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Famous Congress Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry
...a plea,
 Within America, man:
Then up they gat the maskin-pat,
 And in the sea did jaw, man;
An’ did nae less, in full congress,
 Than quite refuse our law, man.


Then thro’ the lakes Montgomery takes,
 I wat he was na slaw, man;
Down Lowrie’s Burn he took a turn,
 And Carleton did ca’, man:
But yet, whatreck, he, at Quebec,
 Montgomery-like did fa’, man,
Wi’ sword in hand, before his band,
 Amang his en’mies a’, man.


Poor Tammy Gage within a cage
 Was kept at Bos...Read more of this...
by Burns, Robert



...on bay. 

Now call for the President’s marshal again, bring out the government cannon, 
Fetch home the roarers from Congress, make another procession, guard it with foot and
 dragoons.

This centre-piece for them: 
Look! all orderly citizens—look from the windows, women! 

The committee open the box, set up the regal ribs, glue those that will not stay, 
Clap the skull on top of the ribs, and clap a crown on top of the skull. 

You have got your revenge, old buste...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt
...wer them promptly,-- an hour isn't much
For the honor of sharing a page with your betters,
With magistrates, members of Congress, and such.

Of course you're delighted to serve the committees
That come with requests from the country all round,
You would grace the occasion with poems and ditties
When they've got a new schoolhouse, or poorhouse, or pound.

With a hymn for the saints and a song for the sinners,
You go and are welcome wherever you please;
You're a privile...Read more of this...
by Holmes, Oliver Wendell
...ld animals, hunters, trappers;
Surrounding the multiform agriculture, mines, temperature, the gestation of new States, 
Congress convening every Twelfth-month, the members duly coming up from the uttermost
 parts; 
Surrounding the noble character of mechanics and farmers, especially the young men, 
Responding their manners, speech, dress, friendships—the gait they have of persons
 who
 never knew how it felt to stand in the presence of superiors, 
The freshness and candor of ...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt
...se for you—it is not you who are here for him;

The Secretaries act in their bureaus for you—not you here for them;
The Congress convenes every Twelfth-month for you; 
Laws, courts, the forming of States, the charters of cities, the going and coming of
 commerce
 and
 mails, are all for you. 

List close, my scholars dear! 
All doctrines, all politics and civilization, exurge from you; 
All sculpture and monuments, and anything inscribed anywhere, are tallied in you;
The ...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt



...tles on the spot;
He waits not till the tumult dies,
But grabs it while it's hot.
In matters of finance he can
Tell Congress what to do;
But, O, he finds it hard to meet
His bills as they fall due.

It almost makes him sick to read
The things law-makers say;
Why, father's just the man they need,
He never goes astray.
All wars he'd very quickly end,
As fast as I can write it;
But when a neighbor starts a fuss,
'Tis mother has to fight it.

In conversation fathe...Read more of this...
by Guest, Edgar Albert
...d and open as a herdsman's face
sun-cracked and stubbled with unshaven snow.

Growing in whispers from the Writers' Congress,
the snow circles like cossacks round the corpse
of a tired Choctaw till it is a blizzard
of treaties and white papers as we lose
sight of the single human through the cause.

So every spring these branches load their shelves,
like libraries with newly published leaves,
till waste recycles them—paper to snow—
but, at zero of suffering, one mind
...Read more of this...
by Walcott, Derek
...oloch! Moloch the heavy judger of men!
Moloch the incomprehensible prison! Moloch the crossbone soulless jailhouse and Congress of sorrows! Moloch whose buildings are judgment! Moloch the vast stone of war! Moloch the stunned governments!
Moloch whose mind is pure machinery! Moloch whose blood is running money! Moloch whose fingers are ten armies! Moloch whose breast is a cannibal dynamo! Moloch whose ear is a smoking tomb!
Moloch whose eyes are a thousand blind windows! M...Read more of this...
by Ginsberg, Allen
...at is
Required to hatch her out Committees;
What shapes they take, and how much longer's
The time before they grow t' a Congress?
He white-wash'd Hutchinson, and varnish'd
Our Gage, who'd got a little tarnish'd;
Made them new masks, in time no doubt,
For Hutchinson's was quite worn out:
Yet while he muddled all his head,
You did not heed a word he said.


"Did not our grave Judge Sewall hit
The summit of newspaper wit;
Fill every leaf of every paper
Of Mills & Hicks, and ...Read more of this...
by Trumbull, John
...ws strung with Whig-committees;
Your moderators triced, like vermin,
And gate-posts graced with heads of chairmen;
Your Congress for wave-off'rings hanging,
And ladders throng'd with priests haranguing.
What pillories glad the Tories' eyes
With patriot ears for sacrifice!
What whipping-posts your chosen race
Admit successive in embrace,
While each bears off his sins, alack!
Like Bunyan's pilgrim, on his back!
Where then, when Tories scarce get clear,
Shall Whigs and Congr...Read more of this...
by Trumbull, John
...beneath the popular weight;
Nor can you boast, this present hour,
The shadow of the form of power.
For what's your Congress or its end?
A power, t' advise and recommend;
To call forth troops, adjust your quotas--
And yet no soul is bound to notice;
To pawn your faith to th' utmost limit,
But cannot bind you to redeem it;
And when in want no more in them lies,
Than begging from your State-Assemblies;
Can utter oracles of dread,
Like friar Bacon's brazen head,
But when a f...Read more of this...
by Trumbull, John
...he sacred impress, not of Caesar, 
But of God - 
In the name of womanhood and humanity, I earnestly ask 
That a general congress of women without limit of nationality, 
May be appointed and held at someplace deemed most convenient 
And the earliest period consistent with its objects, 
To promote the alliance of the different nationalities, 
The amicable settlement of international questions, 
The great and general interests of peace....Read more of this...
by Howe, Julia Ward
...understand him, and know that his speech is right. 

He walks with perfect ease in the Capitol, 
He walks among the Congress, and one Representative says to another, Here is our equal,
 appearing
 and new. 

Then the mechanics take him for a mechanic, 
And the soldiers suppose him to be a soldier, and the sailors that he has follow’d
 the
 sea,
And the authors take him for an author, and the artists for an artist, 
And the laborers perceive he could labor with them an...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt
...Through nobler cycles round a richer sun
O'er-rule our modern ways,
O blest Minerva of these larger days!
Call here thy congress of the great, the wise,
The hearing ears, the seeing eyes, --
Enrich us out of every farthest clime, --
Yea, make all ages native to our time,
Till thou the freedom of the city grant
To each most antique habitant
Of Fame, --
Bring Shakespeare back, a man and not a name, --
Let every player that shall mimic us
In audience see old godlike Aeschylus, -...Read more of this...
by Lanier, Sidney
...rash to hope for sixpence -- If they rise
Get guns, more guns, and lift the salt-tax.
     Oh!
I told you what the Congress meant or thought?
I'll answer nothing. Half a year will prove
The full extent of time and thought you'll spare
To Congress. Ask a Lady Doctor once
How little Begums see the light -- deduce
Thence how the True Reformer's child is born.
It's interesting, curious . . . and vile.
I told the Turk he was a gentlman.
I told ...Read more of this...
by Kipling, Rudyard
...reen leafed trees.

 III

This ode to you O Poets and Orators to come, you
 father Whitman as I join your side, you Congress
 and American people,
you present meditators, spiritual friends & teachers,
 you O Master of the Diamond Arts,
Take this wheel of syllables in hand, these vowels and 
 consonants to breath's end
take this inhalation of black poison to your heart, breath
 out this blessing from your breast on our creation 
forests cities oceans deserts rocky flats an...Read more of this...
by Ginsberg, Allen
...fire
to the Halls of Injustice
and the false evidence burns
to a beautiful white lightness

It rattles the Chambers of Congress
and forces the windows wide open
so the fatuous speeches can fly out

The laughter of women wipes the mist
from the spectacles of the old;
it infects them with a happy flu
and they laugh as if they were young again

Prisoners held in underground cells
imagine that they see daylight
when they remember the laughter of women

It runs across water that ...Read more of this...
by Mueller, Lisel
...the last copies were extant, 
As the law of the land required, stashed away in the national capital,
at the Library of Congress.
Therefore he went to Washington, therefore he took out the last two
copies
Placed them in his pocket, planned to depart 
Only to be halted and apprehended. Since he was the author,
Since they were his books and his property he was reproached
But forgiven. But the two copies were taken away from him 
Thus setting a national precedent.Read more of this...
by Schwartz, Delmore
...'multifaced' 
By multo-scribbling Southey). 'Then we'll call 
One or two persons of the myriads placed 
Around our congress, and dispense with all 
The rest,' quoth Michael: 'Who may be so graced 
As to speak first? there's choice enough — who shall 
It be?' Then Satan answer'd, 'There are many; 
But you may choose Jack Wilkes as well as any.' 

LXVI 

A merry, cock-eyed, curious-looking sprite 
Upon the instant started from the throng, 
Dress'd in a fashion now forg...Read more of this...
by Byron, George (Lord)
...1775

Said Congress to George Washington:
 “To set this country free,
You’ll have to whip the Britishers
 And chase them o’er the sea.”
“Oh, very well,” said Washington,
 “I’ll do the best I can.
I’ll slam and bang those Britishers
 And whip them to a man.”

1777

Said Congress to George Washington:
 “The people all complain;
Why don’t you fight? You but re...Read more of this...
by Butler, Ellis Parker

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Book: Reflection on the Important Things