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Famous Props Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Horace,
...with Commons
          Seized hatchet, bar, and crow,
     And smote upon the planks above,
          And loosed the props below.

               XXXV

     Meanwhile the Tuscan army,
          Right glorious to behold,
     Come flashing back the noonday light,
     Rank behind rank, like surges bright
          Of a broad sea of gold.
     Four hundred trumpets sounded
          A peal of warlike glee,
     As that great host, with measured tread,
     And sp...Read more of this...



by Tebb, Barry
...arded up

Half with chimneys smoking.





20



Grass is growing

Between the cobbles

Clotheslines are empty

The props have fallen

Our mams raised up

Like a draw-bridge

For the coal-carts

To pass under.





21



Beneath the City Station

Under the dark arches

The river rushes

Through the catacombs

Of vaulted stone.



By the new museum

The weir is cold and clear

Howarths’ timber yard’s

Sawdust smells

Hang in the trembling

Currents of air.



O...Read more of this...

by Service, Robert William
...need,
Disdainful of the spoken word, exultant in the deed;
Unconscious heroes of the waste, proud players of the game,
Props of the power behind the throne, upholders of the name:
For thus the Great White Chief hath said, "In all my lands be peace",
And to maintain his word he gave his West the Scarlet Police.

Livid-lipped was the valley, still as the grave of God;
 Misty shadows of mountain thinned into mists of cloud;
Corpselike and stark was the land, with a quiet th...Read more of this...

by Clare, John
...ound
Lone in the nooks of foddering ground
Each skeleton of lingering stack
By winters tempests beaten black
Nodds upon props or bolt upright
Stands swarthy in the summer light
And oer the green grass seems to lower
Like stump of old time wasted tower
All that in winter lookd for hay
Spread from their batterd haunts away
To pick the grass or lye at lare
Beneath the mild hedge shadows there
Sweet month that gives a welcome call
To toil and nature and to all
Yet one day mid thy...Read more of this...

by Robinson, Mary Darby
...nd bliss to birth 
Amid the sportive bow'rs of mirth: 
LAURA DIVINE! I call thee now 
To yonder promontory's brow 
That props the skies; while at its feet 
With fruitless ire the billows beat, 
There let my fainting sense behold 
Those sapphire orbs their heaven unfold, 
While from thy lips vermilion bow 
Sweet melody her shafts shall throw­ 
Yet do not, do not yield delight, 
Nor with dear visions bless my sight. 

Grant me despair, thou mightiest Muse! 
O'er the vast sc...Read more of this...



by Arnold, Matthew
...ing forms,
Sweep through my soul!
Thou standest, smiling
Down on me! thy right arm,
Lean'd up against the column there,
Props thy soft cheek;
Thy left holds, hanging loosely,
The deep cup, ivy-cinctured,
I held but now.
Is it, then, evening
So soon? I see, the night-dews,
Cluster'd in thick beads, dim
The agate brooch-stones
On thy white shoulder;
The cool night-wind, too,
Blows through the portico,
Stirs thy hair, Goddess,
Waves thy white robe!


Circe.

Whence art t...Read more of this...

by Paterson, Andrew Barton
...the kind of thing you must take on trust for its outlines aren't defined, 
A thing that whirls like a spinning top and props like a three legged stool, 
And you find its a long-legged Queensland boy convincing an Army mule. 
And the rider sticks to the hybrid's hide like paper sticks to a wall, 
For a "magnoon" Waler is next to ride with every chance of a fall, 
It's a rough-house game and a thankless game, and it isn't a game for a fool, 
For an army's fate and a nation...Read more of this...

by Owen, Wilfred
...xcept yer feeling mushy."

One of us got the knock-out, blown to chops.
T'other was hurt, like, losin' both 'is props.
An' one, to use the word of 'ypocrites,
'Ad the misfortoon to be took by Fritz.
Now me, I wasn't scratched, praise God Almighty
(Though next time please I'll thank 'im for a blighty),
But poor young Jim, 'e's livin' an' 'e's not;
'E reckoned 'e'd five chances, an' 'e's 'ad;
'E's wounded, killed, and pris'ner, all the lot --
The ruddy lot all r...Read more of this...

by Browning, Robert
...p with into light and joy;
``Not a power of life but we employ
``To satisfy thy nature's want;
``Art thou the tree that props the plant,
``Or the climbing plant that seeks the tree---
``Canst thou help us, must we help thee?
``If any two creatures grew into one,
``They would do more than the world has done.
``Though each apart were never so weak,
``Ye vainly through the world should seek
``For the knowledge and the might
``Which in such union grew their right:
``So, to ap...Read more of this...

by Sassoon, Siegfried
...boughs netted the gleam of stars. 
I stumbled in; the dusty floors were strewn 
With cumbering piles of planks and props and beams; 
Tall windows gapped the walls; the place was free 
To every searching gust and jousting gale;
But now they slept; I was afraid to speak, 
And heavily the shadows crowded in. 

I called him, once; then listened: nothing moved: 
Only my thumping heart beat out the time. 
Whispering his name, I groped from room to room. 

Quite emp...Read more of this...

by Dickinson, Emily
...The Props assist the House
Until the House is built
And then the Props withdraw
And adequate, erect,
The House support itself
And cease to recollect
The Auger and the Carpenter --
Just such a retrospect
Hath the perfected Life --
A past of Plank and Nail
And slowness -- then the Scaffolds drop
Affirming it a Soul....Read more of this...

by Tebb, Barry
...nd trudge

From room to room. The couch Emily died on, so shabby and so faded,

Patrick’s hat and sticks like stage props, Mrs. Gaskell’s escritoire

So thoroughly bourgeois, Charlotte’s crinoline evoking ‘Ooh’ and ‘Aah’.



I sat outside the tourist shop, watching the families pass,

Still reeling from the news of our son’s loss,

His life-in-death and death-in-life.



The crowds gone, the shops closed

I browsed over rock and lichen,

O sleeper in the earth...Read more of this...

by Rilke, Rainer Maria
...eir opposite demeanors,
as though one saw different ages
passing through two identical rooms.

Each thinks that she props up the other,
while resting wearily on her support;
and they can't make use of one another,
for they cause blood to rest on blood,

when as in the former times they softly touch
and try, along the tree-lined walks,
to feel themselves conducted and to lead;
ah, the ways they go are not the same....Read more of this...

by Chesterton, G K
...n,
And rub his horrid hands and ask
What article was next
Though MORTIS IN ARTICULO
Should be her proper text.

His props are not his children,
But pert lads underpaid,
Who call out "Cash!" and bang about
To work his wicked trade;
He keeps a lady in a cage
Most cruelly all day,
And makes her count and calls her "Miss"
Until she fades away.

The righteous minds of innkeepers
Induce them now and then
To crack a bottle with a friend
Or treat unmoneyed men,
But who hath s...Read more of this...

by Arnold, Matthew
...Sweep through my soul! 

7 Thou standest, smiling
8 Down on me! thy right arm,
9 Lean'd up against the column there,
10 Props thy soft cheek;
11 Thy left holds, hanging loosely,
12 The deep cup, ivy-cinctured,
13 I held but now. 

14 Is it, then, evening 
15 So soon? I see, the night-dews, 
16 Cluster'd in thick beads, dim 
17 The agate brooch-stones 
18 On thy white shoulder; 
19 The cool night-wind, too, 
20 Blows through the portico, 
21 Stirs thy hair, Goddess, 
22 Wa...Read more of this...

by Dickinson, Emily
...h
We pause before a further plunge
To take Momentum --
As the Fringe

Upon a former Garment shows
The Garment cast,
Our Props disclose
So scant, so eminently small
Of Might to help, so pitiful
To sink, if We had labored, fond
The diligence were not more blind

How scant, by everlasting Light
The Discs that satisfied Our Sight --
How dimmer than a Saturn's Bar
The Things esteemed, for Things that are!...Read more of this...

Dont forget to view our wonderful member Props poems.


Book: Reflection on the Important Things