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Famous Smelt Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Burns, Robert
..., gie the Doctor a volley,
 Wi’ your “Liberty’s Chain” and your wit;
O’er Pegasus’ side ye ne’er laid a stride,
 Ye but smelt, man, the place where he sh-t.
Poet Willie! 9 Ye but smelt man, the place where he sh-t.


Barr Steenie! Barr Steenie, what mean ye, what mean ye?
 If ye meddle nae mair wi’ the matter,
Ye may hae some pretence to havins and sense,
 Wi’ people that ken ye nae better,
Barr Steenie! 10 Wi’people that ken ye nae better.


Jamie Goose! Jamie Go...Read more of this...



by Thomas, Dylan
...of red-flannel
petticoats whisked past the harp-shaped hills, when we sang and wallowed all night and day in caves that smelt
like Sunday afternoons in damp front farmhouse parlors, and we chased, with the jawbones of deacons, the
English and the bears, before the motor car, before the wheel, before the duchess-faced horse, when we rode the
daft and happy hills bareback, it snowed and it snowed. But here a small boy says: "It snowed last year, too. I
made a snowman an...Read more of this...

by Chesterton, G K
...d proud of seeing our names in print. 
For so they conquered and so we scattered, 
When the Devil road and his dogs smelt gold, 
And the peace of a harmless folk was shattered; 
When I was twenty and odd years old. 
When the mongrel men that the market classes 
Had slimy hands upon England's rod, 
And sword in hand upon Afric's passes 
Her last Republic cried to God. 
For the men no lords can buy or sell, 
They sit not easy when all goes well, 
They have said to e...Read more of this...

by Yeats, William Butler
...that fury come?
From empty tomb or Virgin womb?
Saint Joseph thought the world would melt
But liked the way his finger smelt....Read more of this...

by Thomas, Dylan
...he well
Where words and water make a mixture
Unfailing till the blood runs foul;
My heart knew love, my belly hunger;
I smelt the maggot in my stool.

And time cast forth my mortal creature
To drift or drown upon the seas
Acquainted with the salt adventure
Of tides that never touch the shores.
I who was rich was made the richer
By sipping at the vine of days.

I, born of flesh and ghost, was neither
A ghost nor man, but mortal ghost.
And I was struck down by d...Read more of this...



by Kipling, Rudyard
...nife:

So he up with his big bull-goad instead,
But--Cain hit first and dropped him dead!

The Herd-bulls ran when they smelt the blood,
An' horned an' pawed in that Red Mud.
The Calves they bawled, and the Steers they milled,
Because it was the First Man Killed; -
An' the whole Herd broke for the Land of Nod, 
An' Cain was left to be judged by God!

But, seein' all he had had to bear,
I never could call the Judgment fair!...Read more of this...

by Laurence Dunbar, Paul
...on earf kin mammy be so sha'p to hide?
I'd des up an' tell folks w'en I knowed I could,
Ef I was a-cookin' t'ings dat smelt so good.
Mammy in de oven, an' I see huh smile;
Moufs mus' be a-wat'rin' roun' hyeah fuh a mile;
Den we almos' hollah ez we hu'ies down,
'Ca'se hit's apple dumplin's, big an' fat an' brown!
W'en de do' is opened, solemn lak an' slow,
Wisht you see us settin' all dah in a row
Innercent an' p'opah, des lak chillun should
W'en dey mammy's cookin' ...Read more of this...

by Donne, John
...rfume, which at my entrance cried
Even at thy father's nose, so were we spied;
When, like a tyran King, that in his bed
Smelt gunpowder, the pale wretch shivered.
Had it been some bad smell he would have thought
That his own feet, or breath, that smell had wrought.
But as we in our isle imprisoned,
Where cattle only, and diverse dogs are bred,
The precious Unicorns strange monsters call,
So thought he good, strange, that had none at all.
I taught my silks their wh...Read more of this...

by Keats, John
...core.

LIV.
And so she ever fed it with thin tears,
Whence thick, and green, and beautiful it grew,
So that it smelt more balmy than its peers
Of Basil-tufts in Florence; for it drew
Nurture besides, and life, from human fears,
From the fast mouldering head there shut from view:
So that the jewel, safely casketed,
Came forth, and in perfumed leafits spread.

LV.
O Melancholy, linger here awhile!
O Music, Music, breathe despondingly!
O Echo, Echo, from some so...Read more of this...

by Jeffers, Robinson
...I
When I considered it too closely, when I wore it like an element
 and smelt it like water,
Life is become less lovely, the net nearer than the skin, a
 little troublesome, a little terrible.

I pledged myself awhile ago not to seek refuge, neither in death
 nor in a walled garden,
In lies nor gated loyalties, nor in the gates of contempt, that
 easily lock the world out of doors.

Here on the rock it is great and beaut...Read more of this...

by Lowell, Amy
...and blew again. The 
cherry-trees were weaves
Of empty, knotted branches, and a dank
Mist hid the house, mouldy it smelt and rank
With sodden wood, and still unfalling rain.

XLV
Eunice paced up and down. No joy she 
took At meeting Gervase, but the custom grown
Still held her. He was late. She sudden shook, And 
caught at her stopped heart. Her eyes had shown
Sir Everard emerging from the mist. His uniform was travel-stained 
and torn,
His jackbo...Read more of this...

by Lowell, Amy
...usand candles shone
In the great chandeliers. A maze of curled
And powdered periwigs past her eyes swirled.
She smelt the smoke of candles guttering,
And caught the glint of jewelled fans fluttering
All round her in the boxes. Red and 
gold,
The house, like rubies set in filigree,
Filliped the candlelight about, and bold
Young sparks with eye-glasses, unblushingly
Ogled fair beauties in the balcony.
An officer went by, his steel spurs jangling.
Behind Char...Read more of this...

by Browning, Elizabeth Barrett
...
To me upon my low moss seat, 45 
Though never a dream the roses sent 
Of science or love's compliment, 
I ween they smelt as sweet. 

It did not move my grief to see 
The trace of human step departed: 50 
Because the garden was deserted, 
The blither place for me! 

Friends, blame me not! a narrow ken 
Hath childhood 'twixt the sun and sward: 
We draw the moral afterward¡ª 55 
We feel the gladness then. 

And gladdest hours for me did glide 
In silenc...Read more of this...

by Marvell, Andrew
...ke Mother we did lately see
Live out an Age, long as a Pedigree;
That she might seem, could we the Fall dispute,
T'have smelt the Blossome, and not eat the Fruit;
Though none does of more lasting Parents grow,
But never any did them Honor so;
Though thou thine Heart from Evil still unstain'd,
And always hast thy Tongue from fraud refrain'd,
Thou, who so oft through Storms of thundring Lead
Hast born securely thine undaunted Head,
Thy Brest through ponyarding Conspiracies,
Dra...Read more of this...

by Browning, Robert
...in
Whence iron's dug, and copper's dealt;
Look right, look left, look straight before,---
Beneath they mine, above they smelt,
Copper-ore and iron-ore,
And forge and furnace mould and melt,
And so on, more and ever more,
Till at the last, for a bounding belt,
Comes the salt sand hoar of the great sea-shore,
---And the whole is our Duke's country.

III.

I was born the day this present Duke was---
(And O, says the song, ere I was old!)
In the castle where the other Duk...Read more of this...

by Swift, Jonathan
...d of all hues,
For here she spits, and here she spews.
But oh! it turned poor Strephon's bowels,
When he beheld and smelt the towels,
Begummed, besmattered, and beslimed
With dirt, and sweat, and ear-wax grimed.
No object Strephon's eye escapes:
Here petticoats in frowzy heaps;
Nor be the handkerchiefs forgot
All varnished o'er with snuff and snot.
The stockings, why should I expose,
Stained with the marks of stinking toes;
Or greasy coifs and pinners reeking,
Whi...Read more of this...

by Cullen, Countee
...it back in tears my anguish drew;
So hard I pressed against the ground, I felt
The smallest sandgrain like a knife, and smelt
The next year's flowering; all this to speed
My body's dissolution, fain to feed
The worms.And so I groaned, and spent my strength
Until, all passion spent, I lay full length
And quivered like a flayed and bleeding thing.

So lay till lifted on a great black wing
That had no mate nor flesh-apparent trunk
To hamper it; with me all time had sunk
...Read more of this...

by Larkin, Philip
..., all sense
Of being in a hurry gone. We ran 
Behind the backs of houses, crossed a street
Of blinding windscreens, smelt the fish-dock; thence 
The river's level drifting breadth began, 
Where sky and Lincolnshire and water meet.

All afternoon, through the tall heat that slept 
 For miles inland, 
A slow and stopping curve southwards we kept. 
Wide farms went by, short-shadowed cattle, and 
Canals with floatings of industrial froth; 
A hothouse flashed uniquely:...Read more of this...

by Harrison, Tony
...ed chaps',

dad's most liberal label as he felt
squeezed by the unfamiliar, and fear
of foreign food and faces, when he smelt
curry in the shop where he'd bought beer.

And growing frailer, 'wobbly on his pins',
the shops he felt familiar with withdrew
which meant much longer tiring treks for tins
that had a label on them that he knew.

And as the shops that stocked his favourites receded 
whereas he'd fancied beans and popped next door,
he found that four long treks ...Read more of this...

by Tebb, Barry
...there were tears in your eyes

But perhaps it was just the rain. We kissed again and I felt

Your soft breasts and smelt the hair on your neck and I was lost to you

And you to me perhaps, I’ll never know.



We went to plays, I read my poems aloud in quiet places,

I met your mother and you met mine. We quarrelled over stupid things.

When my best friend seduced you I blamed him and envied him

And tried to console you when you cried a whole day through....Read more of this...

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Book: Shattered Sighs