Famous Sneers Poems by Famous Poets

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

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A Man (In Memory of H. of M.)

...ur age cannot replace 
 To save its tasteless soul - 
I'll do without your dole. Life is not much! 

V 

Dismissed with sneers he backed his tools and went, 
And wandered workless; for it seemed unwise 
To close with one who dared to criticize 
 And carp on points of taste: 
To work where they were placed rude men were meant. 

VI 

Years whiled. He aged, sank, sickened, and was not: 
And it was said, "A man intractable 
And curst is gone." None sighed to hear his knell, 
 No...Read more of this...
by Hardy, Thomas


Big Night On The Town

...you
wearing a dress.
she sits down, you buy her a
beer, she stinks of swamps, presses
a leg against you.
the bar tender sneers.
you've got him worried, he doesn't
know if you're a cop, a killer, a
madman or an
Idiot.
you ask for a vodka.
you pour the vodka into the top of
the beer bottle.
It's one a.m. In a dead cow world.
you ask her how much for head,
drink everything down, it tastes
like machine oil.

you leave Madame Death there,
you leave the sneering bartender
there.

y...Read more of this...
by Bukowski, Charles

Custer

...or the fray
They look upon their Chief in undisguised dismay.



XXXVIII.
He hears the murmur of their discontent, 
But sneers can never change a strong mind's bent.
He knows his purpose and he does not swerve, 
And with a quiet mien and steady nerve
He meets dark looks where'er his steps may go, 
And silence that is bruising as a blow, 
Where late were smiles and words of ardent praise.
So pass the lagging weeks of wearying delays.



XXXIX.
Inaction is not always what it se...Read more of this...
by Wilcox, Ella Wheeler

Dreams Are Best

...er be a fool
 Living in my Paradise,
 Than the leader of a school,
 Sadly sane and weary wise.

 O you Cynics with your sneers,
 Fallen brains and hearts of brass,
 Tweak me by my foolish ears,
 Write me down a simple ass!
I'll believe the real "you"
 Is the "you" without a taint;
 I'll believe each woman too,
But a slightly damaged saint.

Yes, I'll smoke my cigarette,
 Vestured in my garb of dreams,
 And I'll borrow no regret;
All is gold that golden gleams.
So I'll charm m...Read more of this...
by Service, Robert William

Fact Or Fable?

...
 In darts the hand and crushes out the yell, 
 And plucks the hide—as from a nut the shell— 
 He holds him nude, and sneers: "An ape you dread!" 
 
 H.L.W. 


 A LAMENT. 
 
 ("Sentiers où l'herbe se balance.") 
 
 {Bk. III. xi., July, 1853.} 


 O paths whereon wild grasses wave! 
 O valleys! hillsides! forests hoar! 
 Why are ye silent as the grave? 
 For One, who came, and comes no more! 
 
 Why is thy window closed of late? 
 And why thy garden ...Read more of this...
by Hugo, Victor


Hey Baby

...I keep walking 
but the guy, he's dogging my every move
hey Miss, he says,
Don't miss this!
And he grabs his crotch and sneers ear to ear
so finally, I turn around
Hey Buddy, I say
I'm feelin' kinda tense, Buddy
I got a fuckin' song in my heart
so come on,
Let's go

I got a huge bucket of non-dairy creamer
and some time to kill
so let's do it
we'll make some foul-smelling artifical milk
and drink gallons and gallons and gallons of it

Get our bladders exceedingly full then
si...Read more of this...
by Estep, Maggie

Honours Martyr

...Hate will trample me,
Will load me with a coward's shame?
A traitor's perjury. 

False friends will launch their covert sneers;
True friends will wish me dead;
And I shall cause the bitterest tears
That you have ever shed. 

The dark deeds of my outlawed race
Will then like virtues shine;
And men will pardon their disgrace,
Beside the guilt of mine. 

For, who forgives the accursed crime
Of dastard treachery?
Rebellion, in its chosen time,
May Freedom's champion be; 

Revenge...Read more of this...
by Brontë, Emily

Isa Nutter

...and second husband --
It was none of these that laid me low --
But the clamor of daughters and threats of sons,
And the sneers and curses of all my kin
Right up to the day I sneaked to Peoria
And married Minnie in spite of them --
And why do you wonder my will was made
For the best and purest of women?...Read more of this...
by Masters, Edgar Lee

Keep A-pluggin' Away

...ve rolled away,
There will come a brighter day
All your labor to repay,—
Keep a-pluggin' away.
There 'll be lots of sneers to swallow,
There 'll be lots of pain to bear,—
Keep a-pluggin' away.
If you 've got your eye on heaven,
Some bright day you 'll wake up there,—
Keep a-pluggin' away.
Perseverance still is king;
Time its sure reward will bring;
Work and wait unwearying,—
Keep a-pluggin' away.
...Read more of this...
by Laurence Dunbar, Paul

Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey

...press
With quietness and beauty, and so feed
With lofty thoughts, that neither evil tongues,
Rash judgments, nor the sneers of selfish men,
Nor greetings where no kindness is, nor all
The dreary intercourse of daily life,
Shall e'er prevail against us, or disturb
Our cheerful faith, that all which we behold
Is full of blessings.  Therefore let the moon
Shine on thee in thy solitary walk;
And let the misty mountain winds be free
To blow against thee: and, in after y...Read more of this...
by Wordsworth, William

MFingal - Canto IV

...l,
Went back, as erst on Ahaz' dial,
While British Joshua stay'd the moon
On Monmouth plains for Ajalon.
Heed not their sneers or gibes so arch,
Because she set before your march.
A small mistake! your meaning right;
You take her influence for her light:
Her influence, which shall be your guide,
And o'er your Gen'ralship preside.
Hence still shall teem your empty skull
With vict'ries, when the moon's at full,
Which by transition passing strange
Wane to defeats before the chan...Read more of this...
by Trumbull, John

Pagett M.P

...on, but the mirth died out on my lips
As I thought of the fools like Pagett who write of their "Eastern trips,"
And the sneers of the traveled idiots who duly misgovern the land,
And I prayed to the Lord to deliver another one into my hand....Read more of this...
by Kipling, Rudyard

Republican Pioneers

...first loud notes of defiance! 

Laugh long and loud, you toady crowd, 
At the men you call benighted, 
In spite of your sneers, we are pioneers 
Of "Australian States United"! 
In spite of your sneers, We are pioneers 
Of "Australian States United"! 

Not long we'll stand as an outlaw band, 
And be in our country lonely, 
For soon to the sky shall ring our cry, 
Our cry of "Australia only"! 
For soon to the sky 
Shall mount our cry, 
Our cry of "Australia only"! 

And we'll s...Read more of this...
by Lawson, Henry

Rosalind and Helen: a Modern Eclogue

...of gold,
Which, like fierce fever, left him weak;
And his strait lip and bloated cheek
Were warped in spasms by hollow sneers;
And selfish cares with barren plough,
Not age, had lined his narrow brow,
And foul and cruel thoughts, which feed 
Upon the withering life within,
Like vipers on some poisonous weed.
Whether his ill were death or sin
None knew, until he died indeed,
And then men owned they were the same.

Seven days within my chamber lay
That corse, and my babes made...Read more of this...
by Shelley, Percy Bysshe

Sonnet to Ingratitude

...rtues in him.
- YOUNG. 


I COULD have borne affliction's sharpest thorn;
The sting of malice­poverty's deep wound;
The sneers of vulgar pride, the idiot's scorn;
Neglected Love, false Friendship's treach'rous sound; 

I could, with patient smile, extract the dart 
Base calumny had planted in my heart; 
The fangs of envy; agonizing pain; 
ALL, ALL, nor should my steady soul complain: 

E'en had relentless FATE, with cruel pow'r,
Darken'd the sunshine of each youthful day;
Whi...Read more of this...
by Robinson, Mary Darby

The Rum Tum Tugger

...he always wants a feast;
When there isn't any fish then he won't eat rabbit.
If you offer him cream then he sniffs and sneers,
For he only likes what he finds for himself;

So you'll catch him in it right up to the ears,
If you put it away on the larder shelf.
The Rum Tum Tugger is artful and knowing,
The Rum Tum Tugger doesn't care for a cuddle;
But he'll leap on your lap in the middle of your sewing,
For there's nothing he enjoys like a horrible muddle.
Yes the Rum Tum Tug...Read more of this...
by Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)

The Shame of Going Back

...can hurt you like the shame of going back. 

When we've fought the battle bravely and are beaten to the wall, 
'Tis the sneers of men, not conscience, that make cowards of us all; 
And the while you are returning, oh! your brain is on the rack, 
And your heart is in the shadow of the shame of going back. 

When a beaten man's discovered with a bullet in his brain, 
They POST-MORTEM him, and try him, and they say he was insane; 
But it very often happens that he'd lately got t...Read more of this...
by Lawson, Henry

The Soldier Of Fortune

...me with their spears;
Blood-crazed were they, and reeking from the strife;
Hell-hot their hate, and venom-fanged their sneers,
And one man spat on me and nursed a knife.
And there was I, sore wounded and alone,
I, the last living of my slaughtered band.
Oh sinister the sky, and cold as stone!
In one red laugh of horror reeled the land.
And dazed and desperate I faced their spears,
And like a flame out-leaped that naked knife,
And like a serpent stung their bitter jeers:
"Den...Read more of this...
by Service, Robert William

The Suicide

...or a pledge that was not pledged by me,
I have kissed thy crust and eaten sparingly
That I might eat again, and met thy sneers
With deprecations, and thy blows with tears,—
Aye, from thy glutted lash, glad, crawled away,
As if spent passion were a holiday!
And now I go. Nor threat, nor easy vow
Of tardy kindness can avail thee now
With me, whence fear and faith alike are flown;
Lonely I came, and I depart alone,
And know not where nor unto whom I go;
But that thou canst not f...Read more of this...
by St. Vincent Millay, Edna

The Towers of Time

...tale and stank of old men's bribes;
And where we watched her smile in power
A statue like a starry tower
the stone face sneers as in a nightmare
Down on a world that worms devour.
(Archaic incredible dead dawns breaking
Deep in the deserts and waste and wealds, 
Where the dead cry aloud on Our Lady of Victories,
Queen of the Eagles, aloft on the shields,
And the sun is gone up on the Thundering Legion
On the roads of Rome to the Battlefields.)

Ah, who had known who had not s...Read more of this...
by Chesterton, G K

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