Famous Applied Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Americanisation

by G K Chesterton
 Britannia needs no Boulevards,
No spaces wide and gay:
Her march was through the crooked streets
Along the narrow way.
Nor looks she where, New York's seduction,
The Broadway leadeth to destruction.

Britannia needs no Cafes:
If Coffee needs must be,
Its place should be the Coffee-house
Where Johnson growled for Tea;
But who can hear that human mountain
Growl for an ice-cream soda-fountain?

She needs no Russian Theatrey
Mere Father strangles...Read more of this...

In Age

by William Lisle Bowles
 And art thou he, now "fallen on evil days," 
And changed indeed! Yet what do this sunk cheek, 
These thinner locks, and that calm forehead speak! 
A spirit reckless of man's blame or praise,-- 
A spirit, when thine eyes to the noon's blaze 
Their dark orbs roll in vain, in suffering meek, 
As in the sight of God intent...Read more of this...

The Return

by Rudyard Kipling
 Peace is declared, and I return
To 'Ackneystadt, but not the same;
Things 'ave transpired which made me learn
The size and meanin' of the game.
I did no more than others did,
I don't know where the change began;
I started as a average kid,
I finished as a thinkin' man.

If England was what England seems
An' not the England of our dreams,
But only putty, brass,...Read more of this...

Our Son

by Barry Tebb
 Quarter to three: I wake again at the hour of his birth

Thirty years ago and now he paces corridors of dark

In nightmares of self-condemnation where random thoughts

Besiege his fevered imagination – England’s 

Imminent destruction, his own, the world’s…

Sixty to eighty cigarettes a day, unavailing depot injections,

Failed abscondings, failed everything: Eton and Balliol

Hold no sway on ward one, nor even...Read more of this...

Grotty And The Quarryman

by Barry Tebb
 (To Paul Sykes, author of 'Sweet Agony')

He demolished five doors at a sitting

And topped it off with an outsize window

One Christmas afternoon, when drunk;

Sober he smiled like an angel, bowed,

Kissed ladies’ hands and courtesy

Was his middle name.

She tried to pass for thirty at fifty-six,

Called him "My Sweet piglet" and laid out

Dainty doylies for his teatime treats; always

She wore black...Read more of this...

Old Testament Gospel

by William Cowper
 (Hebrews, iv.2)

Israel in ancient days
Not only had a view
Of Sinai in a blaze,
But learn'd the Gospel too;
The types and figures were a glass,
In which thy saw a Saviour's face.

The paschal sacrifice
And blood-besprinkled door,
Seen with enlighten'd eyes,
And once applied with power,
Would teach the need of other blood,
To reconcile an angry God.

The Lamb, the Dove, set forth
His perfect innocence,
Whose blood of...Read more of this...

Tract

by William Carlos (WCW) Williams
 I will teach you my townspeople
how to perform a funeral
for you have it over a troop
of artists—
unless one should scour the world—
you have the ground sense necessary.

See! the hearse leads.
I begin with a design for a hearse.
For Christ's sake not black—
nor white either — and not polished!
Let it be whethered—like a farm wagon—
with gilt wheels (this could be
applied fresh...Read more of this...

The Imperfect Enjoyment

by John Wilmot
 Naked she lay, clasped in my longing arms,
I filled with love, and she all over charms;
Both equally inspired with eager fire,
Melting through kindness, flaming in desire.
With arms,legs,lips close clinging to embrace,
She clips me to her breast, and sucks me to her face.
Her nimble tongue, Love's lesser lightening, played
Within my mouth, and to my thoughts conveyed
Swift orders that I should...Read more of this...

Modern Love: L

by George Meredith
 Thus piteously Love closed what he begat:
The union of this ever-diverse pair!
These two were rapid falcons in a snare,
Condemned to do the flitting of the bat.
Lovers beneath the singing sky of May,
They wandered once; clear as the dew on flowers:
But they fed not on the advancing hours:
Their hearts held cravings for the buried day.
Then each applied to each that...Read more of this...

Huddersfield - The Second Poetry Capital Of England

by Barry Tebb
 It brings to mind Swift leaving a fortune to Dublin

‘For the founding of a lunatic asylum - no place needs it more’.

The breathing beauty of the moors and cheap accommodation

Drew me but the total barbarity of the town stopped me from

Writing a single line: from the hideous facade of its railway

Station - Betjeman must have been drunk or mad...Read more of this...

Snow Whites Acne

by Denise Duhamel
 At first she was sure it was just a bit of dried strawberry juice,
or a fleck of her mother's red nail polish that had flaked off
when she'd patted her daughter to sleep the night before.
But as she scrubbed, Snow felt a bump, something festering
under the surface, like a tapeworm curled up and living
in her left cheek.
 Doc the Dwarf...Read more of this...

Modern Love L: Thus Piteously Love

by George Meredith
 Thus piteously Love closed what he begat:
The union of this ever-diverse pair!
These two were rapid falcons in a snare,
Condemned to do the flitting of the bat.
Lovers beneath the singing sky of May,
They wandered once; clear as the dew on flowers:
But they fed not on the advancing hours:
Their hearts held cravings for the buried day.
Then each applied to each that...Read more of this...

Brother And Sister

by Lewis Carroll
 "SISTER, sister, go to bed! 
Go and rest your weary head." 
Thus the prudent brother said. 

"Do you want a battered hide, 
Or scratches to your face applied?" 
Thus his sister calm replied. 

"Sister, do not raise my wrath. 
I'd make you into mutton broth 
As easily as kill a moth" 

The sister raised her beaming eye 
And looked...Read more of this...

Psalm 31 part 2

by Isaac Watts
 v.7-13,18-21 
C. M.
Deliverance from slander and reproach.

My heart rejoices in thy name,
My God, my help, my trust;
Thou hast preserved my face from shame,
Mine honor from the dust.

"My life is spent with grief," I cried,
"My years consumed in groans,
My strength decays, mine eyes are dried,
And sorrow wastes my bones."

Among mine enemies my name
Was a mere proverb grown,
While to my neighbors...Read more of this...

Continuing To Live

by Philip Larkin
 Continuing to live -- that is, repeat
A habit formed to get necessaries --
Is nearly always losing, or going without.
 It varies.

This loss of interest, hair, and enterprise --
Ah, if the game were poker, yes,
You might discard them, draw a full house!
 But it's chess.

And once you have walked the length of your mind, what
You command is clear as a...Read more of this...

Those Graves In Rome

by Larry Levis
 There are places where the eye can starve,
But not here. Here, for example, is
The Piazza Navona, & here is his narrow room
Overlooking the Steps & the crowds of sunbathing
Tourists. And here is the Protestant Cemetery
Where Keats & Joseph Severn join hands
Forever under a little shawl of grass
And where Keats's name isn't even on
His gravestone, because it is on Severn's,
And...Read more of this...

The Holidays

by Jane Taylor
 "Ah! don't you remember, 'tis almost December,
And soon will the holidays come;
Oh, 'twill be so funny, I've plenty of money,
I'll buy me a sword and a drum. " 

Thus said little Harry, unwilling to tarry,
Impatient from school to depart; 
But we shall discover, this holiday lover
Knew little what was in his heart. 

For when on returning, he gave up...Read more of this...

The Mother Mourns

by Thomas Hardy
 When mid-autumn's moan shook the night-time, 
 And sedges were horny, 
And summer's green wonderwork faltered 
 On leaze and in lane, 

I fared Yell'ham-Firs way, where dimly 
 Came wheeling around me 
Those phantoms obscure and insistent 
 That shadows unchain. 

Till airs from the needle-thicks brought me 
 A low lamentation, 
As 'twere of a tree-god disheartened,...Read more of this...

Archimedes

by Friedrich von Schiller
 To Archimedes once a scholar came,
"Teach me," he said, "the art that won thy fame;--
The godlike art which gives such boons to toil,
And showers such fruit upon thy native soil;--
The godlike art that girt the town when all
Rome's vengeance burst in thunder on the wall!"
"Thou call'st art godlike--it is so, in truth,
And was," replied the master to the youth,
"Ere...Read more of this...

Shall I take thee the Poet said

by Emily Dickinson
 Shall I take thee, the Poet said
To the propounded word?
Be stationed with the Candidates
Till I have finer tried --

The Poet searched Philology
And when about to ring
For the suspended Candidate
There came unsummoned in --

That portion of the Vision
The Word applied to fill
Not unto nomination
The Cherubim reveal --...Read more of this...

Jehovah-Rophi. I Am the Lord That Healeth Thee

by William Cowper
 (Exodus, xv.26)

Heal us, Emmanuel! here we are,
Waiting to feel Thy touch:
Deep-wounded souls to Thee repair
And, Saviour, we are such.

Our faith is feeble, we confess,
We faintly trust Thy word;
But wilt Thou pity us the less?
Be that far from Thee, Lord!

Remember him who once applied,
With trembling, for relief;
"Lord, I believe," with tears he cried,
"Oh, help my unbelief!"

She too, who touch'd Thee...Read more of this...

The Downfall of Delhi

by William Topaz McGonagall
 'Twas in the year of 1857 and on the 14th of September
That the Sepoy rebels at Delhi were forced to surrender;
The attack was first to be made by Brigadier Nicholson,
And he was ordered to attack the Cashmere Bastion. 

The British were entirely in command.
Of Major-General Reid, assisted by Brigadier-Generals Wilson and Burnand;
After a long march, fighting through a hostile...Read more of this...

The Master

by Edwin Arlington Robinson
 A flying word from here and there 
Had sown the name at which we sneered, 
To be reviled and then revered: 
A presence to be loved and feared-- 
We cannot hide it, or deny 
That we, the gentlemen who jeered, 
May be forgotten by and by. 

He came when days were perilous 
And hearts of men were sore beguiled,...Read more of this...

The Two Men

by Thomas Hardy
 THERE were two youths of equal age,
Wit, station, strength, and parentage;
They studied at the self-same schools,
And shaped their thoughts by common rules.

One pondered on the life of man,
His hopes, his endings, and began
To rate the Market's sordid war
As something scarce worth living for.

"I'll brace to higher aims," said he,
"I'll further Truth and Purity;
Thereby to mend and mortal lot
And sweeten...Read more of this...

Psalm 75

by Isaac Watts
 Power and government from God alone.
[Applied to the glorious Revolution by King William, or the happy accession of King George to the throne.]

To thee, most Holy and most High,
To thee we bring our thankful praise;
Thy works declare thy name is nigh,
Thy works of wonder and of grace.

Britain was doomed to be a slave,
Her frame dissolved, her fears were great;
When...Read more of this...

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