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Best Famous Underpaid Poems

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

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Written by Vachel Lindsay | Create an image from this poem

The Perfect Marriage

 I

I hate this yoke; for the world's sake here put it on:
Knowing 'twill weigh as much on you till life is gone.
Knowing you love your freedom dear, as I love mine— Knowing that love unchained has been our life's great wine: Our one great wine (yet spent too soon, and serving none; Of the two cups free love at last the deadly one).
II We grant our meetings will be tame, not honey-sweet No longer turning to the tryst with flying feet.
We know the toil that now must come will spoil the bloom And tenderness of passion's touch, and in its room Will come tame habit, deadly calm, sorrow and gloom.
Oh, how the battle sears the best who enter life! Each soidier comes out blind or lame from the black strife.
Mad or diseased or damned of soul the best may come— It matters not how merrily now rolls the drum, The fife shrills high, the horn sings loud, till no steps lag— And all adore that silken flame, Desire's great flag.
III We will build strong our tiny fort, strong as we can— Holding one inner room beyond the sword of man.
Love is too wide, it seems to-day, to hide it there.
It seems to flood the fields of corn, and gild the air— It seems to breathe from every brook, from flowers to sigh— It seems a cataract poured down from the great sky; It seems a tenderness so vast no bush but shows Its haunting and transfiguring light where wonder glows.
It wraps us in a silken snare by shadowy streams, And wildering sweet and stung with joy your white soul seems A flame, a flame, conquering day, conquering night, Brought from our God, a holy thing, a mad delight.
But love, when all things beat it down, leaves the wide air, The heavens are gray, and men turn wolves, lean with despair.
Ah, when we need love most, and weep, when all is dark, Love is a pinch of ashes gray, with one live spark— Yet on the hope to keep alive that treasure strange Hangs all earth's struggle, strife and scorn, and desperate change.
IV Love? .
.
.
we will scarcely love our babes full many a time— Knowing their souls and ours too well, and all our grime— And there beside our holy hearth we'll hide our eyes— Lest we should flash what seems disdain without disguise.
Yet there shall be no wavering there in that deep trial— And no false fire or stranger hand or traitor vile— We'll fight the gloom and fight the world with strong sword-play, Entrenched within our block-house small, ever at bay— As fellow-warriors, underpaid, wounded and wild, True to their battered flag, their faith still undefiled!


Written by G K Chesterton | Create an image from this poem

The Song against Grocers

 God made the wicked Grocer
For a mystery and a sign,
That men might shun the awful shops
And go to inns to dine;
Where the bacon's on the rafter
And the wine is in the wood,
And God that made good laughter
Has seen that they are good.
The evil-hearted Grocer Would call his mother "Ma'am," And bow at her and bob at her, Her aged soul to damn, And rub his horrid hands and ask What article was next Though MORTIS IN ARTICULO Should be her proper text.
His props are not his children, But pert lads underpaid, Who call out "Cash!" and bang about To work his wicked trade; He keeps a lady in a cage Most cruelly all day, And makes her count and calls her "Miss" Until she fades away.
The righteous minds of innkeepers Induce them now and then To crack a bottle with a friend Or treat unmoneyed men, But who hath seen the Grocer Treat housemaids to his teas Or crack a bottle of fish sauce Or stand a man a cheese? He sells us sands of Araby As sugar for cash down; He sweeps his shop and sells the dust The purest salt in town, He crams with cans of poisoned meat Poor subjects of the King, And when they die by thousands Why, he laughs like anything.
The wicked Grocer groces In spirits and in wine, Not frankly and in fellowship As men in inns do dine; But packed with soap and sardines And carried off by grooms, For to be snatched by Duchesses And drunk in dressing-rooms.
The hell-instructed Grocer Has a temple made of tin, And the ruin of good innkeepers Is loudly urged therein; But now the sands are running out From sugar of a sort, The Grocer trembles; for his time, Just like his weight, is short.

Book: Reflection on the Important Things