Famous Punch Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Punch poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous punch poems. These examples illustrate what a famous punch poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Oliver Wendell Holmes
THERE was a giant in time of old,
A mighty one was he;
He had a wife, but she was a scold,
So he kept her shut in his mammoth fold;
And he had children three.
It happened to be an election day,
And the giants were choosing a king;
The people were not democrats then,
They did not talk of the rights...Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
The man above was a murderer, the man below was a thief;
And I lay there in the bunk between, ailing beyond belief;
A weary armful of skin and bone, wasted with pain and grief.
My feet were froze, and the lifeless toes were purple and green and gray;
The little flesh that clung to my bones, you could punch it in holes...Read more of this...
by
Victor Hugo
("Enfants, on vous dira plus tard.")
{January, 1871.}
In later years, they'll tell you grandpapa
Adored his little darlings; for them did
His utmost just to pleasure them and mar
No moments with a frown or growl amid
Their rosy rompings; that he loved them so
(Though men have called him...Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
His face was like a lobster red,
His legs were white as mayonnaise:
"I've had a jolly lunch," he said,
That Englishman of pleasant ways.
"Thy do us well at our hotel:
In England food is dull these days."
"We had a big langouste for lunch.
I almost ate the whole of it.
And now I'll smoke and read my Punch,
And maybe siesta a bit;
And then I'll...Read more of this...
by
Edgar Lee Masters
The bank broke and I lost my savings.
I was sick of the tiresome game in Spoon River
And I made up my mind to run away
And leave my place in life and my family;
But just as the midnight train pulled in,
Quick off the steps jumped Cully Green
And Martin Vise, and began to fight
To settle their ancient rivalry,
Striking each other with...Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
Addict of Punch and Judy shows
I was when I was small;
My kiddy laughter, I suppose,
Rang louder than them all.
The Judge with banter I would bait,
The Copper was a wretch;
But oh how I would hiss my hate
For grim Jack Ketch.
Although a grandsire grey I still
Love Punch and Judy shows,
And with my toddlers help to fill
...Read more of this...
by
Muhammad Ali
This is the legend of Cassius Clay,
The most beautiful fighter in the world today.
He talks a great deal, and brags indeed-y,
Of a muscular punch that's incredibly speed-y.
The fistic world was dull and weary,
but with a champ like Liston, things had to be dreary.
Then someone with color and someone with dash,
brought fight fans are runnin' with Cash.
This brash young boxer...Read more of this...
by
Oliver Wendell Holmes
I love all sights of earth and skies,
From flowers that glow to stars that shine;
The comet and the penny show,
All curious things, above, below,
Hold each in turn my wandering eyes:
I claim the Christian Pagan's line,
Humani nihil, -- even so, --
And is not human life divine?
When soft the western breezes blow,
And...Read more of this...
by
Nazim Hikmet
Taut, thick fingers punch
the teeth of my typewriter.
Three words are down on paper
in capitals:
SPRING
SPRING
SPRING...
And me -- poet, proofreader,
the man who's forced to read
two thousand bad lines
every day
for two liras--
why,
since spring
has come, am I
still sitting here
like a ragged
black chair?
My head puts on its cap by itself,
I fly out...Read more of this...
by
Rg Gregory
professor piebald
(the oldest man in the home) was meek
at the same time ribald
he clothed his matter (so to speak)
in latin and (was it) greek
it caused no great offence
to nobody did it make sense
to make a rude joke
in languages nobody spoke
once he'd changed the word agenda
at a home's committee meeting to pudenda
this sort of thing was tolerated by the other
inmates...Read more of this...
by
Charles Bukowski
sometimes you climb out of bed in the morning and you think,
I'm not going to make it, but you laugh inside
remembering all the times you've felt that way, and
you walk to the bathroom, do your toilet, see that face
in the mirror, oh my oh my oh my, but you comb your hair anyway,
get into...Read more of this...
by
Linda Pastan
I have banked the fires
of my body
into a small but steady blaze
here in the kitchen
where the dough has a life of its own,
breathing under its damp cloth
like a sleeping child;
where the real child plays under the table,
pretending the tablecloth is a tent,
practicing departures; where a dim
brown bird dazzled by light
has flown into the windowpane
and lies stunned on the pavement--
it...Read more of this...
by
Muhammad Ali
Clay comes out to meet Liston
and Liston starts to retreat,
if Liston goes back an inch farther
he'll end up in a ringside seat.
Clay swings with his left,
Clay swings with his right,
Look at young Cassius
carry the fight
Liston keeps backing, but there's not enough room,
It's a matter of time till Clay lowers the boom....Read more of this...
by
Andrew Barton Paterson
Weary and listless, sad and slow,
Without any conversation,
Was a man that worked on The Overflow,
The butt of the shed and the station.
The shearers christened him Noisy Ned,
With an alias "Silent Waters",
But never a needless word he said
In the hut or the shearers' quarters.
Which caused annoyance to Big Barcoo,
The shed's unquestioned...Read more of this...
by
Tony Hoagland
They have little tractors in their blood
and all day the tractors climb up and down
inside their arms and legs, their
collarbones and heads.
That is why they yell and scream and slam the barbells
down into their clanking slots,
making the metal ring like sledgehammers on iron,
like dungeon prisoners rattling their chains.
That is why they shriek their tires at the stopsign,
why they turn...Read more of this...
by
Robert Southey
(Time, Noon.)
HUMPHREY:
See'st thou not William that the scorching Sun
By this time half his daily race has run?
The savage thrusts his light canoe to shore
And hurries homeward with his fishy store.
Suppose we leave awhile this stubborn soil
To eat our dinner and to rest from toil!
WILLIAM:
Agreed. Yon tree whose purple gum bestows
A ready medicine for the sick-man's woes,
Forms with its shadowy...Read more of this...
by
Anne Sexton
It is snowing and death bugs me
as stubborn as insomnia.
The fierce bubbles of chalk,
the little white lesions
settle on the street outside.
It is snowing and the ninety
year old woman who was combing
out her long white wraith hair
is gone, embalmed even now,
even tonight her arms are smooth
muskets at her side and nothing
issues from her but her last word - "Oh." Surprised...Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
When I was young I was too proud
To wheel my daughter in her pram.
"It's infra dig," I said aloud,--
Bot now I'm old, behold I am
Perambulating up and down
Grand-daughter through the town.
And when I come into the Square,
Beside the fountain I will stop;
And as to rest I linger there,
The dames will say: "How do, Grand-pop!
Lucindy...Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
It's easy to fight when everything's right,
And you're mad with the thrill and the glory;
It's easy to cheer when victory's near,
And wallow in fields that are gory.
It's a different song when everything's wrong,
When you're feeling infernally mortal;
When it's ten against one, and hope there is none,
Buck up, little soldier, and chortle:
Carry on! Carry on!
There isn't...Read more of this...
by
Edward Lear
T was a tumbler fullOf Punch all hot and good; Papa he drank it up, when inThe middle of a wood. ...Read more of this...
by
William Carlos (WCW) Williams
Tracks of rain and light linger in
the spongy greens of a nature whose
flickering mountain—bulging nearer,
ebbing back into the sun
hollowing itself away to hold a lake,—
or brown stream rising and falling at the roadside, turning about,
churning itself white, drawing
green in over it,—plunging glassy funnels
fall—
And—the other world—
the windshield a blunt barrier:
Talk...Read more of this...
by
Friedrich von Schiller
On the mountain's breezy summit,
Where the southern sunbeams shine,
Aided by their warming vigor,
Nature yields the golden wine.
How the wondrous mother formeth,
None have ever read aright;
Hid forever is her working,
And inscrutable her might.
Sparkling as a son of Phoebus,
As the fiery source of light,
From the vat it bubbling springeth,
Purple, and as crystal bright;
And rejoiceth all the senses,
And in every sorrowing breast
Poureth...Read more of this...
by
Edwin Arlington Robinson
And there we were together again—
Together again, we three:
Morgan, Fingal, fiddle, and all,
They had come for the night with me.
The spirit of joy was in Morgan’s wrist,
There were songs in Fingal’s throat;
And secure outside, for the spray to drench,
Was a tossed and empty boat.
And there were the pipes, and there was the...Read more of this...
by
Friedrich von Schiller
Four elements, joined in
Harmonious strife,
Shadow the world forth,
And typify life.
Into the goblet
The lemon's juice pour;
Acid is ever
Life's innermost core.
Now, with the sugar's
All-softening juice,
The strength of the acid
So burning reduce.
The bright sparkling water
Now pour in the bowl;
Water all-gently
Encircles the whole.
Let drops of the spirit
To join them now flow;
Life to the living
Naught else can bestow.
Drain it off quickly
Before it exhales;
Save when...Read more of this...
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