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Best Famous Shut Away Poems

Here is a collection of the all-time best famous Shut Away poems. This is a select list of the best famous Shut Away poetry. Reading, writing, and enjoying famous Shut Away poetry (as well as classical and contemporary poems) is a great past time. These top poems are the best examples of shut away poems.

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Written by Wendell Berry | Create an image from this poem

Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front

 Love the quick profit, the annual raise,
vacation with pay. Want more 
of everything ready-made. Be afraid 
to know your neighbors and to die.

And you will have a window in your head. 
Not even your future will be a mystery 
any more. Your mind will be punched in a card 
and shut away in a little drawer. 

When they want you to buy something 
they will call you. When they want you 
to die for profit they will let you know. 
So, friends, every day do something 
that won't compute. Love the Lord. 
Love the world. Work for nothing. 
Take all that you have and be poor. 
Love someone who does not deserve it. 

Denounce the government and embrace 
the flag. Hope to live in that free 
republic for which it stands. 
Give your approval to all you cannot
understand. Praise ignorance, for what man 
has not encountered he has not destroyed. 

Ask the questions that have no answers. 
Invest in the millenium. Plant sequoias. 
Say that your main crop is the forest 
that you did not plant, 
that you will not live to harvest. 

Say that the leaves are harvested 
when they have rotted into the mold.
Call that profit. Prophesy such returns. 
Put your faith in the two inches of humus 
that will build under the trees 
every thousand years. 

Listen to carrion -- put your ear 
close, and hear the faint chattering 
of the songs that are to come. 
Expect the end of the world. Laugh. 
Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful 
though you have considered all the facts. 
So long as women do not go cheap 
for power, please women more than men. 

Ask yourself: Will this satisfy 
a woman satisfied to bear a child? 
Will this disturb the sleep 
of a woman near to giving birth? 

Go with your love to the fields. 
Lie down in the shade. Rest your head 
in her lap. Swear allegiance 
to what is nighest your thoughts. 

As soon as the generals and the politicos 
can predict the motions of your mind, 
lose it. Leave it as a sign 
to mark the false trail, the way 
you didn't go. 

Be like the fox 
who makes more tracks than necessary, 
some in the wrong direction. 
Practice resurrection.


Written by Wang Wei | Create an image from this poem

Song Of An Old General

When he was a youth of fifteen or twenty, 
He chased a wild horse, he caught him and rode him, 
He shot the white-browed mountain tiger, 
He defied the yellow-bristled Horseman of Ye. 
Fighting single- handed for a thousand miles, 
With his naked dagger he could hold a multitude. 
...Granted that the troops of China were as swift as heaven's thunder 
And that Tartar soldiers perished in pitfalls fanged with iron, 
General Wei Qing's victory was only a thing of chance. 
And General Li Guang's thwarted effort was his fate, not his fault. 
Since this man's retirement he is looking old and worn: 
Experience of the world has hastened his white hairs. 
Though once his quick dart never missed the right eye of a bird, 
Now knotted veins and tendons make his left arm like an osier. 
He is sometimes at the road-side selling melons from his garden, 
He is sometimes planting willows round his hermitage. 
His lonely lane is shut away by a dense grove, 
His vacant window looks upon the far cold mountains 
But, if he prayed, the waters would come gushing for his men 
And never would he wanton his cause away with wine. 
...War-clouds are spreading, under the Helan Range; 
Back and forth, day and night, go feathered messages; 
In the three River Provinces, the governors call young men -- 
And five imperial edicts have summoned the old general. 
So he dusts his iron coat and shines it like snow- 
Waves his dagger from its jade hilt in a dance of starry steel. 
He is ready with his strong northern bow to smite the Tartar chieftain -- 
That never a foreign war-dress may affront the Emperor. 
...There once was an aged Prefect, forgotten and far away, 
Who still could manage triumph with a single stroke. 
Written by Sidney Lanier | Create an image from this poem

Night and Day

 When the golden day is done, 
Through the closing portal, 
Child and garden, Flower and sun, 
Vanish all things mortal. 

As the blinding shadows fall 
As the rays diminish, 
Under evening's cloak they all 
Roll away and vanish. 

Garden darkened, daisy shut, 
Child in bed, they slumber-- 
Glow-worm in the hallway rut, 
Mice among the lumber. 

In the darkness houses shine, 
Parents move the candles; 
Till on all the night divine 
Turns the bedroom handles. 

Till at last the day begins 
In the east a-breaking, 
In the hedges and the whins 
Sleeping birds a-waking. 

In the darkness shapes of things, 
Houses, trees and hedges, 
Clearer grow; and sparrow's wings 
Beat on window ledges. 

These shall wake the yawning maid; 
She the door shall open-- 
Finding dew on garden glade 
And the morning broken. 

There my garden grows again 
Green and rosy painted, 
As at eve behind the pane 
From my eyes it fainted. 

Just as it was shut away, 
Toy-like, in the even, 
Here I see it glow with day 
Under glowing heaven. 

Every path and every plot, 
Every blush of roses, 
Every blue forget-me-not 
Where the dew reposes, 

"Up!" they cry, "the day is come 
On the smiling valleys: 
We have beat the morning drum; 
Playmate, join your allies!"
Written by Sidney Lanier | Create an image from this poem

Baby Charley

 He's fast asleep. See how, O Wife,
Night's finger on the lip of life
Bids whist the tongue, so prattle-rife,
Of busy Baby Charley.

One arm stretched backward round his head,
Five little toes from out the bed
Just showing, like five rosebuds red,
-- So slumbers Baby Charley.

Heaven-lights, I know, are beaming through
Those lucent eyelids, veined with blue,
That shut away from mortal view
Large eyes of Baby Charley.

O sweet Sleep-Angel, throned now
On the round glory of his brow,
Wave thy wing and waft my vow
Breathed over Baby Charley.

I vow that my heart, when death is nigh,
Shall never shiver with a sigh
For act of hand or tongue or eye
That wronged my Baby Charley!

Book: Reflection on the Important Things