Famous Department Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Department poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous department poems. These examples illustrate what a famous department poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Richard Crashaw
To wash an Ethiope;
He's wash'd, his gloomy skin a peaceful shade,
For his white soul is made;
And now, I doubt not, the Eternal Dove
A black-fac'd house will love.Credits and CopyrightTogether with the editors, the Department ofEnglish (University of Toronto), and the University of Toronto Press,the following individuals share copyright for the work that wentinto this edition:Screen Design (Electronic Edition): Sian...Read more of this...
by
Charles Simic
1
The brightly-painted horse
Had a boy's face,
And four small wheels
Under his feet,
Plus a long string
To pull him by this way and that
Across the floor,
Should you care to.
A string in-waiting
That slipped away
In many wiles
From each and every try.
2
Knock and they'll answer,
Mother told me.
So I climbed four flights of stairs
And went in unannounced.
And found a small wooden toy
For the taking
In the...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
The pungent atom in the Air
Admits of no debate --
All that is named of Summer Days
Relinquished our Estate --
For what Department of Delight
As positive are we
As Limit of Dominion
Or Dams -- of Ecstasy --...Read more of this...
by
Stanley Kunitz
Nobody in the widow's household
ever celebrated anniversaries.
In the secrecy of my room
I would not admit I cared
that my friends were given parties.
Before I left town for school
my birthday went up in smoke
in a fire at City Hall that gutted
the Department of Vital Statistics.
If it weren't for a census report
of a five-year-old White Male
sharing my mother's address
at the Green...Read more of this...
by
Allen Ginsberg
Last nite I dreamed of T.S. Eliot
welcoming me to the land of dream
Sofas couches fog in England
Tea in his digs Chelsea rainbows
curtains on his windows, fog seeping in
the chimney but a nice warm house
and an incredibly sweet hooknosed
Eliot he loved me, put me up,
gave me a couch to sleep on,
conversed kindly, took me serious
asked my opinion on Mayakovsky
I...Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
In the dark and damp of the alley cold,
Lay the Christmas tree that hadn't been sold;
By a shopman dourly thrown outside;
With the ruck and rubble of Christmas-tide;
Trodden deep in the muck and mire,
Unworthy even to feed a fire...
So I stopped and salvaged that tarnished tree,
And thus is the story it told to me:
"My Mother was Queen of the forest...Read more of this...
by
Rudyard Kipling
Twelve hundred million men are spread
About this Earth, and I and You
Wonder, when You and I are dead,
"What will those luckless millions do?"
None whole or clean, " we cry, "or free from stain
Of favour." Wait awhile, till we attain
The Last Department where nor fraud nor fools,
Nor grade nor greed, shall trouble us again.
Fear, Favour, or...Read more of this...
by
Carl Sandburg
YOU come along. . . tearing your shirt. . . yelling about
Jesus.
Where do you get that stuff?
What do you know about Jesus?
Jesus had a way of talking soft and outside of a few
bankers and higher-ups among the con men of Jerusalem
everybody liked to have this Jesus around because
he never made any fake passes and everything
he said went and he...Read more of this...
by
Allen Ginsberg
Tail turned to red sunset on a juniper crown a lone magpie cawks.
Mad at Oryoki in the shrine-room -- Thistles blossomed late afternoon.
Put on my shirt and took it off in the sun walking the path to lunch.
A dandelion seed floats above the marsh grass with the mosquitos.
At 4 A.M. the two middleaged men sleeping together holding hands.
In the...Read more of this...
by
Richard Crashaw
Know you fair, on what you look;
Divinest love lies in this book,
Expecting fire from your eyes,
To kindle this his sacrifice.
When your hands untie these strings,
Think you'have an angel by th' wings.
One that gladly will be nigh,
To wait upon each morning sigh.
To flutter in the balmy air
Of your well-perfumed prayer.
These white plumes of his he'll lend you,
Which every day to...Read more of this...
by
Carl Sandburg
POLICEMAN in front of a bank 3 A.M. … lonely.
Policeman State and Madison … high noon … mobs … cars … parcels … lonely.
Woman in suburbs … keeping night watch on a sleeping typhoid patient … only a clock to talk to … lonesome.
Woman selling gloves … bargain day department store … furious crazy-work of many hands slipping in...Read more of this...
by
Barry Tebb
Richard Chessick, John Gedo, James Grotstein and Vamik Voltan
What darknesses have you lit up for me
What depths of infinite space plumbed
With your finely honed probes
What days of unending distress lightened
With your wisdom, skills and jouissance?
Conquistadores of the unconscious
For three decades how often have I come to you
And from your teachings gathered the manna
Of meaning eluding me alone in...Read more of this...
by
Alfred Lord Tennyson
"Courage!" he said, and pointed toward the land,
"This mounting wave will roll us shoreward soon."
In the afternoon they came unto a land
In which it seemed always afternoon.
All round the coast the languid air did swoon,
Breathing like one that hath a weary dream.
Full-faced above the valley stood the moon;
And like a downward smoke, the slender stream
Along the...Read more of this...
by
David Lehman
What I propose is not
Marxism, which
is not dead yet in
the English department,
Not maximalism, which was
a still-born alternative
to minimalism,
Nor Maxism, which rests on
adulation of Max
Beerbohm, parodist
nonpareil,
But maximism, the love
of adages,
Or Maximism, the advocacy of
maximum gastronomic
...Read more of this...
by
Barry Tebb
( I )
for ‘JC’ of the TLS
Nightmare of metropolitan amalgam
Grand Hotel and myself as a guest there
Lost with my room rifled, my belongings scattered,
Purse, diary and vital list of numbers gone –
Vague sad memories of mam n’dad
Leeds 1942 back-to-back with shared outside lav.
Hosannas of sweet May mornings
Whitsun glory of lilac blooming
Sixty years on I run and run
From death,...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
Growth of Man -- like Growth of Nature --
Gravitates within --
Atmosphere, and Sun endorse it --
Bit it stir -- alone --
Each -- its difficult Ideal
Must achieve -- Itself --
Through the solitary prowess
Of a Silent Life --
Effort -- is the sole condition --
Patience of Itself --
Patience of opposing forces --
And intact Belief --
Looking on -- is the Department
Of its Audience...Read more of this...
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