Famous Civilisation Poems by Famous Poets

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

See also:

A Hope For Poetry: Remembering The Sixties

...of lyric poetry;

Richards and Ogden on ‘The Meaning of Meaning’,

Schopenhauer on sadness, Nietzsche and Lawrence on

Civilisation and Plato on the Theory of Forms;

I read aloud ‘The Rainbow’ and the children drew

The waterfall with Gudrun bathing, I showed

Them Gauguin and Fra Angelico in gold and a film

On painting from life, and the nude girls

Bothered no-one.



It was the Sixties -

Art was life and life was art and in the

Staff-room we talked of poetry and polit...Read more of this...
by Tebb, Barry


Huddersfield - The Second Poetry Capital Of England

...rit’ and without that and as an example of what

Pound meant about how a country treats its poets "is a measure

Of its civilisation". I once had a holiday job in a mill and the

Nightwatchman’s killer alsatian had more civilisation than

Huddersfield’s Deputy Direction of Education.

For a while I was granted temporary asylum at Royds Hall -

At least some of the staff there had socialism if not art -

But soon it was spoilt for everyone when Jenks came to head

English, swe...Read more of this...
by Tebb, Barry

Long-Legged Fly

...That civilisation may not sink,
Its great battle lost,
Quiet the dog, tether the pony
To a distant post;
Our master Caesar is in the tent
Where the maps ate spread,
His eyes fixed upon nothing,
A hand under his head.

Like a long-legged fly upon the stream
His mind moves upon silence.

That the topless towers be burnt
And men recall that face,
Move most gently if...Read more of this...
by Yeats, William Butler

Supernatural Songs

...ing by
Came out of a needle's eye;
Things unborn, things that are gone,
From needle's eye still goad it on.

XII. Meru

Civilisation is hooped together, brought
Under a mle, under the semblance of peace
By manifold illusion; but man's life is thought,
And he, despite his terror, cannot cease
Ravening through century after century,
Ravening, raging, and uprooting that he may come
Into the desolation of reality:
Egypt and Greece, good-bye, and good-bye, Rome!
Hermits upon Mount...Read more of this...
by Yeats, William Butler

The Revolutionary

...ht of their responsibility 
I stumble against them. 
Stumbling-blocks, painful ones. 

To keep on holding up this ideal civilisation 
Must be excruciating: unless you stiffen into metal, when it is easier to stand stock rigid than to move. 

This is why I tug at them, individually, with my arm round their waist 
The human pillars. 
They are not stronger than I am, blind Samson. 
The house sways. 

I shall be so glad when it comes down. 
I am so tired of the limitations of the...Read more of this...
by Lawrence, D. H.


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