Famous Clerical Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Lines to a Don

by Hilaire Belloc
 Remote and ineffectual Don
That dared attack my Chesterton,
With that poor weapon, half-impelled,
Unlearnt, unsteady, hardly held,
Unworthy for a tilt with men--
Your quavering and corroded pen;
Don poor at Bed and worse at Table,
Don pinched, Don starved, Don miserable;
Don stuttering, Don with roving eyes,
Don nervous, Don of crudities;
Don clerical, Don ordinary,
Don self-absorbed and solitary;
Don here-and-there, Don epileptic;
Don puffed and empty, Don dyspeptic;
Don...Read more of this...

Seascape

by Elizabeth Bishop
 This celestial seascape, with white herons got up as angels,
flying high as they want and as far as they want sidewise 
in tiers and tiers of immaculate reflections; 
the whole region, from the highest heron 
down to the weightless mangrove island 
with bright green leaves edged neatly with bird-droppings 
like illumination in silver, 
and down to the suggestively Gothic...Read more of this...

Baby Picture

by Anne Sexton
 It's in the heart of the grape
where that smile lies.
It's in the good-bye-bow in the hair
where that smile lies.
It's in the clerical collar of the dress
where that smile lies.
What smile?
The smile of my seventh year,
caught here in the painted photograph.

It's peeling now, age has got it,
a kind of cancer of the background
and also in the assorted features.
It's like a...Read more of this...

If the rose is not our portion, do not the thorns remain?

by Omar Khayyam
If the rose is not our portion, do not the thorns remain?
If light divine does not reach us, is there not the fire [of
hell]? If we have not the clerical mantle, or that of
the temple, or the pontifical, do not the bells, the church,
and the ephod remain to us?...Read more of this...

How pleasant to know Mr. Lear

by Edward Lear
 How pleasant to know Mr. Lear, 
Who has written such volumes of stuff. 
Some think him ill-tempered and *****, 
But a few find him pleasant enough. 

His mind is concrete and fastidious, 
His nose is remarkably big; 
His visage is more or less hideous, 
His beard it resembles a wig. 

He has ears, and two eyes, and ten fingers,...Read more of this...

Willie

by Robert William Service
 'Why did the lady in the lift
 Slap that poor parson's face?'
Said Mother, thinking as she sniffed,
 Of clerical disgrace.

Said Sonny Boy: 'Alas, I know.
 My conscience doth accuse me;
The lady stood upon my toe,
 Yet did not say--"Excuse me!"

'She hurt--and in that crowd confined
 I scarcely could endure it;
So when I pinched her fat behind
 She thought--it was...Read more of this...

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