Famous Up The Creek Poems by Famous Poets

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

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A Ballad of Ducks

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 The railway rattled and roared and swung 
With jolting and bumping trucks. 
The sun, like a billiard red ball, hung 
In the Western sky: and the tireless tongue 
Of the wild-eyed man in the corner told 
This terrible tale of the days of old, 
And the party that ought to have kept the ducks. 
"Well, it ain't all joy...Read more of this...

In the Droving Days

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 "Only a pound," said the auctioneer, 
"Only a pound; and I'm standing here 
Selling this animal, gain or loss -- 
Only a pound for the drover's horse? 
One of the sort that was ne'er afraid, 
One of the boys of the Old Brigade; 
Thoroughly honest and game, I'll swear, 
Only a little the worse for wear; 
Plenty as bad...Read more of this...

Success Comes To Cow Creek

by Edward Taylor
 I sit on the tracks,
a hundred feet from
earth, fifty from the
water. Gerald is
inching toward me
as grim, slow, and
determined as a
season, because he
has no trade and wants
none. It's been nine months
since I last listened
to his fate, but I
know what he will say:
he's the fire hydrant
of the underdog.

When he reaches my
point above the creek,
he sits down without
salutation, and
spits profoundly out
past the...Read more of this...

The peter-bird

by Eugene Field
 Out of the woods by the creek cometh a calling for Peter,
And from the orchard a voice echoes and echoes it over;
Down in the pasture the sheep hear that strange crying for Peter,
Over the meadows that call is aye and forever repeated.
So let me tell you the tale, when, where, and how it all happened,
And, when the story is...Read more of this...

For All

by Gary Snyder
For All

 Ah to be alive
 on a mid-September morn
 fording a stream
 barefoot, pants rolled up,
 holding boots, pack on,
 sunshine, ice in the shallows,
 northern rockies.

 Rustle and shimmer of icy creek waters
 stones turn underfoot, small and hard as toes
 cold nose dripping
 singing inside
 creek music, heart music,
 smell of sun on gravel.

 I pledge allegiance

...Read more of this...

Flowering Eucalypt In Autumn

by Les Murray
 That slim creek out of the sky
the dried-blood western gum tree
is all stir in its high reaches:

its strung haze-blue foliage is dancing
points down in breezy mobs, swapping
pace and place in an all-over sway

retarded en masse by crimson blossom.
Bees still at work up there tack
around their exploded furry likeness

and the lawn underneath's a napped rug
of eyelash drift, of blooms flared
like...Read more of this...

The Ballad Of Pious Pete

by Robert William Service
 "The North has got him." --Yukonism.


I tried to refine that neighbor of mine, honest to God, I did.
I grieved for his fate, and early and late I watched over him like a kid.
I gave him excuse, I bore his abuse in every way that I could;
I swore to prevail; I camped on his trail; I plotted and planned for...Read more of this...

Loch Katrine

by William Topaz McGonagall
 Beautiful Loch Katrine in all thy majesty so grand,
Oh! how charming and fascinating is thy silver strand!
Thou certainly art most lovely, and worthy to be seen,
Especially thy beautiful bay and shrubberies green. 

Then away to Loch Katrine in the summer time,
And feast on its scenery most lovely and sublime;
There's no other scene can surpass in fair Scotland,
It's surrounded by...Read more of this...

Song of the Lotos-Eaters

by Alfred Lord Tennyson
THERE is sweet music here that softer falls 
Than petals from blown roses on the grass, 
Or night-dews on still waters between walls 
Of shadowy granite, in a gleaming pass; 
Music that gentlier on the spirit lies, 5 
Than tired eyelids upon tired eyes; 
Music that brings sweet sleep down from the blissful skies. 
Here are cool mosses deep, 
And...Read more of this...

In The Baggage Room At Greyhound

by Allen Ginsberg
 I

In the depths of the Greyhound Terminal 
sitting dumbly on a baggage truck looking at the sky 
 waiting for the Los Angeles Express to depart 
worrying about eternity over the Post Office roof in 
 the night-time red downtown heaven 
staring through my eyeglasses I realized shuddering 
 these thoughts were not eternity, nor the poverty 
 of...Read more of this...

The Wind Is Blowin'

by Badger Clark
  My tired hawse nickers for his own home bars;
    A hoof clicks out a spark.
  The dim creek flickers to the lonesome stars;
    The trail twists down the dark.
  The ridge pines whimper to the pines below.
  The wind is blowin' and I want you so.

  The birch...Read more of this...

Pirates' Song

by Victor Hugo
 ("Nous emmenions en esclavage.") 
 
 {VIII., March, 1828.} 


 We're bearing fivescore Christian dogs 
 To serve the cruel drivers: 
 Some are fair beauties gently born, 
 And some rough coral-divers. 
 We hardy skimmers of the sea 
 Are lucky in each sally, 
 And, eighty strong, we send along 
 The dreaded Pirate Galley. 
...Read more of this...

The Sick Stockrider

by Adam Lindsay Gordon
 Hold hard, Ned! Lift me down once more, and lay me in the shade. 
Old man, you've had your work cut out to guide 
Both horses, and to hold me in the saddle when I swayed, 
All through the hot, slow, sleepy, silent ride. 
The dawn at "Moorabinda" was a mist rack dull and dense, 
The sun-rise was a...Read more of this...

Mount Kearsarge Shines

by Donald Hall
 Mount Kearsarge shines with ice; from hemlock branches 
snow slides onto snow; no stream, creek, or river 
budges but remains still. Tonight
we carry armloads of logs

from woodshed to Glenwood and build up the fire 
that keeps the coldest night outside our windows.
Sit by the woodstove, Camilla, 
while I bring glasses of white,

and we'll talk, passing the time, about weather...Read more of this...

Abbey Assaroe

by William Allingham
 Gray, gray is Abbey Assaroe, by Belashanny town, 
It has neither door nor window, the walls are broken down; 
The carven-stones lie scatter'd in briar and nettle-bed!
The only feet are those that come at burial of the dead. 
A little rocky rivulet runs murmuring to the tide, 
Singing a song of ancient days, in sorrow, not in pride; 
The...Read more of this...

The Travelling Post Office

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 The roving breezes come and go, the reed-beds sweep and sway, 
The sleepy river murmers low,and loiters on its way, 
It is the land of lots o'time along the Castlereagh. 
. . .. . . . . 

The old man's son had left the farm, he found it full and slow, 
He drifted to the great North-west, where all...Read more of this...

Eurunderee

by Henry Lawson
 There are scenes in the distance where beauty is not, 
On the desolate flats where gaunt appletrees rot. 
Where the brooding old ridge rises up to the breeze 
From his dark lonely gullies of stringy-bark trees, 
There are voice-haunted gaps, ever sullen and strange, 
But Eurunderee lies like a gem in the range. 

Still I see in my fancy...Read more of this...

First Party At Ken Keseys With Hells Angels

by Allen Ginsberg
 Cool black night thru redwoods
cars parked outside in shade
behind the gate, stars dim above
the ravine, a fire burning by the side
porch and a few tired souls hunched over
in black leather jackets. In the huge
wooden house, a yellow chandelier 
at 3 A.M. the blast of loudspeakers
hi-fi Rolling Stones Ray Charles Beatles
Jumping Joe Jackson and twenty youths
dancing to the vibration thru...Read more of this...

My Mothers Body

by Marge Piercy
 1. 

The dark socket of the year 
the pit, the cave where the sun lies down 
and threatens never to rise, 
when despair descends softly as the snow 
covering all paths and choking roads: 

then hawkfaced pain seized you 
threw you so you fell with a sharp 
cry, a knife tearing a bolt of silk. 
My father heard the...Read more of this...

Success Comes To Cow Creek

by James Tate
 I sit on the tracks,
a hundred feet from
earth, fifty from the
water. Gerald is
inching toward me
as grim, slow, and
determined as a
season, because he
has no trade and wants
none. It's been nine months
since I last listened
to his fate, but I
know what he will say:
he's the fire hydrant
of the underdog.

When he reaches my
point above the creek,
he sits down without
salutation, and
spits profoundly out
past the...Read more of this...

The Sleepout

by Les Murray
 Childhood sleeps in a verandah room
in an iron bed close to the wall
where the winter over the railing 
swelled the blind on its timber boom

and splinters picked lint off warm linen
and the stars were out over the hill;
then one wall of the room was forest
and all things in there were to come.

Breathings climbed up on the verandah
when dark cattle...Read more of this...

Koening Of The River

by Derek Walcott
 Koening knew now there was no one on the river.
Entering its brown mouth choking with lilies
and curtained with midges, Koenig poled the shallop
past the abandoned ferry and the ferry piles
coated with coal dust. Staying aboard, he saw, up
in a thick meadow, a sand-colored mule,
untethered, with no harness, and no signs
of habitation round the ruined factory wheel
locked hard in rust,...Read more of this...

The Logger

by Robert William Service
 In the moonless, misty night, with my little pipe alight,
 I am sitting by the camp-fire's fading cheer;
Oh, the dew is falling chill on the dim, deer-haunted hill,
 And the breakers in the bay are moaning drear.
The toilful hours are sped, the boys are long abed,
 And I alone a weary vigil keep;
In the sightless, sullen sky I can...Read more of this...

Adieu to Belshanny

by William Allingham
 Adieu to Belashanny! where I was bred and born; 
Go where I may, I'll think of you, as sure as night and morn. 
The kindly spot, the friendly town, where every one is known, 
And not a face in all the place but partly seems my own; 
There's not a house or window, there's not a field or hill,...Read more of this...

Elegy XVIII: Loves Progress

by John Donne
 Who ever loves, if he do not propose
The right true end of love, he's one that goes
To sea for nothing but to make him sick.
Love is a bear-whelp born: if we o'erlick
Our love, and force it new strange shapes to take,
We err, and of a lump a monster make.
Were not a calf a monster that were grown
Faced like a...Read more of this...

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