Famous Patter Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Patter poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous patter poems. These examples illustrate what a famous patter poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Laurence Dunbar, Paul
...teasin' fancies
O'er my burnin' senses steals,—
Dreams o' cool rooms, curtains lowered,
An' a sofy's temptin' look;
Patter o' composin' raindrops
Or the ripple of a brook.
I strike a stump! That wakes me sudden;
Dreams all vanish into air.
Lordy! how I chew my whiskers;
'Twouldn't do fur me to swear.
But I have to be so keerful
'Bout my thoughts an' what I say;
Somethin' might slip out unheeded,
'Cause it's hot to-day.
Git up, there, Suke! you, Sal, git over!
S...Read more of this...
by
Moody, William Vaughn
...ng-searching eyes
That love at last has might upon the skies.
The ice is runneled on the little pond;
A telltale patter drips from off the trees;
The air is touched with southland spiceries,
As if but yesterday it tossed the frond
Of pendant mosses where the live-oaks grow
Beyond Virginia and the Carolines,
Or had its will among the fruits and vines
Of aromatic isles asleep beyond
Florida and the Gulf of Mexico.
III
Soon shall the Cape Ann children shou...Read more of this...
by
Owen, Wilfred
...s for these who die as cattle?
Only the monstrous anger of the guns.
Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle
Can patter out their hasty orisons.
No mockeries for them; no prayers nor bells,
Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs, --
The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;
And bugles calling for them from sad shires.
What candles may be held to speed them all?
Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes
Shall shine the holy glimmers of goodbyes.
...Read more of this...
by
Whitman, Walt
...I heed not—some
to the
rear
are hobbling;)
Grime, heat, rush—aid-de-camps galloping by, or on a full run;
With the patter of small arms, the warning s-s-t of the rifles, (these in my vision
I
hear or
see,)
And bombs busting in air, and at night the vari-color’d rockets....Read more of this...
by
Wilcox, Ella Wheeler
...grown I believe,
Alarmingly fast, since one cloudy eve,
When passing the little house close by the street,
I heard the patter of two little feet,
And a figure in pink fluttered down to the gate,
And a sweet voice exclaimed, 'Oh, Will, you are late!
And, darling, I've watched at the window until -
Sir, I beg pardon! I thought it was Will! '
I passed on my way, with such a strange feeling
Down in my heart. My brain seemed to be reeling;
For, as it happens, my name, too, i...Read more of this...
by
Tessimond, A S J
...de an inconvenient fact
And when to leave a doubtful claim unbacked;
Manipulates the truth but not too much,
And if his patter needs the Human Touch,
Skillfully artless, artlessly naive,
Wears his convenient heart upon his sleeve.
He uses words that once were strong and fine,
Primal as sun and moon and bread and wine,
True, honourable, honoured, clear and keen,
And leaves them shabby, worn, diminished, mean.
He takes ideas and trains them to engage
In the long little...Read more of this...
by
Tebb, Barry
...ypothesis for God
When I hear a distant buzz
I cannot tell if it is
A bee or saw.
That is what we must
Decide, patterned being
Or random chance, God
Or nothing, your choice
And mine.
9
The caf? by the lake was closed
But when I asked they opened.
Was it God or chance made hearts
Beat like a butterfly’s wing
In January cold?
Good and bad are choice not chance
At sixteen I decided to be a poet,
Writing another’s love poems,
Earning my first...Read more of this...
by
Sandburg, Carl
...I LOVE him, I love him, ran the patter of her lips
And she formed his name on her tongue and sang
And she sent him word she loved him so much,
So much, and death was nothing; work, art, home,
All was nothing if her love for him was not first
Of all; the patter of her lips ran, I love him,
I love him; and he knew the doors that opened
Into doors and more doors, no end of doors,
And full len...Read more of this...
by
Montgomery, Lucy Maud
...Last, to the chamber where I lie
My fearful footsteps patter nigh,
And come out from the cold and gloom
Into my warm and cheerful room.
There, safe arrived, we turn about
To keep the coming shadows out,
And close the happy door at last
On all the perils that we past.
Then, when mamma goes by to bed,
She shall come in with tip-toe tread,
And see me lying warm and fast
And in the land of Nod a...Read more of this...
by
Lanier, Sidney
...at shape the wondrous-varying themes
As cries of men or plash of streams.
Or noise of summer rain-drops round
That patter daintily a-ground
With hints of heaven in the sound.
Or noble wind-tones chanting free
Through morning-skies across the sea
Wild hymns to some strange majesty.
O, if one trope, clear-cut and keen,
May type the art of Song's best queen,
White-hot of soul, white-chaste of mien,
On Music's heart doth Nilsson dwell
As if a Swedish snow-flake fe...Read more of this...
by
Aiken, Conrad
...d points of leaves.
IV.
I walk in a pleasure of sorrow along the street
And try to remember you; slow drops patter;
Water upon the lilacs has made them sweet;
I brush them with my sleeve, the cool drops scatter;
And suddenly I laugh and stand and listen
As if another had laughed a gust
Rustles the leaves, the wet spikes glisten;
And it seems as though it were you who had shaken the bough,
And spilled the fragrance I pursue your face again,
It grows more vague and ...Read more of this...
by
Kaufman, Bob
...ed,
Lost notes, from some jazzman's
Broken needle.
Musical tears from lost
Eyes.
Broken drumsticks, why?
Pitter patter, boom dropping
Bombs in the middle
Of my emotions
My father's sound
My mother's sound,
Is love,
Is life....Read more of this...
by
Hannah, Sophie
...I know the rules and hear myself agree
Not to invest beyond this one night stand.
I know your patter: in, out, like the sea.
The sharp north wind must blow away the sand.
Soon my supply will meet your last demand
And you will have no further use for me.
I will not swim against the tide, to land.
I know the rules. I hear myself agree.
I've kept a stash of hours, just two or three
To smuggle off your coast like contraband....Read more of this...
by
Lowell, Amy
...Pale, with the blue of high zeniths, shimmered
over with silver, brocaded
In smooth, running patterns, a soft stuff, with dark knotted fringes,
it lies there,
Warm from a woman's soft shoulders, and my fingers close on it,
caressing.
Where is she, the woman who wore it? The scent of her
lingers and drugs me!
A languor, fire-shotted, runs through me, and I crush the scarf
down
on my face,
And gulp in the warmth and the blueness, and my eyes sw...Read more of this...
by
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
...a pause in the day's occupations,
That is known as the Children's Hour.
I hear in the chamber above me
The patter of little feet,
The sound of a door that is opened,
And voices soft and sweet.
From my study I see in the lamplight,
Descending the broad hall stair,
Grave Alice, and laughing Allegra,
And Edith with golden hair.
A whisper, and then a silence:
Yet I know by their merry eyes
They are plotting and planning together
To tak...Read more of this...
by
Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...was ten years back, or more, if I don't forget:
But as to the children, Annie, they're all about me yet.
XX.
Pattering over the boards, my Annie who left me at two,
Patter she goes, my own little Annie, an Annie like you:
Pattering over the boards, she comes and goes at her will,
While Harry is in the five-acre and Charlie ploughing the hill.
XXI.
And Harry and Charlie, I hear them too--they sing to their team:
Often they come to the door in a pleasant ki...Read more of this...
by
Riley, James Whitcomb
...faded blossoms
Caught in a slanting rain,
His fingers glimpsed down the strings of his harp
In a tremulous refrain:
Patter and tinkle, and drip and drip!
Ah! but the chords were rainy sweet!
And I closed my eyes and I bit my lip,
As he played there in the street.
Patter, and drip, and tinkle!
And there was the little bed
In the corner of the garret,
And the rafters overhead!
And there was the little window --
Tinkle, and drip, and drip!--
The rain above, and...Read more of this...
by
Aiken, Conrad
...soft mouth that darkly meets my mouth,
Is this the soft mouth I knew?
Darkness, and wind in the tortured trees;
And the patter of dew.
* * * * *
Dance! Dance! Dance! Dance!
Dance till the brain is red with speed!
Dance till you fall! Lift your torches!
Kiss your lovers until they bleed!
Backward I draw your anguished hair
Until your eyes are stretched with pain;
Backward I press you until you cry,
Your lips grow white, I kiss you again,
I will take a torch and set you ...Read more of this...
by
Service, Robert William
...ing white;
Gnawing the black crust of failure, searching the pit of despair,
Crooking the toe in the trigger, trying to patter a prayer;
Going outside with an escort, raving with lips all afoam,
Writing a cheque for a million, driveling feebly of home;
Lost like a louse in the burning . . . or else in the tented town
Seeking a drunkard's solace, sinking and sinking down;
Steeped in the slime at the bottom, dead to a decent world,
Lost 'mid the human flotsam, far o...Read more of this...
by
Dyke, Henry Van
...the monster guns;
And the sharp bark
Of the lesser guns;
The whine of the shells,
The rifles' clatter
Where the bullets patter,
The rattle, rattle, rattle
Of the mitrailleuse in battle,
And the yells
Of the men who charge through hells
Where the poison gas descends,
And the bursting shrapnel rends
Limb from limb
In the dim
Chaos and clamor of the strife
Where no man thinks of his life
But only of fighting through,
Blindly fighting through, through!
'Tis done
At last!
The vict...Read more of this...
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