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Famous Put Back Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Lindsay, Vachel
...ld Heaven devise for these
Who fill the rivers of the world with dead,
And turn their murderers loose on all the seas!

Put back the clock of time a thousand years,
And make our Europe, once the world's proud Queen,
A shrieking strumpet, furious fratricide,
Eater of entrails, wallowing obscene

In pits where millions foam and rave and bark, 
Mad dogs and idiots, thrice drunk with strife; 
While Science towers above;--a witch, red-winged:
Science we looked to for the light of ...Read more of this...



by Browning, Robert
...from your utterly naked boards 
Into some snug and well-appointed berth, 
Like mine for instance (try the cooler jug-- 
Put back the other, but don't jog the ice!) 
And mortified you mutter "Well and good; 
"He sits enjoying his sea-furniture; 
"'T is stout and proper, and there's store of it: 
"Though I've the better notion, all agree, 
"Of fitting rooms up. Hang the carpenter, 
"Neat ship-shape fixings and contrivances-- 
"I would have brought my Jerome, frame and all!"...Read more of this...

by Masters, Edgar Lee
...t passed from wooing
Like notes of music that run together, into winning,
In the inspired improvisation of love!
But to put back of us as a canticle ended
The rapt enchantment of the flesh,
In which our souls swooned, down, down,
Where time was not, nor space, nor ourselves --
Annihilated in love!
To leave these behind for a room with lamps:
And to stand with our Secret mocking itself,
And hiding itself amid flowers and mandolins,
Stared at by all between salad and coffee.Read more of this...

by Swinburne, Algernon Charles
...all men lose,
None leave out of care.

No man's might of sight
Knows that hour before;
No man's hand hath might
To put back that light
For one hour the more.

Not though all men call,
Kneeling with void hands,
Shall they see light fall
Till it come for all
Tribes of men and lands.

No desire brings fire
Down from heaven by prayer,
Though man's vain desire
Hang faith's wind-struck lyre
Out in tuneless air.

One hath breath and saith
What the tune shall be -
Ti...Read more of this...

by Service, Robert William
...ose had Ernie Pyle,
 So true and terse;
Springing so forthright from the heart
 With guileless art.

I wish I could put back a dram
 As Ernie could;
I wish that I could cuss and damn
 As soldier should;
And fain with every verse would I
 Ernie outvie.

Alas! I cannot claim his high
 Humanity;
Nor emulate his pungent, dry
 Profanity;
Nor share his love of common folk
 Who bear life's yolk.

Oh Ernie, who on earth I knew
 In war and wine,
Though frail of fame, in so...Read more of this...



by Levine, Philip
...s, vous avey conquis les coeurs. 

Zola, J'accuse


One was kicked in the stomach 
until he vomited, then 
 made to put back 
into his mouth what they had 
brought forth; when he tried to drown 
 in his own stew 
he was recovered. "You are 
worse than a ****** or Jew," 

the helmeted one said. "You 
are an intellectal. 
 I hate your brown 
skin; it makes me sick." The tall 
intense one, his ***** wired, 
 was shocked out of 
his senses in three seconds.Read more of this...

by Swinburne, Algernon Charles
...rvest-rows,
Full-grown, are full of the light
As the spirits of strong men are,
Crying, Who shall slumber or sleep?
Who put back morning or mar?
Put in the sickles and reap.

Till the red-gold harvest-rows
For miles through shudder and shine
In the wind's breath, fed with the sun,
A thousand spear-heads as one
Bowed as for battle to close
Line in rank against line
With place and station to keep
Till all men's hands at a sign
Put in the sickles and reap.

A thousand sp...Read more of this...

by Mueller, Lisel
...ed with their tight, hot hearts
till a traveler passed them and said,
"Fools,
what good is the moon to a heartless man?
Put back your hearts and get on your knees
and drink as you never have,
until your throats are coated with silver
and your voices ring like bells."

And they fished with their lips and tongues
until the water was gone
and the moon had slipped away
in the soft, bottomless mud....Read more of this...

by Drayton, Michael
...her folly; 
And Love, condemning Reason's reason wholly, 
Thought it in weight too light by many'a grain. 
Reason, put back, doth out of sight remove, 
And Love alone picks reason out of love....Read more of this...

by Kipling, Rudyard
...re we sign away --
We that took the Bolivar out across the Bay!

We put out from Sunderland loaded down with rails;
 We put back to Sunderland 'cause our cargo shifted;
We put out from Sunderland -- met the winter gales --
 Seven days and seven nights to the Start we drifted.
 Racketing her rivets loose, smoke-stack white as snow,
 All the coals adrift adeck, half the rails below,
 Leaking like a lobster-pot, steering like a dray --
 Out we took the Bolivar, out across th...Read more of this...

by Lawrence, D. H.
...The snow is witherin' off'n th' gress
    Love, should I tell thee summat?
The snow is witherin' off'n th' gress
An' a thick mist sucks at the clots o' snow,
An' the moon above in a weddin' dress
Goes fogged an' slow--
    Love, should I tell thee summat?

Tha's been snowed up i' this cottage wi' me,
    Nay, I'm tellin' thee summat.--
Tha's bin s...Read more of this...

by Kipling, Rudyard
...this tide, and the killing-grounds are close,
And we'll go up to the Wrath of God as the holluschickie goes.
O men, put back your guns again and lay your rifles by,
We've fought our fight, and the best are down. Let up and let us die!
Quit firing, by the bow there -- quit! Call off the Baltic's crew!
You're sure of Hell as me or Rube -- but wait till we get through."
There went no word between the ships, but thick and quick and loud
The life-blood drummed on the d...Read more of this...

by Kipling, Rudyard
...he bushes, follow and press him hard --
Not for his ragings and roarings flinch ye from Adam-zad.

"But (pay, and I put back the bandage) this is the time to fear,
When he stands up like a tired man, tottering near and near;
When he stands up as pleading, in wavering, man-brute guise,
When he veils the hate and cunning of his little, swinish eyes;

"When he shows as seeking quarter, with paws like hands in prayer
That is the time of peril -- the time of the Truce of the B...Read more of this...

by Masefield, John
...ory that had been; 
She faltered tow'rds us like a swan that died, 
But altogether ruined she was still a queen. 

"Put back with all her sails gone," went the word; 
Then, from her signals flying, rumor ran, 
"The sea that stove her boats in killed her third; 
She has been gutted and has lost a man." 

So, as though stepping to a funeral march, 
She passed defeated homewards whence she came, 
Ragged with tattered canvas white as starch, 
A wild bird that misfortune h...Read more of this...

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Book: Reflection on the Important Things