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).

See also:

138. Address to the Toothache

...rtur’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 trickle
I throw the wee stools o’er the mickle,
While round the fire the giglets keckle,
 To see me loup,
While, raving mad, I ...Read more of this...
by Burns, Robert


Ah Poverties Wincings and Sulky Retreats

...ns—you meannesses; 
You shallow tongue-talks at tables, (my tongue the shallowest of any;) 
You broken resolutions, you racking angers, you smother’d ennuis; 
Ah, think not you finally triumph—My real self has yet to come forth; 
It shall yet march forth o’ermastering, till all lies beneath me;
It shall yet stand up the soldier of unquestion’d victory....Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt

Common Cold

...d swollen lip; 
By fever's hot and scaly grip; 
By those two red redundant eyes 
That weep like woeful April skies; 
By racking snuffle, snort, and sniff; 
By handkerchief after handkerchief; 
This cold you wave away as naught 
Is the damnedest cold man ever caught! 

Give ear, you scientific fossil! 
Here is the genuine Cold Colossal; 
The Cold of which researchers dream, 
The Perfect Cold, the Cold Supreme. 
This honored system humbly holds 
The Super-cold to end all colds;...Read more of this...
by Nash, Ogden

Contrast

...let me help you, sir," he begged.

I could not shake the fellow off,
So let him shoulder my valise;
He tottered with a racking cough
That did not give him any peace.
He lagged so limply in my wake
I made him put the burden down,
Saying: "A taxi I will take,"
And grimly gave him half-a-crown.

Poor devil! I am sure he had
Not eaten anything that day;
His eyes so hungrily were glad,
Although his lips were ashen grey.
He vanished in the callous crowd,
Then when he was no more a...Read more of this...
by Service, Robert William

Paradise Lost: Book 02

...horting glorious war, 
Caught in a fiery tempest, shall be hurled, 
Each on his rock transfixed, the sport and prey 
Or racking whirlwinds, or for ever sunk 
Under yon boiling ocean, wrapt in chains, 
There to converse with everlasting groans, 
Unrespited, unpitied, unreprieved, 
Ages of hopeless end? This would be worse. 
War, therefore, open or concealed, alike 
My voice dissuades; for what can force or guile 
With him, or who deceive his mind, whose eye 
Views all things a...Read more of this...
by Milton, John


Paradise Lost: Book 11

...noisome, dark; 
A lazar-house it seemed; wherein were laid 
Numbers of all diseased; all maladies 
Of ghastly spasm, or racking torture, qualms 
Of heart-sick agony, all feverous kinds, 
Convulsions, epilepsies, fierce catarrhs, 
Intestine stone and ulcer, colick-pangs, 
Demoniack phrenzy, moaping melancholy, 
And moon-struck madness, pining atrophy, 
Marasmus, and wide-wasting pestilence, 
Dropsies, and asthmas, and joint-racking rheums. 
Dire was the tossing, deep the groan...Read more of this...
by Milton, John

Poem On His Birthday

...eizing sky; small fishes glide
 Through wynds and shells of drowned
Ship towns to pastures of otters. He
 In his slant, racking house
And the hewn coils of his trade perceives
 Herons walk in their shroud,

 The livelong river's robe
Of minnows wreathing around their prayer;
 And far at sea he knows,
Who slaves to his crouched, eternal end
 Under a serpent cloud,
Dolphins dive in their turnturtle dust,
 The rippled seals streak down
To kill and their own tide daubing blood
 S...Read more of this...
by Thomas, Dylan

Sonnet XXXV

...The harbour where I stored my love-sick pains,And all my various chance, my racking care:Ye playful inmates of the greenwood shade;Ye nymphs, and ye that in the waves pursueThat life its cool and grassy bottom lends:—My days were once so fair; now dark and dreadAs death that makes them so. Thus the world throughRead more of this...
by Petrarch, Francesco

The Comedian As The Letter C

...e could not be content with counterfeit, 
361 With masquerade of thought, with hapless words 
362 That must belie the racking masquerade, 
363 With fictive flourishes that preordained 
364 His passion's permit, hang of coat, degree 
365 Of buttons, measure of his salt. Such trash 
366 Might help the blind, not him, serenely sly. 
367 It irked beyond his patience. Hence it was, 
368 Preferring text to gloss, he humbly served 
369 Grotesque apprenticeship to chance eve...Read more of this...
by Stevens, Wallace

The Female Vagrant

...a joy to my despair.   Ah! how unlike those late terrific sleeps!  And groans, that rage of racking famine spoke:  The unburied dead that lay in festering heaps!  The breathing pestilence that rose like smoke!  The shriek that from the distant battle broke!  The mine's dire earthquake, and the pallid host  Driven by the bomb's incessant thunder-stroke  To loathsome vaults, where heart-sick...Read more of this...
by Wordsworth, William

The Old Song

...sand in the gate,
A thunder-flash on London and the finding of the foe.

I heard the hundred pin-makers
Slow down their racking din,
Till in the stillness men could hear
The dropping of the pin:
And somewhere men without the wall, beneath the wood, without
the wall,
Had found the place where London ends and England can begin.
For pins and needles bend and break, bend and break, bend and break,
Faster than the breaking spears or the bending of the bow,
Of pagents pale in thund...Read more of this...
by Chesterton, G K

The Pied Piper Of Hamelin

...ermin!
You hope, because you're old and obese,
To find in the furry civic robe ease?
Rouse up, Sirs! Give your brains a racking
To find the remedy we're lacking,
Or, sure as fate, we'll send you packing!"
At this the Mayor and Corporation
Quaked with a mighty consternation.

An hour they sate in council,
At length the Mayor broke silence:
"For a guilder I'd my ermine gown sell;
I wish I were a mile hence!
It's easy to bid one rack one's brain— 
I'm sure my poor head aches aga...Read more of this...
by Browning, Robert

The Santa-Fe Trail (A Humoresque)

...s plain—
While I sit by the milestone
And watch the sky,
The United States
Goes by.

Listen to the iron-horns, ripping, racking. 
Listen to the quack-horns, slack and clacking.
Way down the road, trilling like a toad,
Here comes the dice -horn, here comes the vice -horn,
Here comes the snarl -horn, brawl -horn, lewd -horn,
Followed by the prude -horn, bleak and squeaking: —
(Some of them from Kansas, some of themn from Kansas.)
Here comes the hod -horn, plod -horn, sod -horn,...Read more of this...
by Lindsay, Vachel

Dont forget to view our wonderful member Racking poems.

Get a Premium Membership
Get more exposure for your poetry and more features with a Premium Membership.
Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry

Member Area

My Admin
Profile and Settings
Edit My Poems
Edit My Quotes
Edit My Short Stories
Edit My Articles
My Comments Inboxes
My Comments Outboxes
Soup Mail
Poetry Contests
Contest Results/Status
Followers
Poems of Poets I Follow
Friend Builder

Soup Social

Poetry Forum
New/Upcoming Features
The Wall
Soup Facebook Page
Who is Online
Link to Us

Member Poems

Poems - Top 100 New
Poems - Top 100 All-Time
Poems - Best
Poems - by Topic
Poems - New (All)
Poems - New (PM)
Poems - New by Poet
Poems - Read
Poems - Unread

Member Poets

Poets - Best New
Poets - New
Poets - Top 100 Most Poems
Poets - Top 100 Most Poems Recent
Poets - Top 100 Community
Poets - Top 100 Contest

Famous Poems

Famous Poems - African American
Famous Poems - Best
Famous Poems - Classical
Famous Poems - English
Famous Poems - Haiku
Famous Poems - Love
Famous Poems - Short
Famous Poems - Top 100

Famous Poets

Famous Poets - Living
Famous Poets - Most Popular
Famous Poets - Top 100
Famous Poets - Best
Famous Poets - Women
Famous Poets - African American
Famous Poets - Beat
Famous Poets - Cinquain
Famous Poets - Classical
Famous Poets - English
Famous Poets - Haiku
Famous Poets - Hindi
Famous Poets - Jewish
Famous Poets - Love
Famous Poets - Metaphysical
Famous Poets - Modern
Famous Poets - Punjabi
Famous Poets - Romantic
Famous Poets - Spanish
Famous Poets - Suicidal
Famous Poets - Urdu
Famous Poets - War

Poetry Resources

Anagrams
Bible
Book Store
Character Counter
Cliché Finder
Poetry Clichés
Common Words
Copyright Information
Grammar
Grammar Checker
Homonym
Homophones
How to Write a Poem
Lyrics
Love Poem Generator
New Poetic Forms
Plagiarism Checker
Poetics
Poetry Art
Publishing
Random Word Generator
Spell Checker
Store
What is Good Poetry?
Word Counter