Famous Thresh Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Kisses In The Train

by D. H. Lawrence
I saw the midlands
Revolve through her hair;
The fields of autumn
Stretching bare,
And sheep on the pasture
Tossed back in a scare.

And still as ever
The world went round,
My mouth on her pulsing
Neck was found,
And my breast to her beating
Breast was bound.

But my heart at the centre
Of all, in a swound
Was still as a pivot,
As all the ground
On its prowling orbit
Shifted round.

And still in...Read more of this...

Popularity

by Robert Browning
 I.

Stand still, true poet that you are!
I know you; let me try and draw you.
Some night you'll fail us: when afar
You rise, remember one man saw you,
Knew you, and named a star!

II.

My star, God's glow-worm! Why extend
That loving hand of his which leads you
Yet locks you safe from end to end
Of this dark world, unless he needs you,
just saves...Read more of this...

The Wood-Cutter

by Robert William Service
 The sky is like an envelope,
 One of those blue official things;
 And, sealing it, to mock our hope,
 The moon, a silver wafer, clings.
 What shall we find when death gives leave
 To read--our sentence or reprieve?

I'm holding it down on God's scrap-pile, up on the ***-end of earth;
 O'er me a menace of mountains, a river that...Read more of this...

The Trees

by Philip Larkin
 The trees are coming into leaf 
Like something almost being said; 
The recent buds relax and spread, 
Their greenness is a kind of grief. 

Is it that they are born again 
And we grow old? No, they die too, 
Their yearly trick of looking new 
Is written down in rings of grain. 

Yet still the unresting castles thresh 
In...Read more of this...

The Long Trail

by Rudyard Kipling
 There's a whisper down the field where the year has shot her yield,
 And the ricks stand grey to the sun,
Singing: "Over then, come over, for the bee has quit the dover,
 "And your English summer's done."
 You have heard the beat of the off-shore wind,
 And the thresh of the deep-sea rain;
 You have heard the song --...Read more of this...

The Alchemist

by Louise Bogan
 I burned my life, that I may find
A passion wholly of the mind,
Thought divorced from eye and bone
Ecstasy come to breath alone.
I broke my life, to seek relief
From the flawed light of love and grief.

With mounting beat the utter fire
Charred existence and desire.
It died low, ceased its sudden thresh.
I had found unmysterious flesh--
Not the mind's avid substance--still
Passionate beyond the...Read more of this...

LEnvoi

by Rudyard Kipling
 There's a whisper down the field where the year has shot her yield,
 And the ricks stand gray to the sun,
Singing: -- "Over then, come over, for the bee has quit the clover,
 And your English summer's done."
 You have heard the beat of the off-shore wind,
 And the thresh of the deep-sea rain;
 You have heard the song...Read more of this...

67. Epistle to John Goldie in Kilmarnock

by Robert Burns
 O GOWDIE, terror o’ the whigs,
Dread o’ blackcoats and rev’rend wigs!
Sour Bigotry, on her last legs,
 Girns an’ looks back,
Wishing the ten Egyptian plagues
 May seize you quick.


Poor gapin’, glowrin’ Superstition!
Wae’s me, she’s in a sad condition:
Fye: bring Black Jock, 1 her state physician,
 To see her water;
Alas, there’s ground for great suspicion
She’ll ne’er get better.


Enthusiasm’s past redemption,
Gane in...Read more of this...

69. Third Epistle to J. Lapraik

by Robert Burns
 GUID speed and furder to you, Johnie,
Guid health, hale han’s, an’ weather bonie;
Now, when ye’re nickin down fu’ cannie
 The staff o’ bread,
May ye ne’er want a stoup o’ bran’y
 To clear your head.


May Boreas never thresh your rigs,
Nor kick your rickles aff their legs,
Sendin the stuff o’er muirs an’ haggs
 Like drivin wrack;
But may the tapmost grain that...Read more of this...

155. Epistle to Mrs. Scott of Wauchope House

by Robert Burns
 GUDEWIFE,I MIND it weel in early date,
When I was bardless, young, and blate,
 An’ first could thresh the barn,
Or haud a yokin’ at the pleugh;
An, tho’ forfoughten sair eneugh,
 Yet unco proud to learn:
When first amang the yellow corn
 A man I reckon’d was,
An’ wi’ the lave ilk merry morn
 Could rank my rig and lass,
 Still shearing, and...Read more of this...

All Night All Night

by Delmore Schwartz
 "I have been one acquainted with the night" - Robert Frost


Rode in the train all night, in the sick light. A bird
Flew parallel with a singular will. In daydream's moods and
 attitudes
The other passengers slumped, dozed, slept, read,
Waiting, and waiting for place to be displaced
On the exact track of safety or the rack of accident.

Looked out at the night,...Read more of this...

132. Reply to a Trimming Epistle received from a Tailor

by Robert Burns
 WHAT ails ye now, ye lousie *****
To thresh my back at sic a pitch?
Losh, man! hae mercy wi’ your natch,
 Your bodkin’s bauld;
I didna suffer half sae much
 Frae Daddie Auld.


What tho’ at times, when I grow crouse,
I gie their wames a random pouse,
Is that enough for you to souse
 Your servant sae?
Gae mind your seam, ye prick-the-louse,
 An’...Read more of this...

Drunk

by D. H. Lawrence
 Too far away, oh love, I know, 
To save me from this haunted road, 
Whose lofty roses break and blow 
On a night-sky bent with a load 

Of lights: each solitary rose, 
Each arc-lamp golden does expose 
Ghost beyond ghost of a blossom, shows 
Night blenched with a thousand snows. 

Of hawthorn and of lilac trees, 
White lilac; shows...Read more of this...

Athabaska Dick

by Robert William Service
 When the boys come out from Lac Labiche in the lure of the early Spring,
To take the pay of the "Hudson's Bay", as their fathers did before,
They are all a-glee for the jamboree, and they make the Landing ring
With a whoop and a whirl, and a "Grab your girl", and a rip and a skip and a roar.
For the...Read more of this...

Weathers

by Thomas Hardy
 This is the weather the cuckoo likes, 
And so do I; 
When showers betumble the chestnut spikes, 
And nestlings fly; 
And the little brown nightingale bills his best, 
And they sit outside at 'The Traveller's Rest,' 
And maids come forth sprig-muslin drest, 
And citizens dream of the south and west, 
And so do I. 

This is the weather the...Read more of this...

The Flight

by Rudyard Kipling
 1930

When the grey geese heard the Fool's tread
 Too near to where they lay,
They lifted neither voice nor head,
 But took themselves away.

No water broke, no pinion whirred-
 There went no warning call.
The steely, sheltering rushes stirred
 A little--that was all.

Only the osiers understood,
 And the drowned meadows spied
What else than wreckage of a flood
 Stole outward on that...Read more of this...

The Tradesman and the Scholar

by Anne Kingsmill Finch
 A Citizen of mighty Pelf, 
But much a Blockhead, in himself 
Disdain'd a Man of shining Parts, 
Master of Sciences and Arts, 
Who left his Book scarce once a day 
For sober Coffee, Smoak, or Tea; 
Nor spent more Money in the Town 
Than bought, when need requir'd, a Gown; 
Which way of Living much offends 
The Alderman, who...Read more of this...

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