Famous Dispensing Poems by Famous Poets

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

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The Dream Called Life

by Edward Fitzgerald
 From the Spanish of Pedro Calderon de la Barca


A dream it was in which I found myself.
And you that hail me now, then hailed me king,
In a brave palace that was all my own,
Within, and all without it, mine; until,
Drunk with excess of majesty and pride,
Methought I towered so big and swelled so wide
That of myself I burst the...Read more of this...

Five Ways To Kill A Man

by Edwin Brock
 There are many cumbersome ways to kill a man.
You can make him carry a plank of wood
to the top of a hill and nail him to it. To do this
properly you require a crowd of people
wearing sandals, a cock that crows, a cloak
to dissect, a sponge, some vinegar and one
man to hammer the nails home.

Or you can take a...Read more of this...

Five Ways To Kill A Man

by Andre Breton
 There are many cumbersome ways to kill a man.
You can make him carry a plank of wood
to the top of a hill and nail him to it. To do this
properly you require a crowd of people
wearing sandals, a cock that crows, a cloak
to dissect, a sponge, some vinegar and one
man to hammer the nails home.

Or you can take a...Read more of this...

Flames

by Billy Collins
 Smokey the Bear heads
into the autumn woods
with a red can of gasoline
and a box of wooden matches.

His ranger's hat is cocked
at a disturbing angle.

His brown fur gleams
under the high sun
as his paws, the size
of catcher's mitts,
crackle into the distance.

He is sick of dispensing
warnings to the careless,
the half-wit camper,
the dumbbell hiker.

He is going to show them
how a professional does it....Read more of this...

These I Singing in Spring

by Walt Whitman
 THESE, I, singing in spring, collect for lovers, 
(For who but I should understand lovers, and all their sorrow and joy? 
And who but I should be the poet of comrades?) 
Collecting, I traverse the garden, the world—but soon I pass the gates, 
Now along the pond-side—now wading in a little, fearing not the wet,
Now by the post-and-rail fences,...Read more of this...

A Prayer For My Daughter

by William Butler Yeats
 Once more the storm is howling, and half hid
Under this cradle-hood and coverlid
My child sleeps on. There is no obstacle
But Gregory's wood and one bare hill
Whereby the haystack- and roof-levelling wind.
Bred on the Atlantic, can be stayed;
And for an hour I have walked and prayed
Because of the great gloom that is in my mind.

I have walked and prayed for...Read more of this...

On Journeys Through The States

by Walt Whitman
 ON journeys through the States we start, 
(Ay, through the world—urged by these songs, 
Sailing henceforth to every land—to every sea;) 
We, willing learners of all, teachers of all, and lovers of all. 

We have watch’d the seasons dispensing themselves, and passing on,
We have said, Why should not a man or woman do as much as the seasons, and...Read more of this...

Child of Europe

by Czeslaw Milosz
 1
We, whose lungs fill with the sweetness of day.
Who in May admire trees flowering
Are better than those who perished.

We, who taste of exotic dishes,
And enjoy fully the delights of love,
Are better than those who were buried.

We, from the fiery furnaces, from behind barbed wires
On which the winds of endless autumns howled,
We, who remember battles where the wounded air roared...Read more of this...

92. Suppressed Stanzas of 'The Vision'

by Robert Burns
 WITH secret throes I marked that earth,
That cottage, witness of my birth;
And near I saw, bold issuing forth
 In youthful pride,
A Lindsay race of noble worth,
 Famed far and wide.


Where, hid behind a spreading wood,
An ancient Pict-built mansion stood,
I spied, among an angel brood,
 A female pair;
Sweet shone their high maternal blood,
 And father’s air. 1


An ancient tower 2...Read more of this...

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