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Famous Snapping Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Tebb, Barry
...Keep chipping in, especially the young men, definitely upper-class

Gate-crashers who kept scowling at her and she kept snapping

Back at them and I said, "There seems to be a problem to do

With suppressed anger, I feel" and even my own son, somewhat

Unrelaxed but a genuine Old Etonian nonetheless, looked a bit

Embarrassed at the kerfuffle, but he kept standing by me wearing

His tails and perhaps it was this that finally sent the young

Men on their way and I managed to g...Read more of this...



by Keats, John
...om Cynthia's wedding and festivity?
Not Hesperus: lo! upon his silver wings
He leans away for highest heaven and sings,
Snapping his lucid fingers merrily!--
Ah, Zephyrus! art here, and Flora too!
Ye tender bibbers of the rain and dew,
Young playmates of the rose and daffodil,
Be careful, ere ye enter in, to fill
 Your baskets high
With fennel green, and balm, and golden pines,
Savory, latter-mint, and columbines,
Cool parsley, basil sweet, and sunny thyme;
Yea, every flower ...Read more of this...

by Tebb, Barry
...road, that Pill, so perfect!



Flashing smiles from shiny domes and polished eye-lenses,

The men are glossy all over, snapping mortgages and scores

They slap fellow-souls at a distance, gun down the abusive

Clacking conductress, apologise over-loudly for their too

Quiet cars. Plump fingers stroke smooth cheeks - bounce

Bounce, bouncing baby- faces, so manly to wet-shave!



Head heavy from dreams of bronze-fleshed centaurs

Tense with ‘The New Poets’ - no rhythm, fa...Read more of this...

by Carroll, Lewis
...extended its neck
And grabbed at the Banker again. 

Without rest or pause--while those frumious jaws
Went savagely snapping around--
He skipped and he hopped, and he floundered and flopped, 
Till fainting he fell to the ground. 

The Bandersnatch fled as the others appeared
Led on by that fear-stricken yell: 
And the Bellman remarked "It is just as I feared!" 
And solemnly tolled on his bell. 

He was black in the face, and they scarcely could trace
The least lik...Read more of this...

by Marvell, Andrew
...iron deaf invoke 
For its last aid: `Hold chain, or we are broke.' 
But with her sailing weight, the Holland keel, 
Snapping the brittle links, does thorough reel, 
And to the rest the opened passage show; 
Monck from the bank the dismal sight does view. 
Our feathered gallants, which came down that day 
To be spectators safe of the new play, 
Leave him alone when first they hear the gun 
(Cornb'ry the fleetest) and to London run. 
Our seamen, whom no danger's sha...Read more of this...



by Lowell, Amy
...o shafts of light Wheeling about 
the fish, who churned the air
And made the fish-line hum, and bent the rod Almost 
to snapping. Care
The young man took against the twigs, with slight,
Deft movements he kept fish and line in tight
Obedience to his will with every prod.

IX
He lay there, and the fish hung just beyond. He 
seemed uncertain what more he should do.
He drew back, pulled the rod to correspond, Tossed it and caught 
it; every time he threw,
He caugh...Read more of this...

by Whittier, John Greenleaf
...d then a ruder shock, 
Which made our very bedsteads rock. 
We heard the loosened clapboards tost, 
The board-nails snapping in the frost; 
And on us, through the unplastered wall, 
Felt the light sifted snow-flakes fall. 
But sleep stole on, as sleep will do 
When hearts are light and life is new; 
Faint and more faint the murmurs grew, 
Till in the summer-land of dreams 
They softened to the sound of streams, 
Low stir of leaves, and dip of oars, 
And lapsing waves ...Read more of this...

by Hikmet, Nazim
...ugh heartily.
And who knows,
the woman you love may stop loving you.
Don't say it's no big thing:
it's like the snapping of a green branch
 to the man inside.
To think of roses and gardens inside is bad,
to think of seas and mountains is good.
Read and write without rest,
and I also advise weaving
and making mirrors.
I mean, it's not that you can't pass
 ten or fifteen years inside
 and more --
 you can,
 as long as the jewel
 on the left side of your ches...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...neer, 
Lumbermen in their winter camp, day-break in the woods, stripes of snow on the limbs of
 trees,
 the
 occasional snapping, 
The glad clear sound of one’s own voice, the merry song, the natural life of the woods,
 the
 strong
 day’s work, 
The blazing fire at night, the sweet taste of supper, the talk, the bed of hemlock boughs,
 and
 the
 bear-skin; 
—The house-builder at work in cities or anywhere,
The preparatory jointing, squaring, sawing, mortising, 
The hoist-up o...Read more of this...

by Belloc, Hilaire
...f the clap
Of the hands to the swirl and the twirl
Of the girl gone chancing,
Glancing,
Dancing,
Backing and advancing,
Snapping of the clapper to the spin
Out and in--
And the ting, tong, tang of the guitar!
Do you remember an Inn,
Miranda?
Do you remember an Inn?

Never more;
Miranda,
Never more.
Only the high peaks hoar;
And Aragon a torrent at the door.
No sound
In the walls of the halls where falls
The tread
Of the feet of the dead to the ground,
No sound:
But th...Read more of this...

by Field, Edward
...th a hairdo like a fright wig,
lightning flashing in the background
like a halo and a wedding veil,
like a photographer snapping pictures of great moments.

She stands and stares with her electric eyes,
beginning to understand that in this life too
she was just another body to be raped.

The monster is ready to go:
He roars with joy at the sight of her,
so they let him loose and he goes right for those knockers.
And she starts screaming to break your heart
and you...Read more of this...

by Lowell, Amy
...Theodore's eyes were brands
Burning upon his music. He stopped short.
Charlotta almost heard the sound of bands
Snapping. She put one hand up to her heart,
Her fingers touched the locket with a start.
Herr Altgelt put his violin away
Listlessly. "Lotta, I must have some rest.
The strain will be a hideous one to-day.
Don't speak to me at all. It will be best
If I am quiet till I go." And lest
She disobey, he left her. On the stairs
She h...Read more of this...

by Jeffers, Robinson
...I wait ten years yet, having lived sixty-
 seven, ten years more or less,
Before I crawl out on a ledge of rock and die snapping, like a wolf
Who has lost his mate?--I am bound by my own thirty-year-old decision:
 who drinks the wine
Should take the dregs; even in the bitter lees and sediment
New discovery may lie. The deer in that beautiful place lay down their
 bones: I must wear mine....Read more of this...

by Carroll, Lewis
...xtended its neck
 And grabbed at the Banker again.

Without rest or pause--while those frumious jaws
 Went savagely snapping around--
He skipped and he hopped, and he floundered and flopped,
 Till fainting he fell to the ground.

The Bandersnatch fled as the others appeared
 Led on by that fear-stricken yell:
And the Bellman remarked "It is just as I feared!"
 And solemnly tolled on his bell.

He was black in the face, and they scarcely could trace
 The least like...Read more of this...

by Sassoon, Siegfried
...y warren, riddled with holes, 
And I’ve just pulled the terrier out and left 
A sharp-nosed cub-face blinking there and snapping, 
Then in a moment seen him mobbed and torn 
To strips in the baying hurly of the pack. 
I picture it so clear: the dusty sunshine 
On bracken, and the men with spades, that wipe 
Red faces: one tilts up a mug of ale. 
And, having stopped to clean my gory hands, 
I whistle the jostling beauties out of the wood. 

I’m but a daft old fool!...Read more of this...

by Benet, Stephen Vincent
...ng golden gyres 
Of sparks far up, and the red heart 
In sea-coals, crashing as they part 
To tiny flares, and kindling snapping, 
Bunched sticks that burst their string and wrapping 
And fall like jackstraws; green and blue 
The evil flames of driftwood too, 
And heavy, sullen lumps of coke 
With still, fierce heat and ugly smoke. . . . 
. . . And then the vision of his face, 
And theirs, all theirs, came like a sword, 
Thrice, to the heart -- and...Read more of this...

by Lindsay, Vachel
...ers of the morning dumb:—
Cars in a plain realistic row.
And fair dreams fade
When the raw horns blow.

On each snapping pennant
A big black name:—
The careering city
Whence each car came. 
They tour from Memphis, Atlanta, Savannah, 
Tallahassee and Texarkana. 
They tour from St. Louis, Columbus, Manistee,
They tour from Peoria, Davenport, Kankakee.
Cars from Concord, Niagara, Boston,
Cars from Topeka, Emporia, and Austin.
Cars from Chicago, Hannib...Read more of this...

by Masefield, John
...mouth, 

Setting her side-lights in the wildering dark, 
To glint upon mad water, while the gale 
Roared like a battle, snapping like a shark, 
And drunken seamen struggled with the sail. 

While with sick hearts her mates put out of mind 
Their little children, left astern, ashore, 
And the gale's gathering made the darkness' blind, 
Water and air one intermingled roar. 

Then we forgot her, for the fiddlers played, 
Dancing and singing held our merry crew; 
The old ...Read more of this...

by Hughes, Ted
...ctor is sinking
Through the degrees, deepening
Into its hell of ice. 

The starting lever
Cracks its action, like a snapping knuckle.
The battery is alive - but like a lamb
Trying to nudge its solid-frozen mother -
While the seat claims my buttock-bones, bites
With the space-cold of earth, which it has joined
In one solid lump. 

I squirt commercial sure-fire
Down the black throat - it just coughs.
It ridicules me - a trap of iron stupidity
I've stepped into.<...Read more of this...

by Doty, Mark
...week of long rains
that filled the marsh until it poured
across the road to make in low woods
a new heaven for toads,
a snapping turtle lumbered down the center

of the asphalt like an ambulatory helmet.
His long tail dragged, blunt head jutting out
of the lapidary prehistoric sleep of shell.
We'd have lifted him from the road
but thought he might bend his long neck back
to snap. I tried herding him; he rushed,

though we didn't think those blocky legs
could hurry...Read more of this...

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Book: Reflection on the Important Things