Famous Shrivel Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Exiles

by Marilyn Hacker
 Her brown falcon perches above the sink
as steaming water forks over my hands.
Below the wrists they shrivel and turn pink.
I am in exile in my own land.

Her half-grown cats scuffle across the floor
trailing a slime of blood from where they fed.
I lock the door. They claw under the door.
I am an exile in my own bed.

Her spotted mongrel, bristling...Read more of this...

Song For The Rainy Season

by Elizabeth Bishop
 Hidden, oh hidden 
in the high fog 
the house we live in, 
beneath the magnetic rock, 
rain-, rainbow-ridden, 
where blood-black 
bromelias, lichens, 
owls, and the lint 
of the waterfalls cling, 
familiar, unbidden. 

In a dim age 
of water 
the brook sings loud 
from a rib cage 
of giant fern; vapor 
climbs up the thick growth 
effortlessly, turns back, 
holding...Read more of this...

Old Man

by Edward Thomas
 Old Man, or Lads-Love, - in the name there’s nothing
To one that knows not Lads-Love, or Old Man, 
The hoar green feathery herb, almost a tree, 
Growing with rosemary and lavender.
Even to one that knows it well, the names
Half decorate, half perplex, the thing it is: 
At least, what that is clings not to the names
In spite of time....Read more of this...

The Bride Of Corinth

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
 [First published in Schiller's Horen, in connection 
with a
friendly contest in the art of ballad-writing between the two
great poets, to which many of their finest works are owing.]

ONCE a stranger youth to Corinth came,

Who in Athens lived, but hoped that he
From a certain townsman there might claim,

As his father's friend, kind courtesy.

Son and daughter, they

Had been wont to say

Should...Read more of this...

One Viceroy Resigns

by Rudyard Kipling
 So here's your Empire. No more wine, then?
Good.
We'll clear the Aides and khitmatgars away.
(You'll know that fat old fellow with the knife --
He keeps the Name Book, talks in English too,
And almost thinks himself the Government.)
O Youth, Youth, Youth! Forgive me, you're so young.
Forty from sixty -- twenty years of work
And power to back the working. Ay def mi!
You...Read more of this...

Observation Car

by Alec Derwent (A D) Hope
 To be put on the train and kissed and given my ticket, 
Then the station slid backward, the shops and the neon lighting, 
Reeling off in a drunken blur, with a whole pound note in my pocket 
And the holiday packed with Perhaps. It used to be very exciting. 

The present and past were enough. I did not mind...Read more of this...

Lead Soldiers

by Amy Lowell
 The nursery fire burns brightly, crackling in cheerful 
little explosions
and trails of sparks up the back of the chimney. Miniature 
rockets
peppering the black bricks with golden stars, as though a gala
flamed a night of victorious wars.
The nodding mandarin on the bookcase moves his 
head forward and back, slowly,
and looks into the air with his blue-green eyes. He stares 
into...Read more of this...

Dæmonic Love

by Ralph Waldo Emerson
 Man was made of social earth,
Child and brother from his birth;
Tethered by a liquid cord
Of blood through veins of kindred poured,
Next his heart the fireside band
Of mother, father, sister, stand;
Names from awful childhood heard,
Throbs of a wild religion stirred,
Their good was heaven, their harm was vice,
Till Beauty came to snap all ties,
The maid, abolishing the past,
With lotus-wine obliterates
Dear memory's...Read more of this...

Old Trails

by Edwin Arlington Robinson
 (WASHINGTON SQUARE)


I met him, as one meets a ghost or two, 
Between the gray Arch and the old Hotel. 
“King Solomon was right, there’s nothing new,” 
Said he. “Behold a ruin who meant well.” 

He led me down familiar steps again, 
Appealingly, and set me in a chair. 
“My dreams have all come true to other men,” 
Said he;...Read more of this...

Cups of Coffee

by Carl Sandburg
 THE HAGGARD woman with a hacking cough and a deathless love whispers of white
flowers … in your poem you pour like a cup of coffee, Gabriel. 

The slim girl whose voice was lost in the waves of flesh piled on her bones … and
the woman who sold to many men and saw her breasts shrivel … in two poems...Read more of this...

The Reformers

by Rudyard Kipling
 1901

Not in the camp his victory lies
 Or triumph in the market-place,
Who is his Nation's sacrifice
To turn the judgement from his race.

Happy is he who, bred and taught
 By sleek, sufficing Circumstance --
Whose Gospel was the apparelled thought,
 Whose Gods were Luxury and Chance --

Seese, on the threshold of his days,
 The old life shrivel like a scroll,
And to...Read more of this...

Hora Stellatrix

by Amy Lowell
 The stars hang thick in the apple tree,
The south wind smells of the pungent sea,
Gold tulip cups are heavy with dew.
The night's for you, Sweetheart, for you!
Starfire rains from the vaulted blue.
Listen! The dancing of unseen leaves.
A drowsy swallow stirs in the eaves.
Only a maiden is sorrowing.
'T is night and spring, Sweetheart, and spring!
Starfire lights your heart's blossoming.
In the...Read more of this...

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