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Famous Habit Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Milton, John
..., Before 

The Earl Of Bridgewater, Then President Of Wales.

The Persons

 The ATTENDANT SPIRIT, afterwards in the habit of THYRSIS.
COMUS, with his Crew.
The LADY.
FIRST BROTHER.
SECOND BROTHER.
SABRINA, the Nymph.

The Chief Persons which presented were:—

The Lord Brackley;
Mr. Thomas Egerton, his Brother;
The Lady Alice Egerton.


The first Scene discovers a wild wood.
The ATTENDANT SPIRIT descends or enters.


BEFORE the starr...Read more of this...



by Hugo, Victor
...mirror to uphold? 
 What use your doings to be now retold? 
 Drink of the darkness—greedy of the ill 
 To which from habit you're attracted still, 
 Not recognizing in the draught you take 
 The stench that your atrocities must make. 
 I only tell you that this burdened age 
 Tires of your Highnesses, that soil its page, 
 And of your villanies—and this is why 
 You now must swell the stream that passes by 
 Of refuse filth. Oh, horrid scene to show 
 Of these youn...Read more of this...

by Giovanni, Nikki
...Habitsi haven't written a poem in so long  i may have forgotten how  unless writing a poem  is like riding a bike  or swimming upstream  or loving you  it may be a habit that once aquired  is never lost    but you say i'm foolish  of course you love me  but being loved of course  is not the same as bein...Read more of this...

by Ginsberg, Allen
...ds and the 
 charm of reality in their hearts who sang sweet 
 blues to Alcatraz, 
who retired to Mexico to cultivate a habit, or Rocky 
 Mount to tender Buddha or Tangiers to boys 
 or Southern Pacific to the black locomotive or 
 Harvard to Narcissus to Woodlawn to the 
 daisychain or grave, 
who demanded sanity trials accusing the radio of hyp 
 notism & were left with their insanity & their 
 hands & a hung jury, 
who threw potato salad at CCNY lecturers on Dadaism 
 and ...Read more of this...

by Pinsky, Robert
...first months when I had moved back East
From California and had to leave a message

On Bob's machine, I used to make a habit
Of telling the tape a joke; and part-way through,
I would pretend that I forgot the punchline,

Or make believe that I was interrupted--
As though he'd be so eager to hear the end
He'd have to call me back. The joke was Elliot's,

More often than not. The doctors made the blunder
That killed him some time later that same year.
One day when ...Read more of this...



by Bronte, Charlotte
...gs and apricot,
to cradle my one letter. Up in the air
it will leave behind some of its ugly nuance,
its unpleasant habit of humanity
which wants to smear itself over others:
the spot in which it wasn't clear, perhaps,
how to take my words, which were suggestive,
the paragraph in which the names of flowers,
ostensibly to indicate travel,
make a bed for lovers,
the parts that contain spit and phlegm,
the words only a wet tongue can manage,
hissing sounds and letters of the...Read more of this...

by Giovanni, Nikki
...ike some unwanted child  too late for an abortion  was to be borne  alone    she had so many private habits  she would masturbate sometimes  she always picked her nose when upset  she liked to sit with silence  in the dark  sadness is not an unusual state  for the black woman  or writers    she took to sneaking drinks  a habit which displeased her  both for its effects  and taste  yet eventually sleep  ...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
..., carelessly diffus'd,
With languish't head unpropt,
As one past hope, abandon'd 
And by himself given over;
In slavish habit, ill-fitted weeds
O're worn and soild;
Or do my eyes misrepresent? Can this be hee,
That Heroic, that Renown'd,
Irresistible Samson? whom unarm'd
No strength of man, or fiercest wild beast could withstand;
Who tore the Lion, as the Lion tears the Kid,
Ran on embattelld Armies clad in Iron,
And weaponless himself, 
Made Arms ridiculous, useless the forg...Read more of this...

by Ashbery, John
...utumn rains and winds, spoiled, muddied,
Given back to you because they are worthless.
Yet we are such creatures of habit that their
Implications are still around en permanence, confusing
Issues. To be serious only about sex
Is perhaps one way, but the sands are hissing
As they approach the beginning of the big slide
Into what happened. This past
Is now here: the painter's
Reflected face, in which we linger, receiving
Dreams and inspirations on an unassigned
Frequ...Read more of this...

by Sexton, Anne
...e, clutching the picture of a rabbit
that I had sent you. For the last time I unpack
your things. We touch from habit.
The first visit you asked my name.
Now you will stay for good. I will forget
how we bumped away from each other like marionettes
on strings. It wasn't the same
as love, letting weekends contain
us. You scrape your knee. You learn my name,
wobbling up the sidewalk, calling and crying.
You can call me mother and I remember my...Read more of this...

by Browning, Robert
...And since Jacynth was like a June rose, why, a fervent
Adorer of Jacynth of course was your servant;
And if she had the habit to peep through the casement,
How could I keep at any vast distance?
And so, as I say, on the lady's persistence,
The Duke, dumb-stricken with amazement,
Stood for a while in a sultry smother,
And then, with a smile that partook of the awful,
Turned her over to his yellow mother
To learn what was held decorous and lawful;
And the mother smelt blood wit...Read more of this...

by Nwakanma, Obi
...l ages; the cycle, the 
eternal ritual of mystical returns - 

The cypress - whitening -
boneless; wearing her best habit, 
a pale green in the forest of ghosts -

And so I walk through this windless night 
through the narrow imponderable road 
through the silence - the silence of trees -

I hear not even the gust of wind
I hear only the quiet earth, thawing underneath; 
I hear the slow silent death of winter -

where the sun is yellowest. 
But above, Mona...Read more of this...

by Chaucer, Geoffrey
...o
the shrine of St Jago in Galicia; Romei, who go to Rome. Sir
Walter Scott, however, says that palmers were in the habit of
passing from shrine to shrine, living on charity -- pilgrims on the
other hand, made the journey to any shrine only once,
immediately returning to their ordinary avocations. Chaucer
uses "palmer" of all pilgrims.

3. "Hallows" survives, in the meaning here given, in All Hallows
-- All-Saints -- day. "Couth," past participle of "conne...Read more of this...

by Carroll, Lewis
...and hollow, but crisp:
Like a coat that is rather too tight in the waist,
 With a flavour of Will-o-the-wisp.

"Its habit of getting up late you'll agree
 That it carries too far, when I say
That it frequently breakfasts at five-o'clock tea,
 And dines on the following day.

"The third is its slowness in taking a jest.
 Should you happen to venture on one,
It will sigh like a thing that is deeply distressed:
 And it always looks grave at a pun.

"The fourth is...Read more of this...

by Chaucer, Geoffrey
...r'd of humours melancholic,
Before his head in his cell fantastic.
And shortly turned was all upside down,
Both habit and eke dispositioun,
Of him, this woful lover Dan* Arcite. *Lord 
Why should I all day of his woe indite?
When he endured had a year or two
This cruel torment, and this pain and woe,
At Thebes, in his country, as I said,
Upon a night in sleep as he him laid,
Him thought how that the winged god Mercury
Before him stood, and bade him to be merry...Read more of this...

by Kipling, Rudyard
...and and divided with his men,
And our Lower River-field he gave to William of Warenne.

But the Brook (you know her habit) rose one rainy autumn night 
And tore down sodden flitches of the bank to left and right.
So, said William to his Bailiff as they rode their dripping rounds:
"Hob, what about that River-bit--the Brook's got up no bounds? "

 And that aged Hobden answered: "'Tain't my business to advise,
But ye might ha' known 'twould happen from the way the valley...Read more of this...

by Bukowski, Charles
...ause she attracted their men, and they were angry because they felt she didn't
make the best use of them. She had a habit of being kind to the uglier ones; the so-called
handsome men revolted her- "No guts," she said, "no zap. They are riding on
their perfect little earlobes and well- shaped nostrils...all surface and no
insides..." She had a temper that came close to insanity, she had a temper that some
call insanity. Her father had died o...Read more of this...

by Petrarch, Francesco
...skies[Pg 388]But different far in habit from the rest,One tribe with reverent awe my heart impress'd:There he that entertain'd the grand designTo build a temple to the Power Divine;With him, to whom the oracles of HeavenThe task to raise the sacred pile had given:...Read more of this...

by Masefield, John
...le while 
Will bring her back again, dismantled, spoiled. 
It is herself; she cannot change her style; 
She has the habit now of being foiled." 

So when a ship appeared among the haze, 
We thought, "The Wanderer back again"; but no, 
No Wanderer showed for many, many days, 
Her passing lights made other waters glow. 

But we would oft think and talk of her, 
Tell newer hands her story, wondering, then, 
Upon what ocean she was Wanderer, 
Bound to the cities built...Read more of this...

by Chaucer, Geoffrey
...of our chastity.
And yet, -- with sorrow! -- thou enforcest thee,
And say'st these words in the apostle's name:
'In habit made with chastity and shame* *modesty
Ye women shall apparel you,' quoth he,15
'And not in tressed hair and gay perrie,* *jewels
As pearles, nor with gold, nor clothes rich.'
After thy text nor after thy rubrich
I will not work as muchel as a gnat.
Thou say'st also, I walk out like a cat;
For whoso woulde singe the catte's skin
Then will the c...Read more of this...

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