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Famous Dowager Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry
...Part of an entertainment presented to the Countess Dowager of
Darby at Harefield, by som Noble persons of her Family, who
appear on the Scene in pastoral habit, moving toward the seat
of State with this Song.

I. SONG.

Look Nymphs, and Shepherds look,
What sudden blaze of majesty
Is that which we from hence descry
Too divine to be mistook:
This this is she
To whom our vows and wishes bend,
Heer our solemn s...Read more of this...
by Milton, John



...ootsteps and no friend: that makes you free.
The train approaches, wreathed in smoke like fur
around the shoulders of a dowager
with no time for sentimentality.

With no time for sentimentality,
mulling a twice-postponed book-review,
you take an empty seat. Opposite you
a voluble immigrant family
is already unwrapping garlicky
sausages—an unshaven man and his two
red-eared sons.
You once wrote: it is true,
awful, and unimportant, finally
that if the opportunity occurs
some of...Read more of this...
by Hacker, Marilyn
...he mean?”—
“His pointed ears... He must be unbalanced,”—
“There was something he said that I might have challenged.”
Of dowager Mrs. Phlaccus, and Professor and Mrs. Cheetah
I remember a slice of lemon, and a bitten macaroon....Read more of this...
by Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)
...tied me up on their plate,
and wheeled me out to their coffin, my nest.
Slowly the siren slowly the hearse, sedate
as a dowager. At the E. W. they cut off my dress.

I cried, "Oh Jesus, help me! Oh Jesus Christ!"
and the nurse replied, "Wrong name. My name
is Barbara," and hung me in an odd device,
a buck's extension and a Balkan overhead frame.

The orthopedic man declared,
"You'll be down for a year." His scoop. His news.
He opened the skin. He scraped. He pared
and drilled...Read more of this...
by Sexton, Anne
...or-made before you are aware, 
And lilt us a lay of Bank-holiday and the lights of Leicester-square!) 

Hats off to the dowager lady at home in her house in Russell-square! 
Like the pork-shop back and the Brixton flat, they are silently mourning there; 
For one lay out ahead of the rest in the slush 'neath a darkening sky, 
With the blood of a hundred earls congealed and his eye-glass to his eye. 

(He gave me a cheque in an envelope on a distant gloomy day; 
He gave me his ...Read more of this...
by Lawson, Henry



...Great Lady,


Humble partners of like griefe
In bringing Comfort may deserve beliefe,
Because they Feele and Feyne not: Thus we say
Unto Ourselves, Lord Bayning, though away,
Is still of Christ-Church; somewhat out of sight,
As when he travel'd, or did bid good night,
And was not seen long after; now he stands
Remov'd in Worlds, as heretofore in Lands;
But...Read more of this...
by Strode, William

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Book: Reflection on the Important Things