Famous Shove Poems by Famous Poets

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

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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...

Gunner Joe

by Marriott Edgar
 I'll tell you a seafaring story, 
Of a lad who won honour and fame 
Wi' Nelson at Battle 'Trafalgar, 
Joe Moggeridge, that were his name. 

He were one of the crew of the Victory, 
His job when a battle begun 
Was to take cannon balls out o' basket 
And shove 'em down front end o' gun. 

One day him...Read more of this...

Dharma

by Billy Collins
 The way the dog trots out the front door
every morning
without a hat or an umbrella,
without any money
or the keys to her doghouse
never fails to fill the saucer of my heart
with milky admiration.

Who provides a finer example 
of a life without encumbrance—
Thoreau in his curtainless hut
with a single plate, a single spoon?
Gandhi with his staff and his holy diapers?

Off she...Read more of this...

In the Neolithic Age

by Rudyard Kipling
 1895

I the Neolithic Age savage warfare did I wage
 For food and fame and woolly horses' pelt.
I was singer to my clan in that dim, red Dawn of Man,
 And I sang of all we fought and feared and felt.

Yea, I sang as now I sing, when the Prehistoric spring
 Made the piled Biscayan ice-pack split and shove;
And the...Read more of this...

To My Valentine

by Ogden Nash
 More than a catbird hates a cat,
Or a criminal hates a clue,
Or the Axis hates the United States,
That's how much I love you.

I love you more than a duck can swim,
And more than a grapefruit squirts,
I love you more than a gin rummy is a bore,
And more than a toothache hurts.

As a shipwrecked sailor hates the sea,
Or a juggler...Read more of this...

Reconstruction

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 So, the bank has bust it's boiler! And in six or seven year 
It will pay me all my money back -- of course! 
But the horse will perish waiting while the grass is germinating, 
And I reckon I'll be something like the horse. 

There's the ploughing to be finished and the ploughmen want their pay, 
And I'd like...Read more of this...

Mandalay

by Rudyard Kipling
 By the old Moulmein Pagoda, lookin' eastward to the sea,
There's a Burma girl a-settin', and I know she thinks o' me;
For the wind is in the palm-trees, and the temple-bells they say:
"Come you back, you British soldier; come you back to Mandalay!"
 Come you back to Mandalay,
 Where the old Flotilla lay:
 Can't you 'ear their paddles chunkin' from...Read more of this...

The Ballad of Persse OReilly

by James Joyce
 Have you heard of one Humpty Dumpty
How he fell with a roll and a rumble
And curled up like Lord Olofa Crumple
By the butt of the Magazine Wall,
 (Chorus) Of the Magazine Wall,
 Hump, helmet and all?

He was one time our King of the Castle
Now he's kicked about like a rotten old parsnip.
And from Green street he'll be sent by...Read more of this...

adventure

by Rg Gregory
 just as the dusk comes hooting
down through the shivering black leaves
of the swinging trees we (the brave ones
swaggering like marshalls through a lynch-mob)
crash-bang our way to the door
of the so-called haunted house

knock knock - kick in a pane of glass
and the dusk hoots louder in our ears
and the swinging trees ride like a mob
with murder in mind - knock...Read more of this...

The Angel Food Dogs

by Anne Sexton
 Leaping, leaping, leaping,
down line by line,
growling at the cadavers,
filling the holy jugs with their piss,
falling into windows and mauling the parents,
but soft, kiss-soft,
and sobbing sobbing
into their awful dog dish.

No point? No twist for you
in my white tunnel?
Let me speak plainly,
let me whisper it from the podium--

Mother, may I use your pseudonym?
May I take the dove named Mary
and shove out...Read more of this...

Sonnet XIII: Phoebus Was Judge

by Sir Philip Sidney
 Phoebus was judge between Jove, Mars, and Love, 
Of those three gods, whose arms the fairest were: 
Jove's golden shield did eagle sables bear, 
Whose talons held young Ganymede above: 

But in vert field Mars bare a golden spear, 
Which through a bleeding heart his point did shove: 
Each had his crest; Mars carried Venus' glove, 
Jove in his...Read more of this...

Night Journey

by Theodore Roethke
 Now as the train bears west,
Its rhythm rocks the earth,
And from my Pullman berth
I stare into the night
While others take their rest.
Bridges of iron lace,
A suddenness of trees,
A lap of mountain mist
All cross my line of sight,
Then a bleak wasted place,
And a lake below my knees.
Full on my neck I feel
The straining at a curve;
My muscles move with steel,
I...Read more of this...

Blight

by Ralph Waldo Emerson
Give me truths;
For I am weary of the surfaces,
And die of inanition. If I knew
Only the herbs and simples of the wood,
Rue, cinquefoil, gill, vervain and agrimony,
Blue-vetch and trillium, hawkweed, sassafras,
Milkweeds and murky brakes, quaint pipes and sun-dew,
And rare and virtuous roots, which in these woods
Draw untold juices from the common earth,
Untold, unknown, and I could surely spell
Their fragrance, and...Read more of this...

Loot

by Rudyard Kipling
 If you've ever stole a pheasant-egg be'ind the keeper's back,
 If you've ever snigged the washin' from the line,
If you've ever crammed a gander in your bloomin' 'aversack,
 You will understand this little song o' mine.
But the service rules are 'ard, an' from such we are debarred,
 For the same with English morals does not suit.
 (Cornet: Toot! toot!)
W'y,...Read more of this...

Tommy

by Rudyard Kipling
 I went into a public-'ouse to get a pint o' beer,
The publican 'e up an' sez, "We serve no red-coats here."
The girls be'ind the bar they laughed an' giggled fit to die,
I outs into the street again an' to myself sez I:
 O it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, go away";
 But it's "Thank you, Mister Atkins",...Read more of this...

Night Is My Sister And How Deep In Love

by Edna St. Vincent Millay
 Night is my sister, and how deep in love,
How drowned in love and weedily washed ashore,
There to be fretted by the drag and shove
At the tide's edge, I lie—these things and more:
Whose arm alone between me and the sand,
Whose voice alone, whose pitiful breath brought near,
Could thaw these nostrils and unlock this hand,
She could advise you, should you care...Read more of this...

The eathen

by Rudyard Kipling
 The 'eathen in 'is blindness bows down to wood an' stone;
'E don't obey no orders unless they is 'is own;
'E keeps 'is side-arms awful: 'e leaves 'em all about,
An' then comes up the Regiment an' pokes the 'eathen out.

 All along o' dirtiness, all along o' mess,
 All along o' doin' things rather-more-or-less,
 All along of abby-nay, kul, an'...Read more of this...

Security

by Robert William Service
 There once was a limpet puffed with pride
Who said to the ribald sea:
"It isn't I who cling to the rock,
It's the rock that clings to me;
It's the silly old rock who hugs me tight,
Because he loves me so;
And though I struggle with all my might,
He will not let me go."

Then said the sea, who hates the rock
That defies him...Read more of this...

The Dog

by Ogden Nash
 The truth I do not stretch or shove
When I state that the dog is full of love.
I've also found, by actual test,
A wet dog is the lovingest....Read more of this...

Success Comes To Cow Creek

by James Tate
 I sit on the tracks,
a hundred feet from
earth, fifty from the
water. Gerald is
inching toward me
as grim, slow, and
determined as a
season, because he
has no trade and wants
none. It's been nine months
since I last listened
to his fate, but I
know what he will say:
he's the fire hydrant
of the underdog.

When he reaches my
point above the creek,
he sits down without
salutation, and
spits profoundly out
past the...Read more of this...

Sonnet XVII: His Mother Dear Cupid

by Sir Philip Sidney
 His mother dear Cupid offended late, 
Because that Mars grown slacker in her love, 
With pricking shot he did not throughly more 
To keep the pace of their first loving state. 

The boy refus'd for fear of Mars's hate, 
Who threaten'd stripes, if he his wrath did prove: 
But she in chafe him from her lap did shove, 
Brake...Read more of this...

Success Comes To Cow Creek

by Edward Taylor
 I sit on the tracks,
a hundred feet from
earth, fifty from the
water. Gerald is
inching toward me
as grim, slow, and
determined as a
season, because he
has no trade and wants
none. It's been nine months
since I last listened
to his fate, but I
know what he will say:
he's the fire hydrant
of the underdog.

When he reaches my
point above the creek,
he sits down without
salutation, and
spits profoundly out
past the...Read more of this...

Song of the Red War-Boat

by Rudyard Kipling
 Shove off from the wharf-edge! Steady!
Watch for a smooth! Give way!
If she feels the lop already 
She'll stand on her head in the bay.
It's ebb--it's dusk--it's blowing--
The shoals are a mile of white,
But ( snatch her along! ) we're going
To find our master to-night.

For we hold that in all disaster
Of shipwreck, storm, or sword,
A Man must stand by his...Read more of this...

Item

by William Carlos (WCW) Williams
 This, with a face
like a mashed blood orange
that suddenly

would get eyes
and look up and scream
War! War!

clutching her
thick, ragged coat
a piece of hat

broken shoes
War! War!
stumbling for dread

at the young men
who with their gun-butts
shove her

sprawling—
a note
at the foot of the page....Read more of this...

Mary Pity Women!

by Rudyard Kipling
 You call yourself a man,
 For all you used to swear,
An' Leave me, as you can,
 My certain shame to bear?
 I'ear! You do not care --
You done the worst you know.
 I 'ate you, grinnin' there....
Ah, Gawd, I love you so!

Nice while it lasted, an' now it is over --
Tear out your 'eart an' good-bye to you lover!
What's...Read more of this...

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