Famous Insurance Poems by Famous Poets

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

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The Hard Times In Elfland

by Sidney Lanier
 A Story of Christmas Eve.

Strange that the termagant winds should scold
The Christmas Eve so bitterly!
But Wife, and Harry the four-year-old,
Big Charley, Nimblewits, and I,

Blithe as the wind was bitter, drew
More frontward of the mighty fire,
Where wise Newfoundland Fan foreknew
The heaven that Christian dogs desire --

Stretched o'er the rug, serene and grave,
Huge nose on heavy paws reclined,
With never a drowning...Read more of this...

Decalogue

by Ambrose Bierce
 Thou shalt no God but me adore:
'Twere too expensive to have more.

No images nor idols make
For Roger Ingersoll to break.

Take not God's name in vain: select
A time when it will have effect.

Work not on Sabbath days at all,
But go to see the teams play ball.

Honor thy parents. That creates
For life insurance lower rates.

Kill not, abet not those who kill;
Thou...Read more of this...

This is the legend of Cassius Clay

by Muhammad Ali
This is the legend of Cassius Clay,
The most beautiful fighter in the world today.
He talks a great deal, and brags indeed-y,
Of a muscular punch that's incredibly speed-y.
The fistic world was dull and weary,
but with a champ like Liston, things had to be dreary.
Then someone with color and someone with dash, 
brought fight fans are runnin' with Cash.
This brash young boxer...Read more of this...

Notes from the Other Side

by Jane Kenyon
 I divested myself of despair
and fear when I came here.

Now there is no more catching
one's own eye in the mirror,

there are no bad books, no plastic,
no insurance premiums, and of course

no illness. Contrition 
does not exist, nor gnashing

of teeth. No one howls as the first
clod of earth hits the casket.

The poor we no longer have with us. 
Our calm...Read more of this...

Portrait of the Artist as a Prematurely Old Man

by Ogden Nash
 It is common knowledge to every schoolboy and even every Bachelor of Arts,
That all sin is divided into two parts.
One kind of sin is called a sin of commission, and that is very important,
And it is what you are doing when you are doing something you ortant,
And the other kind of sin is just the opposite and is called...Read more of this...

Wants

by Philip Larkin
 Beyond all this, the wish to be alone:
However the sky grows dark with invitation-cards
However we follow the printed directions of sex
However the family is photographed under the flag-staff -
Beyond all this, the wish to be alone.

Beneath it all, the desire for oblivion runs:
Despite the artful tensions of the calendar,
The life insurance, the tabled fertility rites,
The costly aversion of the...Read more of this...

Albert and the Eadsman

by Marriott Edgar
 On young Albert Ramsbottom's birthday
His parents asked what he'd like most;
He said to see t' Tower of London
And gaze upon Anne Boleyn's ghost.

They thowt this request were unusual
And at first to refuse were inclined,
'Til Pa said a trip t' metrollopse
Might broaden the little lad's mind.

They took charrybank up to London
And got there at quarter to fower,
Then seeing as pubs...Read more of this...

Dream Song 91: Op. posth. no. 14

by John Berryman
 Noises from underground made gibber some
others collected & dug henry up
saying 'You are a sight.'
Chilly, he muttered for a double rum
waving the mikes away, putting a stop
to rumors, pushing his fright

off with the now accumulated taxes
accustomed in his way to solitude
and no bills.
Wives came forward, claiming a new Axis,
fearful for their insurance, though, now, glued
to disencumbered Henry's many ills.

A...Read more of this...

Bohemia

by Dorothy Parker
 Authors and actors and artists and such
Never know nothing, and never know much.
Sculptors and singers and those of their kidney
Tell their affairs from Seattle to Sydney.
Playwrights and poets and such horses' necks
Start off from anywhere, end up at sex.
Diarists, critics, and similar roe
Never say nothing, and never say no.
People Who Do Things exceed my endurance;
God, for a man that...Read more of this...

Batterson Dobyns

by Edgar Lee Masters
 Did my widow flit about
From Mackinac to Los Angeles,
Resting and bathing and sitting an hour
Or more at the table over soup and meats
And delicate sweets and coffee?
I was cut down in my prime
From overwork and anxiety.
But I thought all along, whatever happens
I've kept my insurance up,
And there's something in the bank,
And a section of land in Manitoba.
But just as...Read more of this...

What Has Happened?

by Bertolt Brecht
 The industrialist is having his aeroplane serviced.
The priest is wondering what he said in his sermon eight weeks ago
about tithes.
The generals are putting on civvies and looking like bank clerks.
Public officials are getting friendly.
The policeman points out the way to the man in the cloth cap.
The landlord comes to see whether the water supply is working.
The journalists write the...Read more of this...

Cinderella

by Anne Sexton
 You always read about it:
the plumber with the twelve children
who wins the Irish Sweepstakes.
From toilets to riches.
That story.

Or the nursemaid,
some luscious sweet from Denmark
who captures the oldest son's heart.
from diapers to Dior.
That story.

Or a milkman who serves the wealthy,
eggs, cream, butter, yogurt, milk,
the white truck like an ambulance
who goes into real estate
and makes a pile.
From homogenized to martinis at...Read more of this...

The Star-Splitter

by Robert Frost
 `You know Orion always comes up sideways.
Throwing a leg up over our fence of mountains,
And rising on his hands, he looks in on me
Busy outdoors by lantern-light with something
I should have done by daylight, and indeed,
After the ground is frozen, I should have done
Before it froze, and a gust flings a handful
Of waste leaves at my smoky lantern chimney
To...Read more of this...

Night Funeral In Harlem

by Langston Hughes
 Night funeral
 In Harlem:

 Where did they get
 Them two fine cars?

Insurance man, he did not pay--
His insurance lapsed the other day--
Yet they got a satin box
for his head to lay.

 Night funeral
 In Harlem:

 Who was it sent
 That wreath of flowers?

Them flowers came
from that poor boy's friends--
They'll want flowers, too,
When they meet their ends.

 Night funeral 
...Read more of this...

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