Famous Sweeper Poems by Famous Poets

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

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The Visionary

by Robert William Service
 If fortune had not granted me
 To suck the Muse's teats,
I think I would have liked to be
 A sweeper of the streets;
And city gutters glad to groom,
 Have heft a bonny broom.

There--as amid the crass and crush
 The limousines swished by,
I would have leaned upon my brush
 With visionary eye:
Deeming despite their loud allure
 That I was rich,...Read more of this...

Those Names

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 The shearers sat in the firelight, hearty and hale and strong, 
After the hard day's shearing, passing the joke along: 
The "ringer" that shore a hundred, as they never were shorn before, 
And the novice who, toiling bravely, had tommy-hawked half a score, 
The tarboy, the cook and the skushy, the sweeper that swept the board, 
The picker-up, and...Read more of this...

The Call

by Robert William Service
 (France, August first, 1914)

 Far and near, high and clear,
 Hark to the call of War!
Over the gorse and the golden dells,
Ringing and swinging of clamorous bells,
Praying and saying of wild farewells:
 War! War! War!

 High and low, all must go:
 Hark to the shout of War!
Leave to the women the harvest yield;
Gird ye, men, for the sinister field;
A...Read more of this...

The Chimney-Sweeper (Experience)

by William Blake
 A little black thing among the snow:
Crying weep, weep, in notes of woe!
Where are thy father & mother? say?
They are both gone up to the church to pray.

Because I was happy upon the heath.
And smil'd among the winters snow:
They clothed me in the clothes of death.
And taught me to sing the notes of woe.

And because I am happy. &...Read more of this...

The White Mans Burden

by Rudyard Kipling
 Take up the White man's burden --
 Send forth the best ye breed --
Go bind your sons to exile
 To serve your captives' need;
To wait in heavy harness
 On fluttered folk and wild --
Your new-caught, sullen peoples,
 Half devil and half child.

Take up the White Man's burden --
 In patience to abide,
To veil the threat of terror
 And check...Read more of this...

The Chimney Sweeper (Innocence)

by William Blake
 When my mother died I was very young,
And my father sold me while yet my tongue,
Could scarcely cry weep weep weep weep,
So your chimneys I sweep & in soot I sleep.

Theres little Tom Dacre, who cried when his head
That curled like a lambs back was shav'd, so I said.
Hush Tom never mind it, for when your head's bare,
You know...Read more of this...

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