Famous Suckling Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Love Turned to Hatred

by Sir John Suckling
 I will not love one minute more, I swear!
No, not a minute! Not a sigh or tear
Thou gett'st from me, or one kind look again,
Though thou shouldst court me to 't, and wouldst begin.
I will not think of thee but as men do
Of debts and sins; and then I'll curse thee too.
For thy sake woman shall be now to...Read more of this...

Hymn 39

by Isaac Watts
 God's tender care of his church.

Isa. 49:13ff. 

Now shall my inward joys arise,
And burst into a song;
Almighty love inspires my heart,
And pleasure tunes my tongue.

God on his thirsty Zion hill
Some mercy drops has thrown,
And solemn oaths have bound his love
To shower salvation down.

Why do we then indulge our fears,
Suspicions, and complaints?
Is he a God, and shall his grace
Grow weary...Read more of this...

I prithee send me back my heart

by Sir John Suckling
 I prithee send me back my heart,
Since I cannot have thine;
For if from yours you will not part,
Why, then, shouldst thou have mine?

Yet now I think on't, let it lie,
To find it were in vain;
For thou hast a thief in either eye
Would steal it back again.

Why should two hearts in one breast lie,
And yet not lodge together?
O Love! where...Read more of this...

Sow

by Sylvia Plath
 God knows how our neighbor managed to breed
His great sow:
Whatever his shrewd secret, he kept it hid

In the same way
He kept the sow--impounded from public stare,
Prize ribbon and pig show.

But one dusk our questions commended us to a tour
Through his lantern-lit
Maze of barns to the lintel of the sunk sty door

To gape at it:
This was no rose-and-larkspurred china suckling
With...Read more of this...

The School of Night

by Alec Derwent (A D) Hope
 What did I study in your School of Night? 
When your mouth's first unfathomable yes 
Opened your body to be my book, I read 
My answers there and learned the spell aright, 
Yet, though I searched and searched, could never guess 
What spirits it raised nor where their questions led. 

Those others, familiar tenants of your sleep, 
The whisperers,...Read more of this...

Death-lament Of The Noble Wife Of Asan Aga

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
 [From the Morlack.)

WHAT is yonder white thing in the forest?
Is it snow, or can it swans perchance be?
Were it snow, ere this it had been melted,
Were it swans, they all away had hastend.
Snow, in truth, it is not, swans it is not,
'Tis the shining tents of Asan Aga.
He within is lying, sorely wounded;
To him come his mother and his...Read more of this...

Modern Love XXXIII: In Paris at the Louvre

by George Meredith
 'In Paris, at the Louvre, there have I seen 
The sumptuously-feathered angel pierce 
Prone Lucifer, descending. Looked he fierce, 
Showing the fight a fair one? Too serene! 
The young Pharsalians did not disarray 
Less willingly their locks of floating silk: 
That suckling mouth of his, upon the milk 
Of heaven might still be feasting through the fray. 
Oh, Raphael!...Read more of this...

The Death of the Hindu

by T Wignesan
Chin cupped
on the ancient bone of his
elbow
he spread five fingers
to the world:
and like a cat on zither strings
the hoarse voice of his fathers
issues from his forgotten children:
now he picks one tick
from the back of that suckling cow:
his failing fingers
find not the strength
to crush

Not a single eyelash twitters
pass him by
pass him

'Wake not a man asleep
And tell him he has
Nothing to eat.'...Read more of this...

Tradition thou art for suckling children

by Stephen Crane
 Tradition, thou art for suckling children,
Thou art the enlivening milk for babes;
But no meat for men is in thee.
Then --
But, alas, we all are babes....Read more of this...

A Thought or Two on Reading Pomfrets

by James Henry Leigh Hunt
 I have been reading Pomfret's "Choice" this spring, 
A pretty kind of--sort of--kind of thing, 
Not much a verse, and poem none at all, 
Yet, as they say, extremely natural. 
And yet I know not. There's an art in pies, 
In raising crusts as well as galleries; 
And he's the poet, more or less, who knows 
The charm that...Read more of this...

A Supplement of an Imperfect Copy of Verses of Mr. William

by Sir John Suckling
 One of her hands one of her cheeks lay under,
Cosening the pillow of a lawful kiss,
Which therefore swell'd, and seem'd to part asunder,
As angry to be robb'd of such a bliss!
The one look'd pale and for revenge did long,
While t'other blush'd, 'cause it had done the wrong.

Out of the bed the other fair hand was
On a green satin quilt,...Read more of this...

Official at Stone Moat Village

by Du Fu
 Dusk stay at stone moat village Be official night capture people Old man over wall escape Old woman out door look Official shout with what anger Woman cry with what grief Hear woman forward send words Three sons Ye city defend One son send letter to Two sons newly battle dead Survive one for now sneak life...Read more of this...

Ode On The Insurrection In Candia

by Algernon Charles Swinburne
 STR. 1

I laid my laurel-leaf
At the white feet of grief,
Seeing how with covered face and plumeless wings,
With unreverted head
Veiled, as who mourns his dead,
Lay Freedom couched between the thrones of kings,
A wearied lion without lair,
And bleeding from base wounds, and vexed with alien air.

STR. 2

Who was it, who, put poison to thy mouth,
Who lulled with craft or chant thy...Read more of this...

A Ballad upon a Wedding

by Sir John Suckling
 I tell thee, Dick, where I have been, 
Where I the rarest things have seen, 
O, things without compare! 
Such sights again cannot be found 
In any place on English ground, 
Be it at wake or fair.

At Charing Cross, hard by the way 
Where we, thou know'st, do sell our hay, 
There is a house with stairs; 
And there...Read more of this...

If you refuse me once and think again

by Sir John Suckling
 If you refuse me once, and think again,
I will complain.
You are deceiv'd, love is no work of art,
It must be got and born,
Not made and worn,
By every one that hath a heart.

Or do you think they more than once can die,
Whom you deny?
Who tell you of a thousand deaths a day,
Like the old poets feign
And tell the pain
They met,...Read more of this...

The Constant Lover

by Sir John Suckling
 Out upon it, I have lov'd
Three whole days together;
And am like to love three more,
If it prove fair weather.

Time shall molt away his wings
Ere he shall discover
In such whole wide world again
Such a constant lover.

But the spite on't is, no praise
Is due at all to me:
Love with me had made no stays
Had it any been but she.

Had it any...Read more of this...

Columbian Ode

by Paul Laurence Dunbar
Four hundred years ago a tangled waste
Lay sleeping on the west Atlantic's side;
Their devious ways the Old World's millions traced
Content, and loved, and labored, dared and died,
While students still believed the charts they conned,
And revelled in their thriftless ignorance,
Nor dreamed of other lands that lay beyond
Old Ocean's dense, indefinite expanse.
But deep within her heart old Nature knew
That she had once...Read more of this...

Ebony Life

by Robert Desnos
 A frightening stillness will mark that day
And the shadow of streetlights and fire-alarms will exhaust the light
All things, the quietest and the loudest, will be silent
The suckling brats will die
The tugboats the locomotives the wind will glide by in silence
We will hear the great voice which coming from far away will pass over the city
We will wait a long...Read more of this...

When Dearest I But Think of Thee

by Sir John Suckling
 When, dearest I but think of thee,
Methinks all things that lovely be
Are present, and my soul delighted:
For beauties that from worth arise
Are like the grace of deities,
Still present with us, tho’ unsighted.

Thus while I sit and sigh the day
With all his borrow’d lights away,
Till night’s black wings do overtake me,
Thinking on thee, thy beauties then,
As sudden lights do sleepy...Read more of this...

A Doubt of Martyrdom

by Sir John Suckling
 O for some honest lover’s ghost,
Some kind unbodied post
Sent from the shades below!
I strangely long to know
Whether the noble chaplets wear
Those that their mistress’ scorn did bear
Or those that were used kindly.

For whatsoe’er they tell us here
To make those sufferings dear,
’Twill there, I fear, be found
That to the being crown’d
T’ have loved alone will not suffice,
Unless we also have...Read more of this...

Out upon it I have lovd

by Sir John Suckling
 Out upon it, I have lov'd
Three whole days together;
And am like to love three more,
If it prove fair weather.

Time shall moult away his wings,
Ere he shall discover
In the whole wide world again
Such a constant lover.

But the spite on't is, no praise
Is due at all to me;
Love with me had made no stays,
Had it any been but she.

Had it any...Read more of this...

Why so Pale and Wan?

by Sir John Suckling
 WHY so pale and wan, fond lover? 
 Prithee, why so pale? 
Will, when looking well can't move her, 
 Looking ill prevail? 
 Prithee, why so pale? 

Why so dull and mute, young sinner? 
 Prithee, why so mute? 
Will, when speaking well can't win her, 
 Saying nothing do 't? 
 Prithee, why so mute? 

Quit, quit...Read more of this...

Notes For a Speech

by Imamu Amiri Baraka
African blues
does not know me. Their steps, in sands
of their own
land. A country
in black & white, newspapers
blown down pavements
of the world. Does
not feel
what I am.

Strength

in the dream, an oblique
suckling of nerve, the wind
throws up sand, eyes
are something locked in
hate, of hate, of hate, to
walk abroad, they conduct
their deaths apart
from my own. Those
heads, I call
my "people."

(And who are they. People. To...Read more of this...

Whales Weep Not!

by D. H. Lawrence
 They say the sea is cold, but the sea contains
the hottest blood of all, and the wildest, the most urgent.

All the whales in the wider deeps, hot are they, as they urge
on and on, and dive beneath the icebergs.
The right whales, the sperm-whales, the hammer-heads, the killers
there they blow, there they blow, hot wild white breath out of
 the...Read more of this...

I prithee spare me gentle boy

by Sir John Suckling
 I prithee spare me gentle boy,
Press me no more for that slight toy,
That foolish trifle of an heart;
I swear it will not do its part,
Though thou dost thine, employ'st thy pow'r and art.

For through long custom it has known
The little secrets, and is grown
Sullen and wise, will have its will,
And like old hawks pursues that still
That makes least sport,...Read more of this...

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