Famous Paddocks Poems by Famous Poets

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

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A Childs Grace

by Robert Herrick
 HERE a little child I stand 
Heaving up my either hand; 
Cold as paddocks though they be, 
Here I lift them up to Thee, 
For a benison to fall 
On our meat and on us all. Amen....Read more of this...

The Butter Factory

by Les Murray
 It was built of things that must not mix:
paint, cream, and water, fire and dusty oil.
You heard the water dreaming in its large
kneed pipes, up from the weir. And the cordwood
our fathers cut for the furnace stood in walls
like the sleeper-stacks of a continental railway.

The cream arrived in lorried tides; its procession
crossed a platform of workers' stagecraft: Come here
Friday-Legs!...Read more of this...

Song of the Wheat

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 We have sung the song of the droving days, 
Of the march of the travelling sheep; 
By silent stages and lonely ways 
Thin, white battalions creep. 
But the man who now by the land would thrive 
Must his spurs to a plough-share beat. 
Is there ever a man in the world alive 
To sing the song of the Wheat!...Read more of this...

In the Stable

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 What! you don't like him; well, maybe -- we all have our fancies, of course: 
Brumby to look at, you reckon? Well, no; he's a thoroughbred horse; 
Sired by a son of old Panic -- look at his ears and his head -- 
Lop-eared and Roman-nosed, ain't he? -- well, that's how the Panics are bred. 
Gluttonous, ugly and...Read more of this...

Another Grace For A Child

by Robert Herrick
 Here a little child I stand
Heaving up my either hand;
Cold as paddocks though they be,
Here I lift them up to Thee,
For a benison to fall
On our meat, and on us all. Amen....Read more of this...

The Bushfire - an Allegory

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 'Twas on the famous Empire run, 
Whose sun does never set, 
Whose grass and water, so they say, 
Have never failed them yet -- 
They carry many million sheep, 
Through seasons dry and wet. 
They call the homestead Albion House, 
And then, along with that, 
There's Welshman's Gully, Scotchman's Hill, 
And Paddymelon Flat: 
And all these places are renowned...Read more of this...

My Country

by Dorothea Mackeller
 My Country 

The love of field and coppice 
Of green and shaded lanes, 
Of ordered woods and gardens 
Is running in your veins. 
Strong love of grey-blue distance, 
Brown streams and soft, dim skies 
I know, but cannot share it, 
My love is otherwise. 

I love a sunburnt country, 
A land of sweeping plains, 
Of ragged mountain ranges, 
Of...Read more of this...

Grace For A Child

by Robert Herrick
 Here, a little child, I stand,
Heaving up my either hand:
Cold as paddocks though they be,
Here I lift them up to thee,
For a benison to fall
On our meat, and on us all.
Amen....Read more of this...

The Billy-Goat Overland

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 Come all ye lads of the droving days, ye gentlemen unafraid, 
I'll tell you all of the greatest trip that ever a drover made, 
For we rolled our swags, and we packed our bags, and taking our lives in hand, 
We started away with a thousand goats, on the billy-goat overland. 
There wasn't a fence that'd hold the mob,...Read more of this...

Up The Country

by Henry Lawson
 I am back from up the country -- very sorry that I went -- 
Seeking for the Southern poets' land whereon to pitch my tent; 
I have lost a lot of idols, which were broken on the track, 
Burnt a lot of fancy verses, and I'm glad that I am back. 
Further out may be the pleasant scenes of...Read more of this...

Borderland

by Henry Lawson
 I am back from up the country -- very sorry that I went -- 
Seeking for the Southern poets' land whereon to pitch my tent; 
I have lost a lot of idols, which were broken on the track -- 
Burnt a lot of fancy verses, and I'm glad that I am back. 
Further out may be the pleasant scenes...Read more of this...

The Dream Of Wearing Shorts Forever

by Les Murray
 To go home and wear shorts forever
in the enormous paddocks, in that warm climate,
adding a sweater when winter soaks the grass, 

to camp out along the river bends
for good, wearing shorts, with a pocketknife,
a fishing line and matches, 

or there where the hills are all down, below the plain,
to sit around in shorts at evening
on the plank verandah -...Read more of this...

Late Summer Fires

by Les Murray
 The paddocks shave black
with a foam of smoke that stays,
welling out of red-black wounds.

In the white of a drought
this happens. The hardcourt game.
Logs that fume are mostly cattle,

inverted, stubby. Tree stumps are kilns.
Walloped, wiped, hand-pumped,
even this day rolls over, slowly.

At dusk, a family drives sheep 
out through the yellow
of the Aboriginal flag....Read more of this...

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