Get Your Premium Membership

Famous Wind Up Poems by Famous Poets

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

See also:

Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry
...When the pods went pop on the broom, green broom, 
And apples began to be golden-skinn'd, 
We harbour'd a stag in the Priory coomb, 
And we feather'd his trail up-wind, up-wind, 
We feather'd his trail up-wind- 
A stag of warrant, a stag, a stag, 
A runnable stag, a kingly crop, 
Brow, bay and tray and three on top, 
A stag, a runnable stag.

Then the ...Read more of this...
by Davidson, John



...set 
With bloom and bower, with mosque and minaret. 
Blue peaks loom up beyond the coast-plains here, 
White roads wind up the dales and disappear, 
By silvery waters in the plains afar 
Glimmers the inland city like a star, 
With gilded gates and sunny spires ablaze 
And burnished domes half-seen through luminous haze, 
Lo, with what opportunity Earth teems! 
How like a fair its ample beauty seems! 
Fluttering with flags its proud pavilions rise: 
What bright bazaars, w...Read more of this...
by Seeger, Alan
...boil,
And 'unts all around till she comes on a door that is marked: "Doctor Hoyle."
But by now she 'as fair got the wind up, and trembles in every limb;
But she thinks: "After all, 'e's a Doctor. Ah moosn't be bashful wi' 'im."
She's made o' good stuff is the Missis, so she knocks and a voice says: "Oos there?"
"It's me," says ma Bessie, an' enters a room which is spacious and bare.
And a wise-lookin' old feller greets 'er, and 'e too is togged up in white.Read more of this...
by Service, Robert William
...In 1936, a child
in Hitler's Germany,
what did I know about the war in Spain?
Andalusia was a tango
on a wind-up gramophone,
Franco a hero's face in the paper.
No one told me about a poet
for whose sake I might have learned Spanish
bleeding to death on a barren hill.
All I knew of Spain
were those precious imported treats
we splurged on for Christm...Read more of this...
by Mueller, Lisel
...Poems

Ding! Ali comes out to meet Frazier 
But Frazier starts to retreat 
If Frazier goes back any further 
He'll wind up in a ringside seat 

Ali swings to the left 
Ali swings to the right 
Look at the kid 
Carry the fight 

Frazier keeps backing 
But there's not enough room 
It's a matter of time 
Then Ali lowers the boom 

Now Ali lands to the right 
What a beautiful swing! 
And deposits Frazier 
Clean out of the ring 

Frazier's still rising 
But ...Read more of this...
by Ali, Muhammad



...life is all astir, 
and a feeling of tremulous joy is passing through my heart. 

It is as if the time were come to wind up my work, 
and I feel in the air a faint smell of thy sweet presence....Read more of this...
by Tagore, Rabindranath
..., his destiny,
glowing fire-red,
succulent, and on the whole becoming what
man wants. I crack my final claw singly,
wind up the grave, & to bed.

—Sound good, Mr Bones. I wish I had me some.
(I spose you got a lessen up your slave.)
—O no no no.
Sole I remember; where no lobster swine,—
pots hot or cold is none. With you I grieve
lightly, and I have no lesson.

Bodies are relishy, they say. Here's mine,
was. What ever happened to ...Read more of this...
by Berryman, John
...n
the sand was a color and
we had worn our bare feet
bare since the twentieth
of June and there were times
we forgot to wind up your
alarm clock and some nights
we took our gin warm and neat
from old jelly glasses while
the sun blew out of sight
like a red picture hat and
one day I tied my hair back
with a ribbon and you said
that I looked almost like
a puritan lady and what
I remember best is that
the door to your room was
the door to mine....Read more of this...
by Sexton, Anne
...ut with a whole 
And happy heart, that pays its toll 
To Youth and Age, and travels on with cheer. 

So let the way wind up the hill or down, 
O'er rough or smooth, the journey will be joy: 
Still seeking what I sought when but a boy, 
New friendship, high adventure, and a crown, 
My heart will keep the courage of the quest, 
And hope the road's last turn will be the best....Read more of this...
by Dyke, Henry Van
...mbled while we sat still for our portraits.
And I would love to return to 1901 if only for a moment,
time enough to wind up a music box and do a few dance steps,
or shoot me back to 1922 or 1941, or at least let me
recapture the serenity of last month when we picked
berries and glided through afternoons in a canoe.

Even this morning would be an improvement over the present.
I was in the garden then, surrounded by the hum of bees
and the Latin names of flowers, wa...Read more of this...
by Collins, Billy
...We bought an electric monkey, experimenting rather 
recklessly with funds carefully gathered since 
grandfather's time for the purchase of a steam monkey. 

We had either, by this time, the choice of an electric 
or gas monkey. 

The steam monkey is no longer being made, said the monkey 
merchant. 

But the family always planned on a steam monk...Read more of this...
by Edson, Russell
...St. John of the Cross wore dark glasses
As he passed me on the street.
St. Theresa of Avila, beautiful and grave,
Turned her back on me.

"Soulmate," they hissed. "It's high time."

I was a blind child, a wind-up toy . . .
I was one of death's juggling red balls
On a certain street corner
Where they peddle things out of ...Read more of this...
by Simic, Charles
...that never handled the air.
You will never neglect or beat
Them, or silence or buy with a sweet.
You will never wind up the sucking-thumb
Or scuttle off ghosts that come.
You will never leave them, controlling your luscious sigh,
Return for a snack of them, with gobbling mother-eye.

I have heard in the voices of the wind the voices of my dim killed
children.
I have contracted. I have eased
My dim dears at the breasts they could never suck.
I have ...Read more of this...
by Brooks, Gwendolyn
...other way. 

II 

The angels all were singing out of tune, 
And hoarse with having little else to do, 
Excepting to wind up the sun and moon, 
Or curb a runaway young star or two, 
Or wild colt of a comet, which too soon 
Broke out of bounds o'er th' ethereal blue, 
Splitting some planet with its playful tail, 
As boats are sometimes by a wanton whale. 

III 

The guardian seraphs had retired on high, 
Finding their charges past all care below; 
Terrestrial business f...Read more of this...
by Byron, George (Lord)
...arer death . . .
O God, grant unto me
A few more years to be,
That somehow I may prove
My loyalty and love:
Wind up this worn-out clock,
 Tick-tock,
 Tick-tock!...Read more of this...
by Service, Robert William
...t be confessed
But neatly tangled at the best,
Like a clew of golden thread
Most excellently ravelled.

Do not then wind up that light
In ribbands, and o'ercloud in night,
Like the sun in 's early ray;
But shake your head and scatter day!

See, 'tis broke! Within this grove,
The bower and the walks of love,
Weary lie we down and rest,
And fan each other's panting breast.

Here we'll strip and cool our fire,
In cream below, in milk-baths higher,
And when all wells are ...Read more of this...
by Lovelace, Richard

Dont forget to view our wonderful member Wind Up poems.


Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry