Famous Petticoat Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Petticoat poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous petticoat poems. These examples illustrate what a famous petticoat poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Mother Goose
Pussy-cat Mew jumped over a coal,
And in her best petticoat burnt a great hole.
Poor Pussy's weeping, she'll have no more milk
Until her best petticoat's mended with silk....Read more of this...
by
Robert Louis Stevenson
NOW bare to the beholder's eye
Your late denuded bindings lie,
Subsiding slowly where they fell,
A disinvested citadel;
The obdurate corset, Cupid's foe,
The Dutchman's breeches frilled below.
Those that the lover notes to note,
And white and crackling petticoat.
From these, that on the ground repose,
Their lady lately re-arose;
And laying by the lady's name,
A living woman re-became.
Of her, that from the public eye
They do enclose...Read more of this...
by
Richard Aldington
Why do you always stand there shivering
Between the white stream and the road?
The people pass through the dust
On bicycles, in carts, in motor-cars;
The waggoners go by at down;
The lovers walk on the grass path at night.
Stir from your roots, walk, poplar!
You are more beautiful than they are.
I know that the white...Read more of this...
by
Alexander Pope
Not with more glories, in th' etherial plain,
The sun first rises o'er the purpled main,
Than, issuing forth, the rival of his beams
Launch'd on the bosom of the silver Thames.
Fair nymphs, and well-dress'd youths around her shone,
But ev'ry eye was fix'd on her alone.
On her white breast a sparkling cross she wore,
Which Jews might kiss, and infidels adore.
Her lively...Read more of this...
by
William Ernest Henley
Madam Life's a piece in bloom
Death goes dogging everywhere:
She's the tenant of the room,
He's the ruffian on the stair.
You shall see her as a friend,
You shall bilk him once or twice;
But he'll trap you in the end,
And he'll stick you for her price.
With his kneebones at your chest,
And his knuckles in your throat,
You would reason -- plead -- protest!
Clutching...Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
You've heard of Belching Billy, likewise known as Windy Bill,
As punk a chunk of Yukon scum as ever robbed a sluice;
A satellite of Soapy Smith, a capper and a shill,
A slimy tribute-taker from the Ladies on the Loose.
But say, you never heard of how he aimed my gore to spill
(That big gorilla gunnin' for a little guy like me,)
A-howlin'...Read more of this...
by
William Henry Davies
She walks as lightly as the fly
Skates on the water in July.
To hear her moving petticoat
For me is music's highest note.
Stones are not heard, when her feet pass,
No more than tumps of moss or grass.
When she sits still, she's like the flower
To be a butterfly next hour.
The brook laughs not more sweet, when he
Trips...Read more of this...
by
Mother Goose
Daffy-down-dilly has come to town
In a yellow petticoat and a green gown....Read more of this...
by
Ben Jonson
XXV. ? ON SIR VOLUPTUOUS BEAST. While BEAST instructs his fair and innocent wife, In the past pleasures of his sensual life, Telling the motions of each petticoat, And how his Ganymede mov'd, and how his goat, And now her hourly her own cucquean makes, In varied shapes, which for his lust she takes : What doth...Read more of this...
by
William Topaz McGonagall
Fellow men! why should the lords try to despise
And prohibit women from having the benefit of the parliamentary Franchise?
When they pay the same taxes as you and me,
I consider they ought to have the same liberty.
And I consider if they are not allowed the same liberty,
From taxation every one of them should be set free;
And if they are...Read more of this...
by
Robert Herrick
A sweet disorder in the dress
Kindles in clothes a wantonness:
A lawn about the shoulders thrown
Into a fine distraction--
An erring lace, which here and there
Enthrals the crimson stomacher--
A cuff neglectful, and thereby
Ribbands to flow confusedly--
A winning wave, deserving note,
In the tempestuous petticoat--
A careless shoe-string, in whose tie
I see a wild civility--
Do more bewitch me than when art
Is too precise in...Read more of this...
by
Robert Herrick
A sweet disorder in the dress
Kindles in clothes a wantonness;
A lawn about the shoulders thrown
Into a fine distraction;
An erring lace, which here and there
Enthrals the crimson stomacher;
A cuff neglectful, and thereby
Ribbons to flow confusedly;
A winning wave, deserving note,
In the tempestuous petticoat;
A careless shoe-string, in whose tie
I see a wild civility;--
Do more bewitch me, than when art
Is too precise in...Read more of this...
by
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
OH, would I resembled
The country girls fair,
Who rosy-red ribbons
And yellow hats wear!
To believe I was pretty
I thought was allow'd;
In the town I believed it
When by the youth vow'd.
Now that Spring hath return'd,
All my joys disappear;
The girls of the country
Have lured him from here.
To change dress and figure,
Was needful I found,
My bodice is longer,
My petticoat round.
My hat now is yellow.
My...Read more of this...
by
Mother Goose
When I was a little girl, about seven years old,
I hadn't got a petticoat, to cover me from the cold.
So I went into Darlington, that pretty little town,
And there I bought a petticoat, a cloak, and a gown.
I went into the woods and built me a kirk,
And all the birds of the air, they helped me to work.
The hawk with...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
The Day undressed -- Herself --
Her Garter -- was of Gold --
Her Petticoat -- of Purple plain --
Her Dimities -- as old
Exactly -- as the World --
And yet the newest Star --
Enrolled upon the Hemisphere
Be wrinkled -- much as Her --
Too near to God -- to pray --
Too near to Heaven -- to fear --
The Lady of the Occident
Retired...Read more of this...
by
Jorie Graham
In the fairy tale the sky
makes of itself a coat
because it needs you
to put it
on. How can it do this?
It collects its motes. It condenses its sound-
track, all the pyrric escapes, the pilgrimages
still unconsummated,
the turreted thoughts of sky it slightly liquefies
and droops, the hum of the yellowest day alive,
office-holders in their books,...Read more of this...
by
Federico García Lorca
So I took her to the river
believing she was a maiden,
but she already had a husband.
It was on St. James night
and almost as if I was obliged to.
The lanterns went out
and the crickets lighted up.
In the farthest street corners
I touched her sleeping breasts
and they opened to me suddenly
like spikes of hyacinth.
The starch of her petticoat
sounded in my ears
like a...Read more of this...
by
Mother Goose
Little Nanny Etticoat
In a white petticoat,
And a red nose;
The longer she stands
The shorter she grows....Read more of this...
by
Sir John Suckling
I tell thee, Dick, where I have been,
Where I the rarest things have seen,
O, things without compare!
Such sights again cannot be found
In any place on English ground,
Be it at wake or fair.
At Charing Cross, hard by the way
Where we, thou know'st, do sell our hay,
There is a house with stairs;
And there...Read more of this...
by
William Topaz McGonagall
As I stood upon London Bridge and viewed the mighty throng
Of thousands of people in cabs and 'busses rapidly whirling along,
All furiously driving to and fro,
Up one street and down another as quick as they could go:
Then I was struck with the discordant sound of human voices there,
Which seemed to me like wild geese cackling in the air:
And...Read more of this...
by
Rudyard Kipling
By the old Moulmein Pagoda, lookin' eastward to the sea,
There's a Burma girl a-settin', and I know she thinks o' me;
For the wind is in the palm-trees, and the temple-bells they say:
"Come you back, you British soldier; come you back to Mandalay!"
Come you back to Mandalay,
Where the old Flotilla lay:
Can't you 'ear their paddles chunkin' from...Read more of this...
by
Anne Kingsmill Finch
A Thriving Merchant, who no Loss sustained,
In little time a mighty Fortune gain'd.
No Pyrate seiz'd his still returning Freight;
Nor foundring Vessel sunk with its own Weight:
No Ruin enter'd through dissever'd Planks;
No Wreck at Sea, nor in the Publick Banks.
Aloft he sails, above the Reach of Chance,
And do's in Pride, as fast as...Read more of this...
by
William Topaz McGonagall
'Twas in the year of 1889, and in the month of June,
Ten thousand people met with a fearful doom,
By the bursting of a dam in Pennsylvania State,
And were burned, and drowned by the flood-- oh! pity their fate!
The embankment of the dam was considered rather weak,
And by the swelled body of water the embankment did break,
And burst o'er...Read more of this...
by
Robert Burns
YE Irish lords, ye knights an’ squires,
Wha represent our brughs an’ shires,
An’ doucely manage our affairs
In parliament,
To you a simple poet’s pray’rs
Are humbly sent.
Alas! my roupit Muse is hearse!
Your Honours’ hearts wi’ grief ’twad pierce,
To see her sittin on her ****
Low i’ the dust,
And scriechinh out prosaic verse,
An like to brust!
Tell them wha hae the...Read more of this...
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