Famous Picket Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Bridge-Guard in the Karroo

by Rudyard Kipling
 1901 ". . . and will supply details to guard the Blood River Bridge." District Orders-Lines of Communication, South African War.
Sudden the desert changes,
 The raw glare softens and clings,
Till the aching Oudtshoorn ranges
 Stand up like the thrones of Kings --

Ramparts of slaughter and peril --
 Blazing, amazing, aglow --
'Twixt the sky-line's belting beryl
 And the wine-dark flats...Read more of this...

Grand-Pas Whim

by Robert William Service
 While for me gapes the greedy grave
 It don't make sense
That I should have a crazy crave
 To paint our fence.
Yet that is what I aim to do,
 Though dim my sight:
Jest paint them aged pickets blue,
 Or green or white.

Jest squat serenely in the sun
 Wi' brush an' paint,
An' gay them pickets one by one,
 --A chore! It...Read more of this...

Rimmon

by Rudyard Kipling
 1903

After Boer War


Duly with knees that feign to quake--
 Bent head and shaded brow,--
Yet once again, for my father's sake,
 In Rimmon's House I bow.

The curtains part, the trumpet blares,
 And the eunuchs howl aloud;
And the gilt, swag-bellied idol glares
 Insolent over the crowd.

"This is Rimmon, Lord of the Earth--
 "Fear Him and bow the knee!"
And I watch my...Read more of this...

My Bear

by Robert William Service
 I never killed a bear because
I always thought them critters was
 So kindo' cute;
Though round my shack they often came,
I'd raise my rifle and take aim,
 But couldn't shoot.
Yet there was one full six-feet tall
Who came each night and gobbled all
 The grub in sight;
On my pet garden truck he'd feast,
Until I thought I must at least
 Give him...Read more of this...

Swinging the Lead

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 Said the soldier to the Surgeon, "I've got noises in me head 
And a kind o' filled up feeling after every time I'm fed; 
I can sleep all night on picket, but I can't sleep in my bed". 
And the Surgeon said, 
"That's Lead!" 
Said the soldier to the Surgeon, "Do you think they'll send me back? 
For I...Read more of this...

Length of Moon

by Arna Bontemps
 Then the golden hour 
Will tick its last 
And the flame will go down in the flower.
A briefer length of moon 
Will mark the sea-line and the yellow dune.
Then we may think of this, yet 
There will be something forgotten
And something we should forget.
It will be like all things we know: .
A stone will fail; a rose is sure...Read more of this...

Trinity Place

by Carl Sandburg
 THE GRAVE of Alexander Hamilton is in Trinity yard at the end of Wall Street.

The grave of Robert Fulton likewise is in Trinity yard where Wall Street stops.

And in this yard stenogs, bundle boys, scrubwomen, sit on the tombstones, and walk on the grass of graves, speaking of war and weather, of babies, wages and love.

An iron picket fence...Read more of this...

The Last Parade

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 With never a sound of trumpet, 
With never a flag displayed, 
The last of the old campaigners 
Lined up for the last parade. 

Weary they were and battered, 
Shoeless, and knocked about; 
From under their ragged forelocks 
Their hungry eyes looked out. 

And they watched as the old commander 
Read out to the cheering men 
The Nation's thanks, and...Read more of this...

Memoir of a Proud Boy

by Carl Sandburg
 HE lived on the wings of storm.
The ashes are in Chihuahua.

Out of Ludlow and coal towns in Colorado
Sprang a vengeance of Slav miners, Italians, Scots, Cornishmen, Yanks.
Killings ran under the spoken commands of this boy
With eighty men and rifles on a hogback mountain.

They killed swearing to remember
The shot and charred wives and children
In the burnt camp of Ludlow,
And Louis...Read more of this...

Black Bonnet

by Henry Lawson
 A day of seeming innocence, 
A glorious sun and sky, 
And, just above my picket fence, 
Black Bonnet passing by. 
In knitted gloves and quaint old dress, 
Without a spot or smirch, 
Her worn face lit with peacefulness, 
Old Granny goes to church. 

Her hair is richly white, like milk, 
That long ago was fair -- 
And glossy still...Read more of this...

Theres Another Blessed Horse Fell Down

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 When you're lying in your hammock, sleeping soft and sleeping sound, 
Without a care or trouble on your mind, 
And there's nothing to disturb you but the engines going round, 
And you're dreaming of the girl you left behind; 
In the middle of your joys you'll be wakened by a noise 
And a clatter on the deck above your...Read more of this...

The Scottish Engineer

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 With eyes that searched in the dark, 
Peering along the line, 
Stood the grim Scotsman, Hector Clark, 
Driver of "Forty-nine". 
And the veldt-fire flamed on the hills ahead, 
Like a blood-red beacon sign. 

There was word of a fight to the north, 
And a column too hardly pressed, 
So they started the Highlanders forth. 
Heedless of food or rest....Read more of this...

The Goose Fish

by Howard Nemerov
 On the long shore, lit by the moon
To show them properly alone,
Two lovers suddenly embraced
So that their shadows were as one.
The ordinary night was graced
For them by the swift tide of blood
That silently they took at flood,
And for a little time they prized
Themselves emparadised.

Then, as if shaken by stage-fright
Beneath the hard moon's bony light,
They stood together on the sand
Embarrassed...Read more of this...

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