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Famous Plucking Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry
...Angels, in the early morning
May be seen the Dews among,
Stooping -- plucking -- smiling -- flying --
Do the Buds to them belong?

Angels, when the sun is hottest
May be seen the sands among,
Stooping -- plucking -- sighing -- flying --
Parched the flowers they bear along....Read more of this...
by Dickinson, Emily



...ss.
_Eadem semper!_
Go, let me care for it greatly or slightly!
If June mend her bower now, your hand left unsightly
By plucking the roses,---my June will do rightly. 

III.

And after, for pastime,
If June be refulgent
With flowers in completeness,
All petals, no prickles,
Delicious as trickles
Of wine poured at mass-time,---
And choose One indulgent
To redness and sweetness:
Or if, with experience of man and of spider,
June use my June-lightning, the strong insect-ridder,
A...Read more of this...
by Browning, Robert
...swinked hedger at his supper sat.
I saw them under a green mantling vine,
That crawls along the side of yon small hill,
Plucking ripe clusters from the tender shoots;
Their port was more than human, as they stood.
I took it for a faery vision
Of some gay creatures of the element,
That in the colours of the rainbow live,
And play i' the plighted clouds. I was awe-strook,
And, as I passed, I worshiped. If those you seek,
It were a journey like the path to Heaven
To help you fin...Read more of this...
by Milton, John
...rought your message. I divine 
(Through my deep art) the kindly mockery 
That played about your lips and in your eyes, 
Plucking the frail leaf, while you dreamed of home. 
Thanks for the silent greeting! I shall prize, 
Beyond June's rose, the scentless flower of Rome. 
All the Campagna spreads before my sight, 
The mouldering wall, the Caesars' tombs unwreathed, 
Rome and the Tiber, and the yellow light, 
Wherein the honey-colored blossom breathed. 
But most I thank it--ego...Read more of this...
by Lazarus, Emma
...fresh
-- Thus their heads wear this hilarious, hideous,
Awful falseness of set-smiling corpses.
-- Thus their hands are plucking at each other;
Picking at the rope-knouts of their scourging;
Snatching after us who smote them, brother,
Pawing us who dealt them war and madness....Read more of this...
by Owen, Wilfred



...'ve done it. See! He lies
Death a-staring from his eyes;
Glazing eyeballs, panting breath,
How it's horrible, is Death!
Plucking at his bloody lips
With his trembling finger-tips;
Choking in a dreadful way
As if he would something say
In that uncouth tongue of his. . . .
Oh, how horrible Death is!

How I wish that he would die!
So unnerved, unmanned am I.
See! His twitching face is white!
See! His bubbling blood is bright.
Why do I not shout with glee?
What strange spell is o...Read more of this...
by Service, Robert William
...to the school-house crumbling on the hill. 
The older folk are at their peaceful toil, 
Some pulling up the weeds, some plucking corn, 
And others breaking up the sun-baked soil. 
Float, faintly-scented breeze, at early morn 
Over the earth where mortals sow and reap-- 
Beneath its breast my mother lies asleep....Read more of this...
by McKay, Claude
...My nosegays are for Captives --
Dim -- expectant eyes,
Fingers denied the plucking,
Patient till Paradise.

To such, if they should whisper
Of morning and the moor,
They bear no other errand,
And I, no other prayer....Read more of this...
by Dickinson, Emily
...ng discontent,
And questioning me, importuning me to tell
Some slightest tidings of the light of day they know no more,
Plucking my sleeve, the eager shades were with me where I went.
I paused at every grievous door,
And harked a moment, holding up my hand,—and for a space
A hush was on them, while they watched my face;
And then they fell a-whispering as before;
So that I smiled at them and left them, seeing she was not there.
I sought her, too,
Among the upper gods, although...Read more of this...
by St. Vincent Millay, Edna
...e among the dim processions
Of the exquisite unblest,
Spirits of my shared transgressions,

Roam with young Persephone.
Plucking poppies for your slumber . . .
With the morrow, there shall be
One more wraith among your number....Read more of this...
by Parker, Dorothy
...t at noon -- no later -- Sweet --
Then -- the License closes --

Some such Spice -- express and pass --
Subject to Your Plucking --
As the Stars -- You knew last Night --
Foreigners -- This Morning --...Read more of this...
by Dickinson, Emily
...stored
muted rhythms let loud beats out
(scared hopes being reassured)

unfathomable scores its chances
(love’s fingers plucking the strings)
can’t you see – this lame heart dances
can’t you hear – this dried heart sings...Read more of this...
by Gregory, Rg
...t of the brave
Must turn weak and submit to the worm and the grave.

Daughters of earth, if I happen to meet
Your bloom-plucking fingers and sod-treading feet--
Oh ! turn not away with the shriek of disgust
From the thing you must mate with in darkness and dust.
Your eyes may be flashing in pleasure and pride,
'Neath the crown of a Queen or the wreath of a bride ;
Your lips may be fresh and your cheeks may be fair--
Let a few years pass over, and I shall be there.

Cities of ...Read more of this...
by Cook, Eliza
...the cortege reached the place of interment the priests commenced praying and burning incense, and musicians blowing and plucking their instruments, mourning the departed. Then the leaders came forward one after the other and recited their eulogies with fine choice of words. 

At last the multitude departed, leaving the dead resting in a most spacious and beautiful vault, expertly designed in stone and iron, and surrounded by the most expensively-entwined wreaths of flowers. 
...Read more of this...
by Gibran, Kahlil
...es,
 When they learned Thy Grace and Glory under Malta by the sea!"

Loud sang the souls of the jolly, jolly mariners,
 Plucking at their harps, and they plucked unhandily:
 "Our thumbs are rough and tarred,
 And the tune is something hard --
 May we lift a Deep-sea Chantey such as seamen use at sea?"

Then said the souls of the gentlemen-adventurers --
 Fettered wrist to bar all for red iniquity:
 "Ho, we revel in our chains
 O'er the sorrow that was Spain's;
 Heave or sink ...Read more of this...
by Kipling, Rudyard
...numerous, and then
the weak were caught by the strong and with a grinning aspect,
first coupled with & then devourd, by plucking off first one limb
and then another till the body was left a helpless trunk. this
after grinning & kissing it with seeming fondness they devourd
too; and here & there I saw one savourily picking the flesh off
of his own tail; as the stench terribly annoyd us both we went
into the mill, & I in my hand brought the skeleton of a body,
which in the mill...Read more of this...
by Blake, William
...the crowns amused, nor the cherubs' dove-winged races--
Holding hands forlornly the Children wandered beneath the Dome,
Plucking the splendid robes of the passers-by, and with pitiful! faces
Begging what Princes and Powers refused:--"Ah, please will you let us go home?"

Over the jewelled floor, nigh weeping, ran to them Mary the Mother,
Kneeled and caressed and made promise with kisses, and drew them along to the gateway--
Yea, the all-iron unbribeable Door which Peter must ...Read more of this...
by Kipling, Rudyard
...e's hailing a stranger!
 Meet her--she's busking to leave.
 Let her alone for a shrew to the bone,
 And the hussy comes plucking your sleeve!
 Largesse! Largesse, Fortune!
 I'll neither follow nor flee.
 If I don't run after Fortune,
 Fortune must run after me!...Read more of this...
by Kipling, Rudyard
...hey come, a great crowd,
 and I
 in the
 middle, 
Collecting, dispensing, singing in spring, there I wander with them, 
Plucking something for tokens—tossing toward whoever is near me; 
Here! lilac, with a branch of pine,
Here, out of my pocket, some moss which I pull’d off a live-oak in Florida, as it
 hung
 trailing
 down, 
Here, some pinks and laurel leaves, and a handful of sage, 
And here what I now draw from the water, wading in the pondside, 
(O here I last saw him tha...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt
...the sternest function
That just as we discern
The Excellence defies us --
Securest gathered then

The Fruit perverse to plucking,
But leaning to the Sight
With the ecstatic limit
Of unobtained Delight --...Read more of this...
by Dickinson, Emily

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Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry