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Famous Skins Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry
...ed
With 'minished beauty, multiplied commonplace,
preferred to teach a school
Away from neighbour or friend,
Among dark skins, and there
permit foul years to wear
Hidden from eyesight to the unnoticed end.

Before that end much had she ravelled out
From a discourse in figurative speech
By some learned Indian
On the soul's journey. How it is whirled about,
Wherever the orbit of the moon can reach,
Until it plunge into the sun;
And there, free and yet fast,
Being both Chance an...Read more of this...
by Yeats, William Butler



...he beaver;
Unmolested worked the women,
Made their sugar from the maple,
Gathered wild rice in the meadows,
Dressed the skins of deer and beaver.
All around the happy village
Stood the maize-fields, green and shining,
Waved the green plumes of Mondamin,
Waved his soft and sunny tresses,
Filling all the land with plenty.
`T was the women who in Spring-time
Planted the broad fields and fruitful,
Buried in the earth Mondamin;
`T was the women who in Autumn
Stripped the yellow hu...Read more of this...
by Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
...he same
brushed by eyes
the touch is silent
silence breeds
we feel the breath of fury
(soon to roar)
retreat within our skins
return to broader streets

bazaars glower
almost at candlelight
we clutch our goods
a dim delusion of festivity
a christ neurotic
dying to explode

how much of this is aden
how much our masterpiece
all atmospheres are inbuilt

an armoured car looms by

the ship like mother
brooding in the sea
receives us with a sigh
aden winks and ogles in the dark
the...Read more of this...
by Gregory, Rg
...reth, 'Wherefore waits the madman there 
Naked in open dayshine?' 'Nay,' she cried, 
'Not naked, only wrapt in hardened skins 
That fit him like his own; and so ye cleave 
His armour off him, these will turn the blade.' 

Then the third brother shouted o'er the bridge, 
'O brother-star, why shine ye here so low? 
Thy ward is higher up: but have ye slain 
The damsel's champion?' and the damsel cried, 

'No star of thine, but shot from Arthur's heaven 
With all disaster unto th...Read more of this...
by Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...windy buffet out 
Once, twice, to right, to left, and stunned the twain 
Or slew them, and dismounting like a man 
That skins the wild beast after slaying him, 
Stript from the three dead wolves of woman born 
The three gay suits of armour which they wore, 
And let the bodies lie, but bound the suits 
Of armour on their horses, each on each, 
And tied the bridle-reins of all the three 
Together, and said to her, 'Drive them on 
Before you;' and she drove them through the wast...Read more of this...
by Tennyson, Alfred Lord



...
 vine-leaves over the lintel,
Six hands at an open door dicing for 
 pieces of silver,
And feet kicking the empty wine-skins.
But there was no imformation, and so
 we continued
And arrived at evening, not a moment
 too soon
Finding the place; it was (you may say)
 satisfactory.

All this was a long time ago, I 
 remember,
And I would do it again, but set down
This set down
This: were we led all that way for
Birth or Death? There was a Birth, 
 certainly, 
We had evidence and...Read more of this...
by Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)
...ervant to assume; 
As when he washed his servants feet; so now, 
As father of his family, he clad 
Their nakedness with skins of beasts, or slain, 
Or as the snake with youthful coat repaid; 
And thought not much to clothe his enemies; 
Nor he their outward only with the skins 
Of beasts, but inward nakedness, much more. 
Opprobrious, with his robe of righteousness, 
Arraying, covered from his Father's sight. 
To him with swift ascent he up returned, 
Into his blissful bosom ...Read more of this...
by Milton, John
...mets in the dust.
Then with what trivial weapon came to Hand,
The Jaw of a dead Ass, his sword of bone,
A thousand fore-skins fell, the flower of Palestin
In Ramath-lechi famous to this day:
Then by main force pull'd up, and on his shoulders bore
The Gates of Azza, Post, and massie Bar
Up to the Hill by Hebron, seat of Giants old,
No journey of a Sabbath day, and loaded so;
Like whom the Gentiles feign to bear up Heav'n. 
Which shall I first bewail,
Thy Bondage or lost Sight,...Read more of this...
by Milton, John
...r feet, and large thick blankets hanging from their
 shoulders; 
On a bank lounged the trapper—he was drest mostly in skins—his
 luxuriant beard and curls protected his neck—he held his bride by the hand;

She had long eyelashes—her head was bare—her coarse straight locks
 descended upon her voluptuous limbs and reach’d to her feet.

The runaway slave came to my house and stopt outside; 
I heard his motions crackling the twigs of the woodpile; 
Through the swung hal...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt
...jungle in their refuges, 
142 So streaked with yellow, blue and green and red 
143 In beak and bud and fruity gobbet-skins, 
144 That earth was like a jostling festival 
145 Of seeds grown fat, too juicily opulent, 
146 Expanding in the gold's maternal warmth. 
147 So much for that. The affectionate emigrant found 
148 A new reality in parrot-squawks. 
149 Yet let that trifle pass. Now, as this odd 
150 Discoverer walked through the harbor streets 
151 Inspecting t...Read more of this...
by Stevens, Wallace
...Indian, from sickness, is unable to continue his journey with his companions; he is left behind, covered over with Deer-skins, and is supplied with water, food, and fuel if the situation of the place will afford it. He is informed of the track which his companions intend to pursue, and if he is unable to follow, or overtake them, he perishes alone in the Desart; unless he should have the good fortune to fall in with some other Tribes of Indians. It is unnecessary to add that ...Read more of this...
by Wordsworth, William
...irst person to dream,
how quiet he must have seemed the next morning

as the others stood around the fire
draped in the skins of animals
talking to each other only in vowels,
for this was long before the invention of consonants.

He might have gone off by himself to sit
on a rock and look into the mist of a lake
as he tried to tell himself what had happened,
how he had gone somewhere without going,

how he had put his arms around the neck
of a beast that the others could touc...Read more of this...
by Collins, Billy
...n's horns;
     Pennons and flags defaced and stained,
     That blackening streaks of blood retained,
     And deer-skins, dappled, dun, and white,
     With otter's fur and seal's unite,
     In rude and uncouth tapestry all,
     To garnish forth the sylvan hall.
     XXVIII.

     The wondering stranger round him gazed,
     And next the fallen weapon raised:—
     Few were the arms whose sinewy strength
     Sufficed to stretch it forth at length.
     And a...Read more of this...
by Scott, Sir Walter
...eddied into suns, that wheeling cast 
The planets: then the monster, then the man; 
Tattooed or woaded, winter-clad in skins, 
Raw from the prime, and crushing down his mate; 
As yet we find in barbarous isles, and here 
Among the lowest.' 
Thereupon she took 
A bird's-eye-view of all the ungracious past; 
Glanced at the legendary Amazon 
As emblematic of a nobler age; 
Appraised the Lycian custom, spoke of those 
That lay at wine with Lar and Lucumo; 
Ran down the Persian, ...Read more of this...
by Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...is the hunter; woman is his game: 
The sleek and shining creatures of the chase, 
We hunt them for the beauty of their skins; 
They love us for it, and we ride them down. 
Wheedling and siding with them! Out! for shame! 
Boy, there's no rose that's half so dear to them 
As he that does the thing they dare not do, 
Breathing and sounding beauteous battle, comes 
With the air of the trumpet round him, and leaps in 
Among the women, snares them by the score 
Flattered and flust...Read more of this...
by Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...eet.



IV

The rat we tried to frighten, trap or poison, saw us off instead;

It seemed as if it grew beneath our very skins and circled

With our blood and hammered at our heads and leered from specks

Of fluff beneath the bed. The wainscot was the worst, it seemed

No whitewashed wall was free from cavities that wound behind

And joined another maze of runs that opened to the boards of yet

Another floor, until the tiny house had grown to one great rat-run

Vaster than the...Read more of this...
by Tebb, Barry
...t of rushes,
Said with gentle look and accent,
"You are welcome, Hiawatha!"

Very spacious was the wigwam,
Made of deer-skins dressed and whitened,
With the Gods of the Dacotahs
Drawn and painted on its curtains,
And so tall the doorway, hardly
Hiawatha stooped to enter,
Hardly touched his eagle-feathers
As he entered at the doorway.

Then uprose the Laughing Water,
From the ground fair Minnehaha,
Laid aside her mat unfinished,
Brought forth food and set before them,
Water br...Read more of this...
by Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
...r not having sent them more
Money and men and war supplies,
Blame if we venture to criticise.
We're so damn simple— our skins so thin
We'll get nothing whatever, but we'll come in.'

XXXV 
And at last—at last—like the dawn of a calm, fair day 
After a night of terror and storm, they came—
My young light-hearted countrymen, tall and gay, 
Looking the world over in search of fun and fame, 
Marching through London to the beat of a boastful air, 
Seeing for the first time Piccadi...Read more of this...
by Miller, Alice Duer
...tter word.
His children and grandchildren went away
and never came back home to be interred,
so left a lot of space for skins to spray.

The language of this graveyard ranges from
a bit of Latin for a former Mayor
or those who laid their lives down at the Somme,
the hymnal fragments and the gilded prayer,

how people 'fell asleep in the Good Lord',
brief chisellable bits from the good book
and rhymes whatever length they could afford,
to ****, PISS, **** and (mostly) ****!

O...Read more of this...
by Harrison, Tony
...; 
A barrel of salted herrings lasts a year; 
The spring begins before the winter's over. 
By February you may find the skins 
Of garter snakes and water moccasins 
Dwindled and harsh, dead-white and cloudy-clear.

3

When April pours the colours of a shell 
Upon the hills, when every little creek 
Is shot with silver from the Chesapeake 
In shoals new-minted by the ocean swell, 
When strawberries go begging, and the sleek 
Blue plums lie open to the blackbird's beak, 
We sha...Read more of this...
by Wylie, Elinor

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Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry