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Famous Behavior Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Plath, Sylvia
...e hundred and sixty trickles
A girl could wade without wetting her shins.

Still, latter-day sages,
Smiling at this behavior, subjugating their enemies
Neatly, nicely, by disbelief or bridges,
Never grip, as the grandsires did, that devil who chuckles
From grain of the marrow and the river-bed grains....Read more of this...



by Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
...ief,
The contriver of this outrage,
I will keep you, I will hold you,
As a hostage for your people,
As a pledge of good behavior!"
And he left him, grim and sulky,
Sitting in the morning sunshine
On the summit of the wigwam,
Croaking fiercely his displeasure,
Flapping his great sable pinions,
Vainly struggling for his freedom,
Vainly calling on his people!
Summer passed, and Shawondasee
Breathed his sighs o'er all the landscape,
From the South-land sent his ardor,
Wafted kiss...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...wear there can be no theory of any account, unless it corroborate the theory of the
 earth!
No politics, art, religion, behavior, or what not, is of account, unless it compare with
 the
 amplitude of the earth, 
Unless it face the exactness, vitality, impartiality, rectitude of the earth. 

13
I swear I begin to see love with sweeter spasms than that which responds love! 
It is that which contains itself—which never invites, and never refuses. 

I swear I begin to see...Read more of this...

by Collins, Billy
...ssed by seconds,
though they know in their adult hearts,
even as they threaten to banish Timmy to bed
for his appalling behavior,
that their bosses are Big Fatty Stupids,
their wives are Dopey Dopeheads
and that they themselves are Mr. Sillypants....Read more of this...

by Ashbery, John
...posed
Not to concern us. And so we too
Came where the others came: nights of physical endurance,
Or if, by day, our behavior was anarchically
Correct, at least by New Brutalism standards, all then
Grew taciturn by previous agreement. We were spirited 
Away en bateau, under cover of fudge dark.
It's not the incomplete importunes, but the spookiness
Of the finished product. True, to ask less were folly, yet
If he is the result of himself, how much the better 
Fo...Read more of this...



by Matthews, William
..., but before she might enjoy
such balm, the docs had to harm her tumor.
It was large, rare, and so anomalous
in its behavior that at first they mis-
diagnosed it. "Your wife will die of it
within a year." But in ten days or so
I sat beside her bed with hot-and-sour
soup and heard an intern congratulate
her on her new diagnosis: a children's
cancer (doesn't that possessive break
your heart?) had possessed her. I couldn't stop
personifying it. Devious, dour,...Read more of this...

by Emerson, Ralph Waldo
...how you are drest,
In the coarsest, or in the best,
Nor whether your name is base or brave,
Nor tor the fashion of your behavior,—
But whether you charm me,
Bid my bread feed, and my fire warm me,
And dress up nature in your favor.
One thing is forever good,
That one thing is success,—
Dear to the Eumenides,
And to all the heavenly brood.
Who bides at home, nor looks abroad,
Carries the eagles, and masters the sword....Read more of this...

by Emerson, Ralph Waldo
...talk;
At rich men's tables eaten bread and pulse;
Unarmed, faced danger with a heart of trust;
And loved so well a high behavior
In man or maid, that thou from speech refrained,
Nobility more nobly to repay?—
O be my friend, and teach me to be thine!...Read more of this...

by Plath, Sylvia
...r a week, she was so cold.
I blamed her for everything, but she didn't answer.
I couldn't understand her stupid behavior!
When I hit her she held still, like a true pacifist.
Then I realized what she wanted was for me to love her:
She began to warm up, and I saw her advantages.

Without me, she wouldn't exist, so of course she was grateful.
I gave her a soul, I bloomed out of her as a rose
Blooms out of a vase of not very valuable porcelain,
And it was I w...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...f the true poems give you more than poems, 
They give you to form for yourself, poems, religions, politics, war, peace, behavior,
 histories,
 essays, romances, and everything else, 
They balance ranks, colors, races, creeds, and the sexes,
They do not seek beauty—they are sought, 
Forever touching them, or close upon them, follows beauty, longing, fain, love-sick. 

They prepare for death—yet are they not the finish, but rather the outset, 
They bring none to his or her ...Read more of this...

by Marvell, Andrew
...beys, 
And beats the husband till for peace he prays, 
No concerned jury for him damage finds, 
Nor partial justice her behavior binds, 
But the just street does the next house invade, 
Mounting the neighbour couple on lean jade, 
The distaff knocks, the grains from kettle fly, 
And boys and girls in troops run hooting by: 
Prudent antiquity, that knew by shame, 
Better than law, domestic crimes to tame, 
And taught youth by spect?cle innocent! 
So thou and I, dear Painter, r...Read more of this...

by Tate, James
...n
at me for saying that, and it's still just barely
possible that I didn't, and the clock is running
out on his sort of behavior. I'm napping in a wigwam
as I write this, near Amity Street, which is buried
under fifteen feet of ashes and cinders and rocks.
Moss and a certain herblike creature are beginning to
whisper nearby. I am beside myself, peering down,
senselessly, since, for us, in space, there is
neither above nor below; and thus the expression
"He is bein...Read more of this...

by Taylor, Edward
...n
at me for saying that, and it's still just barely
possible that I didn't, and the clock is running
out on his sort of behavior. I'm napping in a wigwam
as I write this, near Amity Street, which is buried
under fifteen feet of ashes and cinders and rocks.
Moss and a certain herblike creature are beginning to
whisper nearby. I am beside myself, peering down,
senselessly, since, for us, in space, there is
neither above nor below; and thus the expression
"He is bein...Read more of this...

by Taylor, Edward
...d that's the day she polishes the trivets
whether they need it or not, I don't know
if there is a name for this kind of behavior,
hers or mine, but somebody once said something or another.
That's why I joined up in the first place,
so somebody could teach me a few useful phrases,
such as, "Good afternoon, my dear ****-retentive Doctor,"
and "My, that is a lovely dictionary you have on, Mrs. Smith." 
Still, I hardly feel like functioning even on a brute
or loutish ...Read more of this...

by Tate, James
...d that's the day she polishes the trivets
whether they need it or not, I don't know
if there is a name for this kind of behavior,
hers or mine, but somebody once said something or another.
That's why I joined up in the first place,
so somebody could teach me a few useful phrases,
such as, "Good afternoon, my dear ****-retentive Doctor,"
and "My, that is a lovely dictionary you have on, Mrs. Smith." 
Still, I hardly feel like functioning even on a brute
or loutish ...Read more of this...

by Gibran, Kahlil
...seekers, I am Truth, beseeching Truth; 
And your Truth in seeking and receiving 
And protecting me shall determine my 
Behavior....Read more of this...

by Schwartz, Delmore
...t alone knows!
There are six hundred kinds of spiders and each one
Differs in kind and in unkindness.
In variety of behavior spiders are unrivalled:
The fat garden spider sits motionless, amidst or at the heart
Of the orb of its web: other kinds run,
Scuttling across the floor, falling into bathtubs,
Trapped in the path of its own wrath, by overconfidence
 drowned and undone.

Other kinds - more and more kinds under the stars and
 the sun -
Are carnivores: all are rel...Read more of this...

by Buson, Yosa
...The behavior of the pigeon
is beyond reproach,
but the mountain cuckoo?...Read more of this...

by Hugo, Victor
...sowers sow 
 The seed down wind, thus did that lion throw 
 His message far enough the town to reach: 
 "King! your behavior really passes speech! 
 Thus far no harm I've wrought to him your son; 
 But now I give you notice—when night's done, 
 I will make entry at your city-gate, 
 Bringing the prince alive; and those who wait 
 To see him in my jaws—your lackey-crew— 
 Shall see me eat him in your palace, too!" 
 Next morning, this is what was viewed in town: 
 ...Read more of this...

by Lear, Edward
...
There was an Old Man of Moldavia,Who had the most curious behavior;For while he was able, he slept on a table,That funny Old Man of Moldavia. ...Read more of this...

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