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Famous Purr Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Scannell, Vernon
...ry cupboard under the stair 
Where it's been for years, and though it died 
It's grown in that cupboard and its hot low purr 
Grows slowly louder year by year: 
There'll not be a corner for the boy to hide 
When the cupboard swells and all sides split 
And the huge black cat pads out of it....Read more of this...



by Lowell, Amy
...g cur.
And the wail of the violins stirred
My brute anger with visions of her.
As I throttled his windpipe, the purr
Of his breath with the waltz became blurred.
I have ridden ten miles through the dark,
With that music, an infernal din,
Pounding rhythmic inside me. Just Hark!
One! Two! Three! And my fingers 
sink in
To his flesh when the violins, thin
And straining with passion, grow stark.
One! Two! Three! Oh, the horror 
of sound!
While she danced I was...Read more of this...

by Plath, Sylvia
...The smile of iceboxes annihilates me.
Such blue currents in the veins of my loved one!
I hear her great heart purr.

From her lips ampersands and percent signs
Exit like kisses.
It is Monday in her mind: morals

Launder and present themselves.
What am I to make of these contradictions?
I wear white cuffs, I bow.

Is this love then, this red material
Issuing from the steele needle that flies so blindingly?
It will make little dresses and coats,

It wi...Read more of this...

by Sandburg, Carl
...OU will come one day in a waver of love,
Tender as dew, impetuous as rain,
The tan of the sun will be on your skin,
The purr of the breeze in your murmuring speech,
You will pose with a hill-flower grace.

You will come, with your slim, expressive arms,
A poise of the head no sculptor has caught
And nuances spoken with shoulder and neck,
Your face in a pass-and-repass of moods
As many as skies in delicate change
Of cloud and blue and flimmering sun.

Yet,
You may not ...Read more of this...

by Berryman, John
...condtioner.
The lemonade-machine made lemonade.
I made love, lolled,
my roundel lowered. I ache less. I purr.
—Mr Bones, you too advancer with your song,
muching of which are wrong....Read more of this...



by Service, Robert William
...g to caress,
Until a resting place it found
Of joy and thankfulness;
'Twas Minette, our Angora cat,
With deep contented purr,
Relaxed in rapture on a mat,
Three kittens nuzzling her.

With tenderness the sunbeam kissed
her fur of silver-grey;
Her eyes held an ecstatic mist,
In boundless bliss she lay;
The sunny radiance seemed to hold
Her longer than it should,
As if it sought to shine in gold
Such mystic motherhood.

The darling kittens grew and grew;
Then one day Mo...Read more of this...

by Levine, Philip
...k. Things aren't like that.
They stay, their little particular lusters
Warmed by much handling. They almost purr.
When the soles of my feet grow cold,
The blue eye of my tortoise will comfort me.
Let me have my copper cooking pots, let my rouge pots
Bloom about me like night flowers, with a good smell.
They will roll me up in bandages, they will store my heart
Under my feet in a neat parcel.
I shall hardly know myself. It will be dark,
And the ...Read more of this...

by Service, Robert William
...

With wistful hope it gazed at him
And arched a spine of fur;
It licked his hand so grimy grim
And feebly tried to purr.
And then it climbed upon his chest,
And to his drunken glee,
Upon his shoulder came to rest,
Contented as could be.

The other fellow with a jeer
Made feint to dash it down,
but as it shrank with sudden fear
I saw the first one frown;
And then I heard him coarsely cry:
"Have care for what you do;
Just harm a hair of it and I
Will twist my knife...Read more of this...

by St Vincent Millay, Edna
...r me tell how in their throats they lie
Who shout you mighty: thick about my hair,
Day in, day out, your ominous arrows purr,
Who still am free, unto no querulous care
A fool, and in no temple worshiper!
I, that have bared me to your quiver's fire, 
Lifted my face into its puny rain,
Do wreathe you Impotent to Evoke Desire
As you are Powerless to Elicit Pain!
(Now will the god, for blasphemy so brave,
Punish me, surely, with the shaft I crave!)...Read more of this...

by Robinson, Mary Darby
...
The Doves of VENUS not so fair,
Nor JUNO'S Peacocks half so grand
As MISTRESS GURTON'S Tabby rare,
The proudest of the purring band;
So dignified in all her paces--
She seem'd, a pupil of the Graces!
There never was a finer creature
In all the varying whims of Nature!

All liked Grimalkin, passing well!
Save MISTRESS GURTON, and, 'tis said,
She oft with furious ire would swell,
When, through neglect or hunger keen,
Puss, with a pilfer'd scrap, was seen,
Swearing beneath the ...Read more of this...

by Service, Robert William
...,
With temper tart and tounge to blame,
 Moustache and triple chin.
And though I have no proper home
 Contentedly I purr,
And from my whiskers wipe the foam,
 --Glad I did not wed her.

Yet it's so funny sitting here
 To stare into her face;
And as I raise my mug of beer
 I dream of our disgrace.
And so I come and come each day
 To more and more enjoy
The joke--that fifty years away
 I was her honey boy....Read more of this...

by Kipling, Rudyard
...e.
I told the Turk he was a gentlman.
I told the Russian that his Tartar veins
Bled pure Parisian ichor; and he purred.
The Congress doesn't purr. I think it swears.
You're young -- you'll swear to ere you've reached the end.
The End! God help you, if there be a God.
(There must be one to startle Gl-dst-ne's soul
In that new land where all the wires are cut.
And Cr-ss snores anthems on the asphodel.)
God help you! And I'd help you if I coul...Read more of this...

by Service, Robert William
...uess it's just because of that
A cat evokes my tenderness,
And takes so kindly my caress.
For with a rich, resonant purr
It sleeks an arch or ardent fur
So vibrantly against my shin;
And as I tickle tilted chin
And rub the roots of velvet ears
Its tail in undulation rears.
Then tremoring with all its might,
In blissful sensuous delight,
It looks aloft with lambent eyes,
Mystic, Egyptianly wise,
And O so eloquently tries
In every fibre to express
Consummate trust and f...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...t in a vast surrounding;) 
The attentive, quiet children—the loud, proud, restive base of the streets; 
The low, hoarse purr of the whirling stone—the light-press’d blade, 
Diffusing, dropping, sideways-darting, in tiny showers of gold,
Sparkles from the wheel....Read more of this...

by Lowell, Amy
...her quaint, it
Might take with the Kings. Shall I try?" "Oh, 
Sir,
You distress me, you do." "Poor old Martin's purr!
But he hasn't a scratch in him, I know.
Now let us get back to the powders and patches.
Foolish man,
The Kings are here now. We must hit on a plan
To change all these titles as fast as we can.
`Bouquet Imperatrice'. Tut! Tut! Give 
me some ink --
`Bouquet de la Reine', what do you think?
Not the same receipt?
Now, Martin, put away y...Read more of this...

by Wordsworth, William
...sp;Away she hies to Susan Gale:  And Johnny's in a merry tune,  The owlets hoot, the owlets purr,  And Johnny's lips they burr, burr, burr,  And on he goes beneath the moon.   His steed and he right well agree,  For of this pony there's a rumour,  That should he lose his eyes and ears,  And should he live a thousand years,  He never will be out ...Read more of this...

by Yeats, William Butler
...You waves, though you dance by my feet like children at play,
Though you glow and you glance, though you purr and you dart;
In the Junes that were warmer than these are, the waves were more gay,
When I was a boy with never a crack in my heart.

The herring are not in the tides as they were of old;
My sorrow! for many a creak gave the creel in the-cart
That carried the take to Sligo town to be sold,
When I was a boy with never a crack in my heart.

And a...Read more of this...

by Lindsay, Vachel
...cat,
I saw a proud, mysterious cat
Too proud to catch a mouse or rat—
Mew, mew, mew.

But catnip she would eat, and purr,
But catnip she would eat, and purr.
And goldfish she did much prefer—
Mew, mew, mew.

I saw a cat—'twas but a dream,
I saw a cat—'twas but a dream
Who scorned the slave that brought her cream—
Mew, mew, mew.

Unless the slave were dressed in style,
Unless the slave were dressed in style
And knelt before her all the while—
Mew, mew, mew....Read more of this...

by Service, Robert William
...d and gold of the fire-glow, net afloat in the stream;
Scent of the pines and silence, little "pal" pipe alight,
Body a-purr with pleasure, sleep untroubled of dream:
Banquet of paystreak bacon! moment of joy divine,
When the bannock is hot and gluey, and the teapot's nearing the boil!
Never was wolf so hungry, stomach cleaving to spine. . . .
Ha! there's my servant calling, says that dinner will spoil.

What do I want with dinner? Can I eat any more?
Can ...Read more of this...

by Nash, Ogden
...to her
Like a scarlet rag to a Longhorn,
Or a suitcase to a porter;
The day he sat on the hornet
I distinctly heard her purr.

Well, how can you blame the little dog,
Who was once the household darling?
He romps like a young Adonis,
She droops like an old mustache;
No wonder she steals his corner,
No wonder she comes out snarling,
No wonder she calls him Cochon
And even Espèce de vache.

Yet once I wanted a sandwich,
Either caviar or cucumber,
When the sun had not yet...Read more of this...

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