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Famous Treadmill Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Nash, Ogden
...ps scream as in a dream,
"For God's sake, let's away!
If ever I meet with Pinball Pete
I will not seek his gore,
Lest a treadmill grim I must trudge with him
On the hideous thirteenth floor."

"For you I rejoice," said Maxie's voice,
"And I bid you go in peace,
But I am late for a dancing date
That nevermore will cease.
So remember, friend, as your way you wend,
That it would have happened to you,
But I turned the heat on Pinball Pete;
You see - I had a daughter, too!...Read more of this...



by Yeats, William Butler
...t's crowned powers he called them once.

I declare this tower is my symbol; I declare
This winding, gyring, spiring treadmill of a stair is my ancestral stair;
That Goldsmith and the Dean, Berkeley and Burke have travelled there.

Swift beating on his breast in sibylline frenzy blind
Because the heart in his blood-sodden breast had dragged him down into mankind,
Goldsmith deliberately sipping at the honey-pot of his mind,

And haughtier-headed Burke that proved the St...Read more of this...

by Housman, A E
...see and stare,
And they're taking him to justice for the color of his hair.

Now 'tis oakum for his fingers and the treadmill for his feet,
And the quarry-gang on Portland in the cold and in the heat,
And between his spells of labor in the time he has to spare
He can curse the God that made him for the color of his hair....Read more of this...

by Walcott, Derek
...eel 
sprinkling like petals from the star-apple trees, 
and all of the windmills and sugar mills moved by mules 
on the treadmill of Monday to Monday, would repeat 
in tongues of water and wind and fire, in tongues 
of Mission School pickaninnies, like rivers remembering 
their source, Parish Trelawny, Parish St David, Parish 
St Andrew, the names afflicting the pastures, 
the lime groves and fences of marl stone and the cattle 
with a docile longing, an epochal content. ...Read more of this...

by Piercy, Marge
...oman made of pain. 

How superior we are now: see the modern woman 
thin as a blade of scissors. 
She runs on a treadmill every morning, 
fits herself into machines of weights 
and pulleys to heave and grunt, 
an image in her mind she can never 
approximate, a body of rosy 
glass that never wrinkles, 
never grows, never fades. She 
sits at the table closing her eyes to food 
hungry, always hungry: 
a woman made of pain. 

A cat or dog approaches another, 
they...Read more of this...



by Service, Robert William
...br>
If only to be clothed and fed
And see our children laugh and play -
That means a lot when all is said,
In this grim treadmill of today.

The price of manhood is too high
When leap the sacrificial flames;
For Justice we refuse to die:
Honour and Pride are empty names.
We will not play the martyr's part,
We will not perish for a Cause;
Leave that to fools - with humble heart
We live according to the Laws.

For see! Comes up the city street,
Communion-clad a shin...Read more of this...

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