Famous Doff Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Heritage

by Countee Cullen
 What is Africa to me:
Copper sun or scarlet sea,
Jungle star or jungle track,
Strong bronzed men, or regal black
Women from whose loins I sprang
When the birds of Eden sang?
One three centuries removed
From the scenes his fathers loved,
Spicy grove, cinnamon tree,
What is Africa to me?

So I lie, who all day long
Want no sound except the song
Sung by wild barbaric birds
Goading massive...Read more of this...

Song of Hope

by Thomas Hardy
 O sweet To-morrow! - 
 After to-day 
 There will away 
This sense of sorrow. 
Then let us borrow 
Hope, for a gleaming 
Soon will be streaming, 
 Dimmed by no gray - 
 No gray! 

While the winds wing us 
 Sighs from The Gone, 
 Nearer to dawn 
Minute-beats bring us; 
When there will sing us 
Larks...Read more of this...

Sea Change

by Robert William Service
 I saw a Priest in beetle black
Come to our golden beach,
And I was taken sore aback
Lest he should choose to preach
And chide me for my only wear,
A "Gee" string and a brassière.

And then I saw him shyly doff
And fold his grim soutane,
And one by one his clothes take off,
Until like any man
He stood in bathing trunks, a sight
To thrill...Read more of this...

O soul! could you but doff this flesh and bone,

by Omar Khayyam
O soul! could you but doff this flesh and bone,
You'd soar a sprite about the heavenly throne;
Had you no shame to leave your starry home,
And dwell an alien on this earthly zone?...Read more of this...

Strip Teaser

by Robert William Service
 My precious grand-child, aged two,
Is eager to unlace one shoe,
 And then the other;
Her cotton socks she'll deftly doff
Despite the mild reproaches of
 Her mother.

Around the house she loves to fare,
And with her rosy tootsies bare,
 Pit-pat the floor;
And though remonstrances we make
She presently decides to take
 Off something more.

Her pinafore she next unties,
And then before we realise,
 Her...Read more of this...

Beyond The Years

by Paul Laurence Dunbar
Beyond the years the answer lies,
Beyond where brood the grieving skies
And Night drops tears.
Where Faith rod-chastened smiles to rise
And doff its fears,
And carping Sorrow pines and dies—
Beyond the years.
Beyond the years the prayer for rest
Shall beat no more within the breast;
The darkness clears,
And Morn perched on the mountain's crest
Her form uprears—
The day that is to come is best,
Beyond the years.
Beyond...Read more of this...

A Mediocre Man

by Robert William Service
 I'm just a mediocre man
 Of no high-brow pretence;
A comfortable life I plan
 With care and commonsense.
I do the things most people do,
 I echo what they say;
And through my morning paper view
 The problems of the day.

No doubt you think I'm colourless,
 Profoundly commonplace;
And yet I fancy, more or less,
 I represent the race.
My name may stand for...Read more of this...

Relax

by Robert William Service
 Do you recall that happy bike
 With bundles on our backs?
How near to heaven it was like
 To blissfully relax!
In cosy tavern of good cheer
 To doff our heavy packs,
And with a mug of foamy beer
 Relax.

Learn to relax: to clean the mind
 Of fear and doubt and care,
And in vacuity to find
 The perfect peace that's there.
With lassitude...Read more of this...

The Plaid Dress

by Edna St. Vincent Millay
 Strong sun, that bleach
The curtains of my room, can you not render
Colourless this dress I wear?—
This violent plaid
Of purple angers and red shames; the yellow stripe
Of thin but valid treacheries; the flashy green of kind deeds done
Through indolence high judgments given here in haste; 
The recurring checker of the serious breach of taste?

No more uncoloured than unmade,
I fear, can...Read more of this...

Bank Robber

by Robert William Service
 I much admire, I must admit,
 The man who robs a Bank;
It takes a lot of guts and grit,
 For lack of which I thank
The gods: a chap 'twould make of me
 You wouldn't ask to tea.

I do not mean a burglar cove
 Who climbs into a house,
From room to room flash-lit to rove
 As quiet as a mouse;
Ah...Read more of this...

No Doctors Today Thank You

by Ogden Nash
 They tell me that euphoria is the feeling of feeling wonderful,
well, today I feel euphorian,
Today I have the agility of a Greek god and the appetitite of a
Victorian.
Yes, today I may even go forth without my galoshes,
Today I am a swashbuckler, would anybody like me to buckle
any swashes?
This is my euphorian day,
I will ring welkins and before anybody answers...Read more of this...

To Wolcott Balestier

by Rudyard Kipling
 Beyond the path of the outmost sun through utter darkness hurled --
Further than ever comet flared or vagrant star-dust swirled --
Live such as fought and sailed and ruled and loved and made our world.

They are purged of pride because they died, they know the worth of their bays,
They sit at wine with the Maidens Nine and the Gods of...Read more of this...

The Handsome Heart

by Gerard Manley Hopkins
 at a Gracious Answer


'But tell me, child, your choice; what shall I buy
You?'—'Father, what you buy me I like best.'
With the sweetest air that said, still plied and pressed,
He swung to his first poised purport of reply. 

What the heart is! which, like carriers let fly—
Doff darkness, homing nature knows the rest—
To its own fine function, wild and self-instressed,
Falls...Read more of this...

Familiarity

by Robert William Service
 Familiarity some claim
 Can breed contempt,
So from it let it be your aim
 To be exempt.
Let no one exercise his brawn
 To slap your back,
Lest he forget your name is John,
 And call you Jack.

To those who crash your private pew
 Be sour as krout;
Don't let them see the real 'you,'
 And bawl you out.
Don't call your Cousin William--Bill,
...Read more of this...

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