Famous Slush Poems by Famous Poets

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

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the adventures (from frederick and the enchantress – dance drama)

by Rg Gregory
  (i) introduction

  his home in ruins
  his parents gone
  frederick seeks
  to reclaim his throne

   to the golden mountain
   he sets his path
   the enchantress listening
   schemes with wrath

  four desperate trials
  which she takes from store
  to silence frederick
  for ever...Read more of this...

Pedlar

by Robert William Service
 Pedlar's coming down the street,
Housewives beat a swift retreat.
Don't you answer to the bell;
Heedless what she has to sell.
Just discreetly go inside.
We must hang a board, I fear:
PEDLARS NOT PERMITTED HERE.

I'm trying to sell what nobody wants to buy;
They turn me away, but still I try and try.
My arms are aching and my feet are sore;
Heartsick and worn I...Read more of this...

Knocked Up

by Henry Lawson
 I'm lyin' on the barren ground that's baked and cracked with drought, 
And dunno if my legs or back or heart is most wore out; 
I've got no spirits left to rise and smooth me achin' brow -- 
I'm too knocked up to light a fire and bile the billy now. 

Oh it's trampin', trampin', tra-a-mpin', in flies an'...Read more of this...

The Drovers Sweetheart

by Henry Lawson
 An hour before the sun goes down 
Behind the ragged boughs, 
I go across the little run 
And bring the dusty cows; 
And once I used to sit and rest 
Beneath the fading dome, 
For there was one that I loved best 
Who'd bring the cattle home. 

Our yard is fixed with double bails, 
Round one the grass is...Read more of this...

In the waiting Room

by Elizabeth Bishop
In Worcester, Massachusetts,
I went with Aunt Consuelo
to keep her dentist's appointment
and sat and waited for her
in the dentist's waiting room.
It was winter. It got dark
early. The waiting room
was full of grown-up people,
arctics and overcoats,
lamps and magazines.
My aunt was inside
what seemed like a long time
and while I waited and read
the National Geographic 
(I could read) and carefully 
studied the photographs:
the inside...Read more of this...

The Quaker Graveyard in Nantucket

by Robert Lowell
 (For Warren Winslow, Dead At Sea)
 Let man have dominion over the fishes of the sea and
 the fowls of the air and the beasts and the whole earth,
 and every creeping creature that moveth upon the earth.

 I
A brackish reach of shoal off Madaket--
The sea was still breaking violently and night
Had steamed into our North Atlantic Fleet,
When the...Read more of this...

The Cockney Soul

by Henry Lawson
 From Woolwich and Brentford and Stamford Hill, from Richmond into the Strand, 
Oh, the Cockney soul is a silent soul – as it is in every land! 
But out on the sand with a broken band it's sarcasm spurs them through; 
And, with never a laugh, in a gale and a half, 'tis the Cockney cheers the crew. 

Oh,...Read more of this...

Patroling Barnegat

by Walt Whitman
 WILD, wild the storm, and the sea high running, 
Steady the roar of the gale, with incessant undertone muttering, 
Shouts of demoniac laughter fitfully piercing and pealing, 
Waves, air, midnight, their savagest trinity lashing, 
Out in the shadows there milk-white combs careering,
On beachy slush and sand spirts of snow fierce slanting, 
Where through the murk the easterly death-wind breasting,...Read more of this...

White Nassau

by Bliss Carman
 There is fog upon the river, there is mirk upon the town;
You can hear the groping ferries as they hoot each other down;
From the Battery to Harlem there's seven miles of slush,
Through looming granite canyons of glitter, noise, and rush.
Are you sick of phones and tickers and crazing cable gongs,
Of the theatres, the hansoms, and the breathless Broadway throngs,
Of...Read more of this...

Queen Hilda of Virland

by Henry Lawson
 PART I 
Queen Hilda rode along the lines, 
And she was young and fair; 
And forward on her shoulders fell 
The heavy braids of hair: 
No gold was ever dug from earth 
Like that burnished there – 
No sky so blue as were her eyes 
Had man seen anywhere. 

'Twas so her gay court poets sang, 
And we believed...Read more of this...

Ready to Kill

by Carl Sandburg
 TEN minutes now I have been looking at this.
I have gone by here before and wondered about it.
This is a bronze memorial of a famous general
Riding horseback with a flag and a sword and a revolver
on him.
I want to smash the whole thing into a pile of junk to be
hauled away to the scrap yard.
I put it straight to...Read more of this...

Dream Song 132: A Small Dream

by John Berryman
 A Small Dream

It was only a small dream of the Golden World,
now you trot off to bed. I'll turn the machine off,
you've danced & trickt us enough.
Unintelligible whines & imprecations, hurled
from the second floor, fail to impress your mother
and I am the only other

and I say go to bed! We'll meet tomorrow,
acres of threats dissolve into a smile,
you'll be...Read more of this...

The Sentry

by Wilfred Owen
 We'd found an old Boche dug-out, and he knew,
And gave us hell, for shell on frantic shell
Hammered on top, but never quite burst through.
Rain, guttering down in waterfalls of slime
Kept slush waist high, that rising hour by hour,
Choked up the steps too thick with clay to climb.
What murk of air remained stank old, and sour
With fumes of whizz-bangs, and...Read more of this...

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