Famous Sweaty Poems by Famous Poets

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

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56. Epistle to Davie A Brother Poet

...,
 And rin an unco fit:
 But least then the beast then
 Should rue this hasty ride,
 I’ll light now, and dight now
 His sweaty, wizen’d hide.


 Note 1. Ramsay.—R. B. [back]...Read more of this...
by Burns, Robert


A Carol of Harvest for 1867

...veterans; 
Worn, swart, handsome, strong, of the stock of homestead and workshop,
Harden’d of many a long campaign and sweaty march, 
Inured on many a hard-fought, bloody field. 

9
A pause—the armies wait; 
A million flush’d, embattled conquerors wait; 
The world, too, waits—then, soft as breaking night, and sure as dawn,
They melt—they disappear. 

Exult, indeed, O lands! victorious lands! 
Not there your victory, on those red, shuddering fields; 
But here and hence your v...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt

Drum-Taps

...e every day, pass through the city, and embark from the wharves;

(How good they look, as they tramp down to the river, sweaty, with their guns on their
 shoulders! 
How I love them! how I could hug them, with their brown faces, and their clothes and
 knapsacks
 cover’d with dust!) 
The blood of the city up—arm’d! arm’d! the cry everywhere; 
The flags flung out from the steeples of churches, and from all the public buildings and
 stores;
The tearful parting—the mother kisses ...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt

Elegy VIII: The Comparison

...s of my mistress' breast,
And on her brow her skin such lustre sets,
They seem no sweat drops, but pearl coronets.
Rank sweaty froth thy Mistress's brow defiles,
Like spermatic issue of ripe menstruous boils,
Or like the scum, which, by need's lawless law
Enforced, Sanserra's starved men did draw
From parboiled shoes and boots, and all the rest
Which were with any sovereigne fatness blest,
And like vile lying stones in saffroned tin,
Or warts, or weals, they hang upon her ski...Read more of this...
by Donne, John

Gentleman Alone

...Where the heroes are horses or passionate princes,
And he caresses her legs covered with sweet down
With his ardent and sweaty palms that smell like cigarettes.
The night of the hunter and the night of the husband
Come together like bed sheets and bury me,
And the hours after lunch, when the students and priests are masturbating,
And the animals mount each other openly,
And the bees smell of blood, and the flies buzz cholerically,
And cousins play strange games with cousins,
...Read more of this...
by Neruda, Pablo


How Solemn as One by One

...HOW solemn, as one by one, 
As the ranks returning, all worn and sweaty—as the men file by where I stand; 
As the faces, the masks appear—as I glance at the faces, studying the masks; 
(As I glance upward out of this page, studying you, dear friend, whoever you are;) 
How solemn the thought of my whispering soul, to each in the ranks, and to you;
I see behind each mask, that wonder, a kindred soul; 
O the bullet could nev...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt

Jealousy

...m waiting, lover-wife,
For the great time when love is at a close,
And all its fruit's to watch the thickening nose
And sweaty neck and dulling face and eye,
That are yours, and you, most surely, till you die!
Day after day you'll sit with him and note
The greasier tie, the dingy wrinkling coat;
As prettiness turns to pomp, and strength to fat,
And love, love, love to habit!
And after that,
When all that's fine in man is at an end,
And you, that loved young life and clean, mu...Read more of this...
by Brooke, Rupert

Last Instructions to a Painter

...ooping stands, 
Nor scorns to rub him down with those fair hands, 
And washing (lest the scent her crime disclose) 
His sweaty hooves, tickles him 'twixt the toes. 
But envious Fame, too soon, began to note 
More gold in's Fob, more lace upon his coat; 
And he, unwary, and of tongue too fleet, 
No longer could conceal his fortune sweet. 
Justly the rogue was shipped in porter's den, 
And Jermyn straight has leave to come again. 
Ah, Painter, now could Alexander live, 
And thi...Read more of this...
by Marvell, Andrew

Paradise Lost: Book 11

...er part sheep-walks and folds; 
I' the midst an altar as the land-mark stood, 
Rustick, of grassy sord; thither anon 
A sweaty reaper from his tillage brought 
First fruits, the green ear, and the yellow sheaf, 
Unculled, as came to hand; a shepherd next, 
More meek, came with the firstlings of his flock, 
Choicest and best; then, sacrificing, laid 
The inwards and their fat, with incense strowed, 
On the cleft wood, and all due rights performed: 
His offering soon propitious...Read more of this...
by Milton, John

Sleepers The

...the place of my lover, 
He rises with me silently from the bed. 

Darkness! you are gentler than my lover—his flesh was sweaty and panting, 
I feel the hot moisture yet that he left me. 

My hands are spread forth, I pass them in all directions,
I would sound up the shadowy shore to which you are journeying. 

Be careful, darkness! already, what was it touch’d me? 
I thought my lover had gone, else darkness and he are one, 
I hear the heart-beat—I follow, I fade away. 

7
O h...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt

Song of Myself

...at! it shall be you! 

Sun so generous, it shall be you! 
Vapors lighting and shading my face, it shall be you!
You sweaty brooks and dews, it shall be you! 
Winds whose soft-tickling genitals rub against me, it shall be you! 
Broad, muscular fields! branches of live oak! loving lounger in my winding
 paths! it shall be you! 
Hands I have taken—face I have kiss’d—mortal I have ever
 touch’d! it shall be you. 

I dote on myself—there is that lot of me, and all so lu...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt

The Cottage Hospital

...nurses' feet
Shall I myself by lying when they range the screens around?
And say shall I groan in dying, as I twist the sweaty sheet?
Or gasp for breath uncrying, as I feel my senses drown'd
While the air is swimming with insects and children play in the street?...Read more of this...
by Betjeman, John

The Ride of Paul Venarez

...
"Bear my message, if not me, safe to little Bess," said he.
Then he leaned down in the saddle, and clutched hard the sweaty mane.

11. Just at dusk, a horse of brown, flecked with foam, came panting down
To the settlement at Crawford, and she stopped at Bessie's door.
But her rider seemed asleep. Ah, his slumber was so deep
Bessie's voice could never wake him, if she called forevermore.

12. You will hear the story told by the young and by the old
In the settlement...Read more of this...
by Rexford, Eben E.

The Symphony

...ue sky
For Art to make into melody!
Thou Trade! thou king of the modern days!
Change thy ways,
Change thy ways;
Let the sweaty laborers file
A little while,
A little while,
Where Art and Nature sing and smile.
Trade! is thy heart all dead, all dead?
And hast thou nothing but a head?
I'm all for heart," the flute-voice said,
And into sudden silence fled,
Like as a blush that while 'tis red
Dies to a still, still white instead.

Thereto a thrilling calm succeeds,
Till presently...Read more of this...
by Lanier, Sidney

The Twins Of Lucky Strike

...r zem I pray ze Lord to bless," said Montreal Maree.

You never saw a Christmas Tree so swell as that, I vow,
Wi' sixty sweaty sourdoughs ringin' round them infants two;
Their solid pokes o' virgin gold aweighin' down each bough,
All singin' Christ Is Risen, for the soul o' Lipstick Lou,
"Lo! Death is a deliverer, the purger of our sins,
And Motherhood leads up to God," said Father Tim McGee.
Then all the Ladies of the Line bent down to kiss them twins,
Clasped to the breast,...Read more of this...
by Service, Robert William

The Waste Land

...indward, 
Consider Phlebas, who was once handsome and tall as you.
V. WHAT THE THUNDER SAID
After the torchlight red on sweaty faces
After the frosty silence in the gardens
After the agony in stony places
The shouting and the crying
Prison and palace and reverberation
Of thunder of spring over distant mountains
He who was living is now dead
We who were living are now dying
With a little patience 
Here is no water but only rock
Rock and no water and the sandy road
The road win...Read more of this...
by Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)

What The Thunder Said

...After the torchlight red on sweaty faces
  After the frosty silence in the gardens
  After the agony in stony places
  The shouting and the crying
  Prison and palace and reverberation
  Of thunder of spring over distant mountains
  He who was living is now dead
  We who were living are now dying
  With a little patience                                                  330

 ...Read more of this...
by Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)

Woolworths

...ing else that fell from my life.

I walk down Main Street
trying to regain my balance
behind the men who walk home
from sweaty jobs with clenched fists
and the women who follow them
pulling their children
like dogs in the rain....Read more of this...
by Hillringhouse, Mark

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