Famous Racking Poems by Famous Poets

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

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The Old Song

by G K Chesterton
 A livid sky on London
And like the iron steeds that rear
A shock of engines halted
And I knew the end was near:
And something said that far away, over the hills and far away
There came a crawling thunder and the end of all things here.
For London Bridge is broken down, broken down, broken down,
As digging lets the daylight on the suken...Read more of this...

138. Address to the Toothache

by Robert Burns
 MY curse upon your venom’d stang,
That shoots my tortur’d gums alang,
An’ thro’ my lug gies mony a twang,
 Wi’ gnawing vengeance,
Tearing my nerves wi’ bitter pang,
 Like racking engines!


When fevers burn, or argues freezes,
Rheumatics gnaw, or colics squeezes,
Our neibor’s sympathy can ease us,
 Wi’ pitying moan;
But thee—thou hell o’ a’ diseases—
 They mock our groan.


Adown my beard the slavers...Read more of this...

Poem On His Birthday

by Dylan Thomas
 In the mustardseed sun,
By full tilt river and switchback sea
 Where the cormorants scud,
In his house on stilts high among beaks
 And palavers of birds
This sandgrain day in the bent bay's grave
 He celebrates and spurns
His driftwood thirty-fifth wind turned age;
 Herons spire and spear.

 Under and round him go
Flounders, gulls, on their cold, dying trails,
 Doing what they...Read more of this...

Sonnet XXXV

by Francesco Petrarch
SONNET XXXV. Amor che meco al buon tempo ti stavi. HE VENTS HIS SORROW TO ALL WHO WITNESSED HIS FORMER FELICITY.  Love, that in happier days wouldst meet me hereAlong these meads that nursed our kindred strains;And that old debt to clear which still remains,Sweet converse with the stream and me wouldst...Read more of this...

Common Cold

by Ogden Nash
 Go hang yourself, you old M.D.! 
You shall not sneer at me. 
Pick up your hat and stethoscope, 
Go wash your mouth with laundry soap; 
I contemplate a joy exquisite 
I'm not paying you for your visit. 
I did not call you to be told 
My malady is a common cold. 

By pounding brow and swollen lip; 
By fever's...Read more of this...

Contrast

by Robert William Service
 "Carry your suitcase, Sir?" he said.
I turned away to hide a grin,
For he was shorter by a head
Than I and pitiably thin.
I could have made a pair of him,
So with my load I stoutly legged;
But his tenacity was grim:
"Please let me help you, sir," he begged.

I could not shake the fellow off,
So let him shoulder my valise;
He tottered with...Read more of this...

Ah Poverties Wincings and Sulky Retreats

by Walt Whitman
 AH poverties, wincings, and sulky retreats! 
Ah you foes that in conflict have overcome me! 
(For what is my life, or any man’s life, but a conflict with foes—the old, the
 incessant
 war?) 
You degradations—you tussle with passions and appetites; 
You smarts from dissatisfied friendships, (ah wounds, the sharpest of all;)
You toil of painful and choked articulations—you meannesses; 
You...Read more of this...

The Santa-Fe Trail (A Humoresque)

by Vachel Lindsay
 I asked the old *****, "What is that bird that sings so well?" He answered: "That is the Rachel-Jane." "Hasn't it another name, lark, or thrush, or the like?" "No. Jus' Rachel-Jane."


I. IN WHICH A RACING AUTO COMES FROM THE EAST

This is the order of the music of the morning: —
First, from the far East comes but a crooning.
The...Read more of this...

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