Famous Scurvy Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Death In The Arctic

...night
Is on me, and I've borne with pain
So long, and hoped for help in vain.
So frail am I, and blind and dazed;
With scurvy sick, with silence crazed.
Beneath the Arctic's heel of hate,
Avid for Death I wait, I wait.
Oh if I falter, fail to fight,
Can you, dear comrade, blame me quite?" . . .

VI

Big Eric gave up months ago.
But seldom do men suffer so.
His feet sloughed off, his fingers died,
His hands shrunk up and mummified.
I had to feed him like a child;
Yet he was v...Read more of this...
by Service, Robert William


Include Me Out

...posted me
 I filled and sent - so what?"

I searched the essies," dour with doubt . . .
 Darn! It was plain as day
The scurvy knaves had left me out . . .
 Oh was I mad? I'll say.

Then all at once I sensed the clue;
 'Twas simple, you'll allow . . .
The book I held was Who WAS Who -
 Oh was I glad - and how!...Read more of this...
by Service, Robert William

Jubilate Agno: Fragment D

...unto a pearl. 

Let Usher, house of Usher rejoice with Condurdon an herb with a red flower worn about the neck for the scurvy. 

Let Slingsby, house of Slingsby rejoice with Midas a little worm breeding in beans. 

Let Farmer, house of Farmer rejoice with Merois an herb growing at Meroe leaf like lettuce and good for dropsy. 

Let Affleck, house of Affleck rejoice with The Box-thorn. Blessed be the name of the Lord Jesus Emanuel. 

Let Arnold, house of Arnold rejoice with Le...Read more of this...
by Smart, Christopher

Juggling Jerry

...that scene?

I've studied men from my topsy-turvy
Close, and, I reckon, rather true.
Some are fine fellows: some, right scurvy:
Most, a dash between the two.
But it's a woman, old girl, that makes me
Think more kindly of the race:
And it's a woman, old girl, that shakes me
When the Great Juggler I must face.

We two were married, due and legal:
Honest we've lived since we've been one.
Lord! I could then jump like an eagle:
You danced bright as a bit o' the sun.
Birds in a May...Read more of this...
by Meredith, George

Old Trouper

...arn my bread from day to day;
Here in this Burg of Breaking Hears,
Where one wins as a thousand fail,
I play a score of scurvy parts
Till Time writes Finis to my tale.

My wife is dead, my daughter wed,
With heaps of trouble of their own;
And though I hold aloft my head
I'm humble, scared and all alone . . .
To-night I burn each photograph,
Each record of my former fame,
And oh, how bitterly I laugh
And feed them to the hungry flame!

Behold how handsome I was then -
What glo...Read more of this...
by Service, Robert William


The Ballad Of Hank The Finn

...ish scum, from out the glory-hole;
To-day he said you were a bum, and damned your mother's soul.
Go, plug with lead his scurvy head, and grab his greasy gold . . ."
Then Hank the Finn saw red within, and . . . did as he was told.

So in due course the famous Force of Men Who Get Their Man,
Swooped down on sleeping Hank the Finn, and popped him in the can.
And in due time his grievous crime was judged without a plea,
And he was dated up to swing upon the gallows tree.
Then She...Read more of this...
by Service, Robert William

The Ballad Of Pious Pete

...l of woe, and they troubled me so with their pleadings and anguish, and yet
As I rested my gaze in a misty amaze on the scurvy-degenerate wreck,
I thought of the Things with the dragon-fly wings, then laid I my gun on his neck.
He gave out a cry that was faint as a sigh, like a perishing malamute,
And he says unto me, "I'm converted," says he; "for Christ's sake, Peter, don't shoot!"

* * * * *

They're taking me out with an escort about, and under a sergeant's care;
I am hum...Read more of this...
by Service, Robert William

The Bohemian

...d back on my broken chair,
And my three old pals were with me there,
 Hunger and Thirst and Cold;
Hunger scowled at his scurvy mate:
Cold cowered down by the hollow grate,
And I hated them with a deadly hate
 As old as life is old.

So up in my garret that's near the sky
I smiled a smile that was thin and dry:
"You've roomed with me twenty year," said I,
 "Hunger and Thirst and Cold;
But now, begone down the broken stair!
I've suffered enough of your spite . . . so there!"
Ba...Read more of this...
by Service, Robert William

The Celebrated Woman - An Epistle By A Married Man

...se investigation,"
And brave--nay, court it as a flattery--
Each spectacled Philistine's battery.
Just as it suits some scurvy carcase
In which she hails an Aristarchus,
Ready to fly with kindred souls,
O'er blooming flowers or burning coals,
To fame or shame, to shrine or gallows,
Let him but lead--sublimely callous!
A Leipsic man--(confound the wretch!)
Has made her topographic sketch,
A kind of map, as of a town,
Each point minutely dotted down;
Scarce to myself I dare to ...Read more of this...
by Schiller, Friedrich von

The Lone Trail

...to your grave with the fever, and they rob the corpse for its clothes.
And sometimes it leads to the Northland, and the scurvy softens your bones,
And your flesh dints in like putty, and you spit out your teeth like stones.
And sometimes it leads to a coral reef in the wash of a weedy sea,
And you sit and stare at the empty glare where the gulls wait greedily.
And sometimes it leads to an Arctic trail, and the snows where your torn feet freeze,
And you whittle away the useles...Read more of this...
by Service, Robert William

The Lost Leichardt

...scourge that lies in wait -- 
The Longreach Horehound Beer! 

And then, to crown this tale of guilt, 
They'll find some scurvy knave, 
Regardless of their quest, has built 
A pub on Leichhardt's grave! 

Ah, yes! Those British pioneers 
Had best at home abide, 
For things have changed in fifty years 
Since Ludwig Leichhardt died....Read more of this...
by Paterson, Andrew Barton

The Pencil Seller

...ay he labored hard and long,
And see now, in the harvest of his fame,
When round his pictures people gape and throng,
A scurvy dealer sells this on his name.
A wretched rag, wrung out of want and woe;
A soulless daub, not David Strong a bit,
Unworthy of his art. . . . How should I know?
How should I know? I'm Strong -- I painted it.

There now, I didn't mean to let that out.
It came in spite of me -- aye, stare and stare.
You think I'm lying, crazy, drunk, no doubt --
Think w...Read more of this...
by Service, Robert William

The Spell Of The Yukon

...I wanted the gold, and I sought it,
 I scrabbled and mucked like a slave.
Was it famine or scurvy -- I fought it;
 I hurled my youth into a grave.
I wanted the gold, and I got it --
 Came out with a fortune last fall, --
Yet somehow life's not what I thought it,
 And somehow the gold isn't all.

No! There's the land. (Have you seen it?)
 It's the cussedest land that I know,
From the big, dizzy mountains that screen it
 To the deep, deathlike valle...Read more of this...
by Service, Robert William

To The Muse

...tube
Keeps it draining.
That way they only have to stab you
Once. Oh Jenny.

I wish to God I had made this world, this scurvy
And disastrous place. I
Didn't, I can't bear it
Either, I don't blame you, sleeping down there
Face down in the unbelievable silk of spring,
Muse of the black sand,
Alone.

I don't blame you, I know
The place where you lie.
I admit everything. But look at me.
How can I live without you?
Come up to me, love,
Out of the river, or I will
Come down to you...Read more of this...
by Stevenson, Robert Louis

Tunbridge Wells

...curates, priests, canonical elves,
Fit company for none besides themselves,
Were got together. Each his distemper told,
Scurvy, stone, strangury; some were so bold
To charge the spleen to be their misery,
And on that wise disease brought infamy.
But none had modesty enough t' complain
Their want of learning, honesty, and brain,
The general diseases of that train.
These call themselves ambassadors of heaven,
And saucily pretend commissions given;
But should an Indian king, who...Read more of this...
by Wilmot, John

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