Famous Ticks Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Ticks poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous ticks poems. These examples illustrate what a famous ticks poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Erica Jong
I want to understand the steep thing
that climbs ladders in your throat.
I can't make sense of you.
Everywhere I look you're there--
a vast landmark, a volcano
poking its head through the clouds,
Gulliver sprawled across Lilliput.
I climb into your eyes, looking.
The pupils are black painted stage flats.
They can be pulled down like window shades.
I switch on a light in your iris.
Your brain...Read more of this...
by
Sylvia Plath
Two girls there are : within the house
One sits; the other, without.
Daylong a duet of shade and light
Plays between these.
In her dark wainscoted room
The first works problems on
A mathematical machine.
Dry ticks mark time
As she calculates each sum.
At this barren enterprise
Rat-shrewd go her squint eyes,
Root-pale her meager frame.
Bronzed as earth, the second lies,
Hearing ticks blown gold
Like pollen...Read more of this...
by
Lisel Mueller
Such insignificance: a glance
at your record on the doctor's desk
or a letter not meant for you.
How could you have known? It's not true
that your life passes before you
in rapid motion, but your watch
suddenly ticks like an amplified heart,
the hands freezing against a white
that is a judgment. Otherwise nothing.
The face in the mirror is still yours.
Two men pass on the...Read more of this...
by
Robert Browning
I.
All I believed is true!
I am able yet
All I want, to get
By a method as strange as new:
Dare I trust the same to you?
II.
If at night, when doors are shut,
And the wood-worm picks,
And the death-watch ticks,
And the bar has a flag of smut,
And a cat's in the water-butt---
III.
And the socket floats and flares,
And the house-beams groan,
And a foot unknown
Is...Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
Time, the Jester, jeers at you;
Your life's a fleeting breath;
Your birthday's flimsy I.O.U.
To that old devil, Death.
And though to glory you attain,
Or be to beauty born,
Your pomp and vanity are vain:
Time ticks you off with scorn.
Time, the Cynic, sneers at you,
And stays you in your stride;
He flouts the daring deeds you do,
And pillories your pride.
The triumph of your yesterday
He...Read more of this...
by
Siegfried Sassoon
AT dawn the ridge emerges massed and dun
In the wild purple of the glow'ring sun,
Smouldering through spouts of drifting smoke that shroud
The menacing scarred slope; and, one by one,
Tanks creep and topple forward to the wire.
The barrage roars and lifts. Then, clumsily bowed
With bombs and guns and shovels and battle-gear,
Men jostle and...Read more of this...
by
Conrad Aiken
Wind blows. Snow falls. The great clock in its tower
Ticks with reverberant coil and tolls the hour:
At the deep sudden stroke the pigeons fly . . .
The fine snow flutes the cracks between the flagstones.
We close our coats, and hurry, and search the sky.
We are like music, each voice of it pursuing
A golden separate dream, remote, persistent,
Climbing to fire,...Read more of this...
by
Louise Gluck
for kelly
happiness is the stuff of birthdays
and the coming of sweet things
when they are not expected
happiness is when the moment
catches the sunlight and a giggle
comes out of darkness to take a look
happiness is when the body
rhymes with the heart and the whole
self flows like a mountain stream
happiness is when mischief
dances like stars in the fingers
and adults are nowhere...Read more of this...
by
Emily Brontë
The moon is full this winter night;
The stars are clear, though few;
And every window glistens bright,
With leaves of frozen dew.
The sweet moon through your lattice gleams
And lights your room like day;
And there you pass, in happy dreams,
The peaceful hours away!
While I, with effort hardly quelling
The anguish in my breast,
Wander about the silent dwelling,
And cannot think of rest....Read more of this...
by
Conrad Aiken
Snow falls. The sky is grey, and sullenly glares
With purple lights in the canyoned street.
The fiery sign on the dark tower wreathes and flares . . .
The trodden grass in the park is covered with white,
The streets grow silent beneath our feet . . .
The city dreams, it forgets its past to-night.
And one, from his high bright window looking...Read more of this...
by
John Masefield
Be with me, Beauty, for the fire is dying;
My dog and I are old, too old for roving.
Man, whose young passion sets the spindrift flying,
Is soon too lame to march, too cold for loving.
I take the book and gather to the fire,
Turning old yellow leaves; minute by minute
The clock ticks to my heart....Read more of this...
by
Conrad Aiken
From time to time, lifting his eyes, he sees
The soft blue starlight through the one small window,
The moon above black trees, and clouds, and Venus,—
And turns to write . . . The clock, behind ticks softly.
It is so long, indeed, since I have written,—
Two years, almost, your last is turning yellow,—
That these first words I write seem cold and...Read more of this...
by
Elizabeth Bishop
This is the man
that lies in the house of Bedlam.
This is the time
of the tragic man
that lies in the house of Bedlam.
This is a wristwatch
telling the time
of the talkative man
that lies in the house of Bedlam.
This is a sailor
wearing the watch
that tells the time
of the honored man
that lies in the house of Bedlam.
This is the roadstead all of board
reached by...Read more of this...
by
Anonymous
There is a little mystic clock,No human eye hath seen,That beateth on,—and beateth on,—From morning until e’en.And when the soul is wrapped in sleep,All silent and alone,It ticks and ticks the livelong night,And never runneth down.Oh! wondrous is that work of art,Which knells the passing hour;But art ne’er formed, nor mind conceived,The life-clock’s magic power.[Pg 006]Not set in gold, nor...Read more of this...
by
Aleister Crowley
AN ATTACK ON BARBERCRAFT
[Dedicated to George Cecil Jones]
At last an end of all I hoped and feared!
Muttered the hermit through his elfin beard.
Then what art thou? the evil whisper whirred.
I doubt me soerly if the hermit heard.
To all God's questions never a word he said,
But simply shook his venerable head.
God sent all plagues; he laughed and heeded not,
Till people...Read more of this...
by
Dorothy Parker
Love is sharper than stones or sticks;
Lone as the sea, and deeper blue;
Loud in the night as a clock that ticks;
Longer-lived than the Wandering Jew.
Show me a love was done and through,
Tell me a kiss escaped its debt!
Son, to your death you'll pay your due-
Women and elephants never forget.
Ever a man, alas, would mix,
Ever a man, heigh-ho, must woo;
So...Read more of this...
by
Marriott Edgar
On Jubilee Day the Ramsbottoms
Invited relations to tea,
Including young Albert's grandmother-
An awkward old . . party, was she.
She'd seen Queen Victoria's accession
And `er wedding to Albert (the Good)
But she got quite upset when young Albert
Asked `er `ow she'd got on in the Flood.
She cast quite a damper on't party,
But she warmed up a...Read more of this...
by
Ted Hughes
I imagine this midnight moment's forest:
Something else is alive
Beside the clock's loneliness
And this blank page where my fingers move.
Through the window I see no star:
Something more near
Though deeper within darkness
Is entering the loneliness:
Cold, delicately as the dark snow,
A fox's nose touches twig, leaf;
Two eyes serve a movement, that now
And again now, and now, and now
Sets neat prints into the...Read more of this...
by
Elizabeth Bishop
This is the house of Bedlam.
This is the man
that lies in the house of Bedlam.
This is the time
of the tragic man
that lies in the house of Bedlam.
This is a wristwatch
telling the time
of the talkative man
that lies in the house of Bedlam.
This is a sailor
wearing the watch
that tells the time
of the honored man
that lies in the house of...Read more of this...
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