Famous Slack Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Slack poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous slack poems. These examples illustrate what a famous slack poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Robert William Service
When a man gits on his uppers in a hard-pan sort of town,
An' he ain't got nothin' comin' an' he can't afford ter eat,
An' he's in a fix for lodgin' an' he wanders up an' down,
An' you'd fancy he'd been boozin', he's so locoed 'bout the feet;
When he's feelin' sneakin' sorry an' his belt is hangin' slack,
...Read more of this...
by
James Dickey
Memory: I can take my head and strike it on a wall on Cumberland Island
Where the night tide came crawling under the stairs came up the first
Two or three steps and the cottage stood on poles all night
With the sea sprawled under it as we dreamed of the great fin circling
Under the bedroom floor. In...Read more of this...
by
William Cullen Bryant
The country ever has a lagging Spring,
Waiting for May to call its violets forth,
And June its roses--showers and sunshine bring,
Slowly, the deepening verdure o'er the earth;
To put their foliage out, the woods are slack,
And one by one the singing-birds come back.
Within the city's bounds the time of flowers
Comes earlier. Let a mild and sunny day,
Such as full often, for...Read more of this...
by
George Herbert
Love bade me welcome: yet my soul drew back,
Guilty of dust and sin.
But quick-ey'd Love, observing me grow slack,
From my first entrance in,
Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning,
If I lack'd anything.
A guest, I answer'd, worthy to be here:
Love said, You shall be he.
I the unkind, ungrateful? Ah my dear,
I cannot look on thee.
Love took my hand, and smiling did...Read more of this...
by
Louis Untermeyer
"Old Jews!" Well, David, aren't we?
What news is that to make you see so red,
To swear and almost tear your beard in half?
Jeered at? Well, let them laugh.
You can laugh longer when you're dead.
What? Are you still too blind to see?
Have you forgot your Midrash!... They were right,
The little goyim, with their angry stones.
You should be buried in the desert...Read more of this...
by
Francesco Petrarch
[Pg 145] SONNET CXVI. Non Tesin, Po, Varo, Arno, Adige e Tebro. HE EXTOLS THE LAUREL AND ITS FAVOURITE STREAM. Not all the streams that water the bright earth,Not all the trees to which its breast gives birth,Can cooling drop or healing balm impartTo slack the fire which scorches...Read more of this...
by
Henry Lawson
The Shame of Going Back And the reason of your failure isn't anybody's fault --
When you haven't got a billet, and the times are very slack,
There is nothing that can spur you like the shame of going back;
Crawling home with empty pockets,
Going back hard-up;
Oh! it's then you learn the meaning of humiliation's cup.
When...Read more of this...
by
Badger Clark
'Way high up the Mogollons,
Among the mountain tops,
A lion cleaned a yearlin's bones
And licked his thankful chops,
When on the picture who should ride,
A-trippin' down a slope,
But High-Chin Bob, with sinful pride
And mav'rick-hungry rope.
...Read more of this...
by
William Topaz McGonagall
In one of fhe States of America, some years ago,
There suddenly came on a violent storm of snow,
Which was nearly the death of a party of workmen,
Who had finished their day's work - nine or ten of them.
The distance was nearly twenty miles to their camp,
And with the thick falling snow their clothes felt damp,
As they set out...Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
Heaven's mighty sweet, I guess;
Ain't no rush to git there:
Been a sinner, more or less;
Maybe wouldn't fit there.
Wicked still, bound to confess;
Might jest pine a bit there.
Heaven's swell, the preachers say:
Got so used to earth here;
Had such good times all the way,
Frolic, fun and mirth here;
Eighty Springs ago to-day,
Since I had my birth here.
Quite a spell of happy years.
Wish...Read more of this...
by
Thomas Hardy
To Jenny came a gentle youth
From inland leazes lone;
His love was fresh as apple-blooth
By Parrett, Yeo, or Tone.
And duly he entreated her
To be his tender minister,
And call him aye her own.
Fair Jenny's life had hardly been
A life of modesty;
At Casterbridge experience keen
Of many loves...Read more of this...
by
Rg Gregory
schnyder schnyder
the bouncing spider
had a song
wound up inside her
she'd had it taped
on a silken spool
this was the song
she sang as a rule
o little fly
come be my friend
i have fly's gold
for you to spend
i'll wrap you in silks
to make you pretty
if you refuse
then more's the pity
the silk-voice warbled
through the wood
the best bird-song
didn't seem so good
but no flies came
they were...Read more of this...
by
Czeslaw Milosz
Let us not talk philosophy, drop it, Jeanne.
So many words, so much paper, who can stand it.
I told you the truth about my distancing myself.
I've stopped worrying about my misshapen life.
It was no better and no worse than the usual human tragedies.
For over thirty years we have been waging our dispute
As we do now, on the island under the...Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
Three men I saw beside a bar,
Regarding o'er their bottle,
A frog who smoked a rank cigar
They'd jammed within its throttle.
A Pasha frog it must have been
So big it as and bloated;
And from its lips the nicotine
In graceful festoon floated.
And while the trio jeered and joked,
As if it quite enjoyed it,
Impassively it smoked and smoked,
(It could now well avoid it).
A...Read more of this...
by
Sharon Olds
In the taxi alone, home from the airport,
I could not believe you were gone. My palm kept
creeping over the smooth plastic
to find your strong meaty little hand and
squeeze it, find your narrow thigh in the
noble ribbing of the corduroy,
straight and regular as anything in nature, to
find the slack cool cheek of a
child in the heat of a summer morning—
nothing,...Read more of this...
by
Countee Cullen
All through an empty place I go,
And find her not in any room;
The candles and the lamps I light
Go down before a wind of gloom.
Thick-spraddled lies the dust about,
A fit, sad place to write her name
Or draw her face the way she looked
That legendary night she came.
The old house crumbles bit by bit;
Each day I hear the ominous...Read more of this...
by
Edgar Lee Masters
I would have been as great as George Eliot
But for an untoward fate.
For look at the photograph of me made by Penniwit,
Chin resting on hand, and deep-set eyes --
Gray, too, and far-searching.
But there was the old, old problem:
Should it be celibacy, matrimony or unchastity?
Then John Slack, the rich druggist, wooed me,
Luring me with the promise of leisure for my...Read more of this...
by
Michael Drayton
Cupid Conjured
Thou purblind boy, since thou hast been so slack
To wound her heart, whose eyes have wounded me,
And suffer'd her to glory in my wrack,
Thus to my aid I lastly conjure thee:
By hellish Styx, by which the Thund'rer swears,
By thy fair mother's unavoided power,
By Hecate's names, by Proserpine's sad tears
When she was...Read more of this...
by
James Thomson
1. Fareweel, ye bughts, an' all your ewes,
An' fields whare bIoomin' heather grows;
Nae mair the sportin' lambs I'll see
Since my true love's forsaken me.
CHORUS.
Nae mair I'll hear wi' pleasure sing
The cheerfu' lav'rock in the Spring,
But sad in grief now I maun mourn,
Far, far frae her, o'er Logan-burn.
2. Alas! nae mair...Read more of this...
by
D. H. Lawrence
A snake came to my water-trough
On a hot, hot day, and I in pyjamas for the heat,
To drink there.
In the deep, strange-scented shade of the great dark carob-tree
I came down the steps with my pitcher
And must wait, must stand and wait, for there he was at the trough before
me.
He reached down from a fissure in the earth-wall in the...Read more of this...
by
Anne Bradstreet
O thou Most High who rulest all
And hear'st the prayers of thine,
O hearken, Lord, unto my suit
And my petition sign.
Into Thy everlasting arms Of mercy
I commend Thy servant, Lord.
Keep and preserve My husband,
my dear friend.
At Thy command, O Lord, he went,
Nor nought could keep him back.
Then let Thy promise joy his...Read more of this...
by
Robert Burns
Chorus.—You’re welcome, Willie Stewart,
You’re welcome, Willie Stewart,
There’s ne’er a flower that blooms in May,
That’s half sae welcome’s thou art!
COME, bumpers high, express your joy,
The bowl we maun renew it,
The tappet hen, gae bring her ben,
To welcome Willie Stewart,
You’re welcome, Willie Stewart, &c.
May foes be strang, and friends be slack
Ilk action, may he rue...Read more of this...
by
Gerard Manley Hopkins
Not, I'll not, carrion comfort, Despair, not feast on thee;
Not untwist—slack they may be—these last strands of man
In me ?r, most weary, cry I can no more. I can;
Can something, hope, wish day come, not choose not to be.
But ah, but O thou terrible, why wouldst thou rude on me
Thy wring-world right foot rock? lay a lionlimb against me?...Read more of this...
by
Vachel Lindsay
Climbing the heights of Berkeley
Nightly I watch the West.
There lies new San Francisco,
Sea-maid in purple dressed,
Wearing a dancer's girdle
All to inflame desire:
Scorning her days of sackcloth,
Scorning her cleansing fire.
See, like a burning city
Sets now the red sun's dome.
See, mystic firebrands sparkle
There on each store and home.
See how...Read more of this...
by
Emile Verhaeren
If our hearts have burned in uplifting days with a love as bright as it was lofty, age now makes us slack and indulgent and mild before our faults.
You no longer make us greater, O youthful will, with your unsubdued ardour, and our life is coloured now with gentle calm and pale kindliness.
We are at the setting of your sun,...Read more of this...
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