Famous Spin Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Winter's Approach

by Paul Laurence Dunbar
De sun hit shine an' de win' hit blow,
Ol' Brer Rabbit be a-layin' low,
He know dat de wintah time a-comin',
De huntah man he walk an' wait,
He walk right by Brer Rabbit's gate—
He know—
De dog he lick his sliverin' chop,
An' he tongue 'gin' his mouf go flop, flop—
He—
He rub his nose fu' to clah his scent
So's to tell w'ich way dat...Read more of this...

Orkney Lullaby

by Eugene Field
 A moonbeam floateth from the skies,
Whispering, "Heigho, my dearie!
I would spin a web before your eyes,--
A beautiful web of silver light,
Wherein is many a wondrous sight
Of a radiant garden leagues away,
Where the softly tinkling lilies sway,
And the snow-white lambkins are at play,--
Heigho, my dearie!"

A brownie stealeth from the vine
Singing, "Heigho, my dearie!
And will you hear this song of mine,--
A...Read more of this...

Design

by Robert William Service
 Said Seeker of the skies to me:
"Behold yon starry host ashine!
When Heaven's harmony you see
How can you doubt control divine,
 Law, order and design?"

"Nay, Sire," said I, "I do not doubt
The spheres in cosmic pattern spin;
But what I try to puzzle out
Is that--if Law and Order win
 Where does mere man come in?

"If to the millionth of a hair
Cause...Read more of this...

The Outer -- from the Inner

by Emily Dickinson
 The Outer -- from the Inner
Derives its Magnitude --
'Tis Duke, or Dwarf, according
As is the Central Mood --

The fine -- unvarying Axis
That regulates the Wheel --
Though Spokes -- spin -- more conspicuous
And fling a dust -- the while.

The Inner -- paints the Outer --
The Brush without the Hand --
Its Picture publishes -- precise --
As is the inner Brand --

On...Read more of this...

Bringing in the Wine

by Li Po
 See how the Yellow River's water move out of heaven.
Entering the ocean,never to return.
See how lovely locks in bright mirrors in high chambers,
Though silken-black at morning, have changed by night to snow.
... Oh, let a man of spirit venture where he pleases
And never tip his golden cup empty toward the moon!
Since heaven gave the talent, let it be employed!
Spin...Read more of this...

The Lobster

by Howard Nemerov
 Here at the Super Duper, in a glass tank
Supplied by a rill of cold fresh water
Running down a glass washboard at one end
And siphoned off at the other, and so
Perpetually renewed, a herd of lobster
Is made available to the customer
Who may choose whichever one he wants
To carry home and drop into boiling water
And serve with a sauce of melted...Read more of this...

Kinky

by Denise Duhamel
 They decide to exchange heads.
Barbie squeezes the small opening under her chin 
over Ken's bulging neck socket. His wide jaw line jostles
atop his girlfriend's body, loosely,
like one of those novelty dogs
destined to gaze from the back windows of cars.
The two dolls chase each other around the orange Country Camper 
unsure what they'll do when they're within touching distance. 
Ken...Read more of this...

History Of The Night

by Jorge Luis Borges
 Throughout the course of the generations
men constructed the night.
At first she was blindness;
thorns raking bare feet,
fear of wolves.
We shall never know who forged the word
for the interval of shadow
dividing the two twilights;
we shall never know in what age it came to mean
the starry hours.
Others created the myth.
They made her the mother of the unruffled Fates
that spin our destiny,
they sacrificed...Read more of this...

The Break Away

by Anne Sexton
 Your daisies have come
on the day of my divorce:
the courtroom a cement box,
a gas chamber for the infectious Jew in me
and a perhaps land, a possibly promised land
for the Jew in me,
but still a betrayal room for the till-death-do-us—
and yet a death, as in the unlocking of scissors
that makes the now separate parts useless,
even to cut each other up...Read more of this...

Providence

by George Herbert
 O Sacred Providence, who from end to end
Strongly and sweetly movest! shall I write,
And not of thee, through whom my fingers bend
To hold my quill? shall they not do thee right?

Of all the creatures both in sea and land
Onely to Man thou hast made known thy wayes,
And put the penne alone into his hand, 
And made him Secretarie of...Read more of this...

A Cabin Tale

by Paul Laurence Dunbar
Whut you say, dah? huh, uh! chile,
You 's enough to dribe me wile.
Want a sto'y; jes' hyeah dat!
Whah' 'll I git a sto'y at?
Di'n' I tell you th'ee las' night?
Go 'way, honey, you ain't right.
I got somep'n' else to do,
'Cides jes' tellin' tales to you.
Tell you jes' one? Lem me see
Whut dat one's a-gwine to be.[Pg 154]
When you...Read more of this...

Tarantella

by Hilaire Belloc
 Do you remember an Inn,
Miranda?
Do you remember an Inn?
And the tedding and the bedding
Of the straw for a bedding,
And the fleas that tease in the High Pyrenees,
And the wine that tasted of tar?
And the cheers and the jeers of the young muleteers
(Under the vine of the dark veranda)?
Do you remember an Inn, Miranda,
Do you remember an Inn?
And the cheers...Read more of this...

The Harlots House

by Oscar Wilde
 We caught the tread of dancing feet,
We loitered down the moonlit street,
And stopped beneath the harlot's house.

Inside, above the din and fray,
We heard the loud musicians play
The 'Treues Liebes Herz' of Strauss.

Like strange mechanical grotesques,
Making fantastic arabesques,
The shadows raced across the blind.

We watched the ghostly dancers spin
To sound of horn and violin,
Like black leaves wheeling in the wind.

Like wire-pulled...Read more of this...

The Rose Family - Song 1

by Louisa May Alcott
 O flower at my window 
Why blossom you so fair, 
With your green and purple cup 
Upturned to sun and air? 
'I bloom, blithesome Bessie, 
To cheer your childish heart; 
The world is full of labor, 
And this shall be my part.' 
Whirl, busy wheel, faster, 
Spin, little thread, spin; 
The sun shines fair without, 
And we are gay...Read more of this...

Interim

by Edna St. Vincent Millay
 The room is full of you!—As I came in
And closed the door behind me, all at once
A something in the air, intangible,
Yet stiff with meaning, struck my senses sick!—

Sharp, unfamiliar odors have destroyed
Each other room's dear personality.
The heavy scent of damp, funereal flowers,—
The very essence, hush-distilled, of Death—
Has strangled that habitual breath of home
Whose expiration leaves all houses dead;
And...Read more of this...

We come and go, but for the gain, where is it?

by Omar Khayyam
We come and go, but for the gain, where is it?
And spin life's woof, but for the warp, where is it?
And many a righteous man has burned to dust
In heaven's blue rondure, but their smoke, where is it?...Read more of this...

Dedication

by Rainer Maria Rilke
 for Moremi, 1963

Earth will not share the rafter's envy; dung floors
Break, not the gecko's slight skin, but its fall
Taste this soil for death and plumb her deep for life

As this yam, wholly earthed, yet a living tuber
To the warmth of waters, earthed as springs
As roots of baobab, as the hearth.

The air will not deny you. Like a top
Spin you...Read more of this...

Paris

by Alan Seeger
 First, London, for its myriads; for its height, 
Manhattan heaped in towering stalagmite; 
But Paris for the smoothness of the paths 
That lead the heart unto the heart's delight. . . . 


Fair loiterer on the threshold of those days 
When there's no lovelier prize the world displays 
Than, having beauty and your twenty years, 
You have the means...Read more of this...

The Sea-Wife

by Rudyard Kipling
 There dwells a wife by the Northern Gate,
 And a wealthy wife is she;
She breeds a breed o' rovin' men
 And casts them over sea.

And some are drowned in deep water,
 And some in sight o' shore,
And word goes back to the weary wife
 And ever she sends more.

For since that wife had gate or gear,
 Or hearth or...Read more of this...

A Counting-Out Rhyme

by Mother Goose
Hickery, dickery, 6 and 7,
Alabone, Crackabone, 10 and 11,
Spin, spun, muskidun,
Twiddle 'em, twaddle 'em, 21....Read more of this...

A Marching Song

by Algernon Charles Swinburne
 We mix from many lands,
We march for very far;
In hearts and lips and hands
Our staffs and weapons are;
The light we walk in darkens sun and moon and star.

It doth not flame and wane
With years and spheres that roll,
Storm cannot shake nor stain
The strength that makes it whole,
The fire that moulds and moves it of the sovereign soul.

We are they...Read more of this...

Now I am a Plant a Weed..

by Katherine Mansfield
 Now I am a plant, a weed,
Bending and swinging
On a rocky ledge;
And now I am a long brown grass
Fluttering like flame;
I am a reed;
An old shell singing
For ever the same;
A drift of sedge;
A white, white stone;
A bone;
Until I pass
Into sand again,
And spin and blow
To and fro, to and fro,
On the edge of the sea
In the fading light--
For the light...Read more of this...

The River

by Kathleen Raine
 In my first sleep
I came to the river
And looked down
Through the clear water -
Only in dream
Water so pure,
Laced and undulant
Lines of flow
On its rocky bed
Water of life
Streaming for ever.

A house was there
Beside the river
And I, arrived,
An expected guest 
About to explore
Old gardens and libraries -
But the car was waiting
To drive me away.

One last look
Into that bright stream -
Trout there...Read more of this...

The Garden of Janus

by Aleister Crowley
 I

The cloud my bed is tinged with blood and foam.
The vault yet blazes with the sun
Writhing above the West, brave hippodrome
Whose gladiators shock and shun
As the blue night devours them, crested comb
Of sleep's dead sea
That eats the shores of life, rings round eternity!

II

So, he is gone whose giant sword shed flame
Into my bowels; my blood's bewitched;
My brain's afloat with...Read more of this...

Down on the Shore

by William Allingham
 Down on the shore, on the sunny shore! 
Where the salt smell cheers the land;
Where the tide moves bright under boundless light, 
And the surge on the glittering strand; 
Where the children wade in the shallow pools, 
Or run from the froth in play; 
Where the swift little boats with milk-white wings 
Are crossing the sapphire bay, 
And the...Read more of this...

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