Famous Dismissed Poems by Famous Poets

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

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A Man (In Memory of H. of M.)

by Thomas Hardy
 I 

In Casterbridge there stood a noble pile, 
Wrought with pilaster, bay, and balustrade 
In tactful times when shrewd Eliza swayed. - 
 On burgher, squire, and clown 
It smiled the long street down for near a mile 

II 

But evil days beset that domicile; 
The stately beauties of its roof and wall 
Passed into sordid hands. Condemned to...Read more of this...

Government

by Carl Sandburg
 THE Government--I heard about the Government and
I went out to find it. I said I would look closely at
it when I saw it.
Then I saw a policeman dragging a drunken man to
the callaboose. It was the Government in action.
I saw a ward alderman slip into an office one morning
and talk with a judge. Later in the day the judge
dismissed...Read more of this...

The Sonnets To Orpheus: Book 2: XXIII

by Rainer Maria Rilke
 Call to me to the one among your moments
that stands against you, ineluctably:
intimate as a dog's imploring glance
but, again, forever, turned away

when you think you've captured it at last.
What seems so far from you is most your own.
We are already free, and were dismissed
where we thought we soon would be at home.

Anxious, we keep longing for a foothold-
we, at...Read more of this...

Dream Song 224: Lonely in his great age

by John Berryman
 Eighty

Lonely in his great age, Henry's old friend
leaned on his burning cane while hís old friend
was hymnéd out of living.
The Abbey rang with sound. Pound white as snow
bowed to them with his thoughts-”it's hard to know them though
for the old man sang no word.

Dry, ripe with pain, busy with loss, let's guess.
Gone. Gone them wine-meetings, gone green grasses
of the...Read more of this...

Wittgensteins Ladder

by David Lehman
 "My propositions serve as elucidations in the following way: 
 anyone who understands them eventually recognizes them as 
 nonsensical, when he has used them -- as steps -- to climb 
 up beyond them. (He must, so to speak, throw away the ladder 
 after he has climbed up it.)" -- Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus 

1. 

The first time...Read more of this...

The Legend of Mirth

by Rudyard Kipling
 The Four Archangels, so the legends tell,
Raphael, Gabriel, Michael, Azrael,
Being first of those to whom the Power was shown
Stood first of all the Host before The Throne,
And, when the Charges were allotted, burst
Tumultuous-winged from out the assembly first.
Zeal was their spur that bade them strictly heed
Their own high judgment on their lightest deed.
Zeal was their spur that, when relief...Read more of this...

Mahomed Akram's Appeal to the Stars

by Adela Florence Cory Nicolson
   Oh, Silver Stars that shine on what I love,
     Touch the soft hair and sparkle in the eyes,—
   Send, from your calm serenity above,
     Sleep to whom, sleepless, here, despairing lies.

   Broken, forlorn, upon the Desert sand
     That sucks these tears,...Read more of this...

The Protest

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 I say 'e isn't Remorse! 
'Ow do I know? 
Saw 'im on Riccarton course 
Two year ago! 
Think I'd forget any 'orse? 
Course 'e's The Crow! 
Bumper Maginnis and I 
After a "go", 
Walkin' our 'orses to dry, 
I says "Hello! 
What's that old black goin' by?" 
Bumper says "Oh! 
That's an old cuddy of Flanagan's -- 
Runs as...Read more of this...

Hymn To Death

by William Cullen Bryant
 Oh! could I hope the wise and pure in heart
Might hear my song without a frown, nor deem
My voice unworthy of the theme it tries,--
I would take up the hymn to Death, and say
To the grim power, The world hath slandered thee
And mocked thee. On thy dim and shadowy brow
They place an iron crown, and call thee king
Of terrors,...Read more of this...

The Sprig of Moss

by William Topaz McGonagall
 There lived in Munich a poor, weakly youth,
But for the exact date, I cannot vouch for the truth,
And of seven of a family he was the elder,
Who was named, by his parents, Alois Senefelder. 

But, poor fellow, at home his father was lying dead,
And his little brothers and sisters were depending upon him for bread,
And one evening he was...Read more of this...

The Field of Glory

by Edwin Arlington Robinson
 War shook the land where Levi dwelt, 
And fired the dismal wrath he felt, 
That such a doom was ever wrought 
As his, to toil while others fought; 
To toil, to dream -- and still to dream, 
With one day barren as another; 
To consummate, as it would seem 
The dry despair of his old mother. 

Far off one...Read more of this...

The Black Sheep

by Robert William Service
 "The aristocratic ne'er-do-well in Canada frequently finds his way
into the ranks of the Royal North-West Mounted Police." -- Extract.

 Hark to the ewe that bore him:
 "What has muddied the strain?
 Never his brothers before him
 Showed the hint of a stain."
 Hark to the tups and wethers;
 Hark to the old gray ram:
 "We're all of us white,...Read more of this...

thirteeners

by Rg Gregory
 18
if you want a revolution attack
symbols not systems - the simple forms
that (blithely) give the truth away
tying down millions to their terms
quietly with no one answering back

where the stage is makes the play
keeps actors (meanings) to those norms
stability requires - change tack
(remove the stage) violent storms
will sweep the old regime away

eventually there'll be no going back
once new symbols breed...Read more of this...

The Quality Of Sprawl

by Les Murray
 Sprawl is the quality
of the man who cut down his Rolls-Royce
into a farm utility truck, and sprawl
is what the company lacked when it made repeated efforts
to buy the vehicle back and repair its image. 

Sprawl is doing your farm work by aeroplane, roughly,
or driving a hitchhiker that extra hundred miles home.
It is the rococo of being your own still...Read more of this...

Lord Roberts

by Rudyard Kipling
 1914

He passed in the very battle-smoke
 Of the war that he had descried.
Three hundred mile of cannon spoke
 When the Master-Gunner died.

He passed to the very sound of the guns;
 But, before his eye grew dim,
He had seen the faces of the sons
 Whose sires had served with him,

He had touched their sword-hilts and greeted
 With the old sure...Read more of this...

The Spellin'-bee

by Paul Laurence Dunbar
I never shall furgit that night when father hitched up Dobbin,
An' all us youngsters clambered in an' down the road went bobbin'
To school where we was kep' at work in every kind o' weather,
But where that night a spellin'-bee was callin' us together.
'Twas one o' Heaven's banner nights, the stars was all a glitter,
The moon was shinin' like the hand...Read more of this...

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