie with mine....Read more of this...

Alley Rats

by Carl Sandburg
 THEY were calling certain styles of whiskers by the name of “lilacs.”
And another manner of beard assumed in their chatter a verbal guise
Of “mutton chops,” “galways,” “feather dusters.”

Metaphors such as these sprang from their lips while other street cries
Sprang from sparrows finding scattered oats among interstices of the curb.
Ah-hah these metaphors—and Ah-hah these boys—among the police they were known
As...Read more of this...

All In a Family Way

by Thomas Moore
 My banks are all furnished with rags,
So thick, even Freddy can't thin 'em;
I've torn up my old money-bags,
Having little or nought to put in 'em.
My tradesman are smashing by dozens,
But this is all nothing, they say;
For bankrupts, since Adam, are cousins,
So, it's all in the family way.


My Debt not a penny takes from me,
As sages the matter explain; --
Bob...Read more of this...

The Scapegoat

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 We have all of us read how the Israelites fled 
From Egypt with Pharaoh in eager pursuit of 'em, 
And Pharaoh's fierce troop were all put "in the soup" 
When the waters rolled softly o'er every galoot of 'em. 
The Jews were so glad when old Pharaoh was "had" 
That they sounded their timbrels and capered like mad. 
You...Read more of this...

Free Verse

by Robert Graves
 I now delight 
In spite 
Of the might 
And the right 
Of classic tradition, 
In writing 
And reciting 
Straight ahead, 
Without let or omission, 
Just any little rhyme
In any little time 
That runs in my head; 
Because, I’ve said, 
My rhymes no longer shall stand arrayed
Like Prussian soldiers on parade
That march, 
Stiff as starch, 
Foot to foot, 
Boot to...Read more of this...

Johnson's Antidote

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 Down along the Snakebite River, where the overlanders camp, 
Where the serpents are in millions, all of the most deadly stamp; 
Where the station-cook in terror, nearly every time he bakes, 
Mixes up among the doughboys half-a-dozen poison-snakes: 
Where the wily free-selector walks in armour-plated pants, 
And defies the stings of scorpions, and the bites of bull-dog ants: 
Where...Read more of this...

Shearing at Castlereagh

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 The bell is set a-ringing, and the engine gives a toot, 
There's five-and-thirty shearers here a-shearing for the loot, 
So stir yourselves, you penners-up, and shove the sheep along -- 
The musterers are fetching them a hundred thousand strong -- 
And make your collie dogs speak up; what would the buyers say 
In London if the wool was late...Read more of this...

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