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Famous Scalded Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Paterson, Andrew Barton
...vercoat and dirty little face. 

A crawfish at the point of death came drifting down the drains. 
Said he, "I'm scalded to the heart with bathing near the bore." 
The turtle and the water rat disputed his remains, 
For crawfish meat all day they'd eat, and then they'd ask for more. 

Said Dan-di-dan, "The prize is mine, for I was fishing here 
Before you tumbled down the bank and landed on your ear." 
"I wouldn't care," the turtle said, "if you'd have fish...Read more of this...



by Plath, Sylvia
...s;
It stretches for miles, the shrunk voices

Waving and crutchless, half their old size.
The lines of the eye, scalded by these bald surfaces,

Boomerang like anchored elastics, hurting the owner.
Is it any wonder he puts on dark glasses?

Is it any wonder he affects a black cassock?
Here he comes now, among the mackerel gatherers

Who wall up their backs against him.
They are handling the black and green lozenges like the parts of a body.

The...Read more of this...

by Holmes, Oliver Wendell
...
I own perhaps I might desire
Some shawls of true Cashmere,--
Some marrowy crapes of China silk,
Like wrinkled skins on scalded milk.

I would not have the horse I drive
So fast that folks must stop and stare;
An easy gait--two forty-five--
Suits me; I do not care;--
Perhaps, for just a single spurt,
Some seconds less would do no hurt.

Of pictures, I should like to own
Titians aud Raphaels three or four,--
I love so much their style and tone,
One Turner, and no more,...Read more of this...

by Lawson, Henry
...in gangs away.
Though in the eyes of many a man the menace scarce was hid,
The diggers' blood was slow to boil, but scalded when it did.

But now another match is lit that soon must fire the charge
"Roll up! Roll up!" the poignant cry awakes the evening air,
And angry faces surge like waves around the speakers there.
"What are our sins that we should be an outlawed class?" they say,
"Shall we stand by while mates are seized and dragged like lags away?
Shall insult...Read more of this...

by Raine, Craig
...in a hundred yards,
the vultures bobbed and trampolined

around the bodies, then swirled
a mile above their heads

like scalded tea leaves.
The Prices buried everything--

all the tattered clothes and flesh,
Mrs. Helmore's bright chains of hair,

were wrapped in bits of calico
then given to the sliding sand.

'In the beginning was the Word'--
Roger read from Helmore's Bible

found open at St. John.
Isabella moved her lips,

'The Word was Manchester.'
S...Read more of this...



by Rich, Adrienne
...ome kind of sun burning my shoulder-blades.
Splashing the oarlocks. Burning through.
Your fore-arms can get scalded, licked with pain
in a sun blotted like unspoken anger
behind a casual mist.

The length of daylight
this far north, in this
forty-ninth year of my life
is critical.

The light is critical: of me, of this
long-dreamed, involuntary landing
on the arm of an inland sea.
The glitter of the shoal
depleting into shadow
I recognize: the stand of...Read more of this...

by Brodsky, Joseph
...Citizen enemy mama's boy sucker utter
garbage panhandler swine refujew verrucht;
a scalp so often scalded with boiling water
that the puny brain feels completely cooked.
Yes we have dwelt here: in this concrete brick wooden
rubble which you now arrive to sift.
All our wires were crossed barbed tangled or interwoven.
Also: we didn't love our women but they conceived.
Sharp is the sound of pickax that hurts dead iron

still it's gen...Read more of this...

by Gregory, Rg
...s are broken
wires lie strangled
by the messages they nursed
lathes are swinging
from trees in derision
pipes burst and scalded
houses contorted
(what went on in such rooms
that stare from their windows)
cars tap the kerb
their eyes put out
by the order of fingers
that have jabbed
through the skin of the earth
infected with visions

there is ink in us
swirling (if we spill it 
we bloom) - no writing
erupting from the cave
where the guilt-laden 
beast has his parchment
will do...Read more of this...

by Brautigan, Richard
...ippins, pare them

nicely and take the core out with a small

penknife; put them into some water, and

let them be well scalded; then take a little

of the water with some sugar, and a few

apples which may be sliced into it, and

let the whole boil till it comes to a syrup;

then pour it over your pippins, and garnish

them with dried cherries and lemon-peel

cut fine. You must take care that your

pippins are not split.





And Maria Callas sang to Trout Fishing in...Read more of this...

by Levine, Philip
...the gut.

Mad, dying, Sierra Kid enters the capital

 What have I changed? 
 I unwound burdocks from my hair 
 And scalded stains 
 Of the black grape 
 And hid beneath long underwear 
 The yellowed tape. 

 Who will they find 
 In the dark woods of the dark mind 
 Now I have gone 
 Into the world? 
 Across the blazing civic lawn 
 A shadow's hurled 

 And I must follow. 
 Something slides beneath my vest 
 Like melted tallow, 
 Thick but thin, 
 Burning where it...Read more of this...

by Chaucer, Geoffrey
...rnt
The hunter strangled with the wilde bears:
The sow freting* the child right in the cradle; *devouring 
The cook scalded, for all his longe ladle.
Nor was forgot, *by th'infortune of Mart* *through the misfortune
The carter overridden with his cart; of war*
Under the wheel full low he lay adown.
There were also of Mars' division,
The armourer, the bowyer*, and the smith, *maker of bows
That forgeth sharp swordes on his stith*. *anvil
And all above depainted...Read more of this...

by Jeffers, Robinson
...shivers with gold, the white globe-tulips
Blow out their silky bubbles,
But in the next glen bronze-bells nod, the does
Scalded by some hot longing
Can hardly set their pointed hoofs to expect
Love but they crush a flower;
Shells pair on the rock, birds mate, the moths fly double.
O it Is time for us now
Mouth kindling mouth to entangle our maiden bodies
To make that burning flower....Read more of this...

by Chaucer, Geoffrey
...e's wife, *enjoyed
For all his keeping* and his jealousy; *care
And Absolon hath kiss'd her nether eye;
And Nicholas is scalded in the tout.
This tale is done, and God save all the rout*. *company


Notes to the Miller's Tale


1. Almagest: The book of Ptolemy the astronomer, which
formed the canon of astrological science in the middle ages.

2. Astrolabe: "Astrelagour," "astrelabore"; a mathematical
instrument for taking the altitude of the sun or stars.<...Read more of this...

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