Famous Sneak Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Sneak poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous sneak poems. These examples illustrate what a famous sneak poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Tynan, Katharine
...n
Not greatly to my mind,
He'll steal what seeds he can,
And all you hide he'll find.
Yet though he's bully and sneak,
To small birds, bird of prey,
He counts the days of the week,
And keeps the Sabbath Day....Read more of this...
by
Piercy, Marge
...r Red Cross.
Beg on the highway: please
take my zucchini, I have a crippled
mother at home with heartburn.
Sneak out before dawn to drop
them in other people's gardens,
in baby buggies at churchdoors.
Shot, smuggling zucchini into
mailboxes, a federal offense.
With a suave reptilian glitter
you bask among your raspy
fronds sudden and huge as
alligators. You give and give
too much, like summer days
limp with heat, thunderstorms
bursting thei...Read more of this...
by
Lawson, Henry
...Are just common brother-sinners, and you're quite as good as they --
You're a drunkard, and a liar, and a cynic, and a sneak,
Your grammar's simply awful and your intellect is weak....Read more of this...
by
Masters, Edgar Lee
...ch you huddle,
Bawling through the megaphone of big type:
"This is I, the giant."
Thereby also living the life of a sneak-thief,
Poisoned with the anonymous words
Of your clandestine soul.
To scratch dirt over scandal for money,
And exhume it to the winds for revenge,
Or to sell papers,
Crushing reputations, or bodies, if need be,
To win at any cost, save your own life.
To glory in demoniac power, ditching civilization,
As a paranoiac boy puts a log on the track
A...Read more of this...
by
Hikmet, Nazim
...ehind.
From the blazing red Tibetan sun
to the China Sea
we went and came,
we came and went.
I saw
Gioconda
sneak out under the cover of darkness
through the gates of a city in enemy hands;
I saw her
in a skirmish of drawn bayonets
strangle a British officer;
I saw her
at the head of a blue stream swimming with stars
wash the lice from her dirty shirt...
Huffling and puffling, a wood-burning engine
dragged behind it
forty red cars seating forty peopl...Read more of this...
by
Lawson, Henry
...and feel as much; the thoughts of our hearts we guard;
Where scarcely the scorn of a god could touch,
the sneer of a sneak hits hard;
The treacherous tongue and cowardly pen, the weapons of curs, decide --
They faced each other and fought like men
in the days when the world was wide.
Think of it all -- of the life that is! Study your friends and foes!
Study the past! And answer this: `Are these times better than those?'
The life-long quarrel, the paltry spite, t...Read more of this...
by
John, David St
...or slowly blanketed the pills
She'd slipped beneath her tongue.
Maestro'd kick the **** out of anybody
Who tried to sneak up for an autograph;
He'd say, Jordan, just let me know if
Somebody gets too close....
Then he'd turn to her and whisper, Here's
Where you get to be Miss Nobody...
And she'd smile as she let him
Kiss her hand. For a while, there was a singer
At the club, a guy named Louis--
But Maestro'd change his name to "Michael Cha...Read more of this...
by
Service, Robert William
...he boys how Bob Fitzsimmons hit;
The barman is talking of Tammany Hall, and why the ward boss got fired.
I'll just sneak into a corner and they'll let me alone a bit;
The room is reeling round and round . . .O God! but I'm tired, I'm tired. . . .
* * * * *
Roses she wore on her breast that night. Oh, but their scent was sweet!
Alone we sat on the balcony, and the fan-palms arched above;
The witching strain of a waltz by Strauss came u...Read more of this...
by
Fu, Du
...d words Three sons Ye city defend One son send letter to Two sons newly battle dead Survive one for now sneak life Dead ones great end finished House in become no person Only be breast on grandson Have grandson mother not go come and go without whole skirt Old woman strength though decline Ask follow officer night return Urgent should Heyang work Like produce prepare morning meal Night long speech sound exhaust Seem ...Read more of this...
by
Service, Robert William
...sin my every act is,
'Twere better not to preach at all,
Then I would have no need to practice.
So Sabbath day I'll sneak away,
And though the Church grieve my defection,
In sunny woodland I will pray:
"God save us from Perfection!"...Read more of this...
by
Service, Robert William
...his back
His beefy neck I view.
Yet let me whisper, though you may
Think me a ***** old cuss,
From Claude I often sneak away
To board a bus.
A democrat, I love the crowd,
The bustle and the din;
The market wives who gab aloud
As they go out and in.
I chuckle as I pay my dime,
With mien meticulous:
You can't believe how happy I'm;
Aboard a bus.
The driver of my Cadillac
Has such a haughty sneer;
I'm sure he would give me the sack
If he beheld me here...Read more of this...
by
Butler, Ellis Parker
...y cold—
And his widow is now Mrs. Gray,
Haw! Haw!
His widow is now Mrs. Gray!
But Peter McGuck was a cowardly sneak,
Like a hound he remained home in fear;
When fishing one day he fell into the creek—
And his widow is now Mrs. Greer,
Haw! Haw! Haw!
Mrs. William O’Houlihan Greer!...Read more of this...
by
Sassoon, Siegfried
....
No one spoke of him again.
You smug-faced crowds with kindling eye
Who cheer when soldier lads march by,
Sneak home and pray you'll never know
The hell where youth and laughter go....Read more of this...
by
Field, Eugene
...nt song -
You wondered, by gum! how there ever wuz space
In that bosom o' his'n to hold so much bass!
Of daytimes he'd sneak to the road an' lie down,
An' tackle the country dorgs comin' to town;
By common consent he wuz boss in St. Joe,
For what he took hold of he never let go!
An' a dude that come courtin' our girl left a slice
Of his white flannel suit with our bench-legged fyce!
He wuz good to us kids - when we pulled at his fur
Or twisted his tail he would never de...Read more of this...
by
McGonagall, William Topaz
...ck her as he spoke
Across the shoulders, until the stick almost broke;
Crying aloud, "I'll teach you better, you little sneak;"
And with the beating, Sarah's heart was like to break.
Poor little Sarah had never seen the snow;
She knew it was beautiful white, some children told her so;
And in December, when the snow began to fall,
She would go to the door and make a snowball.
One day she'd been very cheerless and alone,
Poor child, and so cold, almost chilled to th...Read more of this...
by
Lindsay, Vachel
...e.
Preached at a sister for her velvet gown.
Howled at a brother for his low-down ways,
His prowling, guzzling, sneak-thief days.
Beat on the Bible till he wore it out
Starting the jubilee revival shout.
And some had visions, as they stood on chairs,
And sang of Jacob, and the golden stairs,
And they all repented, a thousand strong
From their stupor and savagery and sin and wrong
And slammed with their hymn books till they shook the room
With "glory, glory, gl...Read more of this...
by
Service, Robert William
...ch, we put on evening dress;
We've everything a man can want, I think . . . but happiness.
Come, let us sneak away, old chum; forget that we are rich,
And earn an honest appetite, and scratch an honest itch.
Let's be two jolly garreteers, up seven flights of stairs,
And wear old clothes and just pretend we aren't millionaires;
And wonder how we'll pay the rent, and scribble ream on ream,
And sup on sausages and tea, and laugh and loaf and dream.
And w...Read more of this...
by
Jong, Erica
...pping its feet-
iambs, trochees-
out of step with the music
of your mariachi band.
If the poem won't come,
I say: sneak up on it.
Pretend you don't care.
Sit in your chair
reading Shakespeare, Neruda,
immortal Emily
and let yourself flow
into their music.
Go to the kitchen
and start peeling onions
for homemade sugo.
Before you know it,
the poem will be crying
as your ripe tomatoes
bubble away
with inspiration.
When the whole house is filled
wit...Read more of this...
by
Masters, Edgar Lee
...who jeered him every step:
"Come, elephant, and fight! Come, hog-eyed coward!
Come, face about and fight me, lumbering sneak!
Come, beefy bully, hit me, if you can!
Take out your gun, you duffer, give me reason
To draw and kill you. Take your billy out;
I'll crack your boar's head with a piece of brick!"
But never a word the hog-eyed one returned
But trod about the court-house, followed both
By troops of boys and watched by all the men.
All day, they walked the squar...Read more of this...
by
Ginsberg, Allen
...ieve
As you whistle & you smile the lord made you worthwhile
You'll preach and you'll glide on the pulpit in your pride
Sneak & slide across the stage like a river in high tide
You'll come fast or come on slow just the same you'll never know
When the light appears, boy, when the light appears
May 3, 1987, 2:30 AM...Read more of this...
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