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Famous Discharge Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Pope, Alexander
...ane; to Forgive, Divine.

But if in Noble Minds some Dregs remain,
Not yet purg'd off, of Spleen and sow'r Disdain,
Discharge that Rage on more Provoking Crimes,
Nor fear a Dearth in these Flagitious Times.
No Pardon vile Obscenity should find,
Tho' Wit and Art conspire to move your Mind;
But Dulness with Obscenity must prove
As Shameful sure as Importance in Love.
In the fat Age of Pleasure, Wealth, and Ease,
Sprung the rank Weed, and thriv'd with large Increase;...Read more of this...



by Sidney, Sir Philip
...e Lords whose weake confused braine
Not 'pointing to fit folkes each vndercharge,
While euerie office themselues will discharge,
With doing all, leaue nothing done but paine.
But giue apt seruants their due place: let eyes
See beauties totall summe summ'd in her face;
Let eares heare speach which wit to wonder ties;
Let breath sucke vp those sweetes; let armes embrace
The globe of weale, lips Loues indentures make;
Thou but of all the kingly tribute take. 
L...Read more of this...

by Kipling, Rudyard
...--
Foot--foot--foot--foot--sloggin' over Africa --
(Boots--boots--boots--boots--movin' up an' down again!)
  There's no discharge in the war!

Seven--six--eleven--five--nine-an'-twenty mile to-day --
Four--eleven--seventeen--thirty-two the day before --
(Boots--boots--boots--boots--movin' up an' down again!)
  There's no discharge in the war!

Don't--don't--don't--don't--look at what's in front of you.
(Boots--boots--boots--boots--movin' up an' down again);
Men--men--men-...Read more of this...

by Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)
...ng.


IV

The dove descending breaks the air
With flame of incandescent terror
Of which the tongues declare
The one discharge from sin and error.
The only hope, or else despair
 Lies in the choice of pyre of pyre—
 To be redeemed from fire by fire.

Who then devised the torment? Love.
Love is the unfamiliar Name
Behind the hands that wove
The intolerable shirt of flame
Which human power cannot remove.
 We only live, only suspire
 Consumed by either fire or...Read more of this...

by Levine, Philip
...they had so painfully taken in
and by means even more painful
as they bowed by turns over
the eye of the toilet bowl
to discharge their shame. Ahead
lay cigarettes, the futility
of guaranteed programs of
exercise, the elaborate lies
of conquest no one believed,
forms of sexual torture and
rejection undreamed of. Ahead
lay our fifteenth birthdays,
acne, deodorants, crabs, salves,
butch haircuts, draft registration,
the military and political victories
of Dwight Eisenho...Read more of this...



by Masters, Edgar Lee
...I wrote him a letter asking him for old times' sake
To discharge my sick boy from the army;
But maybe he couldn't read it.
Then I went to town and had James Garber,
Who wrote beautifully, write him a letter.
But maybe that was lost in the mails.
So I traveled all the way to Washington.
I was more than an hour finding the White House.
And when I found it they turned me away,
Hiding their smile...Read more of this...

by Lanier, Sidney
...ind, grass, rose, light, shade;
What matters it to thee? There is no thee.

Pass, kinsman Cloud, now fair and mild:
Discharge the will that's not thine own.
I work in freedom wild,
But work, as plays a little child,
Sure of the Father, Self, and Love, alone.

____
Baltimore, 1878-9.



III. Marsh Song -- At Sunset.


Over the monstrous shambling sea,
Over the Caliban sea,
Bright Ariel-cloud, thou lingerest:
Oh wait, oh wait, in the warm red West, --
Th...Read more of this...

by Tebb, Barry
...erfering with the night’s drinking;



He fought in the Burma Campaign but won no medals.

Some kind of psychiatric discharge- ‘paranoia’

Lurked in his papers. The madness went undiagnosed

Until his sixtieth birthday. You never let me meet him

Even after our divorce.



In the end you took me on a visit with the children.

A neat flat with photographs of grandchildren,

Stacks of wood for the stove, washing hung precisely

In the kitchen, a Sunday suit ...Read more of this...

by Trumbull, John
...ight
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'd been, in stupid mood,
Shut to the hearing of all good.
Grim death had put her in his scroll
Down ...Read more of this...

by Tebb, Barry
...nts ‘residents’ and insist on chores

Not medication", then the letters of terrible abuse, the finding of a flat,

‘The discharge into the community.’

His ‘keyworker’ was the keyworker from hell: the more

Isaiah’s care fell apart the more she encouraged 

Him to blame us and ‘Make his life his own’, vital signs

Of decline ignored or consigned to files, ‘confidentiality’ reigned supreme.

Insidiously the way back to the ward unveiled

Over painful months, the self-n...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...overture; and turn not back perverse: 
But that I doubt; however witness, Heaven! 
Heaven, witness thou anon! while we discharge 
Freely our part: ye, who appointed stand 
Do as you have in charge, and briefly touch 
What we propound, and loud that all may hear! 
So scoffing in ambiguous words, he scarce 
Had ended; when to right and left the front 
Divided, and to either flank retired: 
Which to our eyes discovered, new and strange, 
A triple mounted row of pillars laid 
On...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...hich Heaven, by these mute signs in Nature, shows 
Forerunners of his purpose; or to warn 
Us, haply too secure, of our discharge 
From penalty, because from death released 
Some days: how long, and what till then our life, 
Who knows? or more than this, that we are dust, 
And thither must return, and be no more? 
Why else this double object in our sight 
Of flight pursued in the air, and o'er the ground, 
One way the self-same hour? why in the east 
Darkness ere day's mid-co...Read more of this...

by Drayton, Michael
...match where neither party won. 
I offer free conditions of fair peace, 
My heart for hostage that it shall remain; 
Discharge our forces, here let malice cease, 
So for my pledge thou give me pledge again. 
Or if no thing but death will serve thy turn, 
Still thirsting for subversion of my state, 
Do what thou canst, rase, massacre, and burn; 
Let the world see the utmost of thy hate; 
I send defiance, since, if overthrown, 
Thou vanquishing, the conquest is my own.Read more of this...

by Kipling, Rudyard
...>

All Power, each Tyrant, every Mob
 Whose head has grown too large,
Ends by destroying its own job
 And works its own discharge;

And Man, whose mere necessities
 Move all things from his path,
Trembles meanwhile at their decrees,
 And deprecates their wrath!...Read more of this...

by Frost, Robert
...t I don't know--it's hard to say. 
I went about to kill him fair enough." 
"You took an awkward way. Did he discharge you?" 
"Discharge me? No! He knew I did just right."...Read more of this...

by Bradstreet, Anne
...ing can uphold;
5.13 It's not my Learning, Rhetoric, wit so large,
5.14 Now hath the power, Death's Warfare, to discharge.
5.15 It's not my goodly house, nor bed of down,
5.16 That can refresh, or ease, if Conscience frown;
5.17 Nor from alliance now can I have hope,
5.18 But what I have done well, that is my prop.
5.19 He that in youth is godly, wise, and sage
5.20 Provides a staff for to support his age.
5.21 Great mutations, ...Read more of this...

by Kipling, Rudyard
..., patient, faithful, firm, persistent, just
Toward all that gross, indifferent, facile dust,
The Archangels laboured to discharge their trust
By precept and example, prayer and law,
Advice, reproof, and rule, but, labouring, saw
Each in his fellows' countenance confessed,
The Doubt that sickens: "Have I done my best?"

Even as they sighed and turned to toil anew,
The Seraph hailed them with observance due;
And, after some fit talk of higher things,
Touched tentative on mundan...Read more of this...

by Paterson, Andrew Barton
..., 
Though he burgled, or murdered, or cheated at loo, 
Or meat on Good Friday (a sin most terrific) ate, 
Could get his discharge, like a bankrupt's certificate; 
Just here let us note -- Did they choose their best goat? 
It's food for conjecture, to judge from the picture 
By Hunt in the Gallery close to our door, a 
Man well might suppose that the scapegoat they chose 
Was a long way from being their choicest Angora. 

In fact I should think he was one of their weediest...Read more of this...

by Moore, Thomas
...>"

We are come, alas! 
To a very pretty pass --
Eight Hundred Millions of score, to pay,
With but Five in the till,
To discharge the bill,
And even that Five too, whipp'd away!

Stop thief! stop thief! --
From the Sub to the Chief,
These Genmen of Finance are plundering cattle --
Call the watch, call Bougham
Tell Joseph Hume,
That best of Charleys, to spring his rattle.

Whoever will bring
This aforesaid thing
To the well-known house of Robinson and Jenkin,
Shall be paid...Read more of this...

by Bradstreet, Anne
...right. 
Such is my debt I may not say forgive, 
But as I can, I'll pay it while I live; 
Such is my bond, none can discharge but I, 
Yet paying is not paid until I die....Read more of this...

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