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Famous Federal Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Whitman, Walt
...how. 

Clear the way there, Jonathan! 
Way for the President’s marshal! Way for the government cannon! 
Way for the Federal foot and dragoons—and the apparitions copiously tumbling.

I love to look on the stars and stripes—I hope the fifes will play Yankee Doodle. 

How bright shine the cutlasses of the foremost troops! 
Every man holds his revolver, marching stiff through Boston town. 

A fog follows—antiques of the same come limping, 
Some appear wooden-legg...Read more of this...



by Paterson, Andrew Barton
...man nervous. 

Does he think he'll be waked in the dead of night 
From Melbourne to go willy-nilly, 
To live in the Federal Capital site 
At Tumut or Wagra-go-billy? 
Well, the Melbournites may let the Capital go 
(Here we wink with one eye, please observe us!) 
But not in a hurry! By no means! Oh, no! 
He has not the least need to be nervous!...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...ssioners, ratified by The States, and read by
 Washington
 at the head of the army? 
Have you possess’d yourself of the Federal Constitution? 
Do you see who have left all feudal processes and poems behind them, and assumed the poems
 and
 processes of Democracy? 
Are you faithful to things? do you teach as the land and sea, the bodies of men,
 womanhood,
 amativeness, angers, teach?
Have you sped through fleeting customs, popularities? 
Can you hold your hand against all sed...Read more of this...

by Piercy, Marge
...drop 
them in other people's gardens, 
in baby buggies at churchdoors. 
Shot, smuggling zucchini into 
mailboxes, a federal offense. 

With a suave reptilian glitter 
you bask among your raspy 
fronds sudden and huge as
alligators. You give and give 
too much, like summer days 
limp with heat, thunderstorms 
bursting their bags on our heads, 
as we salt and freeze and pickle 
for the too little to come....Read more of this...

by Masters, Edgar Lee
...t's why I made the Elixir of Youth,
Which landed me in the jail at Peoria
Branded a swindler and a crook
By the upright Federal Judge!...Read more of this...



by Masters, Edgar Lee
...constitution -- yes, even me --
Who couldn't defend or support it at all!
And what do you think? That very morning
The Federal Judge, in the very next room
To the room where I took the oath,
Decided the constitution
Exempted Rhodes from paying taxes
For the water works of Spoon River!...Read more of this...

by Williams, C K
...g up our wall,
we still know less than nothing: the utility company continues making 
little of the accident,
the slick federal spokesmen still have their evasions in some semblance 
of order.
Surely we suspect now we're being lied to, but in the meantime, there 
are the roofers,
setting winch-frames, sledging rounds of tar apart, and there I am, on 
the curb across, gawking.

I never realized what brutal work it is, how matter-of-factly and harrow-
ingly dangerous.Read more of this...

by Paterson, Andrew Barton
...'The man who brought the railway through -- our friend the engineer.' 
They cheer his pluck and enterprise and engineering skill! 
'Twas my old husband found the pass behind that big red hill. 
Before the engineer was born we'd settled with our stock 
Behind that great big mountain chain, a line of range and rock -- 
A line that kept us starving th...Read more of this...

by Paterson, Andrew Barton
...Now 'urry, Mrs New South Wales, and come along of us, 
We're all a-goin' ridin' in the Federation 'bus. 
A fam'ly party, don't you know -- yes, Queenslans's comin', too, 
You can't afford it! Go along! We've kep' box seat for you. 
The very one of all the lot that can afford it best, 
You'll only have to pay your share the same as all the rest....Read more of this...

by Lawson, Henry
...a hill to-day. 

Had we used the wealth we have squandered and the land that we kept from the plough, 
A prosperous Federal City would be over the mountains now, 
With farms that sweep to horizons and gardens where plains lay bare, 
And the bulk of the population and the Heart of Australia there. 

Had we used the time we have wasted and the gold we have thrown away, 
The pick of the world's mechanics would be over the range to-day – 
In the Valley of Coal and Iron wh...Read more of this...

by Paterson, Andrew Barton
...Scene: Federal Political Arena 
A darkened cave. In the middle, a cauldron, boiling. 
Enter the three witches. 
1ST WITCH: Thrice hath the Federal Jackass brayed. 

2ND WITCH: Once the Bruce-Smith War-horse neighed. 

3RD WITCH: So Georgie comes, 'tis time, 'tis time, 
Around the cauldron to chant our rhyme. 

1ST WITCH: In the cauldron boil...Read more of this...

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