Famous Drudgery Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Drudgery poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous drudgery poems. These examples illustrate what a famous drudgery poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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...to the goddess’s pap
at the want of such swoops through the air
to be rid of the drag on our legs
the sloshing through drudgery and mire
the daily entangling with bramble
the hurt of our hair caught in barbs
when there in the bowl of our eye
that milky-white shaft through the sun
pierces old canopies revealing
heights that have never been deemed
then to be up and away forgetting
icarus has been there before us
white heat is the worst of all fires
we’re dust before the drea...Read more of this...
by
Gregory, Rg
.... And whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life, keep peace in your soul. With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be cheerful. Strive to be happy....Read more of this...
by
Ehrmann, Max
...
Mocking the sunshine on their glittering wings,
How merrily they creep, and run, and fly!
No kin they bear to labour's drudgery,
Smoothing the velvet of the pale hedge-rose;
And where they fly for dinner no one knows—
The dew-drops feed them not—they love the shine
Of noon, whose suns may bring them golden wine
All day they're playing in their Sunday dress—
When night reposes, for they can do no less;
Then, to the heath-bell's purple hood they fly,
And like to princes in the...Read more of this...
by
Clare, John
...O burden not thyself with drudgery,
Lord of white silver and red gold to be;
But feast with friends, ere this warm breath of thine
Be chilled in death, and earthworms feast on thee....Read more of this...
by
Khayyam, Omar
...inside out! let meanings be freely criminal, as well
as
results!
Let there be no suggestion above the suggestion of drudgery!
Let none be pointed toward his destination! (Say! do you know your destination?)
Let men and women be mock’d with bodies and mock’d with Souls!
Let the love that waits in them, wait! let it die, or pass stillborn to other spheres!
Let the sympathy that waits in every man, wait! or let it also pass, a dwarf, to other
spheres!
Let contradictions...Read more of this...
by
Whitman, Walt
...Man's mounting spirit in his bone-house, mean house, dwells—
That bird beyond the remembering his free fells;
This in drudgery, day-labouring-out life's age.
Though aloft on turf or perch or poor low stage,
Both sing sometímes the sweetest, sweetest spells,
Yet both droop deadly sómetimes in their cells
Or wring their barriers in bursts of fear or rage.
Not that the sweet-fowl, song-fowl, needs no rest—
Why, hear him, hear him babble and drop down to his nest,
But his...Read more of this...
by
Hopkins, Gerard Manley
...be so mean,
Which with his tincture--"for Thy sake"--
Will not grow bright and clean.
A servant with this clause
Makes drudgery divine:
Who sweeps a room as for Thy laws,
Makes that and th' action fine.
This is the famous stone
That turneth all to gold;
For that which God doth touch and own
Cannot for less be told....Read more of this...
by
Herbert, George
...shimmers where it hangs over the town.
It seems a shame to break the air
In two with this pistol, but I've my share
Of drudgery like other men.
His hat? Amen!
Hold up, you beast, now what the devil!
Confound this moor for a pockholed, evil,
Rotten marsh. My right leg's snapped.
'Tis a mercy he's rolled, but I'm nicely capped.
A broken-legged man and a broken-legged horse!
They'll get me, of course.
The cursed coach will reach the town
And they'll all come out, every loafer g...Read more of this...
by
Lowell, Amy
...y away, hiding
their dreams in their skirts.
Our life is short; it yields but a
few days for love.
Were it for work and drudgery it
would be endlessly long.
Brother, keep that in mind and
rejoice.
Beauty is sweet to us, because she
dances to the same fleeting tune with
our lives.
Knowledge is precious to us, because
we shall never have time to
complete it.
All is done and finished in the eternal
Heaven.
But earth's flowers of illusion are
kept eternally fresh by death.
Brothe...Read more of this...
by
Tagore, Rabindranath
...of the mind?
There's better exercise
In the sunlight and wind.
I never bade you go
To Moscow or to Rome.
Renounce that drudgery,
Call the Muses home.
Seek those images
That constitute the wild,
The lion and the virgin,
The harlot and the child.
Find in middle air
An eagle on the wing,
Recognise the five
That make the Muses sing....Read more of this...
by
Yeats, William Butler
...orn to night.
The thoughts that teem into my head
I pray: God give me time to write.
With eager and unflagging pen
No drudgery of desk I shirk,
And preach to all retiring men
The gospel of unceasing work.
And yet I do not sadly grieve
Such squandering of golden days;
For from my dreaming I believe
Have stemmed my least unworthy lays.
Aye, toil is best when all is said,
As age has made me understand . . .
So fitly fold, when I am dead,
A pencil in my hand....Read more of this...
by
Service, Robert William
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