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Famous Ceremonies Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Nowlan, Alden
...A mysterious naked man has been reported
on Cranston Avenue. The police are performing
the usual ceremonies with coloured lights and sirens.
Almost everyone is outdoors and strangers are conversing
excitedly
as they do during disasters when their involvement is
peripheral.
'What did he look like? ' the lieutenant is asking.
'I don't know, ' says the witness. 'He was naked.'
There is talk of dogs-this is no ordinary case
of indecent e...Read more of this...



by Browning, Robert
...halk rosettes, 
Ciphers and stucco-twiddlings everywhere; 
It's just like breathing in a lime-kiln: eh? 
These hot long ceremonies of our church 
Cost us a little--oh, they pay the price, 
You take me--amply pay it! Now, we'll talk. 

So, you despise me, Mr. Gigadibs. 
No deprecation,--nay, I beg you, sir! 
Beside 't is our engagement: don't you know, 
I promised, if you'd watch a dinner out, 
We'd see truth dawn together?--truth that peeps 
Over the glasses' edge...Read more of this...

by Herrick, Robert
...Down with the rosemary and bays,
Down with the misletoe;
Instead of holly, now up-raise
The greener box, for show.

The holly hitherto did sway;
Let box now domineer,
Until the dancing Easter-day,
Or Easter's eve appear.

Then youthful box, which now hath grace
Your houses to renew,
Grown old, surrender must his place
Unto the crisped yew.

Whe...Read more of this...

by Harjo, Joy
...r>What was she on?We all
wanted some.Put a quarter in the juke.We all take risks stepping into thin
air.Our ceremonies didn't predict this.or we expected more.

I had to tell you this, for the baby inside the girl sealed up with a lick of
hope and swimming into the praise of nations.This is not a rooming house, but
a dream of winter falls and the deer who portrayed the relatives of 
strangers.The way back is deer breath on icy windows.

The nex...Read more of this...

by Spenser, Edmund
...e into those holy places, 
To humble your proud faces: 
Bring her up to th' high altar, that she may 215 
The sacred ceremonies there partake, 
The which do endlesse matrimony make; 
And let the roring Organs loudly play 
The praises of the Lord in lively notes; 
The whiles, with hollow throates, 220 
The Choristers the joyous Antheme sing, 
That al the woods may answere, and their eccho ring. 

Behold, whiles she before the altar stands, 
Hearing the holy pri...Read more of this...



by Trumbull, John
...rteen stripes.
Beneath, the crowd without delay
The dedication-rites essay,
And gladly pay, in antient fashion,
The ceremonies of libation;
While briskly to each patriot lip
Walks eager round the inspiring flip:
Delicious draught! whose powers inherit
The quintessence of public spirit;
Which whoso tastes, perceives his mind
To nobler politics refined;
Or roused to martial controversy,
As from transforming cups of Circe;
Or warm'd with Homer's nectar'd liquor,
That fill'd ...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...ousness 
To them by faith imputed, they may find 
Justification towards God, and peace 
Of conscience; which the law by ceremonies 
Cannot appease; nor Man the mortal part 
Perform; and, not performing, cannot live. 
So law appears imperfect; and but given 
With purpose to resign them, in full time, 
Up to a better covenant; disciplined 
From shadowy types to truth; from flesh to spirit; 
From imposition of strict laws to free 
Acceptance of large grace; from servile fear...Read more of this...

by Spenser, Edmund
...en so ye come into those holy places,
To humble your proud faces
Bring her vp to th'high altar that she may,
The sacred ceremonies there partake,
The which do endlesse matrimony make,
And let the roring Organs loudly play;
The praises of the Lord in liuely notes,
The whiles with hollow throates.
The Choristers the ioyous Antheme sing,
That al the woods may answere and their eccho ring...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...faces, 
The beauty of independence, departure, actions that rely on themselves, 
The American contempt for statutes and ceremonies, the boundless impatience of restraint,

The loose drift of character, the inkling through random types, the solidification;
The butcher in the slaughter-house, the hands aboard schooners and sloops, the raftsman,
 the
 pioneer, 
Lumbermen in their winter camp, day-break in the woods, stripes of snow on the limbs of
 trees,
 the
 occasional snappi...Read more of this...

by Herrick, Robert
...Kindle the Christmas brand, and then
Till sunset let it burn;
Which quench'd, then lay it up again,
Till Christmas next return.

Part must be kept, wherewith to teend
The Christmas log next year;
And where 'tis safely kept, the fiend
Can do no mischief there....Read more of this...

by Murray, Les
...fits have been:
the toga, the kilt, the lava-lava
the Mahatma's cotton dhoti; 

archbishops and field marshals
at their ceremonies never wear shorts.
The very word
means underpants in North America. 

Shorts can be Tat,
Land-Rovering bush-environmental tat,
socio-political ripped-and-metal-stapled tat,
solidarity-with-the-Third World tat tvam asi, 

likewise track-and-field shorts worn to parties
and the further humid, modelling negligee
of the Kingdom of Flaunt,
that...Read more of this...

by Keats, John
...s might have visions of delight,
 And soft adorings from their loves receive
 Upon the honey'd middle of the night,
 If ceremonies due they did aright;
 As, supperless to bed they must retire,
 And couch supine their beauties, lily white;
 Nor look behind, nor sideways, but require
Of Heaven with upward eyes for all that they desire.

 Full of this whim was thoughtful Madeline:
 The music, yearning like a God in pain,
 She scarcely heard: her maiden eyes divine,
 Fix'd on...Read more of this...

by Pastan, Linda
...Into the gravity of my life,
the serious ceremonies
of polish and paper
and pen, has come

this manic animal
whose innocent disruptions
make nonsense
of my old simplicities--

as if I needed him
to prove again that after
all the careful planning,
anything can happen....Read more of this...

by Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)
.... Anyone who is acquainted with
these works will immediately recognise in the poem certain references to
vegetation ceremonies.
 Macmillan Cambridge.

I. THE BURIAL OF THE DEAD
Line 20. Cf. Ezekiel 2:1.
23. Cf. Ecclesiastes 12:5.
31. V. Tristan und Isolde, i, verses 5-8.
42. Id. iii, verse 24.
46. I am not familiar with the exact constitution of the Tarot
pack
of cards, from which I have obviously departed...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...OF persons arrived at high positions, ceremonies, wealth, scholarships, and the like; 
To me, all that those persons have arrived at, sinks away from them, except as it results
 to
 their
 Bodies and Souls, 
So that often to me they appear gaunt and naked; 
And often, to me, each one mocks the others, and mocks himself or herself, 
And of each one, the core of life, namely happiness, is full of ...Read more of this...

by Ondaatje, Michael
...ou said.
I'd rather be your closest friend
than your father. I'm not good at advice
you know that, but ride
the ceremonies
until they grow dark.

Sometimes you are so busy
discovering your friends
I ache with loss
--but that is greed.
And sometimes I've gone
into my purple world
and lost you.

One afternoon I stepped
into your room. You were sitting
at the desk where I now write this.
Forsythia outside the window
and sun spilled over you
like a thi...Read more of this...

by Szymborska, Wislawa
...wl of innocence
according to the time-honored scale and tonality.

Nothing has changed. Maybe just the manners, ceremonies, dances.
Yet the movement of the hands in protecting the head is the same.
The body writhes, jerks and tries to pull away,
its legs give out, it falls, the knees fly up,
it turns blue, swells, salivates and bleeds. 

Nothing has changed. Except for the course of boundaries,
the line of forests, coasts, deserts and glaciers.
Ami...Read more of this...

by Wilmot, John
...overbs, sentences, and adage;
Can with as much solemnity buy eggs
As a cabal can talk of their intrigues;
Master o' th' Ceremonies, yet can dispense
With the formality of talking sense.

From hence unto the upper walk I ran,
Where a new scene of foppery began.
A tribe of curates, priests, canonical elves,
Fit company for none besides themselves,
Were got together. Each his distemper told,
Scurvy, stone, strangury; some were so bold
To charge the spleen to be their...Read more of this...

by Noonuccal, Oodgeroo
...strangers. 
We belong here, we are of the old ways. 
We are the corroboree and the bora ground, 
We are the old ceremonies, the laws of the elders. 
We are the wonder tales of Dream Time, the tribal legends told. 
We are the past, the hunts and the laughing games, the wandering camp fires. 
We are the lightening bolt over Gaphembah Hill 
Quick and terrible, 
And the Thunderer after him, that loud fellow. 
We are the quiet daybreak paling the dark lagoo...Read more of this...

by Levertov, Denise
...Did the people of Viet Nam
use lanterns of stone?
Did they hold ceremonies
to reverence the opening of buds?
Were they inclined to quiet laughter?
Did they use bone and ivory,
jade and silver, for ornament?
Had they an epic poem?
Did they distinguish between speech and singing?

Sir, their light hearts turned to stone.
It is not remembered whether in gardens
stone gardens illumined pleasant ways.
Perhaps they gat...Read more of this...

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