Famous Shear Poems by Famous Poets

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

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A Bushmans Song

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 I’M travellin’ down the Castlereagh, and I’m a station hand, 
I’m handy with the ropin’ pole, I’m handy with the brand, 
And I can ride a rowdy colt, or swing the axe all day, 
But there’s no demand for a station-hand along the Castlereagh. + 

So it’s shift, boys, shift, for there isn’t the slightest doubt 
That we’ve got...Read more of this...

Landscape of a Vomiting Multitude

by Federico García Lorca
 The fat lady came out first,
tearing out roots and moistening drumskins.
The fat lady
who turns dying octopuses inside out.
The fat lady, the moon's antagonist,
was running through the streets and deserted buildings
and leaving tiny skulls of pigeons in the corners
and stirring up the furies of the last centuries' feasts
and summoning the demon of bread through the sky's clean-swept hills
and filtering a...Read more of this...

Shearing at Castlereagh

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 The bell is set a-ringing, and the engine gives a toot, 
There's five-and-thirty shearers here a-shearing for the loot, 
So stir yourselves, you penners-up, and shove the sheep along -- 
The musterers are fetching them a hundred thousand strong -- 
And make your collie dogs speak up; what would the buyers say 
In London if the wool was late...Read more of this...

The Days Work

by Rudyard Kipling
 We now, held in captivity,
 Spring to our bondage nor grieve--
 See now, how it is blesseder,
 Brothers, to give than receive!
 Keep trust, wherefore we were made,
 Paying the debt that we owe;
 For a clean thrust, and the shear of the blade,
 Will carry us where would go.
 The Ship that Found Herself.

 All the world over,...Read more of this...

307. Elegy on Captain Matthew Henderson

by Robert Burns
 O DEATH! thou tyrant fell and bloody!
The meikle devil wi’ a woodie
Haurl thee hame to his black smiddie,
 O’er hurcheon hides,
And like stock-fish come o’er his studdie
 Wi’ thy auld sides!


He’s gane, he’s gane! he’s frae us torn,
The ae best fellow e’er was born!
Thee, Matthew, Nature’s sel’ shall mourn,
 By wood and wild,
Where haply, Pity strays forlorn,
 Frae man...Read more of this...

Rules For Monarchs

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
 IF men are never their thoughts to employ,
Take care to provide them a life full of joy;
But if to some profit and use thou wouldst bend them,
Take care to shear them, and then defend them.

 1815.*...Read more of this...

On the Trek

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 Oh, the weary, weary journey on the trek, day after day, 
With sun above and silent veldt below; 
And our hearts keep turning homeward to the youngsters far away, 
And the homestead where the climbing roses grow. 
Shall we see the flats grow golden with the ripening of the grain? 
Shall we hear the parrots calling on the bough?...Read more of this...

Damon The Mower

by Andrew Marvell
 Heark how the Mower Damon Sung,
With love of Juliana stung!
While ev'ry thing did seem to paint
The Scene more fit for his complaint.
Like her fair Eyes the day was fair;
But scorching like his am'rous Care.
Sharp like his Sythe his Sorrow was,
And wither'd like his Hopes the Grass.

Oh what unusual Heats are here,
Which thus our Sun-burn'd Meadows sear!
The Grass-hopper its pipe...Read more of this...

The Two Devines

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 It was shearing time at the Myall Lake, 
And then rose the sound through the livelong day 
Of the constant clash that the shear-blades make 
When the fastest shearers are making play; 
But there wasn't a man in the shearers' lines 
That could shear a sheep with the two Devines. 
They had rung the sheds of the east and...Read more of this...

The Hog The Sheep And Goat Carrying To A FAIR

by Anne Kingsmill Finch
 Who does not wish, ever to judge aright, 
And, in the Course of Life's Affairs, 
To have a quick, and far extended Sight, 
Tho' it too often multiplies his Cares? 
And who has greater Sense, but greater Sorrow shares? 

This felt the Swine, now carrying to the Knife; 
And whilst the Lamb and silent Goat 
In the same fatal...Read more of this...

An answer to Various Bards

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 Well, I've waited mighty patient while they all came rolling in, 
Mister Lawson, Mister Dyson, and the others of their kin, 
With their dreadful, dismal stories of the Overlander's camp, 
How his fire is always smoky, and his boots are always damp; 
And they paint it so terrific it would fill one's soul with gloom -- 
But you know...Read more of this...

Shearing With a Hoe

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 The track that led to Carmody's is choked and overgrown, 
The suckers of the stringybark have made the place their own; 
The mountain rains have cut the track that once we used to know 
When first we rode to Carmody's, a score of years ago. 

The shearing shed at Carmody's was slab and stringybark, 
The press was just a...Read more of this...

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