Famous Wipe Poems by Famous Poets

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

See also:

173. Elegy on Stella

by Robert Burns
 STRAIT is the spot and green the sod
 From whence my sorrows flow;
And soundly sleeps the ever dear
 Inhabitant below.


Pardon my transport, gentle shade,
 While o’er the turf I bow;
Thy earthy house is circumscrib’d,
 And solitary now.


Not one poor stone to tell thy name,
 Or make thy virtues known:
But what avails to me-to thee,
 The sculpture of a stone?


I’ll...Read more of this...

On the Birth-Day of Queen Katherine

by Anne Killigrew
 WHile yet it was the Empire of the Night, 
And Stars still check'r'd Darkness with their Light, 
From Temples round the cheerful Bells did ring, 
But with the Peales a churlish Storm did sing. 
I slumbr'd; and the Heavens like things did show, 
Like things which I had seen and heard below. 
Playing on Harps Angels did singing fly,...Read more of this...

The Right to Grief

by Carl Sandburg
 To Certain Poets About to Die

TAKE your fill of intimate remorse, perfumed sorrow,
Over the dead child of a millionaire,
And the pity of Death refusing any check on the bank
Which the millionaire might order his secretary to
scratch off
And get cashed.

Very well,
You for your grief and I for mine.
Let me have a sorrow my own if I want to.

I shall cry...Read more of this...

The Old Chimaeras. Old Recipts

by Robert Louis Stevenson
 THE old Chimaeras, old receipts
For making "happy land,"
The old political beliefs
Swam close before my hand.

The grand old communistic myths
In a middle state of grace,
Quite dead, but not yet gone to Hell,
And walking for a space,

Quite dead, and looking it, and yet
All eagerness to show
The Social-Contract forgeries
By Chatterton - Rousseau -

A hundred such as these I tried,
And hundreds after that,
I...Read more of this...

La Nuit Blanche

by Rudyard Kipling
 A much-discerning Public hold
 The Singer generally sings
 And prints and sells his past for gold.

 Whatever I may here disclaim,
 The very clever folk I sing to
 Will most indubitably cling to
 Their pet delusion, just the same.


I had seen, as the dawn was breaking
 And I staggered to my rest,
Tari Devi softly shaking
 From the Cart Road...Read more of this...

Rebirth

by Rudyard Kipling
 If any God should say,
 "I will restore
 The world her yesterday
 Whole as before
My Judgment blasted it"--who would not lift
Heart, eye, and hand in passion o'er the gift?

 If any God should will
 To wipe from mind
 The memory of this ill
 Which is Mankind
In soul and substance now--who would not bless
Even to tears His loving-tenderness?

 If any...Read more of this...

Lycidas

by John Milton
 In this Monody the author bewails a learned Friend, unfortunately
drowned in his passage from Chester on the Irish Seas, 1637;
and, by occasion, foretells the ruin of our corrupted Clergy, 
then in their height.


YET once more, O ye laurels, and once more,
Ye myrtles brown, with ivy never sere,
I come to pluck your berries harsh and crude,
And with forced fingers rude
Shatter...Read more of this...

Tic Douloureux

by Judith Skillman
 The trigger is sensation.

The violin's a dirty animal.

I want you to take away the suddenness.

Pain up the side of my head.

I'll have my teeth extracted one by one.

See if it makes any difference.

Rehearse for the real.

Be either present or absent.

I'll let my fingers drum ebony.

Thinking makes it worse.

I'll take the beat inside myself

and feel it up the center of...Read more of this...

Butterflies

by Rudyard Kipling
 Eyes aloft, over dangerous places,
The children follow the butterflies,
And, in the sweat of their upturned faces,
Slash with a net at the empty skies.

So it goes they fall amid brambles,
And sting their toes on the nettle-tops,
Till, after a thousand scratches and scrambles,
They wipe their brows and the hunting stops.

Then to quiet them comes their father
And stills the riot of pain...Read more of this...

The Old Huntsman

by Siegfried Sassoon
 I’ve never ceased to curse the day I signed 
A seven years’ bargain for the Golden Fleece. 
’Twas a bad deal all round; and dear enough 
It cost me, what with my daft management, 
And the mean folk as owed and never paid me, 
And backing losers; and the local bucks 
Egging me on with whiskys while I bragged...Read more of this...

Second Poem

by Peter Orlovsky
 Morning again, nothing has to be done, 
 maybe buy a piano or make fudge.
At least clean the room up for sure like my farther I've done flick 
 the ashes & butts over the bed side on the floor.
But frist of all wipe my glasses and drink the water 
 to clean the smelly mouth.
A nock on the...Read more of this...

Preludes

by T S (Thomas Stearns) Eliot
 I

THE WINTER evening settles down
With smell of steaks in passageways.
Six o’clock.
The burnt-out ends of smoky days.
And now a gusty shower wraps
The grimy scraps
Of withered leaves about your feet
And newspapers from vacant lots;
The showers beat
On broken blinds and chimney-pots,
And at the corner of the street
A lonely cab-horse steams and stamps.
And then the lighting of the lamps.

II

The morning comes to consciousness
Of...Read more of this...

The Orphan's Hymn

by Anonymous
Father,—an orphan’s prayer receive,And listen to my plaintive cry:Thou only canst my wants relieve,Who art my Father in the sky.I have no father here below,No mother kind to wipe my tears,—These tender names I never know,To soothe my grief and quell my fears.But Thou wilt be my parent,—nighIn every hour of deep distress,And listen to an orphan’s sigh,And soothe the...Read more of this...

Sonnet XXXIV: Charmd by Thy Suffrage

by Charlotte Turner Smith
 Charm'd by thy suffrage, shall I yet aspire 
(All inauspicious as my fate appears,
By troubles darken'd, that encrease with years,)
To guide the crayon, or to touch the lyre?
Ah me!---the sister Muses still require
A spirit free from all intrusive fears,
Nor will they deign to wipe away the tears
Of vain regret, that dim their sacred fire.
But when thy envied sanction crowns...Read more of this...

Hymn 29

by Isaac Watts
 The ruin of the Antichrist.

Isa. 63:4-7. 

"I lift my banner," saith the Lord,
"Where Antichrist has stood;
The city of my gospel foes
Shall be a field of blood.

"My heart has studied just revenge,
And now the day appears;
The day of my redeemed is come
To wipe away their tears.

"Quite weary is my patience grown,
And bids my fury go;
Swift as the lightning it shall...Read more of this...

Man's Sinfulness And Need Of Repentance And Forgiveness

by The Bible
“Do not enter into judgment with your servant;
For before you no one alive can be righteous.”—Ps. 143:2.

“O Jehovah, do not in your indignation reprove me,
Nor in your rage correct me.
For your own arrows have sunk themselves deep into me,
And upon me your hand is come down.
There is no sound spot in my flesh because of your denunciation.
There is no peace...Read more of this...

from the Ansty Experience

by Rg Gregory
 (a)
they seek to celebrate the word
not to bring their knives out on a poem
dissecting it to find a heart
whose beat lies naked on a table
not to score in triumph on a line
no sensitive would put a nostril to
but simply to receive it as an
offering glimpsing the sacred there

poem probes the poet's once-intention
but each time said budges its truth
afresh (leaving...Read more of this...

Homework

by Allen Ginsberg
 Homage Kenneth Koch


If I were doing my Laundry I'd wash my dirty Iran
I'd throw in my United States, and pour on the Ivory Soap,
 scrub up Africa, put all the birds and elephants back in
 the jungle,
I'd wash the Amazon river and clean the oily Carib & Gulf of Mexico,
Rub that smog off the North Pole, wipe up all...Read more of this...

The Deficit Demon

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 It was the lunatic poet escaped from the local asylum, 
Loudly he twanged on his banjo and sang with his voice like a saw-mill, 
While as with fervour he sang there was borne o'er the shuddering wildwood, 
Borne on the breath of the poet a flavour of rum and of onions. 
He sang of the Deficit Demon that dqelt...Read more of this...

About the Little Girl that Beat Her Sister

by Ann Taylor
 Go, go, my naughty girl, and kiss
Your little sister dear; 
I must not have such things as this,
And noisy quarrels here. 

What! little children scratch and fight,
That ought to be so mild;
Oh! Mary, it's a shocking sight
To see an angry child. 

I can't imagine, for my part, 
The reason for your folly; 
She did not do you any hurt
By...Read more of this...

Meddlesome Matty

by Ann Taylor
 One ugly trick has often spoil'd
The sweetest and the best; 
Matilda, though a pleasant child, 
One ugly trick possess'd, 
Which, like a cloud before the skies, 
Hid all her better qualities. 

Sometimes she'd lift the tea-pot lid, 
To peep at what was in it, 
Or tilt the kettle, if you did 
But turn your back a minute. 
In vain...Read more of this...

Cows In Art Class

by Charles Bukowski
 good weather
is like
good women-
it doesn't always happen
and when it does
it doesn't
always last.
man is
more stable:
if he's bad
there's more chance
he'll stay that way,
or if he's good
he might hang
on,
but a woman
is changed
by
children
age
diet
conversation
sex
the moon
the absence or
presence of sun
or good times.
a woman must be nursed
into subsistence
by love
where a man can become
stronger
by being hated. 
I am drinking tonight in Spangler's Bar
and I remember the cows
I...Read more of this...

The Mercy

by Philip Levine
 The ship that took my mother to Ellis Island 
Eighty-three years ago was named "The Mercy." 
She remembers trying to eat a banana 
without first peeling it and seeing her first orange
in the hands of a young Scot, a seaman 
who gave her a bite and wiped her mouth for her 
with a red bandana and taught her the...Read more of this...

The Gardener XLVI: You Left Me

by Rabindranath Tagore
 You left me and went on your way.
I thought I should mourn for you
and set your solitary image in my
heart wrought in a golden song.
But ah, my evil fortune, time is 
short.
Youth wanes year after year; the
spring days are fugitive; the frail
flowers die for nothing, and the wise
man warns me that life is but a
dewdrop on the lotus leaf.
Should...Read more of this...

The Baby's Tear

by Fannie Isabelle Sherrick
A tiny drop of crystal dew
That fell from baby eyes of blue;
A shining treasure, there it lay
For grandma's love to wipe away.
A tear of sorrow, pure and meek
It graced our darling's dimpled cheek;
A gem so fair, that angels smiled
And claimed the treasure undefiled.
A sunbeam came with winsome grace
And chased the shadow from her face;
A smile fell from its wings of...Read more of this...

Dont forget to view our wonderful member Wipe poems.

Get a Premium Membership
Turn off ads, get more exposure for your poetry, and get more features with a Premium Membership.
Book: Diverse Voices: The Poetry of Human Rights and the Pursuit of Peace