Famous Pod Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Forbidden Fruit a flavor has

by Emily Dickinson
 Forbidden Fruit a flavor has
That lawful Orchards mocks --
How luscious lies within the Pod
The Pea that Duty locks --...Read more of this...

Bonehead Bill

by Robert William Service
 I wonder 'oo and wot 'e was,
That 'Un I got so slick.
I couldn't see 'is face because
The night was 'ideous thick.
I just made out among the black
A blinkin' wedge o' white;
Then biff! I guess I got 'im crack --
The man I killed last night.

I wonder if account o' me
Some wench will go unwed,
And 'eaps o' lives will never be,
Because...Read more of this...

Told

by Philip Levine
 The air lay soffly on the green fur 
of the almond, it was April 

and I said, I begin again 
but my hands burned in the damp earth 

the light ran between my fingers 
a black light like no other 

this was not home, the linnet 
settling on the oleander 

the green pod swelling 
the leaf slowly untwisting 

the...Read more of this...

Sprout

by James Lee Jobe
 It could be Valley Oak or Snap-bean,

Elderberry, or Cattail rising out of the creek;

all began the same, a spark of life inside,

the need to be coaxing their will into action.


Seed and pod, nut and bulb, cajoled awake, called 

by the warmth of the sun, moisture in the soil, 

swelling them, filling their hearts, beginning 

the slow push against the...Read more of this...

Transformations

by D. H. Lawrence
I

=The Town=

Oh you stiff shapes, swift transformation seethes
About you: only last night you were
A Sodom smouldering in the dense, soiled air;
To-day a thicket of sunshine with blue smoke-wreaths.

To-morrow swimming in evening's vague, dim vapour
Like a weeded city in shadow under the sea,
Beneath an ocean of shimmering light you will be:
Then a group of toadstools waiting the moon's white taper.

And when...Read more of this...

Mulhollands Contract

by Rudyard Kipling
 The fear was on the cattle, for the gale was on the sea,
An' the pens broke up on the lower deck an' let the creatures free --
An' the lights went out on the lower deck, an' no one near but me.

I had been singin' to them to keep 'em quiet there,
For the lower deck is the dangerousest, requirin' constant...Read more of this...

The Winters are so short

by Emily Dickinson
 The Winters are so short --
I'm hardly justified
In sending all the Birds away --
And moving into Pod --

Myself -- for scarcely settled --
The Phoebes have begun --
And then -- it's time to strike my Tent --
And open House -- again --

It's mostly, interruptions --
My Summer -- is despoiled --
Because there was a Winter -- once --
And al the Cattle...Read more of this...

Sleepyheads

by Carl Sandburg
 SLEEP is a maker of makers. Birds sleep. Feet cling to a perch. Look at the balance. Let the legs loosen, the backbone untwist, the head go heavy over, the whole works tumbles a done bird off the perch.

Fox cubs sleep. The pointed head curls round into hind legs and tail. It is a ball of red hair. It...Read more of this...

Theres been a Death in the Opposite House

by Emily Dickinson
 There's been a Death, in the Opposite House,
As lately as Today --
I know it, by the numb look
Such Houses have -- alway --

The Neighbors rustle in and out --
The Doctor -- drives away --
A Window opens like a Pod --
Abrupt -- mechanically --

Somebody flings a Mattress out --
The Children hurry by --
They wonder if it died -- on that...Read more of this...

Of a Woman Dead Young

by Dorothy Parker
 If she had been beautiful, even,
Or wiser than women about her,
Or had moved with a certain defiance;
If she had had sons at her sides,
And she with her hands on their shoulders,
Sons, to make troubled the Gods-
But where was there wonder in her?
What had she, better or eviler,
Whose days were a pattering of peas
From the pod to the bowl in...Read more of this...

Advice

by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
 I must do as you do? Your way I own
Is a very good way, and still,
There are sometimes two straight roads to a town,
One over, one under the hill.

You are treading the safe and the well-worn way,
That the prudent choose each time;
And you think me reckless and rash to-day
Because I prefer to climb.

Your path is the right one, and...Read more of this...

Lain in Nature -- so suffice us

by Emily Dickinson
 Lain in Nature -- so suffice us
The enchantless Pod
When we advertise existence
For the missing Seed --

Maddest Heart that God created
Cannot move a sod
Pasted by the simple summer
On the Longed for Dead...Read more of this...

Nadia

by Obi Nwakanma
Marrakech: the grey hairs of 
Atlas, streaks of the light of years, 
like truth accompanied by a bodyguard. 

It is not war: the fast tumble 
is no war, Nadia. 

Two pendants, each of hearts, and 
the silvery lock leashed unto time; 

Is no war: but the travesty of distance, 
And this moment, a full breast glistening 
out of the moon,...Read more of this...

How many Flowers fail in Wood

by Emily Dickinson
 How many Flowers fail in Wood --
Or perish from the Hill --
Without the privilege to know
That they are Beautiful --

How many cast a nameless Pod
Upon the nearest Breeze --
Unconscious of the Scarlet Freight --
It bear to Other Eyes --...Read more of this...

February: Thinking of Flowers

by Jane Kenyon
 Now wind torments the field,
turning the white surface back
on itself, back and back on itself,
like an animal licking a wound.

Nothing but white--the air, the light;
only one brown milkweed pod
bobbing in the gully, smallest
brown boat on the immense tide.

A single green sprouting thing
would restore me. . . .

Then think of the tall delphinium,
swaying, or the bee when it comes
to the...Read more of this...

Voices of the Air

by Katherine Mansfield
 But then there comes that moment rare
When, for no cause that I can find,
The little voices of the air
Sound above all the sea and wind.

The sea and wind do then obey
And sighing, sighing double notes
Of double basses, content to play
A droning chord for the little throats--

The little throats that sing and rise
Up into the light with lovely ease
And a...Read more of this...

Autumn Meditations (7)

by Du Fu
 Kunming lake water Han time achievement Martial emperor banners flags at eye in Weaver girl loom thread empty moon night Stone whale scale armour move autumn wind Wave toss wild rice seed sink cloud black Dew cold lotus pod fall powder red Pass fortified limit sky but bird road River lake fill earth one fisher old manRead more of this...

Petit The Poet

by Edgar Lee Masters
 Seeds in a dry pod, tick, tick, tick,
Tick, tick, tick, like mites in a quarrel--
Faint iambics that the full breeze wakens--
But the pine tree makes a symphony thereof.
Triolets, villanelles, rondels, rondeaus,
Ballades by the score with the same old thought:
The snows and the roses of yesterday are vanished;
And what is love but a rose that fades?
Life all around me here...Read more of this...

My first well Day -- since many ill --

by Emily Dickinson
 My first well Day -- since many ill --
I asked to go abroad,
And take the Sunshine in my hands,
And see the things in Pod --

A 'blossom just when I went in
To take my Chance with pain --
Uncertain if myself, or He,
Should prove the strongest One.

The Summer deepened, while we strove --
She put some flowers away --
And Redder cheeked Ones...Read more of this...

Revolution is the Pod

by Emily Dickinson
 Revolution is the Pod
Systems rattle from
When the Winds of Will are stirred
Excellent is Bloom

But except its Russet Base
Every Summer be
The Entomber of itself,
So of Liberty --

Left inactive on the Stalk
All its Purple fled
Revolution shakes it for
Test if it be dead....Read more of this...

Francesca

by Ezra Pound
 You came in out of the night
And there were flowers in your hand,
Now you will come out of a confusion of people,
Out of a turmoil of speech about you.

I who have seen you amid the primal things
Was angry when they spoke your name
IN ordinary places.
I would that the cool waves might flow over my mind,
And that the world should...Read more of this...

He gave away his Life --

by Emily Dickinson
 He gave away his Life --
To Us -- Gigantic Sum --
A trifle -- in his own esteem --
But magnified -- by Fame --

Until it burst the Hearts
That fancied they could hold --
When swift it slipped its limit --
And on the Heavens -- unrolled --

'Tis Ours -- to wince -- and weep --
And wonder -- and decay
By Blossoms gradual process...Read more of this...

The joy that has no stem no core

by Emily Dickinson
 The joy that has no stem no core,
Nor seed that we can sow,
Is edible to longing.
But ablative to show.

By fundamental palates
Those products are preferred
Impregnable to transit
And patented by pod....Read more of this...

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