Famous Smelling Poems by Famous Poets

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

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When Cold December

by Dame Edith Sitwell
 WHEN cold December 
Froze to grisamber 
The jangling bells on the sweet rose-trees-- 
Then fading slow 
And furred is the snow 
As the almond's sweet husk-- 
And smelling like musk. 
The snow amygdaline 
Under the eglantine 
Where the bristling stars shine 
Like a gilt porcupine-- 
The snow confesses 
The little Princesses 
On their small chioppines 
Dance under the orpines....Read more of this...

Cruelty and Love

by D. H. Lawrence
 What large, dark hands are those at the window 
Lifted, grasping in the yellow light 
Which makes its way through the curtain web 
At my heart to-night? 

Ah, only the leaves! So leave me at rest, 
In the west I see a redness come 
Over the evening's burning breast -- 
For now the pain is numb. 

The woodbine creeps...Read more of this...

Angels Of The Love Affair

by Anne Sexton
 "Angels of the love affair, do you know that other,
the dark one, that other me?"

1. ANGEL OF FIRE AND GENITALS

Angel of fire and genitals, do you know slime,
that green mama who first forced me to sing,
who put me first in the latrine, that pantomime
of brown where I was beggar and she was king?
I said, "The devil is down that...Read more of this...

Falling Asleep

by Siegfried Sassoon
 Voices moving about in the quiet house: 
Thud of feet and a muffled shutting of doors: 
Everyone yawning. Only the clocks are alert. 

Out in the night there’s autumn-smelling gloom 
Crowded with whispering trees; across the park
A hollow cry of hounds like lonely bells: 
And I know that the clouds are moving across the moon; 
The low, red, rising...Read more of this...

Roses

by George Eliot
 You love the roses - so do I. I wish
The sky would rain down roses, as they rain
From off the shaken bush. Why will it not?
Then all the valley would be pink and white
And soft to tread on. They would fall as light
As feathers, smelling sweet; and it would be
Like sleeping and like waking, all at once!...Read more of this...

Ave atque Vale (In memory of Charles Baudelaire)

by Algernon Charles Swinburne
 SHALL I strew on thee rose or rue or laurel, 
 Brother, on this that was the veil of thee? 
 Or quiet sea-flower moulded by the sea, 
Or simplest growth of meadow-sweet or sorrel, 
 Such as the summer-sleepy Dryads weave, 
 Waked up by snow-soft sudden rains at eve? 
Or wilt thou rather, as on earth before,...Read more of this...

Four in the Morning

by Dame Edith Sitwell
 Cried the navy-blue ghost
Of Mr. Belaker
The allegro ***** cocktail-shaker,
"Why did the cock crow,
Why am I lost,
Down the endless road to Infinity toss'd?
The tropical leaves are whispering white
As water; I race the wind in my flight.
The white lace houses are carried away
By the tide; far out they float and sway.
White is the nursemaid on the parade.
Is she real, as she...Read more of this...

A Woman Waking

by Philip Levine
 She wakens early remembering 
her father rising in the dark 
lighting the stove with a match 
scraped on the floor. Then measuring 
water for coffee, and later the smell 
coming through. She would hear 
him drying spoons, dropping 
them one by one in the drawer. 
Then he was on the stairs 
going for the milk. So soon 
he would...Read more of this...

Hey Baby

by Maggie Estep
 Liner Notes - (from No More Mister Nice Girl)

I was having a foul day. Some
geezer harrassed me on the street and I got completely bent out of shape,
but the guy was huge so I just stuffed my retort. Went home to drink
coffee. No milk. I ripped through the cupboards and found Non Dairy Creamer.
It tasted like ****. I got...Read more of this...

The Hayloft

by Robert Louis Stevenson
 Through all the pleasant meadow-side 
The grass grew shoulder-high, 
Till the shining scythes went far and wide 
And cut it down to dry. 

Those green and sweetly smelling crops 
They led the waggons home; 
And they piled them here in mountain tops 
For mountaineers to roam. 

Here is Mount Clear, Mount Rusty-Nail, 
Mount Eagle and Mount High;-- 
The mice...Read more of this...

These I Singing in Spring

by Walt Whitman
 THESE, I, singing in spring, collect for lovers, 
(For who but I should understand lovers, and all their sorrow and joy? 
And who but I should be the poet of comrades?) 
Collecting, I traverse the garden, the world—but soon I pass the gates, 
Now along the pond-side—now wading in a little, fearing not the wet,
Now by the post-and-rail fences,...Read more of this...

Mist In The Valley

by Edna St. Vincent Millay
 These hills, to hurt me more,
That am hurt already enough,— 
Having left the sea behind,
Having turned suddenly and left the shore
That I had loved beyond all words, even a song's words, to 
convey,

And built me a house on upland acres,
Sweet with the pinxter, bright and rough
With the rusty blackbird long before the winter's done,
But smelling never of bayberry hot...Read more of this...

Childhood

by Richard Aldington
 I 

The bitterness. the misery, the wretchedness of childhood 
Put me out of love with God. 
I can't believe in God's goodness; 
I can believe 
In many avenging gods. 
Most of all I believe 
In gods of bitter dullness, 
Cruel local gods 
Who scared my childhood. 

II 

I've seen people put 
A chrysalis in a match-box, 
"To see," they...Read more of this...

How To Write The Great American Indian Novel

by Sherman Alexie
All of the Indians must have tragic features: tragic noses, eyes, and arms.
Their hands and fingers must be tragic when they reach for tragic food.

The hero must be a half-breed, half white and half Indian, preferably
from a horse culture. He should often weep alone. That is mandatory.

If the hero is an Indian woman, she is beautiful. She must be slender
and...Read more of this...

The Voice Of The Banjo

by Paul Laurence Dunbar
In a small and lonely cabin out of noisy traffic's way,
Sat an old man, bent and feeble, dusk of face, and hair of gray,
And beside him on the table, battered, old, and worn as he,
Lay a banjo, droning forth this reminiscent melody:
"Night is closing in upon us, friend of mine, but don't be sad;
Let us think of all the pleasures...Read more of this...

Love and Sleep

by Algernon Charles Swinburne
 Lying asleep between the strokes of night
I saw my love lean over my sad bed,
Pale as the duskiest lily's leaf or head,
Smooth-skinned and dark, with bare throat made to bite,
Too wan for blushing and too warm for white,
But perfect-colored without white or red.
And her lips opened amorously, and said--
I wist not what, saving one word--Delight,
And all her face was...Read more of this...

To Walt Whitman In America

by Algernon Charles Swinburne
 Send but a song oversea for us,
Heart of their hearts who are free,
Heart of their singer, to be for us
More than our singing can be;
Ours, in the tempest at error,
With no light but the twilight of terror;
Send us a song oversea!

Sweet-smelling of pine-leaves and grasses,
And blown as a tree through and through
With the winds of the keen mountain-passes,
And tender...Read more of this...

Came the Great Popinjay

by Dame Edith Sitwell
 CAME the great Popinjay 
Smelling his nosegay: 
In cages like grots 
The birds sang gavottes. 
'Herodiade's flea 
Was named sweet Amanda, 
She danced like a lady 
From here to Uganda. 
Oh, what a dance was there! 
Long-haired, the candle 
Salome-like tossed her hair 
To a dance tune by Handel.' . . . 
Dance they still? Then came 
Courtier Death,...Read more of this...

Always Unsuitable

by Marge Piercy
 She wore little teeth of pearls around her neck.
They were grinning politely and evenly at me.
Unsuitable they smirked. It is true

I look a stuffed turkey in a suit. Breasts
too big for the silhouette. She knew
at once that we had sex, lots of it

as if I had strolled into her diningroom
in a dirty negligee smelling gamy
smelling fishy and sporting a...Read more of this...

Cherry-Time

by Robert Graves
 Cherries of the night are riper
Than the cherries pluckt at noon 
Gather to your fairy piper 
When he pipes his magic tune: 
 Merry, merry, 
 Take a cherry; 
 Mine are sounder, 
 Mine are rounder, 
 Mine are sweeter 
 For the eater
 Under the moon. 
And you’ll be fairies soon. 

In the cherry pluckt at night,...Read more of this...

Dedication For A Plot Of Ground

by William Carlos (WCW) Williams
 This plot of ground 
facing the waters of this inlet 
is dedicated to the living presence of 
Emily Dickinson Wellcome 
who was born in England; married; 
lost her husband and with 
her five year old son 
sailed for New York in a two-master; 
was driven to the Azores; 
ran adrift on Fire Island shoal, 
met her second husband 
in...Read more of this...

A Spring Piece Left In The Middle

by Nazim Hikmet
 Taut, thick fingers punch
the teeth of my typewriter.
Three words are down on paper
 in capitals:
SPRING
 SPRING
 SPRING...
And me -- poet, proofreader,
the man who's forced to read
two thousand bad lines
 every day
 for two liras--
why,
 since spring
 has come, am I
 still sitting here
 like a ragged 
 black chair?
My head puts on its cap by itself,
 I fly out...Read more of this...

To my Muse

by Ben Jonson
LXV. — TO MY MUSE. Away, and leave me, thou thing most abhorr'd That hast betray'd me to a worthless lord ; Made me commit most fierce idolatry To a great image through thy luxury : Be thy next master's more unlucky muse, And, as thou'st mine, his hours and youth abuse, Get him the time's long grudge, the court's ill...Read more of this...

Journey Of The Magi

by T S (Thomas Stearns) Eliot
 'A cold coming we had of it,
Just the worst time of the year
For a journey, and such a journey:
The ways deep and the weather sharp,
The very dead of winter.'
And the camels galled, sore-footed, 
 refractory,
Lying down in the melting snow.
There were times we regretted
The summer palaces on slopes, the 
 terraces,
And the silken girls bringing sherbet.

Then the camel men...Read more of this...

If I Were Tickled By the Rub of Love

by Dylan Thomas
 If I were tickled by the rub of love,
A rooking girl who stole me for her side,
Broke through her straws, breaking my bandaged string,
If the red tickle as the cattle calve
Still set to scratch a laughter from my lung,
I would not fear the apple nor the flood
Nor the bad blood of spring.

Shall it be male or female? say the...Read more of this...

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