Famous Wring Out Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Hiawathas Friends

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
 Two good friends had Hiawatha, 
Singled out from all the others, 
Bound to him in closest union, 
And to whom he gave the right hand 
Of his heart, in joy and sorrow; 
Chibiabos, the musician,
And the very strong man, Kwasind.
Straight between them ran the pathway, 
Never grew the grass upon it; 
Singing birds, that utter falsehoods, 
Story-tellers, mischief-makers, 
Found...Read more of this...

Jim

by Robert William Service
 He was a traveling tinker lad
And I was a gypsy jade,
Yet never were two so gay and glad,
And a perfect pair we made;
Bruises I've known since life began,
Blows and the love that smothers:
But I'd rather have the curse of my man,
Than the kisses of all others.

When Black Mike called me a lousy *****
Jim was so mad, like hell 'e

Flammed,...Read more of this...

To A Small Boy Standing On My Shoes While I Am Wearing Them

by Ogden Nash
 Let's straighten this out, my little man,
And reach an agreement if we can.
I entered your door as an honored guest.
My shoes are shined and my trousers are pressed,
And I won't stretch out and read you the funnies
And I won't pretend that we're Easter bunnies.
If you must get somebody down on the floor,
What in the hell are your parents for?
I...Read more of this...

Ommission

by Robert William Service
 What man has not betrayed
 Some sacred trust?
If haply you are made
 Of honest dust,
Vaunt not of glory due,
 Of triumph won:
Think, think of duties you
 Have left undone.

But if in mercy hope,
 Despite your sin,
The gates of Heaven ope'
 To let you in:
Pray, pray that when God reads
 Your judgement due,
He may forget good deeds
 You did not...Read more of this...

Carrion Comfort

by Gerard Manley Hopkins
 Not, I'll not, carrion comfort, Despair, not feast on thee;
Not untwist—slack they may be—these last strands of man
In me ?r, most weary, cry I can no more. I can;
Can something, hope, wish day come, not choose not to be.
But ah, but O thou terrible, why wouldst thou rude on me
Thy wring-world right foot rock? lay a lionlimb against me?...Read more of this...

Canzone V

by Francesco Petrarch
[Pg 287] CANZONE V. Solea dalla fontana di mia vita. MEMORY IS HIS ONLY SOLACE AND SUPPORT.  I who was wont from life's best fountain farSo long to wander, searching land and sea,Pursuing not my pleasure, but my star,And alway, as Love knows who strengthen'd me,Ready in bitter...Read more of this...

16. A Prayer under the Pressure of Violent Anguish

by Robert Burns
 O THOU Great Being! what Thou art,
 Surpasses me to know;
Yet sure I am, that known to Thee
 Are all Thy works below.


Thy creature here before Thee stands,
 All wretched and distrest;
Yet sure those ills that wring my soul
 Obey Thy high behest.


Sure, Thou, Almighty, canst not act
From cruelty or wrath!
O, free my weary eyes from tears,
Or close them...Read more of this...

A single Clover Plank

by Emily Dickinson
 A single Clover Plank
Was all that saved a Bee
A Bee I personally knew
From sinking in the sky --

'Twixt Firmament above
And Firmament below
The Billows of Circumference
Were sweeping him away --

The idly swaying Plank
Responsible to nought
A sudden Freight of Wind assumed
And Bumble Bee was not --

This harrowing event
Transpiring in the Grass
Did not so much as wring from him
A wandering "Alas" --...Read more of this...

Longevity

by Robert William Service
 I watched one day a parrot grey - 'twas in a barber shop.
"Cuckold!" he cried, until I sighed: "You feathered devil, stop!"
Then balefully he looked at me, and slid along his perch,
With sneering eye that seemed to pry me very soul to search.
So fierce, so bold, so grim, so cold, so agate was his stare:
And then that bird I...Read more of this...

A New Years Giftsent To Sir Simeon Steward

by Robert Herrick
 No news of navies burnt at seas;
No noise of late spawn'd tittyries;
No closet plot or open vent,
That frights men with a Parliament:
No new device or late-found trick,
To read by th' stars the kingdom's sick;
No gin to catch the State, or wring
The free-born nostril of the King,
We send to you; but here a jolly
Verse crown'd with ivy and with holly;
That...Read more of this...

No Worst There Is None. Pitched Past Pitch Of Grief

by Gerard Manley Hopkins
 No worst, there is none. Pitched past pitch of grief,
More pangs will, schooled at forepangs, wilder wring.
Comforter, where, where is your comforting?
Mary, mother of us, where is your relief?
My cries heave, herds-long; huddle in a main, a chief
Woe, world-sorrow; on an age-old anvil wince and sing—
Then lull, then leave off. Fury had shrieked 'No ling-
ering! Let me be fell:...Read more of this...

uganda cry

by Rg Gregory
 i have lost touch over the years
with the hot africa inside me

illness and all - i spread to root
in the red earth siphoned the sun

loved the black inflections of my eyes
cut callow cords and found new forms

felt free to fashion and freely raised
orchards of feelings where the groves

were rife with desiccated pens
but all the time my ears insistent to

the...Read more of this...

A Mine there is no Man would own

by Emily Dickinson
 A Mine there is no Man would own
But must it be conferred,
Demeaning by exclusive wealth
A Universe beside --

Potosi never to be spent
But hoarded in the mind
What Misers wring their hands tonight
For Indies in the Ground!...Read more of this...

The Old Poet

by Amy Levy
 I will be glad because it is the Spring;
I will forget the winter in my heart--
Dead hopes and withered promise; and will wring
A little joy from life ere life depart.

For spendthrift youth with passion-blinded eyes,
Stays not to see how woods and fields are bright;
He hears the phantom voices call, he flies
Upon the track of some unknown delight.

To him the...Read more of this...

Canzone XIX

by Francesco Petrarch
CANZONE XIX. S' il dissi mai, ch' i' venga in odio a quella. HE VEHEMENTLY REBUTS THE CHARGE OF LOVING ANOTHER.  Perdie! I said it not,Nor never thought to do:As well as I, ye wotI have no power thereto.And if I did, the lotThat first did me enchainMay never...Read more of this...

Astrophel and Stella: XV

by Sir Philip Sidney
 You that do search for every purling spring
Which from the ribs of old Parnassus flows,
And every flower, not sweet perhaps, which grows
Near thereabouts, into your poesy wring;
Ye that do dictionary's method bring
Into your rimes, running in rattling rows;
You that poor Petrarch's long-deceased woes
With new-born sighs and denizen'd wit do sing:
You take wrong ways; those far-fet helps be such
As do...Read more of this...

When Lovely Woman Stoops To Folly

by Oliver Goldsmith
 When lovely woman stoops to folly,
And finds too late that men betray,
What charm can soothe her melancholy,
What art can wash her guilt away?

The only art her guilt to cover,
To hide her shame from every eye,
To give repentance to her lover,
And wring his bosom, is—to die....Read more of this...

A Love Song

by Paul Laurence Dunbar
Ah, love, my love is like a cry in the night,
A long, loud cry to the empty sky,
The cry of a man alone in the desert,
With hands uplifted, with parching lips,
Oh, rescue me, rescue me,
Thy form to mine arms,
The dew of thy lips to my mouth,
Dost thou hear me?—my call thro' the night?
Darling, I hear thee and answer,
Thy fountain am...Read more of this...

Yvytot

by Eugene Field
 Where wail the waters in their flaw
A spectre wanders to and fro,
And evermore that ghostly shore
Bemoans the heir of Yvytot.

Sometimes, when, like a fleecy pall,
The mists upon the waters fall,
Across the main float shadows twain
That do not heed the spectre's call.

The king his son of Yvytot
Stood once and saw the waters go
Boiling around with hissing sound
The sullen phantom rocks...Read more of this...

The City Bushman

by Henry Lawson
 It was pleasant up the country, City Bushman, where you went, 
For you sought the greener patches and you travelled like a gent; 
And you curse the trams and buses and the turmoil and the push, 
Though you know the squalid city needn't keep you from the bush; 
But we lately heard you singing of the `plains where shade...Read more of this...

Sleeping at last

by Christina Rossetti
 Sleeping at last, the trouble and tumult over, 
Sleeping at last, the struggle and horror past, 
Cold and white, out of sight of friend and of lover, 
Sleeping at last.

No more a tired heart downcast or overcast, 
No more pangs that wring or shifting fears that hover, 
Sleeping at last in a dreamless sleep locked fast.

Fast asleep. Singing birds...Read more of this...

To the Muse of Poetry

by Mary Darby Robinson
 EXULT MY MUSE! exult to see 
Each envious, waspish, jealous thing, 
Around its harmless venom fling, 
And dart its powerless fangs at THEE! 
Ne'er shalt THOU bend thy radiant wing, 
To sweep the dark revengeful string; 
Or meanly stoop, to steal a ray, 
E'en from RINALDO'S glorious lay, 
Tho' his transcendent Verse should twine 
About thy heart, each bliss...Read more of this...

High Conspiratorial Person

by Carl Sandburg
 OUT of the testimony of such reluctant lips, out of the oaths and mouths of such scrupulous liars, out of perjurers whose hands swore by God to the white sun before all men,

Out of a rag saturated with smears and smuts gathered from the footbaths of kings and the loin cloths of whores, from the scabs of Babylon and...Read more of this...

Mother and Poet

by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
 I.

Dead ! One of them shot by the sea in the east,
And one of them shot in the west by the sea.
Dead ! both my boys ! When you sit at the feast
And are wanting a great song for Italy free,
Let none look at me !

II.
Yet I was a poetess only last year,
And good at my art, for a...Read more of this...

Death is like the insect

by Emily Dickinson
 Death is like the insect
Menacing the tree,
Competent to kill it,
But decoyed may be.

Bait it with the balsam,
Seek it with the saw,
Baffle, if it cost you
Everything you are.

Then, if it have burrowed
Out of reach of skill --
Wring the tree and leave it,
'Tis the vermin's will....Read more of this...

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