Famous Tweed Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Tweed poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous tweed poems. These examples illustrate what a famous tweed poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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...ceited critic skellum
His quill may draw;
He wha could brawlie ward their bellum—
Willie’s awa!
Up wimpling stately Tweed I’ve sped,
And Eden scenes on crystal Jed,
And Ettrick banks, now roaring red,
While tempests blaw;
But every joy and pleasure’s fled,
Willie’s awa!
May I be Slander’s common speech;
A text for Infamy to preach;
And lastly, streekit out to bleach
In winter snaw;
When I forget thee, Willie Creech,
Tho’ far awa!
May never wicked Fortune touzle hi...Read more of this...
by
Burns, Robert
...the chief of her line,
From some of your northern deities sprung,
(Who knows not that brave Caledonia’s divine?)
From Tweed to the Orcades was her domain,
To hunt, or to pasture, or do what she would:
Her heav’nly relations there fixed her reign,
And pledg’d her their godheads to warrant it good.
A lambkin in peace, but a lion in war,
The pride of her kindred, the heroine grew:
Her grandsire, old Odin, triumphantly swore,—
“Whoe’er shall provoke thee, th’ encounter sh...Read more of this...
by
Burns, Robert
...e was nae get o’ moorland tips,
Wi’ tauted ket, an’ hairy hips;
For her forbears were brought in ships,
Frae ’yont the Tweed.
A bonier fleesh ne’er cross’d the clips
Than Mailie’s dead.
Wae worth the man wha first did shape
That vile, wanchancie thing—a raip!
It maks guid fellows girn an’ gape,
Wi’ chokin dread;
An’ Robin’s bonnet wave wi’ crape
For Mailie dead.
O, a’ ye bards on bonie Doon!
An’ wha on Ayr your chanters tune!
Come, join the melancholious croon
O’ R...Read more of this...
by
Burns, Robert
...ooling shade,
Yet oft, delighted, stops to trace
The progress of the spiky blade.
While Autumn, benefactor kind,
By Tweed erects his aged head,
And sees, with self-approving mind,
Each creature on his bounty fed.
While maniac Winter rages o’er
The hills whence classic Yarrow flows,
Rousing the turbid torrent’s roar,
Or sweeping, wild, a waste of snows.
So long, sweet Poet of the year!
Shall bloom that wreath thou well hast won;
While Scotia, with exulting tear,
P...Read more of this...
by
Burns, Robert
...WILLIE WASTLE dwalt on Tweed,
The spot they ca’d it Linkumdoddie;
Willie was a wabster gude,
Could stown a clue wi’ ony body:
He had a wife was dour and din,
O Tinkler Maidgie was her mither;
Sic a wife as Willie had,
I wad na gie a button for her!
She has an e’e, she has but ane,
The cat has twa the very colour;
Five rusty teeth, forbye a stump,
A clapper tongue wad deave...Read more of this...
by
Burns, Robert
...wd,
Tho’ bred amang mountains o’ snaw;
Here’s friends on baith sides o’ the firth,
And friends on baith sides o’ the Tweed;
And wha wad betray old Albion’s right,
May they never eat of her bread!
Note 1. Charles James Fox. [back]
Note 2. Hon. Thos. Erskine, afterwards Lord Erskine. [back]...Read more of this...
by
Burns, Robert
...e wild-meeting oceans boil
Besouth Magellan.
Ramsay an’ famous Fergusson
Gied Forth an’ Tay a lift aboon;
Yarrow an’ Tweed, to monie a tune,
Owre Scotland rings;
While Irwin, Lugar, Ayr, an’ Doon
Naebody sings.
Th’ Illissus, Tiber, Thames, an’ Seine,
Glide sweet in monie a tunefu’ line:
But Willie, set your fit to mine,
An’ cock your crest;
We’ll gar our streams an’ burnies shine
Up wi’ the best!
We’ll sing auld Coila’s plains an’ fells,
Her moors red-brown wi’ hea...Read more of this...
by
Burns, Robert
...wn by his side,
The ladies’ hearts he did trepan,
My gallant, braw John Highlandman.
Sing hey, &c.
We rangèd a’ from Tweed to Spey,
An’ liv’d like lords an’ ladies gay;
For a Lalland face he fearèd none,—
My gallant, braw John Highlandman.
Sing hey, &c.
They banish’d him beyond the sea.
But ere the bud was on the tree,
Adown my cheeks the pearls ran,
Embracing my John Highlandman.
Sing hey, &c.
But, och! they catch’d him at the last,
And bound him in a dungeon fast:
...Read more of this...
by
Burns, Robert
...Thrice welcome home to Hawick, Mr J. Graham Henderson,
For by your Scotch tweeds a great honour you have won;
By exhibiting your beautiful tweeds at the World's Fair
You have been elected judge of Australian and American wools while there.
You had to pass a strict examination on the wool trade,
But you have been victorious, and not the least afraid,
And has been made judge of wools by Sir Henry Truman Good,
And was thanked by Si...Read more of this...
by
McGonagall, William Topaz
...ty and Quality, spake in Prose, then Relation
was call'd by his Name.
Rivers arise; whether thou be the Son,
Of utmost Tweed, or Oose, or gulphie Dun,
Or Trent, who like some earth-born Giant spreads
His thirty Armes along the indented Meads,
Or sullen Mole that runneth underneath,
Or Severn swift, guilty of Maidens death,
Or Rockie Avon, or of Sedgie Lee,
Or Coaly Tine, or antient hallowed Dee,
Or Humber loud that keeps the Scythians Name,
Or Medway smooth, or Royal Towred ...Read more of this...
by
Milton, John
...his image mine before
some Yorkshire upstart snaps it up.’
He drew a notebook from his mac’,
unclipped a biro from his tweed,
stared at the crow, the crow stared back
then recognising him indeed
began to stun the platform crowd,
began to flap, began to sing,
and the poet wrote about its loud
and flattering beak, applauding wings.
Reporters, fans all stood amazed.
It seemed as if all clocks had stopped.
Only Auden stood unfazed.
Only his chin hadn’t dropped.
He pulled a Wo...Read more of this...
by
Lindley, John
...our ancient glory;
Fareweel ev'n to the Scottish name,
Sae famed in martial story!
Now Sark rins over Solway sands,
And Tweed rins to the ocean,
To mark where England's province stands—
Such a parcel of rogues in a nation!
What force or guile could not subdue
Thro' many warlike ages,
Is wrought now by a coward few,
For hireling traitor's wages.
The English steel we could disdain,
Secure in valour's station;
But English gold has been our bane—
Such a parcel of rogues in a n...Read more of this...
by
Burns, Robert
...s, my friend, in any way you can.
And leave your future welfare to the noble Working Man.
He'll buy you suits of Harris tweed, an Airedale and a car;
Your golf clubs and your morning Times, your whisky and cigar.
He'll cosily install you in a cottage by a stream,
With every modern comfort, and a garden that's a dream>
Or if your tastes be urban, he'll provide you with a flat,
Secluded from the clamour of the proletariat.
With pictures, music, easy chairs, a table of good chee...Read more of this...
by
Service, Robert William
...nce.
He is a good man, I venture to say,
Which I declare to the world without dismay,
Because he's given me a suit of Tweeds, magnificent to see,
So good that it cannot be surpassed in Dundee.
The suit is the best of Tweed cloth in every way,
And will last me for many a long day;
It's really good, and in no way bad,
And will help to make my heart feel glad.
He's going to send some goods to the World's Fair,
And I hope of patronage he will get the biggest share;
Because ...Read more of this...
by
McGonagall, William Topaz
...enough
have become a cache of quiet forgettings,
plucked without fuss
and gone without trace
and a frayed crucifix -
tweed coat, stoved in chest
and stitched neck ruff -
has shrugged his coat hanger shoulders
and pogo’d west from the rising sun.
In the first tatters of light
blameless crows rattle in the wind.
John Lindley...Read more of this...
by
Lindley, John
...h equal soul I'd see
Her nine-and-thirty sisters fair,
Yet none more fair than she.
Choose ye your need from Thames to Tweed,
And I will choose instead
Such lands as lie 'twixt Rake and Rye,
Black Down and Beachy Head.
I will go out against the sun
Where the rolled scarp retires,
And the Long Man of Wilmington
Looks naked toward the shires;
And east till doubling Rother crawls
To find the fickle tide,
By dry and sea-forgotten walls,
Our ports of stranded pride.
I wil...Read more of this...
by
Kipling, Rudyard
...s
and cauliflower stalks
in our half-acre of garden.
My father had always left the whetstone
safely wrapped
in his old, tweed cap
and balanced on one particular plank
beside the septic tank.
This past winter he had been too ill
to work. The scythe would dull
so much more quickly in my hands
than his, and was so often honed,
that while the blade
grew less and less a blade
the whetstone had entirely disappeared
and a lop-eared
coney was now curled inside the cap.
He whistled t...Read more of this...
by
Muldoon, Paul
...lodies to thee are known
That harp has rung or pipe has blown,
In Lowland vale or Highland glen,
From Tweed to Spey—what marvel, then,
At times unbidden notes should rise,
Confusedly bound in memory's ties,
Entangling, as they rush along,
The war-march with the funeral song?—
Small ground is now for boding fear;
Obscure, but safe, we rest us here.
My sire, in native virtue great,
Resigning lordship, lands, and ...Read more of this...
by
Scott, Sir Walter
...ty wind,
Cleaving the fields of space, as doth the swan
Some silver stream (say Ganges, Nile, or Inde,
Or Thames, or Tweed), and 'midst them an old man
With an old soul, and both extremely blind,
Halted before the gate, and in his shroud
Seated their fellow traveller on a cloud.
XXIV
But bringing up the rear of this bright host
A Spirit of a different aspect waves
His wings, like thunder-clouds above some coast
Whose barren beach with frequent wrecks is paved;
H...Read more of this...
by
Byron, George (Lord)
...O TWEED! a stranger, that with wand'ring feet
O'er hill and dale has journey'd many a mile,
(If so his weary thoughts he might beguile)
Delighted turns thy beauteous scenes to greet.
The waving branches that romantick bend
O'er thy tall banks, a soothing charm bestow;
The murmurs of thy wand'ring wave below
Seem to his ear the pity of a friend.
Delight...Read more of this...
by
Bowles, William Lisle
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