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Famous Quid Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry
...Quid facis Arctoi charissime transfuga coeli,
Ingele, proh sero cognite, rapte cito?
Num satis Hybernum defendis pellibus Astrum,
Qui modo tam mollis nec bene firmus eras?
Quae Gentes Hominum, quae sit Natura Locorum,
Sint Homines, potius dic ibi sintre Loca?
Num gravis horrisono Polus obruit omnia lapsu,
Jungitur & praeceps Mundas utraque nive?
An melius ca...Read more of this...
by Marvell, Andrew



...silent strings
Till thou hast found the old Castalian rill,
Or from the Lesbian waters plucked drowned Sappho's golden quid!

Enough, enough that he whose life had been
A fiery pulse of sin, a splendid shame,
Could in the loveless land of Hades glean
One scorching harvest from those fields of flame
Where passion walks with naked unshod feet
And is not wounded, - ah! enough that once their lips could meet

In that wild throb when all existences
Seemed narrowed to one single e...Read more of this...
by Wilde, Oscar
...n't catch a word;
I can't follow."
Then Jack with a voice like a Protestant bell
Roared--"Particulars! Farmhouse! At 10 quid a year!"
"I dunno wot place you are talking about."
Said the deaf old man.
Said Jack, "What the Hell!"
But the deaf old man took a pin from his desk, picked
a piece of wool the size of a hen's egg from his ear,
had a good look at it, decided in its favour and re-
placed it in the aforementioned organ....Read more of this...
by Mansfield, Katherine
...s quam pretiosus odor!
Hac ego praecipua credo herbam dote placere,
Hinc tuus has nebulas Doctor in astra vehit.
Ah mea quid tandem facies timidissima charta?
Exequias Siticen jam parat usque tuas.
Hunc subeas librum Sansti ceu limen asyli,
Quem neque delebit flamma, nec ira fovis....Read more of this...
by Marvell, Andrew
...t least he's pay. 

"I picked three winners straight, I did; 
I filled his purse with pelf, 
And then he gave me half-a-quid 
To back one for myself. 

"A half-a-quid to me he cast -- 
I wanted it indeed; 
So help me Bob, for two days past 
I haven't had a feed. 

"But still I thought my luck was in, 
I couldn't go astray -- 
I put it all on Little Min, 
And lost it straightaway. 

"I haven't got a bite or bed, 
I'm absolutely stuck; 
So keep this lesson in your head: 
Don't ...Read more of this...
by Paterson, Andrew Barton



...d.
I know 'e loves 'er more than all the rest,
Because she's by a lot the prettiest.
'E wouldn't lose 'er for a 'undred quid.
I love 'er too, because she isn't his'n;
But Jim, his brother's, wot they've put in prision.

It's 'ard to 'ave a 'usband wot you 'ate;
So soft that if 'e knowed you'd 'ad a tup,
'E wouldn't 'ave the guts to beat you up.
Now Jim - 'e's wot I call a proper mate.
I daren't try no monkey tricks wiv 'im.
'E'd flay be 'ide off (quite right, too) would Jim.
...Read more of this...
by Service, Robert William
...e Arctic flea, to the wilds of Hudson's Bay?
For it was a foreign Prince's whim to collect this tiny cuss,
And a golden quid was no more to him than a copper to coves like us.
So we sailed away and our hearts were gay as we gazed on the gorgeous scene;
And we laughed with glee as we caught the flea of the wolf and the wolverine;
Yea, our hearts were light as the parasite of the ermine rat we slew,
And the great musk ox, and the silver fox, and the moose and the caribou.
And w...Read more of this...
by Service, Robert William
...day she shopped me and all I’d done

Was take a few pound from the till ’cos Jenny was ill

And I didn’t have thirteen quid to get the bloody prescription done" 

To-morrow I’ll be back in the Great Wen,

Two days of manic catching up and then

Thistledown, wild wheat, a dozen kinds of grass,

The mass of beckoning hills I’d love to make

A poet’s map of but never will.

"Oh to break loose" Lowell’s magic lines

Entice me still but slimy Fenton had to have his will

And slat...Read more of this...
by Tebb, Barry
...we 'ad no disagree.
For when 'e copped Mariar Jones, the one I liked the best,
 I shook 'is 'and and loaned 'im 'arf a quid;
I saw 'im through the parson's job, I 'elped 'im make 'is nest,
 I even stood god-farther to the kid.

So when the war broke out, sez 'e: "Well, wot abaht it, Joe?"
 "Well, wot abaht it, lad?" sez I to 'im.
'Is missis made a awful fuss, but 'e was mad to go,
 ('E always was 'igh-sperrited was Jim).
Well, none of it's been 'eaven, and the most of it's b...Read more of this...
by Service, Robert William
....
When I'd spill him my woes (ifantile, I suppose),
He'd harken and whittle and whittle;
then when I had done, turn his quid and say: "Son,
Ye're a-drownin' yerself in yer spittle."

He's gone to his grave, but the counsel he gave
I've proved in predicaments trying;
When I got in a stew, feeling ever so blue,
My failures and faults magnifying,
I'd think of old Ed as he sniffed and he said:
"Shaw! them things don't mater a tittle.
Ye darned little cuss, why make such a full?
Y...Read more of this...
by Service, Robert William
...the cot in his mother’s
 bed-room;)
The jour printer with gray head and gaunt jaws works at his case, 
He turns his quid of tobacco, while his eyes blurr with the manuscript; 
The malform’d limbs are tied to the surgeon’s table, 
What is removed drops horribly in a pail; 
The quadroon girl is sold at the auction-stand—the drunkard nods by the
 bar-room stove;
The machinist rolls up his sleeves—the policeman travels his beat—the
 gate-keeper marks who pass; 
The you...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt
...;
We gels wot gains our bread by sin
Have got to make ourselves attractive.
I hope yer dentist was no rook?"
Says I: "A quid is what he took."

Says Polly Crump: "The shoes you wear
Are down at heel and need new soleing;
Why doncher buy a better pair?
The rain goes in and out the holeing.
They're squelchin' as ye walk yer beat. . . ."
Says I: "blokes don't look at me feet."

Says Polly Crump: "You cough all day;
It just don't do in our profession;
A girl's got to be pert and ...Read more of this...
by Service, Robert William
...n the Pope. *call
But whoso would in other thing him grope*, *search
Then had he spent all his philosophy,
Aye, Questio quid juris, would he cry.

He was a gentle harlot* and a kind; *a low fellow
A better fellow should a man not find.
He woulde suffer, for a quart of wine,
A good fellow to have his concubine
A twelvemonth, and excuse him at the full.
Full privily a *finch eke could he pull*. *"fleece" a man*
And if he found owhere* a good fellaw, *anywhere
He woulde ...Read more of this...
by Chaucer, Geoffrey
...e Barbary coast.
He boasts magnificently, with his mouth full of nails.
Stephen Pibold has a tenor voice,
He shifts his quid of tobacco and sings:
"The second in command was blear-eyed Ned:
While the surgeon his limb 
was a-lopping,
A nine-pounder came and smack went his head,
Pull away, pull away, pull 
away! I say;
Rare news for my Meg of Wapping!"
Every Sunday
People come in crowds
(After church-time, of course)
In curricles, and gigs, and wagons,
And some have brought col...Read more of this...
by Lowell, Amy
...sometimes happens by some strange crook 
That a ledger-keeper will 'take his hook' 
With a couple of hundred thousand 'quid', 
And no one can tell how the thing was did!" 


Fourth Man 
"I am an editor, bold and free. 
Behind the great impersonal 'We' 
I hold the power of the Mystic Three. 
What scoundrel ever would dare to hint 
That anything crooked appears in print! 
Perhaps an actor is all the rage, 
He struts his hour on the mimic stage, 
With skill he interprets all th...Read more of this...
by Paterson, Andrew Barton
...The little quids, the million quids,
The everywhere, everything, always quids,
The atoms of the Monoton—
Each turned three essences where it stood
And ground a gisty dust from its neighbors' edges
Until a powdery thoughtfall stormed in and out,
The cerebration of a slippery quid enterprise.
Each quid stirred.
The united quids
Waved through a sinuous decision.

The quid...Read more of this...
by Jackson, Laura Riding
...sed to sit and smile, 
And bridges I'd donate, 
And railways by the mile. 

"I pawned the country off 
For many million quid, 
And spent it like a toff -- 
So hel me, Bob, I did. 

"But now those times are gone, 
The wind blows cold and keen; 
I sit and think upon 
The thing that I have been. 

"And if a country town 
Its obligation shirks, 
I press for money down 
To pay for water works. 

"A million pounds or two 
Was naught at all to me -- 
And now I have to sue 
For paltr...Read more of this...
by Paterson, Andrew Barton
...ys to hold a white man in,
But we do not steal the niggers' meal, for that is a ******'s sin.
Must he have his Law as a quid to chaw, or laid in brass on his wheel?
Does he steal with tears when he buccaneers? 'Fore Gad, then, why does he steal?"
The skipper bit on a deep-sea word, and the word it was not sweet,
For he could see the Captains Three had signalled to the Fleet.
But three and two, in white and blue, the whimpering flags began: --
"We have heard a tale of a -- for...Read more of this...
by Kipling, Rudyard
...gh 
Is livin’ round about. 

It’s likely if your horses did 
Get feedin’ near the track, 
It’s goin’ to cost at least a quid 
Or more to get them back. 

So, if you find they’re off the place, 
It’s up to you to go 
And flash a quid in Hogan’s face— 
He’ll know the blokes that know. 

But listen—if you’re feelin’ dry, 
Just see there’s no one near, 
And go and wink the other eye 
And ask for ginger beer. 

The blokes come in from near and far 
To sample Hogan’s pop; 
They rec...Read more of this...
by Paterson, Andrew Barton
...;
And how I longed to have them drink
A cup of slightly poisoned wine!
At every night with struts and rants
I strove my quid a week to earn,
And put my soul in Rosenkrantz -
Or was it haply, Guildenstern.

Alas! I might have spared by breath,
I never played the noble Dane;
And yet when Irving staged Macbeth
I bore a tree of Dunsinane,
And yearned for that barn-storming day,
Of hopes and dreams and patchy pants,
When Guildenstern I'd proudly play -
Or was, maybe, Rosenkrantz?...Read more of this...
by Service, Robert William

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Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry