Get Your Premium Membership

Famous Tow Poems by Famous Poets

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

See also:

by Burns, Robert
...’ ben, the change-house fills,
 Wi’ yill-caup commentators;
Here ’s cryin out for bakes and gills,
 An’ there the pint-stowp clatters;
While thick an’ thrang, an’ loud an’ lang,
 Wi’ logic an’ wi’ scripture,
They raise a din, that in the end
 Is like to breed a rupture
 O’ wrath that day.


Leeze me on drink! it gies us mair
 Than either school or college;
It kindles wit, it waukens lear,
 It pangs us fou o’ knowledge:
Be’t whisky-gill or penny wheep,
 Or ony stronger pot...Read more of this...



by Tebb, Barry
...Rivers, tow paths, caravan parks

From Kirkstall to Keighley

The track’s ribbon flaps

Like Margaret’s whirling and twirling

At ten with her pink-tied hair

And blue-check patterned frock

O my lost beloved



Mills fall like doomed fortresses

Their domes topple, stopped clocks

Chime midnight forever and ever

Amen to the lost hegemony of mill girls

Flocking th...Read more of this...

by Tebb, Barry
...et-together in a terrace house in Bradford

High tea with a few stuffy aunts I hadn’t seen for years

Their husbands in tow like lost dogs sniffing round for food

But she came all the same, ushered in politely as a friend

Of a friend or somebody’s cousin twice removed though

Everybody was a bit put out at first except me so I got

Sat down next to her and started to chat but people would

Keep chipping in, especially the young men, definitely upper-class

Gate-crashers who...Read more of this...

by Plath, Sylvia
...ted pots,
Pitchers and Coronation goblets
Like Monday drunkards. The milky berries
Bow down, a local constellation,
Toward their admirers in the tabletop:
Mobs of eyeballs looking up.
Are those petals of leaves you've paried with them ---
Those green-striped ovals of silver tissue?
The red geraniums I know.
Friends, friends. They stink of armpits
And the invovled maladies of autumn,
Musky as a lovebed the morning after.
My nostrils prickle with nostalgia.<...Read more of this...

by Plath, Sylvia
...alive now, then I was dead,
Though, like a stone, unbothered by it,
Staying put according to habit.
You didn't just tow me an inch, no--
Nor leave me to set my small bald eye
Skyward again, without hope, of course,
Of apprehending blueness, or stars.

That wasn't it. I slept, say: a snake
Masked among black rocks as a black rock
In the white hiatus of winter--
Like my neighbors, taking no pleasure
In the million perfectly-chisled
Cheeks alighting each moment to me...Read more of this...



by Lawson, Henry
...unk, 
And a calico bag for my damper and junk; 
And scarcely a comrade my memory reveals, 
Save the spiritless dingo in tow of my heels. 

But I think of the honest old light of my home 
When the stars hang in clusters like lamps from the dome, 
And I think of the hearth where the dark shadows fall, 
When my camp fire is built on the widest of all; 
But I'm following Fate, for I know she knows best, 
I follow, she leads, and it's nor'-west by west. 

When my tent is a...Read more of this...

by Sexton, Anne
...ngs. 
As she grew older Mother Gothel thought: 
None but I will ever see her or touch her. 
She locked her in a tow without a door 
or a staircase. It had only a high window. 
When the witch wanted to enter she cried" 
Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair. 
Rapunzel's hair fell to the ground like a rainbow. 
It was as strong as a dandelion 
and as strong as a dog leash. 
Hand over hand she shinnied up 
the hair like a sailor 
and there in the sto...Read more of this...

by Sexton, Anne
...ngs. 
As she grew older Mother Gothel thought: 
None but I will ever see her or touch her. 
She locked her in a tow without a door 
or a staircase. It had only a high window. 
When the witch wanted to enter she cried" 
Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair. 
Rapunzel's hair fell to the ground like a rainbow. 
It was as strong as a dandelion 
and as strong as a dog leash. 
Hand over hand she shinnied up 
the hair like a sailor 
and there in the sto...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...through the night, and
 withdraws at the peep of the day, with stealthy tread, 
Leaving me baskets cover’d with white towels, swelling the house with their
 plenty, 
Shall I postpone my acceptation and realization, and scream at my eyes, 
That they turn from gazing after and down the road,
And forthwith cipher and show me a cent, 
Exactly the contents of one, and exactly the contents of two, and which is
 ahead? 

4
Trippers and askers surround me; 
People I meet—...Read more of this...

by Arnold, Matthew
...
I snatch'd up my vine-crown, my fir-staff,
All drench'd in dew-
Came swift down to join
The rout early gather'd
In the town, round the temple,
Iacchus' white fane
On yonder hill.
Quick I pass'd, following
The wood-cutters' cart-track
Down the dark valley;-I saw
On my left, through the beeches,
Thy palace, Goddess,
Smokeless, empty!
Trembling, I enter'd; beheld
The court all silent,
The lions sleeping,
On the altar this bowl.
I drank, Goddess!
And sank down here, slee...Read more of this...

by Jeffers, Robinson
...stone and the age of
 bronze
And the iron age; iron the unstable metal;
Steel made of iron, unstable as his mother; the tow-
 ered-up cities
Will be stains of rust on mounds of plaster.
Roots will not pierce the heaps for a time, kind rains
 will cure them,
Then nothing will remain of the iron age
And all these people but a thigh-bone or so, a poem
Stuck in the world's thought, splinters of glass
In the rubbish dumps, a concrete dam far off in the 
 mountain...Read more of this...

by Belloc, Hilaire
...hild, the Nordic man,
And be as like him, as you can;
His legs are long, his mind is slow,
His hair is lank and made of tow.


II

And here we have the Alpine Race:
Oh! What a broad and foolish face!
His skin is of a dirty yellow.
He is a most unpleasant fellow.


III

The most degraded of them all
Mediterranean we call.
His hair is crisp, and even curls,
And he is saucy with the girls....Read more of this...

by Twain, Mark
...,
And then if die at last we must,
Let . . . . I cannot speak the word!"

Said Dollinger the pilot man,
Tow'ring above the crew,
"Fear not, but trust in Dollinger,
And he will fetch you through."

"Low bridge! low bridge!" all heads went down,
The laboring bark sped on;
A mill we passed, we passed church,
Hamlets, and fields of corn;
And all the world came out to see,
And chased along the shore
Crying, "Alas, alas, the sheeted rain,
The wind, the tempest's...Read more of this...

by Edgar, Marriott
...and found it were him. 

The tug circled round till they found him, 
They hauled him aboard like a sack,
Tied a new tow-rope around him, 
Smacked him and then threw him back.

'Twere at sunset, or just a bit later, 
That he realized all wasn't right,
For the tow-rope were trailing behind him 
And the noose round his waist getting tight.

One hasty glance over his shoulder,
He saw in a flash what were wrong. 
The Captain had shut off his engine,
Joe were towing...Read more of this...

by Chaucer, Geoffrey
...ncy, think of
So gay a popelot*, or such a wench. *puppet 
Full brighter was the shining of her hue,
Than in the Tower the noble* forged new. *a gold coin 
But of her song, it was as loud and yern*, *lively 
As any swallow chittering on a bern*. *barn
Thereto* she coulde skip, and *make a game* *also *romp*
As any kid or calf following his dame.
Her mouth was sweet as braket, or as methe* *mead
Or hoard of apples, laid in hay or heath.
Wincin...Read more of this...

by Kipling, Rudyard
...,
All bound to fight for the Little things we care about
 With the weight of a six-fold blow!
By the might of our Cable-tow (Take hands!),
 From the Orkneys to the Horn
All round the world (and a Little loop to pull it by),
All round the world (and a Little strap to buckle it).
 A health to the Native-born!...Read more of this...

by Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...se with Cyril's random wish: 
Not like your Princess crammed with erring pride, 
Nor like poor Psyche whom she drags in tow.' 

'The crane,' I said, 'may chatter of the crane, 
The dove may murmur of the dove, but I 
An eagle clang an eagle to the sphere. 
My princess, O my princess! true she errs, 
But in her own grand way: being herself 
Three times more noble than three score of men, 
She sees herself in every woman else, 
And so she wears her error like a crown 
T...Read more of this...

by Arnold, Matthew
...y vine-crown, my fir-staff, 
34 All drench'd in dew- 
35 Came swift down to join 
36 The rout early gather'd 
37 In the town, round the temple, 
38 Iacchus' white fane 
39 On yonder hill. 

40 Quick I pass'd, following 
41 The wood-cutters' cart-track 
42 Down the dark valley;-I saw 
43 On my left, through the beeches,
44 Thy palace, Goddess, 
45 Smokeless, empty! 
46 Trembling, I enter'd; beheld 
47 The court all silent, 
48 The lions sleeping, 
49 On the altar this bowl...Read more of this...

by Kipling, Rudyard
...tic ice is thin.
 That is the custom of "The Trade."

 Few prize-courts sit upon their claims.
 They seldom tow their targets in.
 They follow certain secret aims
 Down under, Far from strife or din.
 When they are ready to begin
 No flag is flown, no fuss is made
 More than the shearing of a pin.
 That is the custom of "The Trade."

 The Scout's quadruple funnel flames
 A mark from Sweden to the Swin,
 The Cruiser's thund'rous screw proclaims
 Her...Read more of this...

by Chaucer, Geoffrey
...t* good no woman for to touch *though it might be*
(He meant as in his bed or in his couch),
For peril is both fire and tow t'assemble
Ye know what this example may resemble.
This is all and some, he held virginity
More profit than wedding in frailty:
(*Frailty clepe I, but if* that he and she *frailty I call it,
Would lead their lives all in chastity), unless*
I grant it well, I have of none envy
Who maidenhead prefer to bigamy;
It liketh them t' be clean in body and gho...Read more of this...

Dont forget to view our wonderful member Tow poems.


Book: Shattered Sighs