Famous Debts Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Debts poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous debts poems. These examples illustrate what a famous debts poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Carew, Thomas
...was purg'd by thee; the lazy seeds
Of servile imitation thrown away,
And fresh invention planted; thou didst pay
The debts of our penurious bankrupt age;
Licentious thefts, that make poetic rage
A mimic fury, when our souls must be
Possess'd, or with Anacreon's ecstasy,
Or Pindar's, not their own; the subtle cheat
Of sly exchanges, and the juggling feat
Of two-edg'd words, or whatsoever wrong
By ours was done the Greek or Latin tongue,
Thou hast redeem'd, and open'...Read more of this...
by
Browning, Robert
...br> Must you go?
That Cousin here again? he waits outside?
Must see you--you, and not with me? Those loans?
More gaming debts to pay? you smiled for that?
Well, let smiles buy me! have you more to spend?
While hand and eye and something of a heart
Are left me, work's my ware, and what's it worth?
I'll pay my fancy. Only let me sit
The grey remainder of the evening out,
Idle, you call it, and muse perfectly
How I could paint, were I but back in France,
One picture, just on...Read more of this...
by
Robinson, Edwin Arlington
...was an evil chance alone,
Or some invidious juggling of the stars,
Or some accrued arrears of ancestors
Who throve on debts that I was here to pay,
Or sins within me that I knew not of,
Or just a foretaste of what waits in hell
For those of us who cannot love a worm,—
Whatever it was, or whence or why it was,
One day there came a stranger to the school.
And having had one mordacious glimpse of him
That filled my eyes and was to fill my life,
I have known Peace on...Read more of this...
by
Robinson, Edwin Arlington
...s the gloomy Stygian glade? --
Be up, my soul! nor be afraid
Of what some unborn year may show;
But mind your human debts are paid,
As one by one the phantoms go.
ENVOY
Life is the game that must be played:
This truth at least, good friend, we know;
So live and laugh, nor be dismayed
As one by one the phantoms go....Read more of this...
by
Pope, Alexander
...atron, though I condescend
Sometimes to call a minister my friend:
I was not born for courts or great affairs;
I pay my debts, believe, and say my pray'rs;
Can sleep without a poem in my head,
Nor know, if Dennis be alive or dead.
Why am I ask'd what next shall see the light?
Heav'ns! was I born for nothing but to write?
Has life no joys for me? or (to be grave)
Have I no friend to serve, no soul to save?
"I found him close with Swift"--"Indeed? no doubt",
(Cries prating...Read more of this...
by
Dyke, Henry Van
...shed them,
Have stolen her. You ingrate Henry Greene,
I picked you from the gutter of Houndsditch,
And paid your debts, and kept you in my house,
And brought you here to make a man of you!
You Robert Juet, ancient, crafty man,
Toothless and tremulous, how many times
Have I employed you as a master's mate
To give you bread? And you Abacuck Prickett,
You sailor-clerk, you salted puritan,
You knew the plot and silently agreed,
Salving your conscience with a pious li...Read more of this...
by
Suckling, Sir John
...kind look again,
Though thou shouldst court me to 't, and wouldst begin.
I will not think of thee but as men do
Of debts and sins; and then I'll curse thee too.
For thy sake woman shall be now to me
Less welcome than at midnight ghosts shall be.
I'll hate so perfectly that it shall be
Treason to love that man that loves a she.
Nay, I will hate the very good, I swear,
That's in thy sex, because it doth lie there, -
Their very virtue, grace, discourse, and wit...Read more of this...
by
Lowell, Amy
...liness urge him to replenish
it.
Her soft transparent texture woos his nervous fingering. He
speaks to her
of debts, of resignation; of her children, and his; he promises
that she
shall see the King of Rome; he says some harsh things and some pleasant.
But she is there, close to him, rose toned to amber, white shot
with violet,
pungent to his nostrils as embalmed rose-leaves in a twilit room.
Suddenly the Emperor calls his carriage and rolls
away
across t...Read more of this...
by
Finch, Anne Kingsmill
...ck return'd without their Fare.
From bad to worse, each Day his State declin'd,
'Till leaving Town, and Wife, and Debts behind,
To his Acquaintance at the Rural Seat
He Sculks, and humbly sues for a Retreat.
Whence comes this Change, has Wisdom left that Head,
(His Friend demands) where such right Schemes were bred?
What Phrenzy, what Delirium mars the Scull,
Which fill'd the Chests, and was it self so full?
Here interrupting, sadly he Reply'd,
In Me's no Cha...Read more of this...
by
Trumbull, John
...now while hoary years prevail,
Good mother Britain seem'd to fail;
Her back bent, crippled with the weight
Of age, and debts, and cares of state.
For debts she owed, and those so large,
As twice her wealth could ne'er discharge,
And now 'twas thought, so high they'd grown,
She'd come upon the parish soon.
Her arms, of nations once the dread,
She scarce could lift above her head;
Her deafen'd ears, 'twas all their hope,
The final trump perhaps might ope;
So long they'...Read more of this...
by
Trumbull, John
...
Can you refuse to lend them aid,
And rather risk your heads in fight,
Than gratefully throw in your mite?
Can they for debts make satisfaction,
Should they dispose their realm at auction,
And sell off Britain's goods and land all
To France and Spain, by inch of candle?
Shall good King George, with want oppress'd,
Insert his name in bankrupt list,
And shut up shop, like failing merchant,
That fears the bailiffs should make search in't;
With poverty shall princes strive,
And n...Read more of this...
by
Paterson, Andrew Barton
...r they wheeled,
Then gave her her head -- and she smothered the field.
The race put her owner right clear of his debts;
He landed a fortune in stakes and in bets,
He paid the old bailiff the whole of his pelf,
And gave him a hiding to keep for himself.
So all you bold sportsmen take warning, I pray,
Keep clear of the running, you'll find it don't pay;
For the very best rule that you'll hear in a week
Is never to bet on a thing that can speak.
And whet...Read more of this...
by
Brautigan, Richard
...in my life, and I've
never known another doctor who has. Last year I wrote off
six thousand dollars worth of bad debts, " he said.
I was going to say that a sick person should never under
any conditions be abad debt, but I decided to forget it. Noth-
ing was going to be proved or changed on the shores of Little
Redfish Lake, and as that chub had discovered, it was not a
good place to have cosmetic surgery done.
"I worked three years ago for a union ...Read more of this...
by
Raleigh, Sir Walter
...
Knows that not a hundred Bogus Meetings
To discuss the Otia Merseiana
Can involve himself and Mister Sampson
In the debts of Doctor Kuno Meyer.
So the poor deluded Kuno Meyer,
Unenlightened by Professor Woodward --
Whom, upon the word of Mister Sampson,
He believes to be a man of business
Fit to run the Otia Merseiana --
Keeps on calling endless Bogus Meetings.
Every week has now its Bogus Meetings,
Punctually convened by Kuno Meyer
In the name of Otia ...Read more of this...
by
Lanier, Sidney
...ck ran low, the talk ran high:
Then quickly flamed the final blaze.
"With never an inch of track -- 'tis true!
The debts were large . . . the oft-told tale.
The President rolled in splendor new
-- He bought my silver at the sale.
"Yes, sold me out: we've moved away.
I've had to give up everything.
My reindeer, even, whom I . . . pray,
Excuse me" . . . here, o'er-sorrowing,
Poor Santa Claus burst into tears,
Then calme...Read more of this...
by
Kilmer, Joyce
...immed
and tied;
But what it needs the most of all is some people living inside.
If I had a lot of money and all my debts were paid
I'd put a gang of men to work with brush and saw and spade.
I'd buy that place and fix it up the way it used to be
And I'd find some people who wanted a home and give it to them free.
Now, a new house standing empty, with staring window
and door,
Looks idle, perhaps, and foolish, like a hat on its block in the
store.
But there's...Read more of this...
by
Scott, Sir Walter
...ne.'—
XIII.
Minstrel,' the maid replied, and high
Her father's soul glanced from her eye,
'My debts to Roderick's house I know:
All that a mother could bestow
To Lady Margaret's care I owe,
Since first an orphan in the wild
She sorrowed o'er her sister's child;
To her brave chieftain son, from ire
Of Scotland's king who shrouds my sire,
A deeper, holier debt is owed;
And, could I pay it with my blood, A...Read more of this...
by
Kipling, Rudyard
...cent.
Though it is not always the case, I believe,
That the longer we've kept'em, the more do we grieve;
For, when debts are payable, right or wrong,
A short-time loan is as bad as a long --
So why in -- Heaven (before we are there)
Should we give our hearts to a dog to tear?...Read more of this...
by
Service, Robert William
...devil in us struggled to be free;
Till our friends rose up in wrath, and they pointed out the path,
And they paid our debts and packed us o'er the sea.
Oh, they shook us off and shipped us o'er the foam,
To the larger lands that lure a man to roam;
And we took the chance they gave
Of a far and foreign grave,
And we bade good-by for evermore to home.
And some of us are climbing on the peak,
And some of us are camping on the plain;
By pine and palm you'll find us...Read more of this...
by
Fu, Du
...court each day and pawn some spring clothing, Every day I return to the river as drunk as I can be. I have many debts for wine all over the place, For men to live to seventy has always been unusual. I see the butterflies go deeper and deeper between the flowers, And dragonflies in leisured flight between drops of water. As we're told, passing time is always on the move, So little time to know each other: we should not be apart....Read more of this...
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