Famous Improving Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Improving poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous improving poems. These examples illustrate what a famous improving poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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...best,
That you work him in office or dog-cart lightly -- but give him no rest.
XI.
Pleasant the snaffle of Courtship, improving the manners and carriage;
But the colt who is wise will abstain from the terrible thorn-bit of Marriage.
XII.
As the thriless gold of the babul, so is the gold that we spend
On a derby Sweep, or our neighbor's wife, or the horse that we buy from a friend.
XIII.
The ways of man with a maid be strange, yet simple and tame
To the ways of a man wit...Read more of this...
by
Kipling, Rudyard
...God to turn the council of Ahitophel into foolishness.
For the learning of the Lord increases daily, as the sun is an improving angel.
For I pray God for a reformation amonst the women and the restoration of the veil.
For beauty is better to look upon than to meddle with and tis good for a man not to know a woman.
For the Lord Jesus made him a nosegay and blessed it and he blessed the inhabitants of flowers.
For a faithful friend is the medicine of life, but a neigh...Read more of this...
by
Smart, Christopher
...henomenon of dreaming is not of one solution, but many.
For Eternity is like a grain of mustard as a growing body and improving spirit.
For the malignancy of fire is oweing to the Devil's hiding of light, till it became visible darkness.
For the Circle may be SQUARED by swelling and flattening.
For the Life of God is in the body of man and his spirit in the Soul.
For there was no rain in Paradise because of the delicate construction of the spiritual herbs and flower...Read more of this...
by
Smart, Christopher
...fer together.
For when Man was amerced of his horn, earth lost part of her fertility.
For the art of Agriculture is improving.
For this is evident in flowers.
For it is more especially manifest in double flowers.
For earth will get it up again by the blessing of God on the industry of man.
For the horn is of plenty because of milk and honey.
For I pray God be gracious to the Bees and the Beeves this day....Read more of this...
by
Smart, Christopher
...lived its way around
The world of ships, in the dark hulk had found
Anchors, which had been seized and seen no more.
Improving a dry leiure to invest
Their misadventure with a manifest
Analogy that he may read who runs,
The sailor made it old as ocean grass--
Telling of much that once had come to pass
With him, whose mother should have had no sons....Read more of this...
by
Robinson, Edwin Arlington
...—
Which shows how sad an accident may be.
Five thousand is no longer high enough.
Whereas I never had a good idea
About improving people in the world,
Here I am overfertile in suggestion,
And cannot rest from planning day or night
How high I'd thrust the peaks in summer snow
To tap the upper sky and draw a flow
Of frosty night air on the vale below
Down from the stars to freeze the dew as starry.
The more the sensibilitist I am
The more I seem to want my mountains wild;
The ...Read more of this...
by
Frost, Robert
...r-last speeches.
Ah! Ceres, thou know'st not the slander and scorn
Now heap'd upon England's 'Squirearchy, so boasted;
Improving on Hunt, 'tis no longer the Corn,
'Tis the growers of Corn that are now, alas! roasted.
In speeches, in books, in all shapes they attack us --
Reviewers, economists - fellows, no doubt,
That you, my dear Ceres, and Venus, and Bacchus,
And Gods of high fashion know little about.
There's B-nth-m, whose English is all his own making --
Who thinks ju...Read more of this...
by
Moore, Thomas
...er head to it still.
Bale her and keep her moving,
Or she'll break her back in the trough. . . .
Who said the weather's improving,
Or the swells are taking off?
Sodden, and chafed and aching,
Gone in the loins and knees--
No matter--the day is breaking,
And there's far less weight to the seas!
Up mast, and finish baling--
In oar, and out with mead--
The rest will be two-reef sailing. . . .
That was a night indeed!
But we hold it in all disaster
(And faith, we have found it ...Read more of this...
by
Kipling, Rudyard
...o shake by constant moving
The strange, weird atmosphere. She stirred the fire,
She twitched the supper-cloth as though improving
Its careful setting, then her own attire
Came in for notice, tiptoeing higher and higher
She peered into the wall-glass, now adjusting
A straying lock, or else a ribbon thrusting
This way or that to suit her. At last
sitting,
Or rather plumping down upon a chair,
She took her work, the stocking she was knitting,
And watched the rain upon the windo...Read more of this...
by
Lowell, Amy
...est to you.
"Within your house will strangers sit,
And wonder how first it came;
They'll talk of their schemes for improving it,
And will not mention your name.
"They'll care not how, or when, or at what
You sighed, laughed, suffered here,
Though you feel more in an hour of the spot
Than they will feel in a year
"As I look on at you here, now,
Shall I look on at these;
But as to our old times, avow
No knowledge--hold my peace! . . .
"O friend, it matter...Read more of this...
by
Hardy, Thomas
...ror of the Children
The merriment of men
Depositing his Thunder
He hoists abroad again --
A Bomb upon the Ceiling
Is an improving thing --
It keeps the nerves progressive
Conjecture flourishing --
Too dear the Summer evening
Without discreet alarm --
Supplied by Entomology
With its remaining charm --...Read more of this...
by
Dickinson, Emily
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