Famous Shook Poems by Famous Poets

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

See also:

The Ballad Of Caseys Billy-Goat

by Robert William Service
 You've heard of "Casey at The Bat,"
 And "Casey's Tabble Dote";
 But now it's time
 To write a rhyme
 Of "Casey's Billy-goat."

Pat Casey had a billy-goat he gave the name of Shamus,
Because it was (the neighbours said) a national disgrace.
And sure enough that animal was eminently famous
For masticating every rag of laundry round the place.
For shirts to skirts prodigiously...Read more of this...

If I could bribe them by a Rose

by Emily Dickinson
 If I could bribe them by a Rose
I'd bring them every flower that grows
From Amherst to Cashmere!
I would not stop for night, or storm --
Or frost, or death, or anyone --
My business were so dear!

If they would linger for a Bird
My Tambourin were soonest heard
Among the April Woods!
Unwearied, all the summer long,
Only to break in wilder song
When Winter shook...Read more of this...

A Dream Pang

by Robert Frost
 I had withdrawn in forest, and my song
Was swallowed up in leaves that blew alway;
And to the forest edge you came one day
(This was my dream) and looked and pondered long,
But did not enter, though the wish was strong:
you shook your pensive head as who should say,
'I dare not--to far in his footsteps stray-
He must seek me would he...Read more of this...

Hohenlinden

by Thomas Campbell
 1 On Linden, when the sun was low,
2 All bloodless lay the untrodden snow,
3 And dark as winter was the flow
4 Of Iser, rolling rapidly.

5 But Linden saw another sight
6 When the drum beat at dead of night,
7 Commanding fires of death to light
8 The darkness of her scenery.

9 By torch and trumpet fast arrayed,
10 Each horseman drew his...Read more of this...

The Pity of the Leaves

by Edwin Arlington Robinson
 Vengeful across the cold November moors, 
Loud with ancestral shame there came the bleak 
Sad wind that shrieked, and answered with a shriek, 
Reverberant through lonely corridors. 
The old man heard it; and he heard, perforce,
Words out of lips that were no more to speak— 
Words of the past that shook the old man’s cheek 
Like dead, remembered footsteps...Read more of this...

Sonnet CIV

by William Shakespeare
 To me, fair friend, you never can be old,
For as you were when first your eye I eyed,
Such seems your beauty still. Three winters cold
Have from the forests shook three summers' pride,
Three beauteous springs to yellow autumn turn'd
In process of the seasons have I seen,
Three April perfumes in three hot Junes burn'd,
Since first I saw you fresh, which yet...Read more of this...

The Christmas Tree

by Robert William Service
 In the dark and damp of the alley cold,
Lay the Christmas tree that hadn't been sold;
By a shopman dourly thrown outside;
With the ruck and rubble of Christmas-tide;
Trodden deep in the muck and mire,
Unworthy even to feed a fire...
So I stopped and salvaged that tarnished tree,
And thus is the story it told to me:

"My Mother was Queen of the forest...Read more of this...

Café Talk

by Thomas Blackburn
 'Of course,' I said, 'we cannot hope to find
What we are looking for in anyone;
They glitter, maybe, but are not the sun,
This pebble here, that bit of apple rind.
Still, it's the Alpine sun that makes them burn,
And what we're looking for, some indirect
Glint of itself each of us may reflect,
And so shed light about us as we turn.'
Sideways she...Read more of this...

Corporal Stare

by Robert Graves
 Back from the line one night in June, 
I gave a dinner at Bethune— 
Seven courses, the most gorgeous meal 
Money could buy or batman steal. 
Five hungry lads welcomed the fish
With shouts that nearly cracked the dish; 
Asparagus came with tender tops, 
Strawberries in cream, and mutton chops. 
Said Jenkins, as my hand he shook, 
“They’ll put this...Read more of this...

A Forest Hymn

by William Cullen Bryant
THE GROVES were God's first temples. Ere man learned 
To hew the shaft and lay the architrave  
And spread the roof above them¡ªere he framed 
The lofty vault to gather and roll back 
The sound of anthems; in the darkling wood 5 
Amidst the cool and silence he knelt down  
And offered to the Mightiest solemn thanks 
And...Read more of this...

The Man Who Could Write

by Rudyard Kipling
 Boanerges Blitzen, servant of the Queen,
Is a dismal failure -- is a Might-have-been.
In a luckless moment he discovered men
Rise to high position through a ready pen.

Boanerges Blitzen argued therefore -- "I,
With the selfsame weapon, can attain as high."
Only he did not possess when he made the trial,
Wicked wit of C-lv-n, irony of L--l.

[Men who spar with Government need, to...Read more of this...

A Dead Flower

by Kumaran Asan
Oh beautiful flower.
You were glowing like a queen in this world till yesterday..
And today you are lying on the ground…
When I see your plight, I am sure that success is not permanent in this world…

The plant that gave birth to you would have pampered
when you were infant.
It helped you to blossom.
The wind would have swung you to its tune.

You had...Read more of this...

Patriotism 02 Nelson Pitt Fox

by Sir Walter Scott
 TO mute and to material things
New life revolving summer brings;
The genial call dead Nature hears,
And in her glory reappears.
But oh, my Country's wintry state
What second spring shall renovate?
What powerful call shall bid arise
The buried warlike and the wise;

The mind that thought for Britain's weal,
The hand that grasp'd the victor steel?
The vernal sun new life bestows
Even on the meanest flower...Read more of this...

Chemin De Fer

by Elizabeth Bishop
 Alone on the railroad track
 I walked with pounding heart.
The ties were too close together
 or maybe too far apart.

The scenery was impoverished:
 scrub-pine and oak; beyond
its mingled gray-green foliage
 I saw the little pond

where the dirty old hermit lives,
 lie like an old tear
holding onto its injuries
 lucidly year after year.

The hermit shot off his shot-gun
 and the...Read more of this...

Old Ironsides

by Oliver Wendell Holmes
 Ay, tear her tattered ensign down! 
Long has it waved on high, 
And many an eye has danced to see 
That banner in the sky; 
Beneath it rung the battle shout, 
And burst the cannon's roar; -- 
The meteor of the ocean air 
Shall sweep the clouds no more. 
Her deck, once red with heroes' blood, 
Where knelt the...Read more of this...

The Colonel

by Carolyn Forche
 What you have heard is true. I was in his house. 
His wife carried a tray of coffee and sugar. His 
daughter filed her nails, his son went out for the 
night. There were daily papers, pet dogs, a pistol 
on the cushion beside him. The moon swung bare on 
its black cord over the house. On the television...Read more of this...

two thursdays

by Rg Gregory
 when the doctor came on a monday
he looked at my mother and said
there's something seriously wrong here -
she's had a stroke - she's almost dead

it must have happened on thursday
why wasn't i told before
the busy rest home shook its head
we thought she was drowsy - nothing more

she only came to us a week ago
she was angry and violent and...Read more of this...

To His Dying Brother Master William Herrick

by Robert Herrick
 Life of my life, take not so soon thy flight,
But stay the time till we have bade good-night.
Thou hast both wind and tide with thee; thy way
As soon dispatch'd is by the night as day.
Let us not then so rudely henceforth go
Till we have wept, kiss'd, sigh'd, shook hands, or so.
There's pain in parting, and a kind of hell
When...Read more of this...

The Little Bird

by Mother Goose
Once I saw a little bird
    Come hop, hop, hop;
So I cried, "Little bird,
    Will you stop, stop, stop?"

And was going to the window
    To say, "How do you do?"
But he shook his little tail,
    And far away he flew....Read more of this...

Sonnet CXXII

by Francesco Petrarch
SONNET CXXII. Non fur mai Giove e Cesare sì mossi. LAURA IN TEARS.  High Jove to thunder ne'er was so intent,So resolute great Cæsar ne'er to strike,That pity had not quench'd the ire of both,And from their hands the accustom'd weapons shook.Madonna wept: my Lord decreed that IShould see her...Read more of this...

Channel Firing

by Thomas Hardy
 That night your great guns, unawares,
Shook all our coffins as we lay,
And broke the chancel window-squares,
We thought it was the Judgement-day

And sat upright. While drearisome
Arose the howl of wakened hounds:
The mouse let fall the altar-crumb,
The worm drew back into the mounds,

The glebe cow drooled. Till God cried, "No;
It's gunnery practice out at sea
Just as before you went below;
The world...Read more of this...

The Well of St. Keyne

by Robert Southey
 A Well there is in the west country,
And a clearer one never was seen;
There is not a wife in the west country
But has heard of the Well of St. Keyne.

An oak and an elm-tree stand beside,
And behind doth an ash-tree grow,
And a willow from the bank above
Droops to the water below.

A traveller came to the Well of St. Keyne;
Joyfully...Read more of this...

The Ballad of the Kings Jest

by Rudyard Kipling
 When spring-time flushes the desert grass,
Our kafilas wind through the Khyber Pass.
Lean are the camels but fat the frails,
Light are the purses but heavy the bales,
As the snowbound trade of the North comes down
To the market-square of Peshawur town.

In a turquoise twilight, crisp and chill,
A kafila camped at the foot of the hill.
Then blue smoke-haze of the cooking rose,
And...Read more of this...

The General Public

by Stephen Vincent Benet
 "Ah, did you once see Shelley plain?" -- Browning. 
"Shelley? Oh, yes, I saw him often then," 
The old man said. A dry smile creased his face 
With many wrinkles. "That's a great poem, now! 
That one of Browning's! Shelley? Shelley plain? 
The time that I remember best is this -- 

A thin mire crept along the rutted ways,...Read more of this...

Clancy Of The Mounted Police

by Robert William Service
 In the little Crimson Manual it's written plain and clear
That who would wear the scarlet coat shall say good-bye to fear;
Shall be a guardian of the right, a sleuth-hound of the trail--
In the little Crimson Manual there's no such word as "fail"--
Shall follow on though heavens fall, or hell's top-turrets freeze,
Half round the world, if need there be, on...Read more of this...

Dont forget to view our wonderful member Shook poems.

Get a Premium Membership
Turn off ads, get more exposure for your poetry, and get more features with a Premium Membership.
Book: Diverse Voices: The Poetry of Human Rights and the Pursuit of Peace