Here are two zebra poems. They’ll make you think of striped sonnets and monochromatic muses. Enjoy!
Zebra Stripes, a poem
by matt at shadow of iris
Zebra stripes move and shift,
my feet carry me in long lifts
yet they give me short shrift;
dash as quick I may
I never catch my prey;
simple pattern-camouflage
always let’s them dodge;
it’s those zebra stripes
that escape my snipes;
I can’t tell one from the other,
where starts the mother,
where ends the brother;
it’s all just zebra stripes
and never are they my types;
I’m color blind and in a bind
lost among the wavy lines;
and even as my fingers type,
I frown and slide down
a gently sloped zebra stripe.
A Classic Zebra Poem
by Roby Campbell
From the dark woods that breathe of fallen showers,
Harnessed with level rays in golden reins,
The zebras draw the dawn across the plains
Wading knee-keep among the scarlet flowers.
The sunlight, zithering their flanks with fire,
Flashes between the shadows as they pass
Barred with electric tremors through the grass
Like wind along the gold strings of a lyre.
Into the flushed air snorting rosy plumes
That smoulder round their feet in drifting fumes,
With dove-like voices call the distant fillies,
While round the herds the stallion wheels his flight,
Engine of beauty volted with delight,
To roll his mare among the trampled lilies.
Zebra Quotes
Neither must we have the muse of poetry contumacious and conceited, snuffing up the wind like the wild zebra of the desert, mocking at the hunger, and scorning the cry of the driver.
– various
The tiger, the panther, and other variegated animals have their beauty: but the zebra, I think, is rather a curious, than a picturesque animal. It’s streaked sides injure it both in point of color, and in delineation of its form.
– William Gilpin
But each associates, and is please with all;
So grave the dappled deer in numerous droves,
And all his kind alike the zebra loves;
The same law governs where the the billows roar,
And proteus’ shoals o’erspread the desert shore …
– William Cowper, Esq.
Proud cities! hives of prouder men,
What are ye now? – th’ Hyaena’s den; –
With hoof unshod the Zebra bounds
O’er prone Palmyra’s mouldering mounds.
– Charles Caleb Colton
He bade thee paint the peacock’s train –
The zebra’s pencilled side –
Wave in teh courser’s flowing mane –
And gild the insect’s pride.
– Rival Sisters
Bother the zebra stripes. I don’t believe there’s no such things.
– Mrs. Betsey Prig
One can readily see, says a correspondent of Nature, how the shadows of the branches in a tropical forest, falling upon the zebras, would so intermingle with the stripes of the animals as to add enormously to the difficulties of recognition by human eyes …
– various
Reference:
How do a zebra’s stripes act as camouflage?
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