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Famous Civilized Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Ashbery, John
...rom Ollie
Of the Movies' dread mistress of the robes. Wait!
I have an announcement! This wide, tepidly meandering, 
Civilized Lethe (one can barely make out the maypoles
And châlets de nécessitê on its sedgy shore) 
leads to Tophet, that
Landfill-haunted, not-so-residential resort from which
Some travellers return! This whole moment is the groin
Of a borborygmic giant who even now
Is rolling over on us in his sleep. Farewell bocages,
Tanneries, water-meadows. The ...Read more of this...



by Hardy, Thomas
...t way . . . 
And it may be, some Christmas night, 
 When angels walk, they'll say: 

"'O strange interment! Civilized lands 
 Afford few types thereof; 
Here is a man who takes his rest 
 Beside his very Love, 
Beside the one who was his wife 
 In our sight up above!'"...Read more of this...

by Cullen, Countee
...merest wax,
Lest the grave restore its dead.
Not yet has my heart or head
In the least way realized
They and I are civilized....Read more of this...

by Paterson, Andrew Barton
...t, perchance, the wild birds' music by your senses was despised, 
For you say you'll stay in townships till the bush is civilized. 
Would you make it a tea-garden, and on Sundays have a band 
Where the "blokes" might take their "donahs", with a "public" close at hand? 
You had better stick to Sydney and make merry with the "push", 
For the bush will never suit you, and you'll never suit the bush....Read more of this...

by Jeffers, Robinson
...le anything but relative to that?
But if a man could hold in his mind all the conditions at once,
 of man and woman, of civilized

And barbarous, of sick and well, of happy and under torture, of
 living and dead, of human and not
Human, and dimly all the human future: -what should persuade him
 to speak? And what could his words change?

The mountain ahead of the world is not forming but fixed. But
 the man's words would be fixed also,
Part of that mountain, under equal c...Read more of this...



by Service, Robert William
...glade is my quiet quest;
The path of progress I have missed,
And shun the city's sore unrest.
A world that's super-civilized
Is one of worry, want and woe;
In leafy lore let me be wised
 And back to Nature go.

Well, though you may but half agree,
Behold my trusty Trinity...Read more of this...

by Graves, Robert
...So that when 1 laugh and stretch and leap from bed
I shall glide downstairs, my feet brushing the carpet
In courtesy to civilized progression,
Though, did 1 wish, I could soar through the open window
And perch on a branch above, acceptable ally
Of the birds still alert, grumbling gently together....Read more of this...

by Philips, Katherine
...bards of old,
In deathless numbers did their thoughts unfold.
In groves, by rivers, and on fertile plains,
They civilized and taught the listening swains;
Whilst with high raptures, and as great success,
Virtue they clothed in music's charming dress.
This Merlin spoke, who in his gloomy cave,
Even Destiny her self seemed to enslave.
For to his sight the future time was known,
Much better than to others is their own;
And with such state, predictions from...Read more of this...

by Olds, Sharon
...I have heard about the civilized, 
the marriages run on talk, elegant and honest, rational. But you and I are 
savages. You come in with a bag, 
hold it out to me in silence. 
I know Moo Shu Pork when I smell it 
and understand the message: I have 
pleased you greatly last night. We sit 
quietly, side by side, to eat, 
the long pancakes dangling and spilling, 
frag...Read more of this...

by Jeffers, Robinson
...Civilized, crying: how to be human again; this will tell you how.
Turn outward, love things, not men, turn right away from humanity,
Let that doll lie. Consider if you like how the lilies grow,
Lean on the silent rock until you feel its divinity
Make your veins cold; look at the silent stars, let your eyes
Climb the great ladder out of the pit of you...Read more of this...

by Service, Robert William
...dead.

For Bill was a dainty kind of cuss, and his mind was mighty sot
On a dinky patch with flowers and grass in a civilized bone-yard lot.
And where he died or how he died, it didn't matter a damn
So long as he had a grave with frills and a tombstone "epigram".
So I promised him, and he paid the price in good cheechako coin
(Which the same I blowed in that very night down in the Tenderloin).
Then I painted a three-foot slab of pine: "Here lies poor Bill MacK...Read more of this...

by Paterson, Andrew Barton
..., sir," he said, "in honour of yourself!" 
The haka is a striking dance -- the sort they don't allow 
In any place more civilized than Rooti-iti-au. 

He "haka'd" most effectively -- then, with an airy grace, 
Rubbed noses with the Manager, and vanished into space. 
But when the wool return came back, ah me, what sighs and groans! 
For every bale of Maori wool was loaded up with stones! 
Yes -- thumping great New Zealand rocks among the wool they found; 
On every rock...Read more of this...

by Du Bois, W. E. B.
...gdom,
To drape our wives and little ones,
And set their souls a-glitter—
For this we killed these lesser breeds
And civilized their dead,
Raping red rubber, diamonds, cocoa, gold!
For this, too, once, and in Thy Name,
I lynched a ******—
(He raved and writhed,
I heard him cry,
I felt the life-light leap and lie,
I saw him crackle there, on high,
I watched him wither!)
Thou?
Thee?
I lynched Thee?
Awake me, God! I sleep!
What was that awful word Thou saidst?
T...Read more of this...

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