Famous Pinned Poems by Famous Poets

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

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A Death-Bed

...e die suddenly. This will not.


"Regis suprema voluntas Lex"
[It will follow the regular course of--throats.]
Some die pinned by the broken decks,
 Some die sobbing between the boats.


Some die eloquent, pressed to death
 By the sliding trench as their friends can hear
Some die wholly in half a breath.
 Some--give trouble for half a year.


"There is neither Evil nor Good in life
 Except as the needs of the State ordain."
[Since it is rather too late for the knife,
 All we ...Read more of this...
by Kipling, Rudyard


Baby Tortoise

...ou complain.

You draw your head forward, slowly, from your little wimple

And set forward, slow-dragging, on your four-pinned toes, Rowing slowly forward.
Whither away, small bird?
Rather like a baby working its limbs,
Except that you make slow, ageless progress
And a baby makes none.

The touch of sun excites you,
And the long ages, and the lingering chill
Make you pause to yawn,
Opening your impervious mouth,
Suddenly beak-shaped, and very wide, like some suddenly gaping p...Read more of this...
by Lawrence, D. H.

Café Comedy

...waiting for the man I hope to wed.
I've never seen him - that's the funny part.
I promised I would wear a rose of red,
Pinned on my coat above my fluttered heart,
So that he'd know me - a precaution wise,
Because I wrote him I was twenty-three,
And Oh such heaps and heaps of silly lies. . .
So when we meet what will he think of me?

It's funny, but it has its sorry side;
I put an advert. in the evening Press:
"A lonely maiden fain would be a bride."
Oh it was shameless of me...Read more of this...
by Service, Robert William

Cats

...ir shadows
Offer no angles to the wind.
They slip, diminished, neat through loopholes
Less than themselves; will not be pinned

To rules or routes for journeys; counter
Attack with non-resistance; twist
Enticing through the curving fingers
And leave an angered empty fist.

They wait obsequious as darkness
Quick to retire, quick to return;
Admit no aim or ethics; flatter
With reservations; will not learn

To answer to their names; are seldom
Truly owned till shot or skinned.
C...Read more of this...
by Tessimond, A S J

Drunk As Drunk

...it - our fingers
Like tallows adorned with yellow metal -
Over the sky's hot rim,
The day's last breath in our sails.

Pinned by the sun between solstice
And equinox, drowsy and tangled together
We drifted for months and woke
With the bitter taste of land on our lips,
Eyelids all sticky, and we longed for lime
And the sound of a rope
Lowering a bucket down its well. Then,
We came by night to the Fortunate Isles,
And lay like fish
Under the net of our kisses....Read more of this...
by Neruda, Pablo


Farm Implements and Rutabagas in a Landscape

...ber 2 can of spinach
When the door opened and Swee'pea crept in. "How pleasant!"
But Swee'pea looked morose. A note was pinned to his bib. 
"Thunder
And tears are unavailing," it read. "Henceforth shall
Popeye's apartment
Be but remembered space, toxic or salubrious, whole or 
scratched."

Olive came hurtling through the window; its geraniums scratched
Her long thigh. "I have news!" she gasped. "Popeye, forced as 
you know to flee the country
One musty gusty evening, by the s...Read more of this...
by Ashbery, John

Kindness

...als a little poultice.
O kindness, kindness
Sweetly picking up pieces!
My Japanese silks, desperate butterflies,
May be pinned any minute, anesthetized.

And here you come, with a cup of tea
Wreathed in steam.
The blood jet is poetry,
There is no stopping it.
You hand me two children, two roses....Read more of this...
by Plath, Sylvia

Malmaison

..., with tall bright clouds sailing over the 
trees.

"Bonaparte, mon ami, the trees are golden like my star, the star 
I pinned
to your destiny when I married you. The gypsy, you remember 
her prophecy!
My dear friend, not here, the servants are watching; send them away,
and that flashing splendour, Roustan. Superb -- Imperial, 
but . . .
My dear, your arm is trembling; I faint to feel it touching me! No, 
no,
Bonaparte, not that -- spare me that -- did we not bury that last 
...Read more of this...
by Lowell, Amy

Nightmare: A Tale for an Autumn Evening

...s.
He tried to shift his position;
He could not move.
Something weighed him down,
He could not breathe.
He was gasping,
Pinned down and suffocating.
He opened his eyes.
The curtains of the window were flung back,
The fire and the candle were out,
And the room was filled with green moonlight.
And pressed against the window-pane
Was a wide, round face,
Winking -- winking --
Solemnly dropping one eyelid after the other.
Tick -- tock -- went the watch under his pillow,
Wink -- wi...Read more of this...
by Lowell, Amy

Orion

...the mirror
children are dying my death
and eating crumbs of my life.

Pity is not your forte.
Calmly you ache up there
pinned aloft in your crow's nest,
my speechless pirate!
You take it all for granted
and when I look you back

it's with a starlike eye
shooting its cold and egotistical spear
where it can do least damage.
Breath deep! No hurt, no pardon
out here in the cold with you
you with your back to the wall....Read more of this...
by Rich, Adrienne

Phantasmagoria CANTO III ( Scarmoges )

...ow, I expect,
Serves but to let the dusk in - "
"But please," said I, "to recollect
'Twas fashioned by an architect
Who pinned his faith on Ruskin!" 

"I don't care who he was, Sir, or
On whom he pinned his faith!
Constructed by whatever law,
So poor a job I never saw,
As I'm a living Wraith! 

"What a re-markable cigar!
How much are they a dozen?"
I growled "No matter what they are!
You're getting as familiar
As if you were my cousin! 

"Now that's a thing I WILL NOT STAND,
...Read more of this...
by Carroll, Lewis

Sisters Of Mercy

...your family, but soon it comes around to your
soul. 
Well I've been where you're hanging, I think I can see how
you're pinned: 
When you're not feeling holy, your loneliness says that
you've sinned. 
Well they lay down beside me, I made my confession to
them. 
They touched both my eyes and I touched the dew on their hem.

If your life is a leaf that the seasons tear off and condemn 
they will bind you with love that is graceful and green as a
stem. 
When I left they were sle...Read more of this...
by Cohen, Leonard

Snapshots of a Daughter-In-Law

..., before
an unlocked door, that cage of cages,
tell us, you bird, you tragical machine--
is this fertillisante douleur? Pinned down
by love, for you the only natural action,
are you edged more keen
to prise the secrets of the vault? has Nature shown
her household books to you, daughter-in-law,
that her sons never saw?

 7

"To have in this uncertain world some stay
which cannot be undermined, is
of the utmost consequence."
 Thus wrote
a woman, partly brave and partly good,
wh...Read more of this...
by Rich, Adrienne

The Flight Of The Duchess

...avel in;
So, just one stout cloak shall I indue:
And for a stall, what beats the javelin
With which his boars my father pinned you?
And then, for a purpose you shall hear presently,
Taking some Cotnar, a tight plump skinful,
I shall go journeying, who but I, pleasantly!
Sorrow is vain and despondency sinful.
What's a man's age? He must hurry more, that's all;
Cram in a day, what his youth took a year to hold.
When we mind labour, then only, we're too old---
What age had Methu...Read more of this...
by Browning, Robert

The Garden of Janus

...
I wake, and he is gone; what should I do but weep?

V

Nay, for I wept enough --- more sacred tears! ---
When first he pinned me, gripped
My flesh, and as a stallion that rears,
Sprang, hero-thewed and satyr-lipped;
Crushed, as a grape between his teeth, my fears;
Sucked out my life
And stamped me with the shame, the monstrous word of
wife.

VI

I will not weep; nay, I will follow him
Perchance he is not far, 
Bathing his limbs in some delicious dim
Depth, where the evening ...Read more of this...
by Crowley, Aleister

The Harvest Bow

...ongue-tied in the straw tied by your hand.

The end of art is peace
Could be the motto of this frail device
That I have pinned up on our deal dresser--
Like a drawn snare
Slipped lately by the spirit of the corn
Yet burnished by its passage, and still warm....Read more of this...
by Heaney, Seamus

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

..., known them all—
The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,
And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,
When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,
Then how should I begin
To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?
And how should I presume?

And I have known the arms already, known them all—
Arms that are braceleted and white and bare
(But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!)
Is it perfume from a dress
That makes me so digress?
Arms that lie along a ...Read more of this...
by Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)

The old pond

...ond--
frantic frog jumps in--
gigantic sound.


Translated by Bernard Lionel Einbond 



MAFIA HIT MAN POET: NOTE FOUND PINNED TO LAPEL 
OF DROWNED VICTIM'S DOUBLE-BREASTED SUIT!!! 

'Dere wasa dis frogg
Gone jumpa offa da logg
Now he inna bogg.'

 -- Anonymous


Translated by George M. Young, Jr.



Old pond 
leap -- splash 
a frog. 


Translated by Lucien Stryck



The old pond,
A frog jumps in:.
Plop! 


Translated by Allan Watts



The old pond, yes, and
A frog is jumping...Read more of this...
by Basho, Matsuo

The Three Voices

...od
Like maid enchanted in a wood,
Frowning as darkly as she could. 

With huge umbrella, lank and brown,
Unerringly she pinned it down,
Right through the centre of the crown. 

Then, with an aspect cold and grim,
Regardless of its battered rim,
She took it up and gave it him. 

A while like one in dreams he stood,
Then faltered forth his gratitude
In words just short of being rude: 

For it had lost its shape and shine,
And it had cost him four-and-nine,
And he was going out ...Read more of this...
by Carroll, Lewis

White

...smartass?
The one I hide in my tongue's black boot.



Well, you can't call me a wrestler
If my own dead weight has me pinned down.

Well, you can't call me a cook
If the pot's got me under its cover.

Well, you can't call me a king
if the flies hang their hats in my mouth.

Well, you can't call me smart,
When the rain's falling my cup's in the cupboard.

Nor can you call me a saint,
If I didn't err, there wouldn't be these smudges.



One has to manage as best as one can.
T...Read more of this...
by Simic, Charles

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