Famous Patches Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Late Afternoon: The Onslaught Of Love

by Anthony Hecht
 For William and Emily Maxwell

At this time of day
One could hear the caulking irons sound
Against the hulls in the dockyard.
Tar smoke rose between trees
And large oily patches floated on the water,
Undulating unevenly
In the purple sunlight
Like the surfaces of Florentine bronze.

At this time of day
Sounds carried clearly
Through hot silences of fading daylight.
The weedy fields lay drowned
In odors of creosote and...Read more of this...

The Rape of the Lock: Canto 1

by Alexander Pope
 Nolueram, Belinda, tuos violare capillos;
Sedjuvat, hoc precibus me tribuisse tuis.
(Martial, Epigrams 12.84)
What dire offence from am'rous causes springs, 
What mighty contests rise from trivial things,
I sing--This verse to Caryl, Muse! is due:
This, ev'n Belinda may vouchsafe to view:
Slight is the subject, but not so the praise,
If she inspire, and he approve my lays.
Say what strange motive, Goddess! could compel
A...Read more of this...

The Height of Land

by Duncan Campbell Scott
 Here is the height of land:
The watershed on either hand
Goes down to Hudson Bay
Or Lake Superior;
The stars are up, and far away
The wind sounds in the wood, wearier
Than the long Ojibwa cadence
In which Potàn the Wise
Declares the ills of life
And Chees-que-ne-ne makes a mournful sound
Of acquiescence. The fires burn low
With just sufficient glow
To light the flakes of ash that...Read more of this...

Sisters cake

by Eugene Field
 I'd not complain of Sister Jane, for she was good and kind,
Combining with rare comeliness distinctive gifts of mind;
Nay, I'll admit it were most fit that, worn by social cares,
She'd crave a change from parlor life to that below the stairs,
And that, eschewing needlework and music, she should take
Herself to the substantial art of manufacturing cake.

At breakfast, then, it...Read more of this...

Blue

by May Swenson
 Blue, but you are Rose, too,
and buttermilk, but with blood
dots showing through.
A little salty your white
nape boy-wide. Glinting hairs
shoot back of your ears' Rose
that tongues like to feel
the maze of, slip into the funnel,
tell a thunder-whisper to.
When I kiss, your eyes' straight
lashes down crisp go like doll's
blond straws. Glazed iris Roses,
your lids unclose to Blue-ringed
targets, their dark sheen-spokes
almost green....Read more of this...

328. Poem on Pastoral Poetry

by Robert Burns
 HAIL, Poesie! thou Nymph reserv’d!
In chase o’ thee, what crowds hae swerv’d
Frae common sense, or sunk enerv’d
 ’Mang heaps o’ clavers:
And och! o’er aft thy joes hae starv’d,
 ’Mid a’ thy favours!


Say, Lassie, why, thy train amang,
While loud the trump’s heroic clang,
And sock or buskin skelp alang
 To death or marriage;
Scarce ane has tried the shepherd-sang
 But wi’ miscarriage?


In...Read more of this...

A Hundred Collars

by Robert Frost
 Lancaster bore him--such a little town, 
Such a great man. It doesn't see him often 
Of late years, though he keeps the old homestead 
And sends the children down there with their mother 
To run wild in the summer--a little wild. 
Sometimes he joins them for a day or two 
And sees old friends he somehow can't get near....Read more of this...

Sex With A Famous Poet

by Denise Duhamel
 I had sex with a famous poet last night 
and when I rolled over and found myself beside him I shuddered 
because I was married to someone else, 
because I wasn't supposed to have been drinking,
because I was in fancy hotel room
I didn't recognize. I would have told you 
right off this was a dream, but recently 
a friend...Read more of this...

The Land of the Exile

by Rabindranath Tagore
 Mother, the light has grown grey in the sky; I do not know what
the time is.
There is no fun in my play, so I have come to you. It is
Saturday, our holiday.
Leave off your work, mother; sit here by the window and tell
me where the desert of Tepantar in the fairy tale is.
The shadow of the rains has covered...Read more of this...

A slash of Blue

by Emily Dickinson
 A slash of Blue --
A sweep of Gray --
Some scarlet patches on the way,
Compose an Evening Sky --
A little purple -- slipped between --
Some Ruby Trousers hurried on --
A Wave of Gold --
A Bank of Day --
This just makes out the Morning Sky....Read more of this...

Snow White to the Prince

by Chris Tusa
 after Susan Thomas

Truth is, my life was no fairytale, 
that afternoon, I lay, a smiling corpse
under a glass sky, a rotten apple
lodged in my throat like a black lump
of cancer, your sloppy kiss dying on my lips.

Did you really believe a kiss could cure
the poison galloping through my veins, 
as you stood there, with your ugly white horse, 
the...Read more of this...

Buying Stock

by Denise Duhamel
 "...The use of condoms offers substantial protection, but does not 
guarantee total protection and that while 
there is no evidence that deep kissing has resulted in 
transfer of the virus, no one can say that such transmission 
would be absolutely impossible."

--The Surgeon General, 1987


I know you won't mind if I ask you to put this on.
It's for your protection...Read more of this...

Magpiety

by Philip Levine
 You pull over to the shoulder
 of the two-lane
road and sit for a moment wondering
 where you were going
in such a hurry. The valley is burned
 out, the oaks
dream day and night of rain
 that never comes.
At noon or just before noon
 the short shadows
are gray and hold what little
 life survives.
In the still heat the engine
 clicks, although
the...Read more of this...

Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking

by Walt Whitman
 1
OUT of the cradle endlessly rocking, 
Out of the mocking-bird’s throat, the musical shuttle, 
Out of the Ninth-month midnight, 
Over the sterile sands, and the fields beyond, where the child, leaving his bed, wander’d
 alone, bare-headed, barefoot, 
Down from the shower’d halo,
Up from the mystic play of shadows, twining and twisting as if they were alive, 
Out from the...Read more of this...

Mrs. Kessler

by Edgar Lee Masters
 Mr Kessler, you know, was in the army,
And he drew six dollars a month as a pension,
And stood on the corner talking politics,
Or sat at home reading Grant's Memoirs;
And I supported the family by washing,
Learning the secrets of all the people
From their curtains, counterpanes, shirts and skirts.
For things that are new grow old at length,
They're replaced with better or...Read more of this...

The Red Dance

by Anne Sexton
 There was a girl
who danced in the city that night,
that April 22nd,
all along the Charles River.
It was as if one hundred men were watching
or do I mean the one hundred eyes of God?
The yellow patches in the sycamores
glowed like miniature flashlights.
The shadows, the skin of them
were ice cubes that flashed
from the red dress to the roof.
Mile by mile along...Read more of this...

Battalion-Relief

by Siegfried Sassoon
 ‘FALL in! Now get a move on.’ (Curse the rain.)
We splash away along the straggling village, 
Out to the flat rich country, green with June... 
And sunset flares across wet crops and tillage, 
Blazing with splendour-patches. (Harvest soon, 
Up in the Line.) ‘Perhaps the War’ll be done 
‘By Christmas-Day. Keep smiling then, old son.’ 

Here’s the Canal: it’s dusk;...Read more of this...

Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came

by Robert Browning
My first thought was, he lied in every word,
That hoary cripple, with malicious eye
Askance to watch the working of his lie
On mine, and mouth scarce able to afford
Suppression of the glee, that pursed and scored
Its edge, at one more victim gained thereby.

What else should he be set for, with his staff?
What, save to waylay with his lies, ensnare
All travellers who...Read more of this...

The Little Garden

by Amy Lowell
 A little garden on a bleak hillside
Where deep the heavy, dazzling mountain snow
Lies far into the spring. The sun's pale glow
Is scarcely able to melt patches wide
About the single rose bush. All denied
Of nature's tender ministries. But no, --
For wonder-working faith has made it blow
With flowers many hued and starry-eyed.
Here sleeps the sun long, idle summer hours;
Here butterflies and...Read more of this...

A Fool For Evergreen

by James A Emanuel
 A little bit of fool in me
Hides behind my inmost tree
And pops into the narrow path
I walk blindfolded by my wrath
Or shrunken by some twist of pain,
Some hope that will not wind again.
He ogles with his antic eyes
and somersaults a you're-not-wise
Until the patches in his pants
Go colorwheeling through my glance
So fast that I cannot recall
That I was mad or...Read more of this...

Spring And All

by William Carlos (WCW) Williams
 By the road to the contagious hospital
under the surge of the blue
mottled clouds driven from the
northeast—a cold wind. Beyond, the
waste of broad, muddy fields
brown with dried weeds, standing and fallen

patches of standing water
the scattering of tall trees

All along the road the reddish
purplish, forked, upstanding, twiggy
stuff of bushes and small trees
with dead, brown leaves under them
leafless vines—

Lifeless in appearance, sluggish
dazed...Read more of this...

Phylliss Age

by Matthew Prior
 How old may Phyllis be, you ask, 
Whose beauty thus all hearts engages? 
To answer is no easy task; 
For she has really two ages. 

Stiff in brocard, and pinch'd in stays, 
Her patches, paint, and jewels on; 
All day let envy view her face; 
And Phyllis is but twenty-one. 

Paint, patches, jewels laid aside, 
At night astronomers agree,...Read more of this...

Bitterness

by Philip Levine
 Here in February, the fine 
dark branches of the almond 
begin to sprout tiny clusters 
of leaves, sticky to the touch. 
Not far off, about the length 
of my morning shadow, the grass 
is littered with the petals 
of the plum that less than 
a week ago blazed, a living 
candle in the hand of earth. 
I was living...Read more of this...

Patches

by Robert William Service
 Mother focused with a frown
The part of me where I sit down.
Said she: "Your pants are wearing through;
Let me sew on a patch for you."
And so she did,--of azure blue.
My britches were of sober grey,
And when I went to school next day,
The fellows said: "Excuse our smile:
We saw your patch 'way off a mile."
Said I: "Sure, it's the latest...Read more of this...

Epipsychidion (excerpt)

by Percy Bysshe Shelley
 Emily, 
A ship is floating in the harbour now,
A wind is hovering o'er the mountain's brow;
There is a path on the sea's azure floor,
No keel has ever plough'd that path before;
The halcyons brood around the foamless isles;
The treacherous Ocean has forsworn its wiles;
The merry mariners are bold and free:
Say, my heart's sister, wilt thou sail with me?
Our bark is...Read more of this...

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