Famous Sot Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Sot poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous sot poems. These examples illustrate what a famous sot poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
See also:
by
Burns, Robert
...
Wi’ his d—n’d dirt:
“But, hark! I’ll tell you of a plot,
Tho’ dinna ye be speakin o’t;
I’ll nail the self-conceited sot,
As dead’s a herrin;
Neist time we meet, I’ll wad a groat,
He gets his fairin!”
But just as he began to tell,
The auld kirk-hammer strak the bell
Some wee short hour ayont the twal’,
Which rais’d us baith:
I took the way that pleas’d mysel’,
And sae did Death.
Note 1. This recontre happened in seed-time, 1785.—R. B. [back]
No...Read more of this...
by
Burns, Robert
...oul, and I risked the body,
’Twas then I proved false to my sodger laddie.
Full soon I grew sick of my sanctified sot,
The regiment at large for a husband I got;
From the gilded spontoon to the fife I was ready,
I askèd no more but a sodger laddie.
But the peace it reduc’d me to beg in despair,
Till I met old boy in a Cunningham fair,
His rags regimental, they flutter’d so gaudy,
My heart it rejoic’d at a sodger laddie.
And now I have liv’d—I know not how lo...Read more of this...
by
Wilmot, John
...ling with frantic crowds of thinking fools
The reverend bedlam's, colleges and schools;
Borne on whose wings each heavy sot can pierce
The limits of the boundless universe;
So charming ointments make an old witch fly,
And bear a crippled carcass through the sky.
'Tis the exalted power whose business lies
In nonsense and impossibilities.
This made a whimsical philosopher
Before the spacious world his tub prefer,
And we have modern cloistered coxcombs, who
Retire to thi...Read more of this...
by
Laurence Dunbar, Paul
...
An' I wish you 'd tell me why:
De Mastah is a mammy an' a pappy too;
Lif' up yo' haid w'en de King go by!
Oh, Moses sot de sarpint in de wildahness
W'en de chillun had commenced to die:
Some 'efused to look, but hit cuohed de res';
Lif' up yo' haid w'en de King go by!
Bow down, bow 'way down, Bow down,
But lif' up yo' haid w'en de King go by!
...Read more of this...
by
Service, Robert William
...nd clouts your pay.
But you must fight! Boy, look on me!
Anarch of all earth-misery;
Beggar and tramp and shameless sot;
Emblem of ill, in rags that rot.
Would you be foul and base as I?
Oh, it is better far to die!
Swear to me now you'll fight and fight,
Boy, or I'll kill you here to-night. . . ."
III
Curse this silence soft and black!
Sting, little light, the shadows back!
Dance, little flame, with freakish glee!
Twinkle with brilliant mockery!
Gli...Read more of this...
by
Henley, William Ernest
...im,
He lives for the inanities.
What come of every claim?
O Vanity of Vanities!
Alike are clods and earls.
For sot, and seer, and swain,
For emperors and for churls,
For antidote and bane,
There is but one refrain:
But one for king and thrall,
For David and for Saul,
For fleet of foot and lame,
For pieties and profanities,
The picture and the frame:--
"O Vanity of Vanities!"
Life is a smoke that curls--
Curls in a flickering skein,
That winds and whisks and whirls,
...Read more of this...
by
Pope, Alexander
...r to no purpose, artful to no end,
Young without Lovers, old without a Friend;
A Fop their Passion, but their Prize a Sot;
Alive, ridiculous, and dead, forgot!
Ah Friend! to dazzle let the Vain design;
To raise the Thought, and touch the Heart be thine!
That Charm shall grow, while what fatigues the Ring,
Flaunts and goes down, an unregarded thing:
So when the Sun's broad beam has tir'd the sight,
All mild ascends the Moon's more sober light,
Serene in Virgin Modes...Read more of this...
by
Service, Robert William
...aine."
Oh, Wilde, Verlaine and Baudelaire, their lips were wet with wine;
Oh poseur, pimp and libertine! Oh cynic, sot and swine!
Oh votaries of velvet vice! . . . Oh gods of light divine!
Oh Baudelaire, Verlaine and Wilde, they knew the sinks of shame;
Their sun-aspiring wings they scorched at passion's altar flame;
Yet lo! enthroned, enskied they stand, Immortal Sons of Fame.
I dreamed I saw three demi-gods who walked with feet of clay,
With cruel cro...Read more of this...
by
Field, Eugene
...ingered Hoover used to say there warn't no meanin' to it.
"Gol durn a man," sez he to him, "whose shif'less hand is sot at
A-drawin' hills that's full uv quartz that's pinin' to be got at!"
"Go on," sez Pettibone, "go on, if joshin' gratifies ye;
But one uv these fine times I'll show ye sumthin' will surprise ye!"
The which remark led us to think--although he didn't say it--
That Pettibone wuz owin' us a gredge 'nd meant to pay it.
One evenin' as we sat around the Re...Read more of this...
by
Frost, Robert
...enough of with once trying
And setting off their heavy powder load.
They could find nothing open but the road.
Sot there they let their lives be narrowed in
By thousands the bad weather made akin.
The road became a channel running flocks
Of glossy birds like ripples over rocks.
I drove them under foot in bits of flight
That kept the ground. almost disputing right
Of way with me from apathy of wing,
A talking twitter all they had to sing.
A few I must ...Read more of this...
by
Wilmot, John
...h Frantick Crowds of thinking Fools,
Those Reverend Bedlams, Colledges, and Schools;
Borne on whose Wings, each heavy Sot can pierce,
The limits of the boundless Universe.
So charming Oyntments, make an Old Witch flie,
And bear a Crippled Carcass through the Skie.
'Tis this exalted Pow'r, whose bus'ness lies,
In Nonsense, and impossibilities.
This made a Whimsical Philosopher,
Before the spacious World, his Tub prefer,
And we have modern Cloysterd Coxcom...Read more of this...
by
Service, Robert William
...I would follow and look till I found my tombless dead.
For Bill was a dainty kind of cuss, and his mind was mighty sot
On a dinky patch with flowers and grass in a civilized bone-yard lot.
And where he died or how he died, it didn't matter a damn
So long as he had a grave with frills and a tombstone "epigram".
So I promised him, and he paid the price in good cheechako coin
(Which the same I blowed in that very night down in the Tenderloin).
Then I painted a t...Read more of this...
by
Field, Eugene
...itt show;
An' Barber Jim (a talented but ornery galoot)
Discoursed a obligatter, conny mory, on the floot,
'Till we, ez sot up-stairs indulgin' in a quiet game,
Conveyed to Barber Jim our wish to compromise the same.
The maynoo that wuz spread that night wuz mighty hard to beat,--
Though somewhat awkward to pernounce, it was not so to eat:
There wuz puddin's, pies, an' sandwidges, an' forty kinds uv sass,
An' floatin' Irelands, custards, tarts, an' patty dee foy grass;
A...Read more of this...
by
Masefield, John
...eping, prying,
Maligning, peering, hinting, lying,
Male and female human blots
Who would, but daren't be, whores and sots,
That they're so steeped in petty vice
That they're less excellent than lice,
That touching one of them will dirt you,
Dirt you with the stain of mean
Cheating trade and going between,
Pinching, starving, scraping, hoarding
To see if Sue, the prentice lean,
Dares to touch the margarine.
Fawning, cringing, oiling boots,
Raging in the crowd'...Read more of this...
by
Bradstreet, Anne
...re soon?
Hast treasures there laid up in store
That all in th' world thou count'st but poor?
Art fancy-sick or turn'd a Sot
To catch at shadows which are not?
Come, come. I'll show unto thy sense,
Industry hath its recompence.
What canst desire, but thou maist see
True substance in variety?
Dost honour like? Acquire the same,
As some to their immortal fame;
And trophies to thy name erect
Which wearing time shall ne'er deject.
For riches dost thou long full sore?
B...Read more of this...
by
Melville, Herman
...About the Shark, phlegmatical one,
Pale sot of the Maldive sea,
The sleek little pilot-fish, azure and slim,
How alert in attendance be.
From his saw-pit of mouth, from his charnel of maw,
They have nothing of harm to dread,
But liquidly glide on his ghastly flank
Or before his Gorgonian head;
Or lurk in the port of serrated teeth
In white triple tiers of glittering gates,
And there find a hav...Read more of this...
by
Laurence Dunbar, Paul
...smile,
An' she answe'd up a-bowin', "Oh, I reckon 't ain't wuth while."
Dat was jes' fu' Style, I reckon, 'cause she sot down jes' de same,
An' she stayed dah 'twell he fetched huh fu' to jine some so't o' game;
Den I hyeahd huh sayin' propah, ez she riz to go away,
"Oh, you raly mus' excuse me, fu' I hardly keers to play."
But I seen huh in a minute wif de othahs on de flo',
An' dah wasn't any one o' dem a-playin' any mo';
Comin' down de flo' a-bowin' an' a-swayin' ...Read more of this...
by
Baudelaire, Charles
...;
The lighted ceiling of a music-hall
Where every actor treads a bloody soil--
The hermit's hope; the terror of the sot;
The sky: the black lid of the mighty pot
Where the vast human generations boil!...Read more of this...
by
Laurence Dunbar, Paul
...air uncut, his clothes all bare an' dingy;
It wasn't 'cause the man was pore, but jest so mortal stingy;
An' there he sot by Sally Riggs a-smilin' an' a-smirkin',
An' all his children lef' to home a diggin' an' a-workin'.
A widower he was, an' Sal was thinkin' 'at she 'd wing him;
I reckon he was wond'rin' what them rings o' hern would bring him.
An' when the spellin'-test commenced, he up an' took his station,
A-spellin' with the best o' them to beat the very nation.
...Read more of this...
by
Dryden, John
...one in ten?
One in ten,
One in ten,
For why should a blockhead ha' one in ten?
For prating so long like a book-learn'd sot,
Till pudding and dumplin burn to pot,
Burn to pot,
Burn to pot,
Till pudding and dumplin burn to pot.
(Chorus.)Burn to pot,
Burn to pot,
Till pudding and dumplin burn to pot.
We'll toss off our ale till we canno' stand,
And Hoigh for the honour of Old England:
Old England,
Old England,
And Hoigh for the honour of Old England.
(Chorus.Read more of this...
Dont forget to view our wonderful member Sot poems.