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Famous Porters Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry
...digestive surfeit water.
Full gorged at another time
With a vast meal of slime
Which your devouring **** had drawn
From porters' backs and footmen's brawn,
I was content to serve you up
My ballock-full for your grace cup,
Nor ever thought it an abuse
While you had pleasure for excuse -
You that could make my heart away
For noise and color, and betray
The secrets of my tender hours
To such knight-errant paramours,
When, leaning on your faithless breast,
Wrapped in security and...Read more of this...
by Wilmot, John



...acred stream
The sliding barges vanish like a dream,
The seaman's shrilling pipe not enters here,
Nor the rude cries of porters on the pier.
And if so rare the house, how rarer far
The welcome and the weal that therein are!
So free the access, the doors so widely thrown,
You half imagine all to be your own....Read more of this...
by Stevenson, Robert Louis
...t behind . . . 
So near the ending, he forgets the tale. 

Were he to lift his eyelids now, he might 
Behold his maiden porters, brown and bare. 
But even here he has no appetite. 
It is enough to know that they are there. 

Enough that now a honeyed music swells, 
The gentle, mossed declivities begin, 
And the whole air is full of flower-smells. 
Failure, the longed-for valley, takes him in....Read more of this...
by Wilbur, Richard
...The travellers stand in pools of wintry light 
Offering themselves to morn¡¯s long slanting arrows.
The train¡¯s due; porters trundle laden barrows.
The train steams in volleying resplendent clouds 5
Of sun-blown vapour. Hither and about 
Scared people hurry storming the doors in crowds.
The officials seem to waken with a shout 
Resolved to hoist and plunder; some to the vans
Leap; others rumble the milk in gleaming cans. 10
Boys indolent-eyed from baskets leaning ba...Read more of this...
by Sassoon, Siegfried
...k: 
disaccordant hands straining out from 
a center: inevitable postures infinitely 
repeated— 
 two—twofour—twoeight! 
Porters in red hats run on narrow platforms. 
This way ma'am! 
 —important not to take 
the wrong train! 
 Lights from the concrete 
ceiling hang crooked but— 
 Poised horizontal 
on glittering parallels the dingy cylinders 
packed with a warm glow—inviting entry— 
pull against the hour. But brakes can 
hold a fixed posture till— 
 The whistle! 

Not twoeigh...Read more of this...
by Williams, William Carlos (WCW)



...here is Skimble has he gone to hunt the thimble?
We must find him or the train can't start."
All the guards and all the porters and the stationmaster's daughters
They are searching high and low,
Saying "Skimble where is Skimble for unless he's very nimble
Then the Night Mail just can't go."
At 11.42 then the signal's nearly due
And the passengers are frantic to a man—
Then Skimble will appear and he'll saunter to the rear:
He's been busy in the luggage van!

He gives one flas...Read more of this...
by Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)
...s both high and trong 
Are made of precious Jasper stone, 
The Gates of Pearl, both rich and clear, 
And Angels are for Porters there. 
The Streets thereof transparent gold 
Such as no Eye did e're behold. 
A Crystal River there doth run 
Which doth proceed from the Lamb's Throne. 
Of Life, there are the waters sure 
Which shall remain forever pure. 
Nor Sun nor Moon they have no need 
For glory doth from God proceed. 
No Candle there, nor yet Torch light, 
For there shall be...Read more of this...
by Bradstreet, Anne
...but he'd never show his tail.

Can you see that hirsute hero, standing there in tragic glory?
Can you hear the Pullman porters shrieking horror to the sky?
No, you can't; because my story has no end so grim and gory,
For Shamus did not perish and his master did not die.
At this very present moment Casey swaggers hale and hearty,
And Shamus strolls beside him with a bright bell at his throat;
While recent Missis Rooney is the gayest of the party,
For now she's Missis Casey an...Read more of this...
by Service, Robert William
...s up for miles, but see,
All round it close-ribbed streets rise and fall
Like a great sigh out of the last century.
The porters are scruffy; what keep drawing up
At the entrance are not taxis; and in the hall
As well as creepers hangs a frightening smell.

There are paperbacks, and tea at so much a cup,
Like an airport lounge, but those who tamely sit
On rows of steel chairs turning the ripped mags
Haven't come far. More like a local bus.
These outdoor clothes and half-filled...Read more of this...
by Larkin, Philip
...alls both high and trong
Are made of precious Jasper stone,
The Gates of Pearl, both rich and clear,
And Angels are for Porters there.
The Streets thereof transparent gold
Such as no Eye did e're behold.
A Crystal River there doth run
Which doth proceed from the Lamb's Throne.
Of Life, there are the waters sure
Which shall remain forever pure.
Nor Sun nor Moon they have no need
For glory doth from God proceed.
No Candle there, nor yet Torch light,
For there shall be no darkso...Read more of this...
by Bradstreet, Anne
...d turn these mortals into trees, 
That walk in Fleet Street or the Strand. 

So, when I'm passing Charing Cross, 
Where porters work both night and day, 
I ofttimes hear sweet Malpas Brook, 
That flows thrice fifty miles away. 
And when I'm passing near St Paul's 
I see beyond the dome and crowd, 
Twm Barlum, that green pap in Gwent, 
With its dark nipple in a cloud....Read more of this...
by Davies, William Henry
...ed the train with faces grimly gay.

Their breasts were stuck all white with wreath and spray
As men's are, dead.

Dull porters watched them, and a casual tramp
Stood staring hard,
Sorry to miss them from the upland camp.
Then, unmoved, signals nodded, and a lamp
Winked to the guard.

So secretly, like wrongs hushed-up, they went.
They were not ours:
We never heard to which front these were sent.

Nor there if they yet mock what women meant
Who gave them flowers.

Shall they ...Read more of this...
by Owen, Wilfred
...ee.

"This age is not entirely bad."
It's bad enough, God knows, but you
Should know Elizabethans had
Sweeneys and Mrs. Porters too.
The past goes down and disappears,
The present stumbles home to bed,
The future stretches out in years
That no one knows, and you'll be dead....Read more of this...
by Kees, Weldon
...hed the railway terminus: 

When, for the tumult of the street,
Is heard the engine's stifled beat,
The velvet tread of porters' feet. 

With glance that ever sought the ground,
She moved her lips without a sound,
And every now and then she frowned. 

He gazed upon the sleeping sea,
And joyed in its tranquillity,
And in that silence dead, but she 

To muse a little space did seem,
Then, like the echo of a dream,
Harked back upon her threadbare theme. 

Still an attentive ear ...Read more of this...
by Carroll, Lewis
...tling 
Through the green country-side; 
A girl within it battling 
With her tears and pride. 
The Southampton landing, 
Porters, neat and quick, 
And a young man standing, 
Leaning on his stick. 
'Oh, John, John, you shouldn't 
Have come this long way. . . 
'Did you really think I wouldn't 
Be here to make you stay?'
I can't remember whether
There was much stress and strain,
But presently, together,
We were travelling back again.

XXI 
The English love their country with a lo...Read more of this...
by Miller, Alice Duer
...n destroys
The interest of what's happening in the shade,
And down the long cool platforms whoops and skirls
I took for porters larking with the mails,
And went on reading. Once we started, though,
We passed them, grinning and pomaded, girls
In parodies of fashion, heels and veils,
All posed irresolutely, watching us go,

As if out on the end of an event
 Waving goodbye
To something that survived it. Struck, I leant
More promptly out next time, more curiously,
And saw it all ...Read more of this...
by Larkin, Philip

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Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry